A fellow blogger, whom I only know through her posts, has several adopted children from Asia. Her family of 9 would overwhelm me in a heartbeat and I admire her faith and her tenacity in raising her children with the love God and to flower as He intended. She wrote on her blog recently about how hard it is. I felt for her, and I felt the same way - it is SO hard at times. It is SO rewarding at others. Sometimes it's hard to know which is which. And thus, I realized that I need to write this to our friends and family who are reading this.
As every other adoptive family I know, we want to present our kids in public in the best possible light. It has been difficult to write about the daily struggle with behavior problems, learning disabilities, emotional difficulties and growing pains. I literally stopped writing about Joy's life with us because I did not want to share too much about her struggles to those who know her. I did not want to influence their opinion of her.
But I have come to realize that explanations are better than just being silent about what is going on.
First of all, Joy is a blessing. She is a wonderful sweet girl who is smart, loving and helpful. The problem is that she cannot access that part of her much. Her anxiety overwhelms her system and she becomes loud, crazy, uses inappropriate words and behavior, and can be pretty mean with her words. Her fears are many - being stolen, something happening to me or Tim, being left behind, not being safe somehow - but they all stem from not feeling loved earlier in her life.
When I contrast her history with James', it seems obvious. He was loved and cared for by one family for 6 years. She was not. Her foster family clearly loved her and doted on her. But somehow in the transition from them to the orphanage, she felt abandoned in a way that wasn't explained to her. Then another American family pulled out of adopting her during the court process. She had already Skyped with them and was all ready to be with them Forever.
Only, that Forever never happened.
I can only imagine what her little heart must have thought when they presented her with us, her New Forever Family. Yeah, right! Forever, shmore-ever. We'll see about that....
So there are days when it feels like she is testing us to see just how bad she can be before we send her back to Chung Yi. How bad can she be before we pull out and say, oops, nope, we're not The Forever Family either?
Knowing that in my mind, and even in my heart, does only minimally make it easier to handle those days though.
There are times, like the other night, when her fear of not being loved, so over-takes her reasoning ability that she says one thing ("I don't want to take my Sleepy Time tonight!") and then immediately screams the opposite thing - back and forth - because her emotions have completely overwhelmed her. She was screaming while getting in bed, while trying to hit me, trying to spit at Tim until I was able to pick her up and take her somewhere else. We sat on the stairs with her flailing and wailing while I said, "Hold tight onto me" and we prayed. That was what finally calmed her down. Reason doesn't work. Saying loving things doesn't get through. Prayer was the only thing that worked.
Perhaps that is why she is in our family. Maybe that is what God had in mind.
That night was the culmination of a 2 day anxiety attack, for lack of a better term. Today, we are doing much better. It's like she builds up to this cliff and has to throw herself over before she can come back to normal.
That's what's on one hand. On the other hand, there is a little boy who desperately wants my complete attention. He walks around the house saying, "Watching!". It isn't a request - it is a command. He is silly all the time, or would be if I let him. He is learning constantly and his English is really amazing and would be even more so if he were the only child here. He wants to cuddle and only gets half of my lap, as Joy has to take over the other half. He gets angry so easily and I want to spend time helping him learn how to see the signals that he's getting mad and learn to diffuse it, but Joy is too jealous of my attention right now. I worry that I'm not doing for him what he needs.
One thing my blogger friend said that really resonated is the worrying - there are so many medical and emotional components to these children that we will never know what caused. We are just trying to put the pieces of their hearts back together, trying to figure out how to teach them what they need to know right now at this moment, or trying to figure out what is causing the emotional upset that is threatening to take over our home. All while trying to have a "normal" life.
Add to that a set of older children to worry about and it does make for some sleepless nights! (And yes, you older children, we do worry about you even if you don't need us to!)
I've been working with vitamin supplements and probiotics the last 2 weeks and I have seen some amazing improvements! This is based on Dianne Craft's work with children with learning disabilities. If you have ANY sort of behavior issue or ANY blocked learning gateway, please look up her work! I can't say enough about how thoughtful her observations are and how much just reading her work has helped me.
We are supplementing their diet with probiotics, grapeseed, magnesium, B complex and zinc. The "magic" one is 5-htp though! Amazing how it will even Joy out so that she can calm down and really just be herself - happy, helpful, loving, observant, calming. I'm just in awe!
So there is much more to this saga and tomorrow will not be like today. That keeps me at it sometimes. That and knowing that I'm not the one who has to handle it. It has already been handled for me.
More later -
Margaret
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