But if you close your eyes,
Does it almost feel like
Nothing changed at all?
And if you close your eyes,
Does it almost feel like
You've been here before?
How am I gonna be an optimist about this?
Pompeii~ Bastille
It is Thanksgiving and honestly I have been in a pretty bad funk. In preparation to adopt an older child, we have prepared ourselves in a lot of ways. I can't even count how many books I have read or cds I have listened to about all kinds of adoption issues. I know more about Reactive Attachment Disorder than most of the mental health workers we encounter. I know the more our daughter loves us the scarier it becomes for her and this causes her to push us away. I have written on this topic many times. Even though my head knows how Sweetie will respond to certain situations, my heart still gets hurt when she does respond in a negative way. Sweetie seems to be wanting to make changes in herself to heal. She has been participating in therapy, she says she believes we are good parents and doing everything we can. She says she needs to take this time to work on herself. I believe her. What is hard is when we try to visit her and she can only deal with being around us for 2 minutes without reacting in a negative way. I am not sure if it a control issue or if it is a shame issue. She can hardly look at us when we see her. I know she feels bad for accusing Cris falsely and for attacking me. She verbalizes this to her therapist and understands it is those actions that are why she is in the program. It is a good thing she is able to verbalize these things. 6 months ago Sweetie could not have done that. So, even though her behavior has been it's absolute worst, she is now beginning to experience some healing. She can recognize that she is doing these things to test us to see if we will really will stay and if we really unconditionally love her. She can admit that she is scared that she will chase us away. But she hasn't chased us away. Honestly it hurts awfully when she does this. It is hard not to take it personally. On days like today, I find myself relating to this song. When I close my eyes it feels like nothing has changed at all. When I close my eyes I feel like I have been here before. And I ask; how I am gonna be an optimist about this? If it wasn't for the faith I have that God has brought Sweetie to us because he could use us to help her heal, I would not be optimistic. Even with the true hope that I have, there are days that I have my doubts. But, I look back on where Sweetie has come from and what she has survived. My sweet girl is strong, she is smart, she is resilient and most of all she is loved. Her walls are beginning to come tumbling down, exposing the hurt child inside. When I was talking to her therapist yesterday she said something that no one has said to me before. She said that Sweetie is one of the few kids she has worked with that if it was not for her trauma, she would not have any mental health issues. That most of the other children she works with have biological mental illness. She believes if Sweetie had not gone through her early childhood trauma, she would have been able to have a life with absolutely no limits.
At first this made me profoundly sad and angry. I am having to really work hard on forgiving her others for hurting her so much that they have broken her spirit. They have shattered her soul. They have left a hole in her soul that nothing can ever fill. I pray that God's love can heal that wound.
I will be grateful for when the holidays are over, so we can get past all of the triggers for a while and Sweetie can get to a place of peace.
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