silent all these years

no voice. they have none at all. a five year old says her daddy washes inside her tooty with his bare hands. they warn him of his "boundaries" and go on with their day. what have we told her? this same girl at ten finds out her mother is pregnant. she writes a letter to the state, and the judge and anyone who will listen. "don't let her take a baby home for one night" she pleads. she begs. she speaks of the worry she will have in her heart "24/7" knowing that the child will not have siblings to protect him/her. knowing that s/he will endure the damage she and her siblings have already endured, and are still battling with. Nobody reads it. or if they do, they write it off as the rantings of a pre-adolescent.

Her four year old brother, my son, disclosed that his mom "touched his privates". He discloses this the week that she is taking home his little half-brother from the hospital. He tells the truth, and is not taken seriously. oh, no, huh huh...how could a mother have done that? he was just a baby. only two when he left the house. surely he's mistaken. WHAT ARE WE SAYING TO HIM? He faces the monsters, the ghosts, the horrible secrets from his past, and he is paying for it. He's woken up three nights in a row now, scared. They say he's just reacting to having to say goodby to my deploying husband. I don't think so. I think that a little boy who finally tells the truth is terrified that it will come back to bite him. I think he is smart enough to know that nobody believes him. but I do.

And I'm not with him to tell him how proud I am of him, or to hold him at night when he's scared, because he's been so scared by those monsters that he's rejected family. And so he sits in a residential treatment center scared and man and full of a "fireball" that he can't put water on. In fact, that's what he was doing. His therapist said that if he wanted to get rid of the fireball, he needed to tell about how it got there, and it would be like pouring water on it. only he was squirmy and "different" when he finished telling of his parents beating animals and stabbing each other and screaming at and pinching him. He seemed "less genuine" when he got to the part where he told of his mom touching his privates. OF COURSE HE WAS. HE WAS TERRIFIED!!!

And I have been so worried about peace keeping and not stepping on toes, or over boundaries, that I have not used the voice I have. I have not used the voice that even he has been brave enough to use. problem is his is small. his is small and comes from the mind of a very confused and damaged little boy. i am not confused. I am clear as ever. I will write whomever I have to, whoever I can. I will not scream so that I may not be written off as irrational, or "talked off the ledge". I will speak loudly and clearly and slowly. I will spell it out. Think hard big people. What message have we given them? What have you told these children? you tell them to tell. to speak the truth and be brave and that you will fix it. then you slap abusers on the wrist and calm the foster parents down and let years and more babies go by. I will not stand back and watch this little boy be ignored. he will be heard. and he will speak on behalf of his new brother he doesn't even know about. and he will speak with his sisters who have been ignored for far too long. I don't know where to start. I only know I have to. I am constantly being reminded that it's all out of our control, that it's up to God. THat may be true, but I am not nothing. I have been given a voice, and I will use it. God bestowed this little life upon us, and I will not take it lightly. He deserves more than that. his sisters deserve more than that. his two day old brother going home with a borderline personalitied unhealed woman who was once that voiceless little girl, deserves more than that. I wish someone would have done it for her 30 years ago. I think she deserved it too.

lost

I don't know why I want to include this, except that I can't get it out of my head. When I first heard it, I could only weep for my daughter Emma. I wondered if perhaps the artist (Emmylou Harris) had herself lost a baby. the more I listen to it, the more I wonder if it is a different kind of lost. a Tieran kind of lost. either way, it is more than a song, it seems to me a prayer. And I pray it today for all the Emmas and Tieran's, some lost and found, and some still wandering. I pray for the mothers who lost and the mothers who are chasing, or waiting, or weeping. God bless people who can write lyrics like this, they are sometimes my only window to sanity. It brings me sanity today because I know the Shepherd will do the job that earthly parents cannot always muster.

MY BABY NEEDS A SHEPHERD, by Emmylou Harris, album Red Dirt Girl

My baby needs a shepherd, She's lost out on the hill
Too late I tried to call her when the night was cold and still
And I tell myself I'll find her but I know I never will
My baby needs a shepherd, she's lost out on the hill

My baby needs an angel, She never learned to fly
She'll not reach sanctuary just by looking to the sky
I guess I could have carried her But I didn't even try
My baby needs an angel She never learned to fly

Oh I ran so far through a broken land
I was following that drummer Beating in a different band
And somewhere on the highway I let go of her hand
Now she´s gone forever Like her footprints in the sand

Toora loora, loora lo
First the seed and then the rose
Toora loora, loora li My kingdom for a lullaby

My baby needs a pilot She has no magic wand
To help her part the troubled waters of the Rubicon
But in my soul I know she'll have to go this one alone
After all that is the only way she's ever known

But there is no lamp in all this dark
That could chase away her shadow From the corners of my heart
I pray she'll ride a dolphin But she's swimming with the shark
Out where none can save her not even Noah and his ark

Toora loora, loora lo To the cradle comes the crow
Toora loora, loora li My kingdom for a lullaby

My baby needs a mother To love her till the end
Up every rugged mountain And down every road that bends
Sometimes I hear her cryin' But I guess it´s just the wind
My baby needs a mother To love her till the end

justice

isn't it ironic. friday my son's birthmother gave birth to another boy. justice is his name. how perfect. perfectly maddening and sickening. a baby with that name born to a world that will not show him any.
I wish I had something powerful to say. to believe in. to feel.
I feel nothing. it is just too much

reaching

I haven't been able to form a thought, let alone in words, since my last post. But I've been thinking a lot about long reaches lately. Tieran's been at his new temporary home for three months now. Three months since I left him there, both of us in a fog. That day where he showed true fear is long gone. His survival mode is back, and his defiance even stronger. I can't help but wonder how far the pain of his past will reach into his future.
I realize now that it was really not me. That I wasn't in some way instigating the problems. I watch him there, engaging in and carrying on the same battles that he had with me. In fact, now I am the reprieve from that battle. If someone fills the caretakes position, they will get the battle. You tell him to brush his teeth more than once or twice, and he assumes the position. The position of "oh no I won't!" The position of please God, dont' let there be some unsafe unstable unpredictable big person in charge of me... I imagine it will truly be a very long time before he is able to trust that not every big person is like his first mother.
He turns five this month. Which means he will have been out of his terrifying home as long as he was in it. It took only 2.5 years to create this damage. I have always scoffed at the stats that talk about how many years it takes to undo damage... I don't scoff so much anymore. I realize that the days don't counterbalance the way I thought they would. Sure, he's been out of that environment for 2.5 years now. But how many of those days have been healing? How many of those days has he set down the model he learned there? not many.
But it is for those days that I pray. for those days that I long for and watch for and wait for. Those days that will eventually add up to enough that they may tip the scales. He had three days a couple weeks ago. Three in a row that he actually enjoyed himself, made himself available for fun activities and didn't waste all his time fighting those who are trying to help him. He's probably had a handful or two of them in the last 2.5 years. I hope that they become more frequent, and last longer. I hope that the rewiring of his internal model will have as long a reach as his primal wounds have had. I hope that our days of soccer and coloring and dance parties will start to become as much wired in him as the days of stabbings or hunger or screaming.

the big move

He is gone, I’m sure. I’m really convinced that he might be someplace too hard to come back from. His eyes are empty, and look only straight ahead. They are looking right through whatever is right in front of him. I lean down and embrace him. I crouch and pull him on my knee. I repeat what the new teacher has just repeated twice herself. He stares through her forehead. I whisper, hoping a change in voice might help him to hear. “I bet you’ll be able to remember your new teacher’s name! It’s the same as mine” I say. He says nothing.

His thumb is rubbing back and forth back and forth in the middle of my hand. It is starting to get harder, it actually kind of hurts. I repeat my quiet whispers with a little tickle on his chin. I go further, “Tieran, what’s my name?” trying to help him understand this new woman has the same name. He continues the piercing gaze through her to the kids in the background, and says, “Heather.” My heart sinks. He never calls his biological mom by name. Usually, she is mommy, and I am mom. Or she is mommy heather. Honestly, she is not a common topic. But never just heather. And I have certainly never been called that. I say, “What?” and he repeats it, his voice like some strange cartoon character. It reminds me of that crazy monotone mouse (is it a mouse?) who wants to take over the world. It is totally devoid of emotion. It’s like he’s a robot. He continues to rub his little thumb back and forth. I say nothing of the mix-up, and just hug him tighter. I give him a second, and then say, “tieran, this is Sarah, your new teacher.”

The therapist has been trying to get me to leave tieran for a bit now, encouraging me to help him “integrate” into the new place quickly and painlessly. Painless for whom I wonder?

I eventually leave him in his catatonic state and go to the intake for the new residential treatment center. It was ridiculous. They grilled me on paperwork that I didn’t bring because they were supposed to get it from their evaluation center, where we already did this whole spiel a month ago. All the while they are asking me about which medications he took and when he started and stopped them, all I can think is, “is he gonna come back?” I am honestly more comfortable with my little tornado of a boy than this emotionless-monotone-frightened-to-the-point-of-frozen one. I am scared that this is the last straw. That he is now believing that internal working model of “if I’m bad enough, I just get kicked out…” I am desperate to go find him. Hours later, when I am released from the pointless and painful intake, I find him in the “castle” that he now lives in. He is already bouncing all over and having a hard time following directions. I help him unpack a few things and make his new bed. There is a jungle theme in his room. A cute mural that makes me devastated over the beautiful little room we prepared for him so long ago. The room that has been emptied out of everything but a mattress because of his destructiveness.

I am envious of this place. They have so many more people. So many folks to back them up, to tag out while “out-waiting” him, which is the basic prescription for attachment disorder. Give him the choice, and then wait him out. The problem I have is that they are good at their jobs, but their jobs aren’t enough. Their job doesn’t include tucking him in and hugging him several hundred times a day even when he doesn’t act like he wants it. The night before, he and I had one incredible hour together. This might sound ridiculous, but it has been ages since we’ve had an hour like that. He was scared to move. Scared that the reality of his past, his pain, his choices are actually meaning something. That we might mean it when we say that he has to start trying to do better. I think he realized it wasn’t up to us anymore. That it wasn’t just about controlling us, but that now others were determining his progress or lack thereof. That he is, in some ways, losing the battle for control. He was scared. He let me mother him. It had been so long.

He didn’t do it the way most four years old would. He said he didn’t need hugs, and then proceeded to spend the hour saying, “if I did such and such, would you have to give me hugs then?” and I said yup, I think so. So we went through, oh goodness, if you scratched your nose right now, I’m afraid I would have to give you three hugs and twelve kisses, and he would scowl. Then wait for me to turn my head slightly, and scratch his nose. I slathered him with as much love as I could muster, which is so much more than I ever though possible. All I can pray is that is enough to hold him. To hold him through the fear that looks like hyperactivity. To hold him through the misbehavior and aggression and lying and the big fight he feels he has to fight. Until the next time I can scoop him up and whisper in his ear that he is special and he is loved. I sort of experienced secondary catatonia after leaving him. He was back to talking and looking and taking it all in. but I am just as afraid all the time, as he was in those moments when his little body just checked out. What if this love isn’t enough to bring him back?

people like us

"I am humbled in this city. There seems to be an endless sea of people like us~Wakeful dreamers, I pass them on the sunlit streets. In our rooms filled with laughter We make hope from every small disaster" The Weepies

I haven't written for ages. I have hardly talked with my loved ones. I started to think there was no point in writing. Even talking. What is there to say? How can I express anything without feeling like it will be underestimated, misunderstood. It is so hard to feel like all you ever do is talk about huge heavy things, knowing others want to chat about the weather. And I heard this song the other night and found myself in this bizzare mixture of laughter and tears. I am humbled. There are so many like us. Wakeful dreamers. And I come back to the computer, and I think that even if some are in the middle of stretches of quiet, or even respite, while some are in the trenches, this is how it must be. What would it be like if we were all in one place or the other at the same time? And Lord knows I had a nice long stretch of quiet living. So my trench time happened to come quickly and hard and really rather lined up in a row. It just means I have to force myself to learn when to talk about the weather, and when to let loose and get to the nitty gritty, based on neccessity, not on whether or not the recepient is in the same boat. And so.... I release.

alone

I walked out the door yesterday and waltzed straight into Narnia. Complete with last year's fawn nibbling ivy in the snow just off my front porch. It wasn't until later that I thought perhaps I had seen Tieran. I saw him everywhere, actually. First in the stubborn little fawn that has been eating alone in my yard for the past three days-well into dark snowy nights- and soon after in a baby duck.

I pulled over at the little bench by the lake in our neighborhood to sip something warm and see if the lake was freezing. I was first laughing, and then fretting over a little duckling either too sick or stubborn or silly to join his family. (I say "his," though I suppose it could have been a girl. Since it was a Tieran-duck, though, we'll say "he." )Anyway, here is this tiny adorable little guy, in the middle of this rather big lake, just flailing around. I have seen many a duck fight and play and be silly there, so I was laughing at first. Then I noticed Mama duck. She was not laughing. She was sternly calling him from the bank. His siblings were quietly tucked away behind her, and throwing out an ocassional squawk. Pretty soon, both mama and baby were hysterical, I'm not kidding. She's waddling back and forth on the bank, and he's just splashing in circles. I'm thinking, is this too early for baby ducks? is it freezing? (my biology's not that great!)

Then I'm really concerned. I'm trying to see if he's hurt, if he's stuck on something, or if maybe she's in some kind of trouble. This goes on for a few moments, and she goes in. The obedient siblings hold their ground as mama goes off for the stray duckling. I can't tell what goes on when she gets there, due to the splashing. Eventually, she heads back to the bank, and he is quieter now. Still he stays in the middle of the lake. I have never seen an attachment-disordered duck, and maybe he was just messin around, but I'll tell you what, that mama was working hard. It was probably only a minute or two, and her persistence paid off. Little-wild-one worked his way back to the shore where they all settled into the grass quietly.

Sometime in between the morning fawn and the evening duckling, I met an interesting young girl out front our local library. She was sitting on the curb in the falling snow slathered in black, with no coat. I was bundled and prepared for igloo-life, and jokingly asked her where her hat/gloves/scarf/mittens and coat were. She just laughed and shrugged. I went to the door and dropped off my books, as the library was closed for the day due to weather. As I walked back, I asked her if she had a ride coming. She looked down at her feet. I couldn't help but stop, and ask again. She says, "sort of," and I take a seat next to her. She goes on to tell me that she had her mom drop her off at the library with the intention of walking to the bus stop and secretly meeting with an unaproved-of boyfriend. Alas, she realized there were no buses, boyfriends or libraries to speak of today. So she was waiting the 2.5 hours for her mom to pick her up, in front of a closed library in a dark snowy parking lot with a sort of embarrased stoicism, and no coat. I said I remembered the days of thinking mom-doesn't-know much, and told her some day she would reconsider. I asked her jokingly if that was why she didn't have a coat on either, and her eyes flashed with surprise. "you can tell that by looking?" she cried!

I was a stubborn child. Ask my mother. I'm sure there were times I left my coat home to prove a point. Or wandered off in the dark when it was too cold or too late. I guarentee you there were times I went someplace different than I said I was going, or met someone I wasn't supposed to. I maybe even splashed around like a lunatic while my mom squawked from the shore, but I cannot for the life of me figure out how this little 4 year old boy is in a strange place.... a month now... and not needing me.

Not only not needing me, but raging at the thought of me. He has hung up, or forced us to hang up on him nearly every night since Dec 12 when we left him there. He does not ask for us. He does not cry for us. He has no security blanket, no special animal. He does not read the runaway bunny or mama do you love me books I painstakingly copied into his scrapbook for him. He does not look through the pictures of our family and reminisce or wish for those better times. He does not need the lullabyes I sang and recorded to a c.d. for him. He did not cry for his first or second mommies, so I guess I shouldn't be so surprised. He learned not to cry. He learned to kick and hit and spit and threaten instead. Which is about all he does now.

Though I should be glad for the break, it is mostly just wrecking me. When he yells that he hates me, I can't reach through the phone and scoop him up. I can't say, "oh hun, I'm sorry to hear you say that, cause I sure do love you!" I can't swim out and stop the flailing. I can splash out into the middle of that icy lake, but he won't follow me to safety. I can come to the other side of the fence and scold him for staying too late and too close to danger in the neighbor's snowy ivy-covered lawn, but he will just stay there for spite. I've less mother-power than the doe and the duck, I can't mother him. He won't let me. And I've no idea what else to do.

Riding

Tieran's third birthday. His first trip home with us. I remember how surprised I was at how willingly he came. We had just shown up a few days before, ready to spend a few days getting to know him... Not intending to necessarily bring him home. But it was going so well, and he was so incredibly loving and open and it just seemed so right. Ah, if only we knew that it was a telltale sign of attachment disorder that he would jump in the car and go home with a cousin he met a few times and her husband he had known for three days. I look at that picture, and it hits me in so many ways. There is all his stuff in the backseat (the trunk filled with things Jo said, "he just had to have!") that he literally never sees or plays with. Our car ride then filled with silly songs and veggie tales, rhyming and stories, and now filled with cursing and my windows being bashed or spit on. The toys have long since been bagged up after being thrown at my head while driving.

Have we destroyed him? Ruined that precious little boy who seemed so trusting? I sure hope not. No matter what happens in life, RAD is formed in the first 2-2.5 yrs of life... which we are definitely not responsible for, but is hard to remember when I look at that picture. The literature says that both RAD and bipolar progress (why is that called progression?!?!) with time, which is both comforting (assuming it means they are raising their ugly heads more with time, not because of us) and horrifying (are they to get worse?!?). I think of birthdays to come. Will he be in residential somewhere? Will he ever be able to accept gifts without feeling undeserving and destroying them? Will we get in the car like that again, with songs and giggles and the feeling of being a family?

We just finished up a holiday unlike any we've had before. Last year this time, we were beginning to see the face of the pain that he was quietly carrying before. But we faked it, believing in the 'fake it till you make it' mantra. We helped him to have fun and enjoy family, and bore the tantruming with a "what else can you expect from a little guy with so many transitions?" feeling. This year is a different one for sure. Our little angel spent most of the holiday weekend in isolation. We have paid for the extended-fam time for so long, and are tired of taking turns attending things while the other stays home with little man. So we all went, but he was not really allowed to participate with the rest of the fam. Nobody else read stories to him, took him for walks or sang him songs. As badly as they all want to, and as badly as he wanted them to, we could not allow it. Nazis you say? Probably sounds like it. But oh the decisions... Do you let him meet his love/affection quota with the insignificant (meaning not parents) folks so he can come home and refuse it even more? Do you appeal to everyone else's need for things to seem okay? Do you grin and bear it when he hugs onto to an auntie who has just said, "oh but isn't he well behaved and trying soooo hard!" and glares and growls over her shoulder? I can't. I know too much now about what it does to him. But man what it does to us all.

I look at that picture, and I think of what we didn't know, and what we still don't know, and I shudder. Then I take a breath and think of what I saw in him that I haven't seen for so long. And I remember that he is still in there. That even when he is fake, he is showing something about what he wants to be like, even if he is far from it. He doesn't have much energy left to fake it these days, but at least we know what we're up against. We keep telling him, we're all on the same team. Dad, Mom, and Tieran against the mad/hurt/pain. We're grateful to our families for trying desperately to understand, for trusting us, and for being on our team, at least on the sidelines.

It is a countdown now, two weeks, until we all pile into that car and drive down south. This time to drop him off somewhere, and pray for healing. For training and for teaching and for understanding. Mostly, for miracles. It will be a very different drive than that first one. Probably no giggling and veggie tales, but definitely similar anxieties and dreams and prayers. I wish I could show him that picture and he could see our hearts, what we wanted to be able to give him, what we wanted to bring him home to. Maybe after his time at the SAFE ctr, it will be an entirely different drive... With smiles like the first one, but more knowing.