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.