Author: Rachel Beauchamp

Despite the pure misery described in my last post, overall life is actually on a generally upward swing and has been for the last year. There are so many moving parts and the fall apart and taped and glued and shoved together into a newly assembled “norm” so fast it is impossible to give even a partial ride-along tour. But let’s keep getting closer to caught up!

TLDR: We are doing the best we have been doing, all of us, for many years. The best we have been was never and is still not the goal; we have dreams and hopes for lives that will be lived in relational safety, with individuals that love and treasure each other and grow together. But right now – even two days into winter break, with 4x Older meltdowns, 3 x Younger meltdowns, and so far only internal adult adults meltdowns with one raised voice to break up a literal physical melee, we still feel joy and hope for the future, and have times of delight together.

And the times of delight are generally on the upswing.

Stress & Transitions

Longer version of of some of the last few months. After the absolutely miserable years for all of us, we found a highly recommended day treatment program for our Older. We really struggled with letting her get further behind academically, but the reality is, she wasn’t available for academics while she was living in flight or fight, so we needed to focus on creating “felt safety” – it didn’t matter how safe she was unless she factually felt safe. And, we needed to be in the role of “parent” not “parent, educator, therapist, nanny, PCA, and night nurse”. October through December is her hardest time. So, she started in March, with a full-year plan; meaning she would go through the honeymoon time, know the staff well by the hard time and be well-settled in before the hard time hit, and then we would all have full support through these dark months.

Day treatment was really helpful if only because so many needs were being met, there was a time to take a breath in our parenting, and finally start to fill our own empty buckets so that we had something left to give our children. Despite hard work, introspection, familial loss, this summer was a legitimately good time, where we spent enjoyable time with our children and friends! The girls had their own first flower beds!

And on October 1, her daytreatment program announced it was closing immediately, end of month. SO! Instead of “support, fulfilling needs, calm trustworthy adults working together to support her through the hard times” we switched to “removing that support, during a hard time, creating a new trauma/break, and need to suddenly transfer back to full day school with no transitional support and now ever further behind in academics and only half through the social emotional program that she needed. My rage was boundless. Our misery and terror was overwhelming. It’s like certain kids have a “fuck with my life” sign that only the fates can see and my Bigger a permanent one.

We made it through and are back at school. Some ups and downs. 1,000,000 meetings. Threats of lawyers if she cannot get the support she NEEDS so she participate and grow with the felt safety that is absolutely essential to any forward progress. School is actually now going SO WELL! So, of course, it’s winter break. You know, like it always is!

Bigger

Lots of changes for our Bigger, she was doing so well at not having constant meltdowns, that we decided to start the girls in hip-hop dance classes. Somehow, this first “move” is now at:

Girls in Hip-Hip classes on Saturdays; local ed gymnastics on Mondays; family Hip-Hop class (really!) on Wednesdays; and Bigger has choir Thursday mornings before school! Bigger is exhausted by Thursday – like EXHAUSTED. But has mostly been holding it together, with some rearrangement to routines (get into jammies before dinner, then one less thing to do at the exhausted meltown time).

Big girl is really excellent speller. She is a dance phenom. She loves dancing and singing with every fiber of her being. Reading is not easy, but she is still loving graphic novels and as long as she is reading something for joy, we call it good enough. She chose to have her ears pierced and was a trooper for the (relatively minor process – turns out they were already opened and did not even need a needle).

Her favorite color is still orange. We have been learning to do some great hair, including giant puff, for puffs or puff mohawk!

The struggles have not changed. At nearly 5 full years, more than 1/2 her life, we are just starting to build a world of “felt safety” (different than just being safe). She must have felt safety at all times to remain present in her brain and body – and, she has a hair-trigger into panic. This is the goal right now, especially at school. Routine acts, routine faces, expectations are met, constant adult presence to ensure that adult regulation is just a look away. Each of these calms the nervous system BEFORE the explosion. Although it was an emotional and very upsetting battle, we did get on the same page with the school and have been receiving great reviews again!

Littler

In some way, things are harder overall with our Littler right now. She remains a delight, but there are a lot of moving parts including a decent amount of pass-along trauma from Bigger, and social/cognitive delay for some timeframes she had no space for her own growth because the entire household was focused on Bigger’s needs and that explosiveness ruled the house. She is perhaps a little extra clingy for her age; and very dialed into near hypervigiliance – but much more like mine. When Bigger escalates, Little turns into sweet as pie, trying to calm and control everyone around her, making presents, trying to be charming – very unhealthy and sad coping behaviors to see in our 4 and now 5 year old. We work hard to remind her we will keep them both safe and take care of the parenting, but of course it is scary when she sees her big sister go wild; her big sister is the very most important to her.

Little is well into five, and is still not potty trained. She’s like…85% during the day. The more tired she is the less so. If she is sick, not even worth trying. And nights don’t happen at all.

At home, she is a terror. Tantrums, control, poking and rude to her sister, testing all boundaries non-stop. She kicks, spits, hits, and throws things – at other things, like the large-screen TV! At school, she is quiet, listens, follows all rules, is shy and reserved! She seems to be learning. She desperately wants to read, and I’m so frustrated with the way that they are teaching reading, and so we are ordering books and teaching phonics at home.

It’s a bit up/down – kids really prefer to learn from NOT their own parent! She has high anxiety about being anything other than perfect at every second, even though we are trying everything we can with every kind of vocabulary and demonstration that trying is what matters not success.

As the Bigger has calmed down some; it appears to have opened the space at home for all tantrums Little did not have at ages 2 and 3. Intellectually she appears to be age appropriate (she’s very young in her class, turned 5 only 3 days before starting K). But she can count by twos, not yet tie her shoes, spell her name, count on, loves to rhyme and is figuring out letter sounds that start words. She is very dialed into the social emotional understanding of things; she was able to fully participate in our Solstice “burning of the fears to let go” very well.

Neither of these children sleep yet; and both need so much sleep. Despite this, all four of us are sleeping better than we have in years. We grieve that we did not have another baby; and we dramatically celebrate the correct choice of not having another baby! This family is done, starting to coalesce into how we can function, to be followed some day by “how to get to where we can make choices about how we want to function”. We are, generally, living in a place of hope.

One year ago, my paternal biological brother and his wife excised my family from their lives.

Before that time, my little family believed we were very close; not just family, but heart friends, the kind that you trust with everything you are and believe they will hold you close through the hardest times. Our kids spent every birthday and holiday together, went on cabin trips together, and often spent at least one, sometimes more, day a week together.

My being unable to write in this blog for the past year was one result of their choice. I have been embarrassed, humiliated, heart-sore, miserable, self-doubting, and C-PTSD trauma-activated. This event is the reason that I could not write about anything; because there has not been a single second of “after” that is not shaded by this experience.

I have agonized over how to share this; and the irony is, it’s short, and simple, and apparently nothing that’s “all that huge” to anyone in the family except me. Certainly, despite the sudden end of family holidays, regular hang-outs, summer pool time, and family cabin trips, my entire paternal biological family continues to act entirely unfazed by it (reinforcing my lifelong belief and understanding – to likely be addressed in other posts over many many years – that I never belonged and was never actually a complete member of that family unit). My brother and his wife cut me and my partner (and as a result, our children) out of their life one year ago. That’s it. That’s the entire everything that has been stuck in my throat, my heart, my fingers, my brain, for a year.

There is a story I could tell about these events which would cause you to judge me even if you promised yourself you would listen to me with compassion and an open heart; one that would call into question the positive and supportive things you have felt about me, and remind you of the times you thought I was harsh, judgmental, rude, overly aggressive, controlling, or simply downright crazy.

There is the same story that I could tell that would cause you to judge my brother and his wife. That story would be told from inside the pain of the main characters; it would have background and information that most people do not know, it would start before and end after the dramatic climax and decision. It might bring you to tears, likely cause you to send me messages of love and support, and it would be painfully raw and absolutely, unshrinkingly honest, hiding nothing. But it would also be manipulative and unfair to my brother and his wife. I am a professional persuasive writer and orator and I have the only platform, and even with the painful choices they made, and the heartrending betrayal of myself, my partner, and my children that I feel, I would never publicly share their secrets.

One year ago, this household was so far beyond struggling it remains impossible to explain. I was passively suicidal, my partner was passively suicidal and simultaneously spiraling out of control, I’m sure my older would have been suicidal if she could have been coherent enough to even think that way, instead she was entirely out of control, and my younger was reeling from the mess of our entire lives and suppressing some of her normal development to be a “pleaser”. I was screaming, literally screaming myself raw, to the universe, to every therapist, OT, paraprofessional, teacher, begging for help. Not because we are weak. Not because this is just what parenting is. Because this household, this life, was unlivable – yet we continued to live it every day. And, there was absolutely nothing we could do during this time. I hated my life. I saw myself falling apart, unable to hold my partner back from self-destruction, unable to hold my older back from regression into terror and chaos and terrorizing the household, unable to protect my younger from the pass-along trauma of her older sister and her two falling apart parents. Unable to stop myself from falling further and further into self-loathing and misery and terror of losing us all. My partner and I snipped at each other non-stop. We were not patient. We were not calm. We never felt joy, or even calm. We had so much less than “nothing left” that it remains amazing we still had food, I kept my job, and we all were “surviving” in that we all stayed alive.

We didn’t become drug addicts, we didn’t hit each other or our children, we didn’t drink every day, or even every other day, our children were clothed, fed, hugged, sang to, read to, and kept generally alive. But no one was thriving; surviving is somewhat questionable.

During this time, in front of my biological paternal family members, during a particularly stressful moment of a particularly stressful day on a particularly stressful weekend my partner and I lost it – first at each other, and then at our children. This included but was not limited to me screaming at the sky while standing next to my children “I need these fucking children to eat these fucking sandwiches”. Many hours later, on the multi-hour drive home, we discussed with our children that my partner I unacceptably lost control, it was not ok, we were sorry and we would work hard not to do it again. We reported the entire weekend of various incidents to our children’s therapists and our oldest’s school support team, reminded our children they could always talk about anything that happened in our family with their therapists or teachers if they felt scared or unsure about what to do, and also participated in reparative therapy work.

48 hours after this event my brother told me it was the worst thing he had ever witnessed and I had traumatized him and his children and his wife. He and his wife told me that my partner and I had been verbally abusive to our children. He also noted that we were “not the same people we used to be”, and were often sharp and unkind to each other. His wife said many similar things, mostly “something has to change”.

I agreed. I told them we agreed entirely, and would work to get better. I told them how ashamed we were. I told them the work we were doing with therapists to overcome our own trauma background, to find ways to survive this awful time, to change our parenting and repair when something like this happened; and how we were barely holding our marriage together, but were fighting hard to get ourselves healthy. I told them I would like their children to attend one or more therapy sessions with us, to do repair work for their experience witnessing this moment with professionals. I made zero excuses. I apologized, took responsibility, explained that we knew we were drowning, and were doing everything we could think of to seek help and support and to heal.

They told me that this was not good enough. I was informed that I needed to either check myself into a psych ward for in-patient treatment; or, we had to rehome our older daughter.

During the pandemic, our older was so dissociative, enraged, terrified, and just generally out of control that her therapists had repeatedly suggested that she may need to be placed in a residential treatment facility. Our case management team had looked into temporary hospitalization for her; there were no beds for in-hospital treatment of traumatized youth. There were no placements in residential treatment centers. (I also know far far far too much about the abuse that happens to children in residential treatment centers, so that was a non-starter – I would keep her with me until we all literally died before I let her face that abuse potential.) We were told the single, sole, option for when things were out of control, was to call the police. My older had terrifying police interactions before she came to us; she also knows some of the news about the police; she is absolutely terrified of the police. Again, she would have to literally burn down our house before I called the police; nothing we could do as parents struggling and failing during even our worst moments would be as traumatizing as calling the police and having her taken from us – even temporarily, much less permanently.

Demanding rehoming is also just…funny, cause it’s not funny how not an option it is. There are no homes waiting for traumatized behavior children spiraling out of control at the best of times; and, trauma children absolutely lost their minds during the pandemic. (No. You do not know what it was like to go through that. You just do not, unless you were raising children with trauma histories or other special needs – although trauma histories in particular were reactivated specially by the pandemic experience.) The problems faced by our family were so overwhelming, and help so entirely non-existent, that people literally started abandoning their children at ERs. In short, “rehoming” our older was not actually an option; even if we were willing to consider it. Which we were not, because it is also the absolute most awful, most traumatizing thing that someone could suggest for her, with absolutely no trauma-informed education or information behind it, and would have been the worst thing that could have been done by us to our older (and likely younger) daughter. The idea of rehoming our daughter was vociferously objected to as an option when I discussed this ultimatum option with my older’s therapist and care team to be sure that I should not be listening to this outside voice that maybe was seeing or understanding something I was willfully blind to. I declined to take that option.

I also declined to check myself into the psych ward of a hospital – in part because no one would commit me despite how badly I could have used the alone and down time. I spent the pandemic literally dreaming of being diagnosed with a potentially life-threatening disease so I could have time in the hospital free from the overwhelming pressure and feelings of failure that encompassed every second of both work and home. And, at the same time, absolutely terrified of any accident or illness that incapacitated me for even a day because I was afraid the people at my home might actually die if I was gone for more 24+ hours. But practically, there was no psych ward that would take me even if anyone would commit me; they were already overflowing, plus limited by Covid protocols, and only accepting active self-harming others – and not like, a little self-harm. I would have had to be basically bleeding from both wrists while waiving a loaded gun – and I don’t even own a gun. Because I simply wanted to be dead, but would never act on it because I had too much to do and too many people counting on me and would never, ever, leave the people around me to clean up my messy life, or deal with the after-effects of that choice, there was no way for me to complete a residential in-patient psychiatric treatment. And no doctor would commit me – I wasn’t actually a true danger to anyone, just an overwhelmed, exhausted, way less than excellent parent – like plenty of other parents at that point. By report from the professionals we worked with during and after the pandemic, we were “average” to “better than average” for parents in similar circumstances – when analyzed honestly, that’s a real bummer for every other family with similar circumstances.

Because I would not do one of these two things, my brother and his wife entirely cut off our family. We have not seen or spoken to them in a year. My niece and nephew are not allowed to play at our house or attend any events we will be present at – we get to give them a hug every once in a while in passing. They cannot come to my children’s birthdays. My children are not invited to their cousin’s birthdays. I have to repeatedly explain to my children – especially my older – why more adults who said they loved them, and would always be there for them, suddenly vanished – and I have to do it while ignoring and just moving around the squeaky step absurdity of those adults saying “you are so abusive to your children, and their lives are so bad because of you, that I am removing two adults who may show them another way to live, entirely abandoning your children, and further isolating your family”.

There is a silver lining, if a very dark shade of a grey impenetrable fog made out of sorrow can be considered a shade of silver. First, it is a very good reminder that real trauma and pain is held layers deep. Even though she is more specifically triggered by this event and suddenly losing a purported family group, my older doesn’t speak about it at all. I try to talk to her about it gently, once in a while, to make sure she knows the doors are open if she has questions or needs help navigating the sudden loss; but I see the wall behind her eyes – the knowledge they have reinforced that people will say they love you but make directly hurtful and damaging choices for you, without ever working with you; and that adults who are supposed to keep her safe and have promised to do that job, simply vanish, over, and over. I can only hope she sees every day that we never vanish. And we keep every promise we make, even when it is the hardest thing we have ever done.

In contrast, my younger asks me about this constantly (especially near her birthday because her fourth birthday party was the first event they did not attend), trying to understand how and why adults who were her main family for her entire memory could simply be gone, even though she knows they are right over there. And, she’s sassy and savvy, and and she is not buying what I am selling with my statements that they are making the best choices they can for their family, trying to raise their children without experiencing our family’s hard times, and keeping their children safe, and that being a parent and making choices about how to keep your kids safe is hard.

For me, I’m using this endless discussion as practice for when my daughters ask the harder questions about their birth parents. Right now, they are mostly asking soft-balls that I have lots of pre-planned honest but somewhat vague answers for. But there will soon come a time when giving only positive statements and explaining that things that truly hurt them, that could easily have been avoided, were done by someone that loves them, gets messy and hard and it is my job to have a good plan to navigate that complexity.

These children are a gift; they are sweet, and kind, and loving, and I am still hopeful that even these crappy experiences, when faced squarely and processed, will grow their social-emotional well of knowledge. I want so much to be ready to help them weather the unavoidable chaos of identity, self, adoption, and abandonment – in all its forms. As they grow, my inner glow of hope is also growing that they will, (with the usual stumbling blocks of early adulthood) grow into adults with both strong boundaries of self-protection and a deep capacity for love and compassion.

Whether or not it is time, I am finally, maybe, ready to start again, as the current me – whoever that turns out to be. It is not who I was three years ago. I swear I am absolutely, entirely, completely, willing to do some growing that does not involve the most intense pain; but that does not seem to be my style as of yet in this life.

There will be some changes. First, no more baby-x#; it’s not working as a thing, and this is the right time to change. I have an older and a younger, and for the foreseeable future that’s how I will write about them.

And, if you can believe it, this will be more personal. More self-journal and growth and how that is experienced through the lens of parenting these amazing, beautiful, challenging, heartbreaking, wonderful, difficult, strong, damaged, and growing children, rather than more solely focused on the specific experience of parenting children through adoption from foster care. Because once you go all in on parenting children from trauma you live, night and day, in the what-ifs and why-fors of your children’s trauma, your family’s trauma, historical societal trauma, and most certainly your own trauma. If you are doing this right, every moment of your life is changed. First secret: children do not change – you, as a parent, either change to meet their needs so they can grow into yourself, or you fail your children and contribute to traumatizing them further. Those are the only options. I refuse to fail these children. I know I have grown and changed; I do not know how much more growth is needed, or how I will experience it. Likely reluctantly and painfully, with a lot of looking backwards and saying “why didn’t I just??”.

The entire last year has been working through and surviving the most painful attachment trauma trigger of my adult life while simultaneously giving non-stop energy and attention to pushing out of the crucible of the pandemic and its pass-along effects on this family.

With the support of the absolutely-beyond-amazing friends in my life; a new acceptable therapist; pharmacology; children’s therapists; family therapists; and most specifically, an on-line support group of parents raising children like mine, I am no longer suicidal, no longer hating myself, no longer hating my life, enjoying my work, loving my partner and especially loving my children – despite their challenges that both grow as they do! I know what we need to survive together. I know some of what started to break us; and will break us again if we cannot find a way around it. I know I did not fail. I know that there are people who will continue to love me at my absolute lowest and worst; and I know that those who choose to stop loving and supporting my family are making choices that are about their strength and their capacity for understanding, compassion, love, and growth, and in the end those choices are really not about me.

I know that my self-grown family is strong and beautiful and that we will move through the present and the future with kindness, love, intention, and honesty. You are welcome to come along, on the rarely attractive, always TMI, but hopefully occasionally affirming and/or inspiring next step of this journey.

This has been the worst 18 months of my life. It’s amazing that a person can keep saying that, and it can keep being true. Like, there should be a bottom to the “worst” but I admit that I had not ever considered the cumulative effects of being isolated with a behaviorally challenged trauma child for an extended time period.

Everyone I know with children struggled the last year. I know a few people who didn’t struggle as much – but they are for sure the exception. I cannot overstate how much worse it was for people with trauma or neuro-divergent/behavioral special needs children. It just was. This is not said to diminish anyone else’s experience, and we are lucky in so many ways, we have a nice house, we have plenty food, we were not financially hurt. But it. was. so. far. beyond. awful.

I stopped writing in this blog, and in my personal journal – I couldn’t handle recording the awfulness over and over – and it didn’t help me work through it because there was no “through”. In a a lot of cases I stopped communicating at all because it was simply too hopeless and I did not have a single positive thing to say. It’s really hard to say “I actually just want to die” over and over and over. My partner and I could not help each other because we were both beyond empty and drained, we lashed out at each other or self-isolated. No one was wearing their oxygen masks and we were suffocating. We were not the only family that was suicidal, with no options and no hope – we are lucky because we are not dead. And, we are lucky because we had some people who are absolute lifelines of emotional support and sometimes in-person support.

There’s a really funny thing that people do when they see true struggling; they offer a lot of ideas that involve doing absolutely nothing themselves. And I get it, you cannot always help people, we are all at max capacity here! But it is like they are trying to offer you some information they think you do not have…

“It seems like you might be in crisis”. YOU THINK? I have been screaming “THIS FAMILY IS IN CRISIS” for the past six months. Did you think I was lying?! Did you think I was exaggerating for attention? Why do you think you see something that I am not aware of in your brief viewing of what is my entire life?

“Do you have someone to talk to?” ABOUT WHAT? WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT GOING TO DO? THIS IS SITUATIONAL NOT EMOTIONAL. IF I COULD CHANGE THIS, I WOULD!

Then you explain (1) no matter how bad it gets there are no hospital beds; and (2) oh, being passively suicidal is not grounds for hospital admission; (3) being “on the verge”, including yelling, crying, just generally falling apart in an unhealthy way is actually not grounds for hospital admission; (4) because of Covid, your kid also cannot go to an in-patient facility; (5) there are no “respite” providers to take your kid briefly or long term; (6) we have talked to people, we do talk to people, but that doesn’t solve situational issues – only changing the actual situation will do that; (7) there is no “crisis” help. The lines are shut down or the person will talk to you for a minute, but no one can come help and it is weird and surprising but it turns out a screaming out of control 7 yr old is not super responsive to someone talking over the phone – and neither are her escalated parents! The ONLY interventional option is to call the police, and sometimes they will not come because they do not believe there is a crisis when it involves a young child; (8) your child doesn’t qualify for any of the programs for support families because your child acts out sexually, and they do not accept those children. Then they say, “yeah, I believe you, but you need to fix this, it seems like you are in crisis”. Thank you. Again. For all your thoughtful insight and the immense aid you have and continue to provide.

I am a solution-oriented person. Feeling helpless is the absolute worst thing that can happen to me except actually BEING helpless and trapped. I can take the pressure, the pain, the overextension, the misery, the fight. I cannot cannot cannot be helpless without a way to solve the problem. I cannot tell you what living through the last 18 months was like. Having X3 regress; having my partner and I both lose it; and having absolutely nothing we could ever ever do. There was a night, when I tried to walk away from the engagement because I felt myself escalating and I did not want to yell, or scream, or lose control all the way and maybe hit my kid, and I just needed to remove myself from the escalating and never-ending hellscape. And I was sitting in my bed, holding X2 and calming her as she was shaking with terror, while X3 tried to break down the bedroom door to get to us and just thinking…”this is our life now” and not being able to visualize anything else ever.

I described before the physical symptoms that were constant. I was so sharp, I felt like speaking to me was talking to knives, I had no softness left, I had given everything I had, I snapped at everyone all the time. I cried when small stresses happened at work, and stared blankly for hours when large stresses happened at work. I did not have access to joy or pleasure. I was begging mX3’s therapist for help; I remember just screaming and crying and raging in parent (virtual) therapy sessions, “I have done every. single. thing. that you said to do for three years, and she is getting worse and I am empty. Our life is getting worse. Our younger child is developing trauma symptoms. We are going to die. This is not hyperbole we are literally going to tear ourselves apart.” This raw, deep, painful expression of pure helplessness and need. And she said, “There is no help. There are no services. There is nothing anyone can do. She will not get better while things are like this. You have to call the police if this keeps happening”.

I cannot tell you how we made it through as the hits kept coming. It never like…got to an equilibrium and it was “this bad”. It just kept getting worse. I do not even know how that is possible! But it was.

We survived. Amazingly, we survived. My brother stayed with us for months, during the absolute worst of it all, and is literally a lifesaver, as well as just being generally a joy to have with us! Adults got vaccinated and services started up. It got warm enough outside to use the pool – large body movements are super-calming for X3. She was able to start attending OT twice a week, therapy once a week, EMDR every other week, school and activities started to happen.

We started to breath. It was not even remotely immediate. But we started to move forwards. And things are so. much. better. Like I think about how I sounded when trying to explain to her therapist how bad things were, when I self-reported every loss of control, every re-traumatizing moment for X3, every fear about where we were and where we could land if we DID NOT GET HELP. I can remember myself and my voice and the raw pain and it feels almost like a fugue state – I can remember it from outside myself, and see it happening, but I cannot imagine feeling that way right now and I cannot imagine moving through that life, I cannot imagine how I ever got out of bed. I can barely get out of bed now!

It is weird and terrifying to remember that level of intense feeling. It was not long ago at all! And the feeling is still accessible, especially as we watch friends with children like ours who are still in the thick of it suffer and persevere in pain. But we are SO MUCH BETTER now that it feels like that time happened to a different person, even though it was me a hot minute ago, and I, and the whole family, are still struggling to move forward.

Things are SO MUCH BETTER RIGHT NOW but they are not even back to where they were 18 months ago. We have a huge trauma to work through, as a family. We have a huge attachment regression to heal, and we already have a child with a “oooooh we do not want to name it RAD….diagnosis” and a lifetime of her past trauma (and our own) that we are trying to move through.

She regressed significantly during the last 18 months. We are honestly worse parents than we were three years ago – less patient, more exhausted, more hopeless. We are significantly better parents than we were 6 months ago. More hopeful, more rested, more patient, less triggered. Most importantly, we feel like we can go forward; like we want to grow together; like this family is and can be real if we can just keep moving together with the world functioning. We are on the wait list for intensive in-home therapy, which is exactly what we need – someone with us in the hard times AT HOME – who can teach us the skills to deal with the big moments in real time; who can give us the space to disengage when things are hard; who can keep X3 safe when we walk away for a minute; and who can hopefully move us into the next stage eventually. We are so hopeful.

Right now X3 is playing dolls – and no one is being poisoned, beaten, knifed, abused, sexual, angry, or any other thing. She is brushing the doll’s hair and asking the doll if she wants puffs or braids and telling her she is beautiful.

Right now X2 is playing school; her dump truck is full of dinosaurs and superheros going to school. When I was trying on new clothes for work I asked if they look ok and she said “no. they don’t look okay. Mom. They look fantastic!”.

We are moving forward and we are going to get there.

So, X3 is out of control. Like, I know we have been saying that, but now we are again saying it.

We have been telling her therapist for literally 8 months THIS IS A CRISIS. A CRISIS. Have I mentioned “IT IS A CRISIS?”.

A week or so ago, we arrived at “defiant plus out of control”. She won’t go to her room – she just looks at us and screams “NO. I won’t. I DO NOT WANT TO”. If you carry her there, she fights all the way – grabbing pictures, railings, doors. If you set her in, she won’t stay in. If you hold the door closed she screams, throws her body against it, and tries to break it down. All of these are now rage tantrums, not sadness tantrums and not dissociative tantrums. (Also, my brother is here and he’s tried the not-a-parent or soft-touch interventions, and those are also no-gos!),

If we put ourselves in time out away from her to try to stay calm and non-escalated, she tries to break down our bedroom door. I was literally sitting our bedroom, me, my partner, and X2, with the door locked while she tried to break it down, while screaming, and I considered that this HAS to be a specific enumerated circle of some kind of hell. Then she took off to break shit in the house and I had to come out – she wins as usual!

After this, we created the crisis plan that I sit in her room with her, blocking the door, and just ignore her. I stay calm and she is not alone, but she has to stay in her room until she is safe and calm. She spent the entire time trying to break things (that were then removed), growling like a dog while hitting me with things, and smacking my glasses off my face, unhooking my watch from my arms, and physically trying to push and pull my body. My favorite from her therapist “if she hits you, immediately move to the outside of the room to show her it is not ok” – so now we are back to physically holding a room door shut from the outside while she screams and tries to break it down, or bangs her bed into the wall?

This went on for so long we used our ultimate threat, if she can’t stop screaming, being unsafe, and fighting with her body, we will have to a call a crisis line and get help. WE are getting out of control, wanting to hit her back, wanting to spank, not being safe in the ways we are trying to put her in a safe hold (she is strong, and she fights, and I can’t get her in a hold anymore. I have an injured thumb from trying). She calmed right down “will you make sure they are safe people? And after the hospital or doctor teaches me to be calm can I come back here to live?”… Me “well, you are being calm and talking calmly right now, you could just listen and go to your room for 5 minutes and we wouldn’t have to call anyone”… her:”NOO” and lunges at my face growling.

So, we somehow get through that night. And the next day we talk and do a reset – rights vs. privileges. We will not call anyone to come get her unless we have to for safety. We are sorry we said that, we felt out of control and did not know what to do. There are things in the life that are rights: enough food, a bed, a warm house, love, clothes, safety; and we will not threaten to remove any of those again (I have in fact, thrown away her tablet and threatened to throw away all her clothes during these interactions. I’m not proud. But you fucking deal with this and see how great your choices are. Also I got her tablet back out of the garbage after). Other things are privileges. She gets no candy, treats, cake, game time, TV, tablet, etc. unless she earns them by doing her kid jobs like brushing teeth, getting dressed, going to bed at night, going to her room when she doesn’t listen.

Wednesday morning, another explosion. We finally put her in her school stuff and set her outside the front door where she screamed non-stop until the school bus came. Then she was quiet and had another great day at school! She loves school!

Last night, Thursday night, another explosion. During the explosion, after asking and redirecting many times, I explained she would not have a cookie with everyone else after dinner. So she spent the next 25 minutes hitting me, screaming at me, running her body into me if I walked anywhere, holding onto my feet, and eventually hitting me hard enough to leave a mark.

Meanwhile, as noted for the last 8 fucking months, I have been telling her therapist it IS A FUCKING CRISIS AT THIS HOUSE. And, I have been directly and immediately reporting EVERY ONE of these interactions, because they are too big, I’m sure they are re-traumatizing, I need her to be able to truthfully talk to her therapist and say “my mom and dad are mean, they are physically moving me, they are throwing away my stuff” without being worried that it is a family secret – we do not keep secrets in this family, in this house. And her therapist suggests the same things we have been doing FOR THREE FUCKING YEARS NOW.

And she says “it seems like you are really being triggered by your own traumas”. YES. WE ARE. We each have abusive parents who controlled our lives. And now we have an abusive 7 yr old controlling everything – and YES I know that sounds fucking insane!! I FEEL FUCKING INSANE.

Today, I asked her therapist to show me a new safety hold, so that I have a response that is calming/controlling and keeps everyone safe. She responded later that she cannot tell me any holds, their hold trainer cannot tell me any holds, and if things are bad this weekend she recommends calling a crisis line – and gave me two places. So I called them both, to see in advance what would happen. One is out of service, just doesn’t exist! The other “talks to you and your child to see if they could benefit from therapy or other services”. THANK YOU SO FUCKING MUCH. I WISH I KNEW IF MY CHILD COULD BENEFIT FROM THERAPY. (I mean, I actually am kind of starting to wonder if there is any benefit to child therapy).

Her therapist keeps saying “she is testing boundaries; she has a dysregulated attachment system; she tests and tests and tests”. OK! She has WON THE FUCKING TEST! We don’t want to do this any more. Our lives are entirely run by her, if she is having a good day, we can all have a decent day. If she is not, everyone is miserable.

Oh, and our precious X2 alternates between (1) being scared by the chaos; (2) imitating the negative chaos behaviors; and (3) being a perfect joy trying to please and comfort everyone. At freaking 3 years old. Therapist advice: help her process. She is going to have to process having X3 for a sister.

WHEN IS X3 GOING TO PROCESS BEING A HUMAN WITH HUMAN RESPONSIBILITIES EVEN AT A 7 YR OLD LEVEL?

When I talk to anyone at all, I just sound like such a rageful asshole. I know it. I feel it. And I cannot feel any other way. People remind us “find a way to get help, find a way to take a break, this is not humanly sustainable”.

We know. And there is. no. help. We can call the police. I like to think I will never lose it and spank or hit my kid – but I honestly and truly believe that would be better than calling the police to come get her. I will call the police if she goes for the knives (you know, testing!), or there is a physical non-containable true danger, but otherwise, there is still nothing and no one.

Little has changed since my last post and I remain exhausted and hopeless. Last night I laid in bed, crying, (and then texted with friends, crying, and cuddled with my partner, crying – DO NOT LIMIT YOUR CRYING LOCATIONS, PEOPLE, BE READY TO UTILIZE ALL OPTIONS) because it keeps being so hard and I cannot think of any changes or solutions that I can implement right now and I hate myself and my life so much.

The end of December did bring a wonderful change for the better and X3 stopped the CONSTANT dissociation/screaming, again, just like a switch, one day it just stopped happening. Truly, children’s bodies remember trauma, and she has huge seasonal escalations that seem to end abruptly without any change or action by us. Which is SUCH A RELIEF.

But, after a couple days of much calmer, we are back to super elevated and really difficult defiant (just WILL NOT whatever the need or direction is, whiny, arguing about EVERYTHING) followed by escalation and eventually screaming intense situations.

I recently read a bunch of articles about how parents speak to and in front of children, and not making corrections unnecessarily, and using positive tones not sarcastic or snippy, and I vowed to change my interactions with both my children and my partner and to really endorse positivity. I made it almost 72 hours! Then, two evenings in a row I just ABSOLUTELY LOST IT, and honestly, I think that trying so hard to be positive made me WORSE when I finally lost it because I was so exhausted by relentlessly being positive while people yelled at me, sniped at me, stomped at or near me, threw things, fought with each other, argued with every single statement, and by the time we got to escalation I had nothing left to stay calm with.

I think so often that I am just entirely the wrong person for this job; but also, THERE WAS NO ONE ELSE, and my little one is doing SO WELL, happy, well adjusted, loving, growing, learning. I just do not know how to manage the emotional hell of “it will be like this forever and nothing you are doing is helping and you will just be miserable forever, NO CONTROL TO YOU!”. Day after day, there is no change, and it feels hopeless.

So, rather than detail HOW it stays hard so hard so so so so hard, I am going to describe the ways things are dramatically different now than they were approximately 30 months ago.

I can leave the room! For the first five months, if I left the room, X3 would throw her body against the door and scream non-stop. Now, she definitely trails me non-stop, including into the bathroom still. But usually if she is with the rest of the family, I can go to my room and close the door for a few minutes and she does not throw herself against the door screaming.

X3 can say the alphabet, count to 100, and 95% READ! At five, she could not count to five, say the alphabet, recognize any letters, and had a vocabulary of only a couple hundred words (for reference, 3 year olds usually have a vocabulary of about 200 words – X2 definitely has more than that – but a five year old usually has a vocabulary of approximately 10,000 words), Now, while she remains below average grade level, she is improving so much that her school claims she doesn’t qualify for speech and language special education services anymore! (FYI, this is in DIRECT OPPOSITION to her recent neurological evaluation, and more specifically TOTAL BULLSHIT, you do not get a kid to “at the bare minimum with maximum support” AND THEN REMOVE THE SUPPORT! Do not worry friends, I took care of this attempt to remove these services.)

Weekends together have more hours of pleasure and calm family time than difficult times. When X3 came, we rarely made it to 10 am inside the house on a Sat or Sun. Her escalation and chaos was SO SEVERE that we literally were out by 9:30 a.m. to the science museum, the park, a friend’s house, etc. We would come home for lunch, then go somewhere for the afternoon. The longer we were home, the higher she escalated and Sunday afternoons just about killed us. Now, like MOST families, our kids mostly exist with us at home. She can play with toys. She can move around more than five feet from me sometimes. She is an honest pleasure to play games with, and wants to learn enough to be able to play more age appropriate and then adult games. She can go in the basement play room (if her sister will go too) without an adult for minute at a time!

She loves hair washing day and getting her hair braided. She’s always sort of liked getting her hair done except for being impatient with the time it takes, but she absolutely HATED hair washing. It used to be a huge awful ordeal. And, once, she put her head back so her hair was under water and looked at me and said “are you going to drown me now?” in this really calm voice, and it was one of the creepiest, most horror movie moments of my life. Now, showers are highly desired special mom-time and the girls fight over their turn, so there you go!

She rarely breaks big things! At her last (truly fucking awful) foster care before us, X3 broke the ceiling fan, the door to her room 3 times, and various other things. When she came to us, she would tear every single item of clothing out of the drawers and closet, everything off the shelves, stand on her table and throw anything she could get her hands on. She would throw her body against the door, and if really in a bad place, bang her head against the wall. She pulled her own hair. These days, she mostly throws her own body against the ground, and kicks the wall and the bed – but has not broken either! She has recently started throwing her body against doors again, but has not broken any! She throws pillows and stuffies, but they do not break! She did have an episode of banging her head against the wall in May 2020, but that was related to pandemic chaos and she was able to stop that behavior pretty quickly.

She doesn’t swear! The first time she stood up in the bath and called me a bitch, I was like…oh… this is not that awesome. I know when she came into foster care at 3, her favorite “play” was “phone” and the (now adoptive parents to her older brother) first foster parents report that all the “conversations” they overheard which were along the lines of “these motherfuckers can’t say shit fuck off bitch” as to various subjects. At day treatment one day when triggered, she put up her fist to punch her therapist and said “get the fuck away from me you fucking bitch” (in a tough adult voice). These days, she doesn’t swear at all! And she HATES IT when others use “unfriendly words” it’s a triggering sound to her instead of something that naturally comes out of her mouth when angry or sad.

She never takes off her clothes at school or hurts others! Her entire kindergarten year, so through age 6 she would hit people with her water bottle, spit, take off her pants, try to run out the door, rage-flip the tables, etc. when things were hard at school (that was always). It was so intense that she had to come home early almost every single day. That school was also a mess, but regardless, SHE DOES NOT DO THIS STUFF ANY MORE! (she did punch a littler kid in first grade because a big kid told her to. Look, she has NO self-regulation and NO self-confidence, and apparently no understanding of how to navigate peer pressure…) She still has a 1:1 para and tons of special ed services, but she IS learning at school, AND she is not a danger to other kids. She’s more likely to be rude and snotty to her para or have a crying meltdown.

She rarely wakes in the night asking for food. At her last (AWFUL. FUCKING AWFUL) foster home, she would wait till everyone went to sleep and then scour the house binge eating. She’s told us she was always hungry and scared – I believe her. But they would try to hide things, and she would find them, so like, she would binge eat the entire pack of donuts they hid in the dishwasher. SHE WAS FOUR BTW. AND TINY. When she came, we kept food in her room all the time, and put a snack on a plate for her at bedtime so she knew there was always food. She did it for a while, every night. She wasn’t hungry, but she was scared there wasn’t food so she would take 5 bites and go back to bed.

She sleeps alone in her own bed! We slept with her for the first 5 plus months. It was not awesome. She is hard to sleep with, and her bed was on the floor for her safety, and you had to stay the whole time or she woke up. It was super hard on our marriage and our exhaustion levels. But, she never slept in her foster home and, except for night terrors, she started sleeping through the night almost immediately upon coming to live with us, so it worked. And, she dealt with the transition to her own bed fairly well, all things considered, and being able to sleep in our own room most nights is a super big deal!

She doesn’t have night terrors! She still has nightmares, and calls out, during rough times up to 5 times a night (1-2 is more average, and some nights she ACTUALLY SLEEPS THROUGH THE NIGHT!). But for the first 18 months she had intense, overwhelming, and LOOOONGG night terrors, in which she would wake up screaming, BUT, was not actually awake. It took forever to get her into the light, awake, relocated in her body, and able to answer grounding questions. If we did NOT do that, she would go back to sleep and be back up screaming in about 15 minutes, repeat forever. If we did the grounding, it was usually only 1-2 wake-ups in a night, but the waking up and grounding process could take an hour plus.

Her imaginative play is depressing and inappropriate…BUT IT IS NOT VIOLENT! The imaginative play at the beginning was just miserable and overwhelming – the police being called, brothers and sisters hitting each other, moms, dads, and grandmas, having guns, and knives, and fighting. Just remembering it makes my blood pressure rise. She still plays MEAN, and games that are…escalated/intense. But, no guns, no knives, no brothers, no grandmas. All of the direct violence is gone.

She is accepting some relationship with my partner. For almost two years, she would not allow any comfort, support, response, from my partner if I was home (AND, as a special treat, she ONLY has these episodes if I am home. If I am NOT home, she magically can hold it together…) I am still strongly preferred 89% of the time. But there are times when she screams “I WANT DAD” at me, and/or has an escalation reaction to my partner having a meeting, or needing space for a bit. Growth!

I cry maybe once a week – less in a good month. When she came, I cried at least once per day, frequently more. For a loooong time. I cried every time anyone asked me anything about my life. I cried when her therapist at day treatment was supportive and comforting. I cried to my sister and brother and moms and partner and coworkers and myself.

Now, my family life is nothing like what I hoped. The hopelessness stems from being stagnant and, for the last year, actually having gone a significant amount backwards. The progress feels infinitesimal on the best day. But looking at that list, there is a LOT that HAS changed!

I am struggling so hard. And it’s interesting to be able to so fully understand the difference between pain, grieving, stress, and just pure hopeless depression and misery. My life now is the worst thing that I have ever experienced, and it is all based around one little girl’s struggles. I take an anti-depressant every day not to be happy, not to feel pleasure, not to laugh and smile, but not to actually die.

This is not an exaggeration. What I am living now is worse than my teenage years struggling to get through my own trauma. It is worse than the confusion and nihilism of my early 20s. It’s worse than the year I got divorced, got fired, and stopped speaking to my mother and two best friends because they were toxic forces in my life. It is worse than the month my boyfriend left me, and my step-mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and my father had a heart attack. Because all of those things were awful, heart-wrenching, PAINFUL, soul-bruising things. But none of them entirely removed any ability to feel joy in any individual moment. None of them entirely removed my hope that I could EVER be happy or feel fulfilled. None of them made me absolutely loathe myself.

Since Thanksgiving our house has just been struggling SO MUCH. And I hate myself SO MUCH for feeling so much frustration with her for making everyone else’s life so hard. This is the difference between parenting with attachment and parenting without. X2 is a REAL TYRANT right now, three year old tantrums, has decided she just isn’t potty trained anymore and now wears diapers again or goes on the floor, has started imitating X3’s dissociative tantrums for attention, and is otherwise a challenging, strong, intense, (but wonderful) three year old. But I only feel overwhelmed by her when I’m already tapped out by X3. In fact, the moments of joy I DO feel are all around X2.

Which is awful in a different way, honestly.

Parents are struggling right now, every single one, and especially the ones I am closest to – most of us had children later in life, after making plans and goals for how to parent, and creating a support system, and a lifestyle where we would be able to parent while retaining our sense of selves and feelings of accomplishment other than just raising another generation. And this pandemic hit and everyone sacrificed but there is a REALLY SERIOUS DIFFERENCE BETWEEN “cannot do the things we want, and cannot be close to our loved ones and sadness and isolation and wanting to live life every differently” and “locked in the house with complete hopelessness and inability to take joy in anything at all and a sense of self-loathing”. I know lots of parents who are not in the second category, but everyone I know in the second category is a parent.

I wonder every day if we should have been prevented from adopting X3. Whether the state should have taken a cold hard look and said “nope. You are simply not capable. Your well is not deep enough, your heart is not big enough, your patience is certainly not enough, and you literally CANNOT do what needs to be done to help this child heal.”

When we adopted her, she had been living with us for 14 months. MORE THAN A YEAR. She was only 6, we had had her for 1/5 of her life. It feels like that is enough time to know if you can make that sort of commitment. And it had been a HARD YEAR. But it had a very slow slope towards progress, we could see and feel and chart growth, and change, and attachment. There was a feeling of hope – that our family was growing and would BE a family. We love her so much.

And then this year. And the last month. It’s just fucking regression after regression after regression WITH NO BREAKS. NO SPACE. NO HOPE. We still love her so much. But we hate every single day living with her right now.

My stomach hurts every day. My jaws hurt from grinding my teeth; I clench my jaw so hard in my sleep that I wake myself up with the pain; and I have headaches and pain running into my shoulders. I have nightmares all night every night that I am working on things that are late – I am doing bad work, I am endlessly trying to catch up, I am letting down my colleagues, people are DISAPPOINTED in both me and my work, I HAVE FAILED. I wake up more exhausted in the morning than I feel when I go to sleep – of course, going to sleep is ALSO hard, I just replay all the ways I fucked up parenting that day, and how there is no chance that the next day will be anything but miserable, so I am also not getting enough sleep. I have acid reflux so badly (standing, sitting, laying down, any position) that I was drinking baking soda multiple times per day – until I researched and learned you aren’t supposed to do that EITHER. My chest hurts so much that I keep researching if I’m having a heart attack, or being worried I have Covid. Nope, just overwhelming misery/stress/anxiety. I’m behind at work ALWAYS because I stare into space without moving. I cry anytime I slow down and try to think or be present and mindful, unless it is cuddling or playing with X2.

I always believed we are responsible to change own lives not stew in misery. I honestly believed I could make just about anything happen. I have entirely changed my life, started over, built it up, in different circumstances. And there is not a fucking thing I can do to fix this child who is dragging this family into hell. I used to look at the first of the year, and even the first of every month, and often the first day of a week as a new chance, the start of something new, and think, “ANYTHING COULD HAPPEN!” and I used that belief, that feeling, to MAKE it happen. I can’t remember the last time I felt even a spark of hope.

X3’s therapist is full of great ideas of the MORE we could give to X3. How much MORE we could love and hold and cherish this person who is making us insane. How we can sit with her and hug her and calm her when she rages more at us. Who literally SCREAMS every second of the day, with either joy or rage. Who argues with every. single. word. that comes out of our mouths. Who cannot follow any rules or guidelines. Who is kind in her heart, but 100% thoughtless in every action, from running into everything and knocking it over and breaking it, to waking everyone up throughout the night and every morning, to stomping with every footstep. Who loves the feeling of power and control, so tells everyone ELSE what to do every second, but can’t follow any rule herself – not even rules to not be inappropriate with the dog, an actual living being. Who screams “I NEED HELP” any time she is faced with a rule, a consequence, a correction, a learning moment, but then absolutely REFUSES to do ANY of the 10,001 various calming technique she has been taught over the last 2.5 years, even with an adult sitting there helping her. Who screams “I NEED A HUG HELP ME” WHILE YOU ARE FUCKING HUGGING HER WHICH YOU ALREADY DO NOT WANT TO BE DOING ANYWAY SO WHY ARE YOU IF SHE ACTUALLY CANNOT REMEMBER IT WHILE IT IS HAPPENING?

I SOUND LIKE A BITCH. I am a bitch. I hate myself every second of every day. I regret the choice I made, because if I can’t help her, then all I did was fuck up my own life. Every time her therapist says “what could help?” we say “someone to come take this kid and give us a break.” That is NOT available. She tells us great ways to touch and love and care for the person who is making us want to die.

We have a case manager for X3, she gets us referrals to doctors, psychiatrists, etc. every time she asks “does anyone have any ideas for how to help?” NO. WE NEED A BREAK FROM HER. That is it. That doesn’t exist. We cannot breath.

They have ideas for how WE can be perfect parents, never yell, always demonstrate calm loving parenting, never escalate, always show how much you absolutely love this child and how wonderful and amazing she is. Oh! Most recent idea “you could sleep with her every night”. SHE IS FUCKING 7 and those nighttime hours are the ONLY RELIEF WE GET (when she isn’t awake and yelling for us). Also, WE DID SLEEP WITH HER EVERY NIGHT FOR FIVE MONTHS. WE FUCKING DID THIS WORK. She literally DOES NOT REMEMBER IT – she whines about how we never slept with her and that’s not fair. Apparently, it did fucking nothing to entirely disregard our marriage, give her every second of our lives and attention, including even our nighttime hours, but HEY! Maybe we should do it AGAIN!

WE HAVE DONE IT. EVERY SINGLE THING THEY SAY TO DO, WE HAVE DONE IT FOR TWO AND HALF YEARS. 1/3 of her life. And nothing we have done has helped reprogram her brain. And now, we have been sucked dry by her needs, with absolutely nothing left to give, and she acts just like she did in the houses where she was being abused and neglected (to be fair – she doesn’t actually purposely destroy our house like she did their – well except for throwing that rock through the window during the summer). WHAT IS THE FUCKING POINT? Look, I know the neuroscience. I know her brain was beyond fucked up by her biological parents. And I know that the time in foster care kept on breaking her brain. I KNOW THAT. But if nothing we do actually helps, if she can’t EVER feel safe, if her brain cannot be reprogrammed by literal YEARS OF SAFETY AND CONSTANT CARE, if she can’t learn to actually do the work to calm herself and move forward, AGAIN, what is the POINT?

We need a break from this child, because all we feel every second is ground down into pulp with no hope and no joy.

We try and try and try. We went to the cabin for Thanksgiving. SHE ALWAYS LOVES THE CABIN! She was so excited to go, she spent A WEEK telling every person in her class, they were emailing us she had to stop talking about it because it was too much! It was the worst week we have EVER had at the cabin. On Thanksgiving day she had so many dissociative episodes she literally screamed for 1/2 of half her waking hours.

When she does this she won’t accept anything from my partner – so it’s ALL ME soothing, calming, holding. Hour. After hour. After hour. Note: she also does not do this IF I AM NOT THERE! So it’s a special treat, that we can experience MORE AND MORE because I’m always around because there is a fucking pandemic and we are all in our homes forever (those of us that are responsible citizens).

After I finally dosed her with melatonin and just left her sobbing in bed until she finally slept, I honestly thought about how it would feel to just walk into the freezing lake I could see so temptingly out the window and let the calm, quiet, water close over my head. FYI I WOULD NEVER DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT – it’s selfish and horrible to everyone you leave behind and I AM NOT A FUCKING QUITTER I would NEVER. But I know passive ideology perfectly well. And I DID immediately reach out, and was immediately supported.

Then she did it again the next day. And then the next day. And then the fourth day in a row. And then, because we had been videoing the fits because we thought she might be having seizures, or that her therapist would need to help us figure out the best way to manage a full episode, we figured out 1/2 the time SHE WAS FUCKING FAKING IT for the attention. We (amazingly calmly and without ever yelling or even speaking with a mad voice) called her out on it and that we knew she was faking it and it was not ok and those actions hurt the family – as a result, she scared HERSELF so badly she went into a true dissociative episode for 45 more minutes. I FUCKING HATE MY LIFE.

There has not been even one day in the last month that has not been miserable. That has not used every single ounce of self-restraint we have – and sometimes we lose it. I screamed the house down the other day. I did. I lost it at everyone, at X3, at my partner, at myself. (Not at X2). Then I apologized to everyone. Then I hugged my kid that I cannot stand being around and told her how much I love her, and how lucky we are to be her parents, and how we would never ever let her go, and would always keep her safe. Of course, I’m sure she is retraumized because I have proven that I don’t love her and can’t be trusted not lose my temper AFTER BEING PUSHED NON-STOP FOR HOURS AND HOURS AND DAYS AND DAYS and that screaming moment bought me six more months of regression in which I have to be PERFECT EVERY SINGLE SECOND or I fuck her up more, while having every joy drained from the world. Happy fucking holidays to all of us.

I WANT A BABY. Baby! BABYBABYBABYBABY. BABY! BABAYYYY!! I just, really, really really really want a baby.

I DO NOT WANT A BABY. My life cannot handle a baby in any way except that we can afford a baby and we want a baby.

A surprising number of people have had babies in the last month, and I WANT THEIR BABIES. I do not. I want my own baby! Not like one I produced (although that would be easiest!) but I WANT A BABY.

In a SURPRISE turn of events, things are HARD right now. But, X2 is getting so big, and it’s hard to be done with babies. I honestly, really, truly, 100% want a baby, and I honestly, truly, 100% know that we cannot have a baby. I actually pretty much loved the baby stage and weathered it better than most that I know; but my partner did NOT, and we didn’t have two OTHER kids needing attention while we were exhausted and overtaxed with baby.

The fostering and adoption process was so stressful, that we swore not to do it again, ever. We said we would just pay for private adoption for another baby when we were ready.

Astute readers may then wonder why we keep going through the bullshit hoops of keeping our foster license…well, we are currently in BABY SCARE # 3. We have had X2 for a little over three years, and X3 2.5 years, and in that time their bio mom has had…NO LIE… THREE FAKE PREGNANCIES!

Educational Break:

Per Minnesota law the burden of proof on the state to terminate parental rights is VERY HIGH. Biological parents are given try after try after try – for very good (if painful and complicated) reasons. Taking away a person’s child is one of the very worst things a society can do to a person – and losing contact with biological families is truly traumatic even when those families are painful and awful. (As a survivor of a difficult family, I have a weird alternative view about maybe more babies should be removed to new locations and that people should prove fitness to reproduce FIRST and have babies second).

BUT, once you have a child removed through a “termination of parental rights” (TPR) then the burden of proof for all FUTURE children is reversed – the state and courts presume you CANNOT parent, and you have to prove why you ARE fit to parent.

So, any child born to a person who has had children taken forever, is immediately placed in foster care. The parent is then required to show how and why they are NOW fit to parent versus the past when they were not. Even with that burden, they are often given years of chances (I’ve known people at four years of waiting to determine which way it will go. CAN YOU IMAGINE? I do. Regularly. ) We also know FOR SURE (because she posts fucking VIDEOS of her DOING IT TO FACEBOOK) that bio uses illicit substances while “pregnant”, which is another basis for placement. And, to be sure that our kid’s bio siblings are not placed with someone ELSE and disrupted by multiple moves, we keep our license so we will be the first call if such a baby suddenly exists.

Educational break over!

The first time we went through a fake pregnancy, it was the end of 2018 (remember that year? it feels SO LONG AGO) and we GEARED UP into 2019. Bio was posting pregnancy pics and updates, and being upset baby daddy was cheating on her WHILE SHE IS PREGNANT WITH HIS CHILD and so and so forth. We were figuring out how to manage another kid, and what that meant for our lives and organizing the tiny baby stuff so we would be READY.

And then…it didn’t seem like that belly was popping the way you would expect. And after like 8 months of pregnancy (including an update a week earlier that she was pregnant) a weird statement of “oh I was pregnant but I had a miscarriage FIVE MONTHS AGO and did not notice”. Clearly, excellent prenatal care for this “pregnancy”. But also, there had been a like 10 minutes post of “I am getting an abortion” months earlier that was immediately deleted, so we assumed that was the story. And truly, that was the best choice for everyone, but it’s hard to go from “getting ready for possible additional baby” to “oh, no baby!” so quickly, especially when we are dealing with our own baby wants.

Meanwhile, we continue raising these amazing girls, and wishing we had another chance at the baby stage now that we are experienced old hands at this, while not knowing how we could ever handle another, and wondering if we should foster babies, or even try to get pregnant A-FUCKING-GAIN with all the expected miscarriages and misery that would entail… And my partner and I sit down and have a real and serious talk, and decide, together, we are letting our foster license go, and we are not adopting privately and we are DONE and it will always be a little sore spot but it is the right life choice. I get rid of all the tiny baby stuff, and start feeling confident in the decision, with little pangs here and there.

And then…spring 2020, bio announces she is pregnant again! OH GOODNESS! This has to be some bullshit, right? But she is getting mother’s day presents, and planning her gender reveal party and her shower, and showing her jeans not buttoning. We start to believe. Like, really, really, believe.

SO FUUUCKKKK, we go out and jump through a billion hoops, and take a ton of our hours of training at the very last minute to keep our foster license. We are texting photos and updates and a LOT of people are now discussing this woman’s stomach area because IS IT REAL? Hilariously, facebook commentators are asking her the same thing!

She posts “TWINS!”

I have a nervous breakdown.

I think about the ways I am failing every person in my life, myself, my partner, the kids I have, the job I love, and how I am going to add a baby or TWO babies to this during a pandemic… My partner comes in to our room to find me sobbing on the bed. I want a BABY SO MUCH, and I do not want a baby like THIS at all.

We think EVERY DAY, about how entirely fucked up it will be if the baby comes us to us for a while (sometimes YEARS. YEARS!!!!), but then goes back to bio forever. How, when everyone starts finding each other as teens, it will hurt my kids to know that bio did whatever she needed to get keep this new baby (she actually did try to separate out X2 to keep her while losing the other two during the trial…) but refused to do that same work to keep them, and how much it will mess with the conceptual baby to grow up with abuse and neglect and unmedicated untreated mental health, just not ENOUGH to be removed, while the siblings live in privilege, and love, and care, and safety, but struggle with dislocation and abandonment.

Meanwhile, we are still like…is that even a baby? Or just some quarantine weight like we are all carrying? We know she is still messing with that new (supposed) baby daddy – and that it is a very up and down situation (surprise, again!).

And then bio posts that doctors keep telling her she is not pregnant, but she knows she is. This is at a minimum of six months pregnant. She schedules an ultrasound, and is unsurprisingly ENTIRELY SILENT for the next 60 days. We quietly sigh, cry, and more forward.

BUT WAIT! It’s a new day, and a new month, and a NEW claim that she IS pregnant, but “no you don’t need to know the due date”. SUSPICIOUS. But ALSO, entirely likely she HAS been trying to GET pregnant while lying about BEING pregnant to prove she was ALWAYS pregnant, and seriously, there is every chance she is with the effort she seems to put in. And so, here we go AGAIN.

It might be easier and better to not monitor, but I do not deal well with surprises, and a new baby out of nowhere is the kind of surprise I would NOT deal well with. I keep trying to just get rid of the baby stuff as a way of making a decision without making one, but my partner says he is not ready. I get it. I WANT A BABY SO MUCH. I truly do. I cannot tell you how much my heart aches for how much I want to snuggle and love and cuddle and rock a baby. I remember the exhaustion; I remember the difficulty; but I truly truly truly just WANT A BABY.

And I know how much I need to get a night’s sleep with the kids I already have. I am up twice a night EVERY night. Recently I am up 3-6 times (but that is a story for another day). I sleep with a three year old at least 1/2 of every night. I work an intense job. I have no idea how we could fit in a baby – but then, if we are ALREADY not sleeping, why not just go ALL IN AND GET A BABY?

If a baby showed up and it was ours, we would be SO FUCKING HAPPY and MAKE IT WORK. But we don’t even have that kind of option. Instead, we have the foster care/adoption math problem, of time, energy, love, ability, exhaustion, stress. With fake pregnancy number 2, it went on long enough we started trying to get the kids ready for the possibility of taking care of a baby (we will keep a baby safe for a while), because it would be such a huge disruption. X2 was ALL IN, she was READY for her Xmas baby! I think the reality would have been a big old problem for her, since she is a spoiled, adored, princess, of all attention and care. But she was really excited for a baby.

X3 was VERY clear that she did not want a baby, because she would not believe we loved her anymore. It was wildly accurate and self-aware, and we knew it would throw our house into pure hell to get this baby because of how triggering it would be on multiple levels. And, we knew there was a decent chance of seeing baby go back into a horrible life. With all that pain, and trauma to us, and trauma to our kids, and trauma to baby a part of you just wants to click “no thanks”…but we also could literally not imagine how we would tell our kids that we said “no thanks, life is pretty complicated right now” TO THEIR BABY SIBLING! Midway through fake pregnancy two, my placement worker said “you’re doing great; but how many kids do you want? She’s young, you could have tons!”. I’d like another baby, but I don’t want A LOT more babies- and that math is the same almost every time…

I always assumed that the hardest decisions I made would be my OWN. That the mistakes and hurdles I navigated would be ones I was directly responsible for. Our family cannot deal with the endless uncertainties of maybe-babies, and it will never stop being unfair that we are faced with life altering decisions, and endless emotional ups and downs, because of someone else’s either lack of responsibility and self-awareness or (and?) desperation for attention. And, I honestly, truly, so much, want another baby, and it will NEVER stop being unfair that I couldn’t just make one.

So yeah, it’s a MESS OUT THERE YA’LL and no one is more aware of it than our household. Totally thought I had the ‘Rona, and was SO RELIEVED that it turned out I was just regular crappy sick! But, it turns out everyone ELSE does have “the virus” (as my kids call it) and so no one can ever leave their homes again and X3 cannot go to school any more and will presumably scream for the rest of our lives.

My work is overwhelming and somehow harder to do even while I am doing significantly less while working entirely from home, and the winter holidays – whatever that means this year – are staring us in our shell-shocked faces. In this time of entirely-fucked-ness, verily I say unto you all that I am beyond thankful to have a three-year old right now, bringing, pure, unadulterated, EXTRA into my life every second.

I was never sure I would LIKE parenting. I knew I would commit and go all in and that I would find a way to enjoy many aspects but I didn’t know if I would ever feel that YES it was a better choice for me to have children than to not have children.

So, no one was more shocked than me that I absolutely fucking loved having a baby. My partner, who desperately WANTED a baby, loathed having one for at least the first six months – and at least a little flabbergasted and annoyed that I was pretty into it. I just really loved it. It wasn’t easy, it was super, duper, hard, and overwhelming, and exhausting, and constant, and stressful. But it turns out I love snuggly, warm, good-smelling things, and I love watching someone grow and learn, and I found most parts of having a baby delightful, and our baby (except for NEVER SLEEPING) was a pretty easy happy baby! It also is true that I was working full time, which has its own guilt and stress and exhaustion, but also meant that I was never in “all baby all the time my identity and life are gone this is the worst” like stay-at-home parents regularly experience

Well my baby is NOT a baby anymore, and it is both absolutely amazing and so so sad. I really love watching her grow and learn, but it is both super hard and fantastic to watch that babyness fade and to see the little big girl that is showing up in her place.

THIS IS THREE

Joy, delight, excitement, learning, development, independence.

X2 is a fucking delight. She wakes up late at night every night (yep, we are at plus 3 years, and she still doesn’t sleep through the night. She just has never been a good sleeper, and we have chosen not to sleep train) and I either sleep with her the rest of the night (in her full size bed, under X3’s bunk bed), or she comes and crawls into bed with my partner and I (in our king size bed with two adults, the dog, and the two cats. One night X3 crawled in with us and with one kid on either side and the dog sleeping on my legs I just about died. TOO MUCH EVEN FOR ME!). Simply giving in and co-sleeping has made our lives so much easier and more sleep is had by all, and especially by ME, which is a great relief. Plus honestly, I just really really like sleeping with my baby.

I explained to X2 recently that little tiny babies like to be wrapped up like burritos. But we don’t eat many burritos at our house, so she translated “burrito” to “taco”. So now in the middle of the night if she’s having trouble relaxing and getting back to sleep I hear “mom? mom, you wrap me tight like a baby-taco?” AND I SUBMIT IT IS BEYOND CUTE.

I used to sing to her in the morning, and she didn’t catch the words, but she caught the idea, so when she wants to wake up in the morning she will put her face by mine and sing “good morning, good morning, I love to see you good morning”. AWWWWWWW.

We’ve never been big on material things, and I literally cannot remember what I got her for any birthday or Christmas before now. But now EVERY SINGLE THING I SEE I WANT TO BUY FOR HER THIS YEAR, because she is at the developmental age and experimental stage where she would be absolutely ECSTATIC to receive (1) a cash register!, (2) a rocket-ship!, (3) a doctor kit!, (4) literally EVERYTHING! She is right there for magic, and I want to give her every magical experience and moment.

Her favorite activity is jumping on one leg, and she does it with intention and attention. She works hard at it and really practices it. She’s also into general jumping increasingly off of higher things and most recently jumping sideways with both feet over something. Generally, jumping is a pretty cool thing.

She’s learning shapes and can draw a circle and the letter H. She can recognize M as Momma, and Moon. Her motor skills recently are going crazy, she’s starting to color more in the lines, but she mostly doesn’t like to color, she wants to draw her own pictures. She has the concept of people shapes which is fascinating because X3 still can’t get people shapes (but is making otherwise cool and interesting art – I’m thinking people might be a weird hang-up based on her history). Her motor skills are just developing like crazy right now!

She loves the animals, (especially Harkness, who is somewhat less than interested in kids), and learning, and is more independent with her play than X3.

She will do her own thing for 20+ minutes at a time; she wants to know you are THERE, but she can often do something solo, which seems amazing. She wants attention from me more than my partner (rather than solo play) but that makes sense because I work and so my time and attention is a scarcer resource.

Every day she gets better at dressing herself, brushing her teeth, putting away her own laundry, and generally being independent. She wants to do EVERYTHING herself and woe to the person who attempts to do it for her.

She is simply full of joy and delight and it is, luckily, contagious.

Of course, three is not only pure joy. It is also pure misery…

THIS IS THREE

Rage, sadness, exhaustion, boundary-pushing.

WOOOH GOODNESS, they also weren’t kidding about the three-year old tantrums! It’s SO MUCH. In addition to age-appropriate, she has also learned some unfortunate behaviors from X3, so her BIG is VERY BIG.

Hilariously, she has also been learning all of X3’s social emotional coping strategies – so she knows that she needs to take deep breaths to calm down, and knows lots of ways to do it. But’s she’s still three, so that is a very hit or miss proposition.

A tragic and common occurrence is a tantrum meltdown, which has screaming and crying, during which she realizes she is giving herself a headache by screaming and crying, and then cries and screams “I DON’T WANT MY HEAD TO HURT” but without the control to actually calm down. Poor baby.

She is 100% a PITA to her sister and sometimes to us. She is jealous of hugs to X3, and unfair and demanding of everything for herself. She hits and kicks and tantrums when she doesn’t get what she wants – which is like, pretty often, because she’s three and doesn’t have a whole lot of autonomy on the day’s happenings.

She fully potty trained right at 3, like a freaking charm one day it was just …. done. BUT NOW…she has like 5+ accidents a day, (1) “I peed a little in my underwear”; (2) “I WAS ALMOST THERE”; (3) I was too comfy… She won’t wear a pull-up, she INSISTS on wearing underwear, she WILL. NOT. GO. if asked, directed, suggested, or otherwise cajoled (“let’s hop on one foot to the bathroom! let’s run to the bathroom, let’s go together, etc.) but also she has a total meltdown when she has an accident. We are in the proverbial no-win situation. Believe me, I have truly, truly, to my bones, felt the fear of having no good options and seeing clearly the inevitable tragic outcome. Silver lining: my bathroom floors are so much cleaner than I would likely keep them otherwise!

She is also pushing boundaries all the time, trying to get away with things, needing to do it herself, getting VERY ANGRY when a boundary or limit is imposed. And, oh, my achy-breaky heart, when my three-year old says “I no want you anymore. You not my mom” when she gets mad… it is honestly is both ridiculous and painful. Because it is the greatest fear of an adoptive mom; that those words will be true one day after a lifetime of love. And, because until now, she ALWAYS wanted me (spoiler: she still does! She’s just trying to get a reaction!). Until recently I was always able to calm her with co-regulation/deep-breathing , but now she won’t let me hold her close when she is very upset and it is just one more sign she is growing up.

Just not toooooo fast, please, baby, baby, please.