Have You Tried This?

 It’s an interesting phenomenon, to have a child so deeply loved by your community and to be treated so abhorrently by that same child.

My daughter was desperately prayed for. Desperately wanted. So many people in my family, and church, and community donated their time and prayers and money to make her adoption a reality. 

And I am locked in a manipulative and abusive relationship with her. 

Don’t get me wrong, she’s a traumatized little girl stuck in the body of an adult, with the coping skills of a toddler, and reasoning of a small child. 

She’s had the whole deck stacked against her for the majority of her life. So, I don’t take it personally. And I certainly don’t think it’s the same as another adult being abusive, let alone a spouse. 

She is still just a child, my child, and her abuse is seen through that lens. 

But she thrives on creating abusive chaos in our home. And those wounds can cut deep even when not taken personally.

She’s been in counseling since the second week she came home, over 4 years ago. 5 different counselors/therapists. Programs, trauma therapies, partial hospitalization, acute hospitalization, numerous police interventions and an unfathomable amount of phone calls and visits from family and friends who tried to calm her down and help her to stop. 

I’ve read books, listened to podcasts, been in therapy, accepted every single word of criticism of my own parenting, and tried every single technique I’ve ever read, heard about, or was suggested to me. 

And it has failed over and over and over again. 

“Have you tried this…” had become so commonplace in my life that my body physically reacts to it. 

Because I’ve been so desperate for so long that I feel like I’ve literally tried everything. And my heart aches at the knowledge that so much rests on my inability to calm and appease my child out of abuse and into complacency. 

So much suffering has existed in our home hidden in the dark recesses of fear and shame. 

I don’t want anyone to regret that Laura’s life is here. 

I don’t want anyone to question my choices in bringing a traumatized child into my world. 

I don’t want anyone to judge her or dislike her. 

I just want her safe and loved and healthy. 

For so long those things kept her story so quiet. Until she started using that silence itself as a weapon against me. 

The truth is that my daughter would never, ever, act abusive in front of anyone else. She’s in complete control of her behaviors, to the degree that she will literally stop mid scream if another adult walks in (it’s happened on many occasions). 

Last week I was locked in my bathroom away from her after she yelled at me for so long that I had to leave so she would stop (a frequent occurrence). 

She screamed through the door, banging against it aggressively, until a counselor showed up at our door to stop her. She went and opened the door herself and asked him how he was.

A perfectly pleasant interaction that makes me feel insane. 

Is she really treating me this horribly or am I exaggerating it? 

What am I possibly doing that I could stop so she will finally be kind to me like she is with everyone else?

How can I change anything and everything about myself so that the visceral hatred my daughter shows me every single day can finally stop?

But the hard, ugly truth is, it will not stop. 

My daughter has Reactive Attachment Disorder, and that doesn’t just go away. 

Her entire body and nervous system has been trained to viscerally eliminate any threat of attachment in her life. 

I am her mother. 

I am the epitome of attachment in her life.

And unfortunately, she absolutely does not want to change right now. 

So she is not going to change right now.

And that is a fact that haunts me every moment of every day.

Because it makes me have to make incredibly hard choices for her. Choices that will give her the best chance of the healthiest life that she can possibly have.

Bear in mind that Laura’s Reactive Attachment Disorder is not a choice in any capacity. It was something brought about by trauma and abuse and neglect. At one point, in her mind, it saved her life.

Bear also in mind, Laura’s treatment of me is a choice.

She could choose to try to change.

She could choose to use any of the coping skills that have been drilled into her brain for the last four years.

She could choose to believe that change is worthwhile. 

She could choose to try in any of those capacities. 

She chooses to not do any of those things. 

She’s repeatedly stated that she does not want to change. That she does not see her treatment of me as damaging or “bad” even though she understands that everybody else does.

She wholeheartedly believes that since she can keep her behaviors contained just towards me, she does not need to change.

I walk on eggshells every single day. Everything I say to her, no matter how small can be taken so aggressively wrong that I might end up locked in my bedroom while she screams for hours and tries to break down the door.

I say no when friends and family ask me to hang out because I’m not sure what I’m gonna do with my daughter. Because I’ve had to cancel plans at the last minute so many times that saying no it’s just easier. 

All of that puts me in a seemingly impossible position of having to love her well, while being also being mistreated so much. 

A position in which I must constantly weigh the choices laid before me. 

What gives her the best chance at a healthy life?

What could possibly make her hate me less?

What might make her finally listen?

What will take away the unbearable weight of attachment that threatens her mind but also not leave her abandoned and alone?

What will save her?

There is no easy answer or simple solution. No perfect scenario in which I can retrain her brain into being healthy without her active choice. 

There is only a few broken paths that I am able to choose from. 

Because I am her mother I am the one who chooses. 

So, be gentle to the parents of Reactive Attachment Disorder.

Love their children without judgment or disdain. 

And support them as they hold their children accountable for unbelievable actions.

And maybe instead of asking them “have you tried this?” just ask them how they’re doing. Not just how their kid is because, honestly, they probably have 100 people focusing on their kid (therapists, counselors, police, doctors, psychiatrists, program managers). 

A dear friend of mine stopped me in the hallway last month and asked me how *I* was. And I cried. 

She told me that she was proud of me because in her world of abandoned children she has seen “people give away their children for far less”.

I didn’t just adopt Laura because I thought I would finally get to be the mother that I always dreamed of being. 

I adopted Laura because I knew I could change her life.

And because I believe that God is still in the business of changing lives.

Even now.

Even. In. This.