"Today my son Devon is 16. He's very dangerous - violent towards adults and children, has suicide ideations, and causes thousands of dollars in property damage. Due to safety concerns, he's been unable to live at home for the last several years. He's angry, sad, and hurt. It's not what I dreamed of when I adopted him as a friendly, jabbering three-year-old with round cheeks and a bright smile."
Keri Williams, RAD Parent Blogger, @raisingdevon https://fullmetried.com/2018/06/13/reactive-attachment-disorder-rad-the-essential-guide-for-parents
No, it certainly didn't live up to "your dreams", did it? It rarely does. After completely oversharing Devon's story, which is most of what her blog consists of, she continues, "My new book...". Ah, we come to the point. She's written a book, further exploiting the trauma she has helped to inflict on the child, I guess to teach other adopters how to be proper RAD parents. Since it seems it's working out so delightfully for her.
This is just a single example of the hundreds, possibly thousands, of "helpful tidbits for RAD Parents". You may have heard the phrases "Trauma Mama", "parenting in the trenches", "my RAD", et cetera. These are the parents that "get PTSD" from raising an adoptee. The parents who talk about adoptees (down to pre-verbal ages) "willfully manipulating" the family. As in, "The child is misbehaving to punish me/make my life difficult."; "The child is endearing himself to my spouse so my spouse will take his side. "; "The child is manipulating my peers. "; "The child is breaking up my marriage. "; "The child enjoys causing chaos/hurting people in our home"; "The child is trying to drive a wedge between us and our community. ", et cetera. These are all things I've actually read posted in groups. I've heard so many ridiculous claims of the "manipulation and triangulation" of minor adoptees that you'd think we're all little evil geniuses like Stewie Griffith, building Playskool Mom Seeking Missiles in our secret Acme lab behind our bedroom walls.
Adults quite literally attributing their own motives, and adult cognitive decisions, to young people whose cerebral cortex isn't even developed enough to support those trains of thought. Even as teens and early 20-somethings, our pre-frontal cortex, responsible for cognitive reasoning, logic, cause/effect, and right/wrong, is still under construction.
Q: So how does the seven-year-old make the logical cognitive decision (attributed to her by RAD parent) to endear herself to her adopter so he will take her side, and not believe the adoptress when she details the "nasty behavior" the child engages in his absence? "She is deliberately trying to alienate my husband and make me look like a terrible mother to my friends, " writes RAD parent. "She's an angel until we are alone, and then it's like Satan came out to play."
A: Seven isn't making that choice. She is reacting to your parenting and cleaving to what she perceives to be the safest port in the storm.
These RAD parents will drag their troubled adoptee from psych eval to psych eval to get the diagnosis they are looking for: RAD. Reactive Attachment Disorder. The diagnosis, only listed in the DSM-V, that loosely translates to: "This kid is so broken that he cannot properly love his 'parents'. He is abnormal, flawed, and needs to be fixed."
They then embark on a regiment of Connected Parenting (borderline abusive to full blown abuse), pharmaceuticals, invasive, often abusive therapy, and incarceration in group homes. They call it "residential therapy", but let's be real. Anyone who's been in one knows all the doors are locked and all the windows are reinforced shatter-proof glass. It's nothing more than a high-priced prison for traumatized children with drugs in lieu of bars.
RAD is a diagnosis created by the psychological community so that these specific treatments will be covered on insurance. It's not a real condition, not, at least, the way it is applied in the adoption community. These same torturous treatments were applied to many of us in the eighties and nineties as well, without the bullshit diagnosis or the aid of medical coverage. I take pleasure in thinking, at least it cost my "parents" an arm and a leg to lock me up like a criminal and drug me into submission.
You're doing it wrong, RAD Parents, as should be attested to by the sheer lack of improvement in the mental health of your children.
It's not RAD you need to be treating. It is AMBIGUOUS GRIEF.
After lurking for over a year in four separate RAD Parent groups, two of which have 5000+ members, I would like to share some of the commonality I have observed amongst RAD Parents.
~First and foremost, Christianity. I would have to guesstimate at least 70% of the parents posting are Christians so ardent it borders on zealotry.
~The Rose colored, love cures all, rainbow adoption expectation.
~The expectation that the child will instantly Bond with whomever he is given to. It's unrealistic and reeks of biological entitlement.
~The expectation of a solid attachment to a complete, often unwanted, stranger. Again, unrealistic biological entitlement. Believe it or not, one has to earn the trust and affection of one deeply wounded, especially when looking to replace the one that hurt them most.
~The belief that, if the child doesn't attach to the parents' satisfaction, there is something fundamentally flawed in the child. Not realizing it is the parenting that's flawed.
~The inability to accept that adoption, not just relinquishment, is trauma.
~Infertility and other pathological needs to parent. Being "called by God to adopt".
~Deep self centered entitlement.
~Common belief that the child is deliberately manipulating their home environment to make them look bad, or to vindictively destroy their peace and happiness.
~Inability to listen to adult adoptees' lived experience without pushing back.
~Chasing desired diagnoses.
~The almost universally held belief that ONLY they get it, ONLY they can understand, and ONLY they can cope with such non-compliant, troublesome children. (Forget the fact that most of them seem to be chasing incarceration.)
You should hear the way they talk about these kids, the things they do. Most of them keep their kitchens and pantries locked up, and punish the children for "stealing food" when they sneak snacks. Children are locked in their rooms at night, punished for wetting or soiling themselves, and deprived of food and basic comforts (bedding, pillows, clothing, sometimes even mattresses) to enforce submission or as punishment for percieved "defiance".
What these RAD Parents fail to realize is this: ALL OF THESE BEHAVIORS CAN BE EXPLAINED BY AMBIGUOUS GRIEF.
Let's talk about Ambiguous Grief for just a moment. It is, in a very simplified nutshell, the idea that trauma(s) inflicted early in life leave a deep mark on the psyche. The victim often has no awareness or understanding of this trauma. The victim lacks the ability to verbally communicate his pain and anger, so he acts out. He pushes. He tests. He doesn't trust. And when you succumb to the push you fail the test and he trusts less.
And many times, if one of these traumatized kids does manage to forge an attachment with someone other than the adopter, it is taken as a deliberate slight to the adopters, and the connection is severed by the adopters.
I swear they must think "their children" spend all their time sitting around thinking of ways to hurt them. When in reality, I believe most of us were just trying to figure out why we were so hurt ourselves. I personally lived in such a shadow that the sunshine seemed dimmed, and happiness seemed like an illusion. Like a unicorn. It's pretty and majestic, but it's not real.
I'll wager a LOT of adoptees have felt/still feel this way.
I believe if we can find a way to help these children through the kind of massive trauma that has broken stronger ADULTS than they, we might find they grow up healthier, if not happier. The RAD diagnosis and treatment has proven detrimental to too many adoptees. It has destroyed children's sense of self and worth, as documented in RAD Parent groups and blogs.
I personally think it's these parents that have Reactive Attachment Disorder. They pathologically react to the child's lack of attachment, feel rejected, and a psychotic bid to enforce a "bond" upon us ensues.
Unfortunately, they lack the required body chemistry (DNA based) to activate the child's biochemical bonding mechanism. It's not the child's fault. It's just the way nature designed the maternal- and fraternal-infant bond.
The only pathology is on the part of the adopters; the blind denial that they are at best a second-rate substitute for a "family" most adoptees will never have.
Until they accept this and address our ambiguous grief instead of punishing us for our pain, nothing will change for adoptees, and you'll keep churning out misfits like me.
Keri Williams, RAD Parent Blogger, @raisingdevon https://fullmetried.com/2018/06/13/reactive-attachment-disorder-rad-the-essential-guide-for-parents
No, it certainly didn't live up to "your dreams", did it? It rarely does. After completely oversharing Devon's story, which is most of what her blog consists of, she continues, "My new book...". Ah, we come to the point. She's written a book, further exploiting the trauma she has helped to inflict on the child, I guess to teach other adopters how to be proper RAD parents. Since it seems it's working out so delightfully for her.
This is just a single example of the hundreds, possibly thousands, of "helpful tidbits for RAD Parents". You may have heard the phrases "Trauma Mama", "parenting in the trenches", "my RAD", et cetera. These are the parents that "get PTSD" from raising an adoptee. The parents who talk about adoptees (down to pre-verbal ages) "willfully manipulating" the family. As in, "The child is misbehaving to punish me/make my life difficult."; "The child is endearing himself to my spouse so my spouse will take his side. "; "The child is manipulating my peers. "; "The child is breaking up my marriage. "; "The child enjoys causing chaos/hurting people in our home"; "The child is trying to drive a wedge between us and our community. ", et cetera. These are all things I've actually read posted in groups. I've heard so many ridiculous claims of the "manipulation and triangulation" of minor adoptees that you'd think we're all little evil geniuses like Stewie Griffith, building Playskool Mom Seeking Missiles in our secret Acme lab behind our bedroom walls.
Adults quite literally attributing their own motives, and adult cognitive decisions, to young people whose cerebral cortex isn't even developed enough to support those trains of thought. Even as teens and early 20-somethings, our pre-frontal cortex, responsible for cognitive reasoning, logic, cause/effect, and right/wrong, is still under construction.
Q: So how does the seven-year-old make the logical cognitive decision (attributed to her by RAD parent) to endear herself to her adopter so he will take her side, and not believe the adoptress when she details the "nasty behavior" the child engages in his absence? "She is deliberately trying to alienate my husband and make me look like a terrible mother to my friends, " writes RAD parent. "She's an angel until we are alone, and then it's like Satan came out to play."
A: Seven isn't making that choice. She is reacting to your parenting and cleaving to what she perceives to be the safest port in the storm.
These RAD parents will drag their troubled adoptee from psych eval to psych eval to get the diagnosis they are looking for: RAD. Reactive Attachment Disorder. The diagnosis, only listed in the DSM-V, that loosely translates to: "This kid is so broken that he cannot properly love his 'parents'. He is abnormal, flawed, and needs to be fixed."
They then embark on a regiment of Connected Parenting (borderline abusive to full blown abuse), pharmaceuticals, invasive, often abusive therapy, and incarceration in group homes. They call it "residential therapy", but let's be real. Anyone who's been in one knows all the doors are locked and all the windows are reinforced shatter-proof glass. It's nothing more than a high-priced prison for traumatized children with drugs in lieu of bars.
RAD is a diagnosis created by the psychological community so that these specific treatments will be covered on insurance. It's not a real condition, not, at least, the way it is applied in the adoption community. These same torturous treatments were applied to many of us in the eighties and nineties as well, without the bullshit diagnosis or the aid of medical coverage. I take pleasure in thinking, at least it cost my "parents" an arm and a leg to lock me up like a criminal and drug me into submission.
You're doing it wrong, RAD Parents, as should be attested to by the sheer lack of improvement in the mental health of your children.
It's not RAD you need to be treating. It is AMBIGUOUS GRIEF.
After lurking for over a year in four separate RAD Parent groups, two of which have 5000+ members, I would like to share some of the commonality I have observed amongst RAD Parents.
~First and foremost, Christianity. I would have to guesstimate at least 70% of the parents posting are Christians so ardent it borders on zealotry.
~The Rose colored, love cures all, rainbow adoption expectation.
~The expectation that the child will instantly Bond with whomever he is given to. It's unrealistic and reeks of biological entitlement.
~The expectation of a solid attachment to a complete, often unwanted, stranger. Again, unrealistic biological entitlement. Believe it or not, one has to earn the trust and affection of one deeply wounded, especially when looking to replace the one that hurt them most.
~The belief that, if the child doesn't attach to the parents' satisfaction, there is something fundamentally flawed in the child. Not realizing it is the parenting that's flawed.
~The inability to accept that adoption, not just relinquishment, is trauma.
~Infertility and other pathological needs to parent. Being "called by God to adopt".
~Deep self centered entitlement.
~Common belief that the child is deliberately manipulating their home environment to make them look bad, or to vindictively destroy their peace and happiness.
~Inability to listen to adult adoptees' lived experience without pushing back.
~Chasing desired diagnoses.
~The almost universally held belief that ONLY they get it, ONLY they can understand, and ONLY they can cope with such non-compliant, troublesome children. (Forget the fact that most of them seem to be chasing incarceration.)
You should hear the way they talk about these kids, the things they do. Most of them keep their kitchens and pantries locked up, and punish the children for "stealing food" when they sneak snacks. Children are locked in their rooms at night, punished for wetting or soiling themselves, and deprived of food and basic comforts (bedding, pillows, clothing, sometimes even mattresses) to enforce submission or as punishment for percieved "defiance".
What these RAD Parents fail to realize is this: ALL OF THESE BEHAVIORS CAN BE EXPLAINED BY AMBIGUOUS GRIEF.
Let's talk about Ambiguous Grief for just a moment. It is, in a very simplified nutshell, the idea that trauma(s) inflicted early in life leave a deep mark on the psyche. The victim often has no awareness or understanding of this trauma. The victim lacks the ability to verbally communicate his pain and anger, so he acts out. He pushes. He tests. He doesn't trust. And when you succumb to the push you fail the test and he trusts less.
And many times, if one of these traumatized kids does manage to forge an attachment with someone other than the adopter, it is taken as a deliberate slight to the adopters, and the connection is severed by the adopters.
I swear they must think "their children" spend all their time sitting around thinking of ways to hurt them. When in reality, I believe most of us were just trying to figure out why we were so hurt ourselves. I personally lived in such a shadow that the sunshine seemed dimmed, and happiness seemed like an illusion. Like a unicorn. It's pretty and majestic, but it's not real.
I'll wager a LOT of adoptees have felt/still feel this way.
I believe if we can find a way to help these children through the kind of massive trauma that has broken stronger ADULTS than they, we might find they grow up healthier, if not happier. The RAD diagnosis and treatment has proven detrimental to too many adoptees. It has destroyed children's sense of self and worth, as documented in RAD Parent groups and blogs.
I personally think it's these parents that have Reactive Attachment Disorder. They pathologically react to the child's lack of attachment, feel rejected, and a psychotic bid to enforce a "bond" upon us ensues.
Unfortunately, they lack the required body chemistry (DNA based) to activate the child's biochemical bonding mechanism. It's not the child's fault. It's just the way nature designed the maternal- and fraternal-infant bond.
The only pathology is on the part of the adopters; the blind denial that they are at best a second-rate substitute for a "family" most adoptees will never have.
Until they accept this and address our ambiguous grief instead of punishing us for our pain, nothing will change for adoptees, and you'll keep churning out misfits like me.
As an Adoptee this just sickens me. When, oh when, will the selling of children to unstable people end?? Anyone who adopts a child should be required to attend therapy, grief counseling and couples therapy before being allowed to purchase a baby.
ReplyDeleteThank you for this blog post. It is brilliant.
ReplyDeleteAmbiguous Grief is helpful. Is this your term? Is there research or articles you know of that would help explore it a bit deeper?
ReplyDeleteOn RAD Parents
Have you come across any that have become anti-adoption? Surely some must have been able to get past blaming the adoptee and discovered adoption itself causes the behaviours in both adoptee and adopters.
Sounds like their blogs should be required visits for all new prospective adopters....
Further thoughts....
ReplyDeleteThe religious driver of adoption seems to be mentioned constantly, no matter the culture/country. You mention Christianity being a theme among RAD A-Parents in the US. I also read your A-mother’s prayer - a cutting juxtaposition of religiosity and carnal selfishness.
It all made me wonder to what degree is the religious stereotype of women as obedient-child-bearing-housewife a factor driving these A-mothers?
The barren wife is a symbol of spiritual failure in Western and most other religions. And this stereotype is also dominant in the wider culture.
I know there are many factors, biological, psychological and social. But this one may raise a flag. Does it require us to also attack the role of patriarchal religious misogyny (male dominated religions dominating women) in adoption.
Men/fathers often seem absent from the adoptee critique.
Psychologically it would also explain part of why these women then blame the adoptee and fail to see the institution of adoption as the problem. They can’t blame adoption itself because that implies blame of the patriarchal model that equates female worth to child bearing and rearing.
This not to say all A-fathers are misogynistic patriarchs manipulating their barren wives into adoption. Nor is it an excuse for harmful behaviour by some A-mothers. What I’m trying to get at are the powerful subconscious social forces that drives adoption and prevents adopters and broader society from being able to hear the needs and voices of adoptees, and indeed turns them into scapegoats.
Adoption is three tragedies and each member needs know how to find to cope. But the adults make decisions the child is the victim. As an Infamous Louise Wise baby from its worst time Three Identical Strangers Michael Juman etc (google it). I know that my my best interests were never at heart. It was all about the money. Pay to Play. M aybe I am crazy or maybe these selfish people just ruined my life. I do believe their are decent adopters who treat their children well but many are just trying to fulfill a personal goal or fantasy without true regard to the child. My birthmother was from a wealthy family she could have found courage. She chose to give me up and take a trip to Europe for six months as a consolascence prize. Her life was way more important than mine. I should say she told my
ReplyDeletebirthfather she had an abortion so when I finally found him at 38 he didn't want to know me because he didn't know I was alive. I'M Sorry I am Pro abortion. I Had a really crappy life I met my birthmother and she said quote I was afraid of that. Adoptees make up the highest categories of everything bad. Serial KIllers, Incarcerated, Mental Institution Suicides. The worst part is know one cares. The American Psychiatriac association won't even except the phrase adopted child syndrome despite all the books. And I was a patient of Doctor David Kirschner. I've managed to survive this far but I am getting tired. I am a sweet person always have been. A birdwatcher and naturalist. I wouldn't step on an ant. But I am 53 and I am exhausted by this. I have never been in trouble but my fear of rejection seems to increase annually and incrementally. I have lobbied wrote letters estranged myself for my horrible adopters but fact is fact I have no parents no relatives no kids no partner nothing that makes life worthwhile. I write this to make more people advocate. USA is the only civilized (sic) country in the world that give adoptees no rights. I know health care etc etc If I had my info at 18 instead of 38 who knows. I have had enough
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