If I Can Remember That...

Every time I turn around you are there. If I leave a room you find me. If you are forced to go up to bed without me you scream my name as you are carried away. There are days that I think you are over this fear, days that I believe that you finally understand that I will always be here for you. There are days that I can actually walk to the bathroom, go inside, close the door, and enjoy a few minutes of privacy without you trying to break in. I can hear you out there, you know. I hear you asking "Where is Mommy?" and then I hear you walking towards the closed bathroom door. Your footsteps unmistakable, I double check that the door is locked and then call out to you. "I'm right here, baby. Give me a few minutes. I'll be right out." You don't give me a few minutes. You turn the knob, testing it. You stick your fingers under the door. You talk to me as though I am not in the bathroom, as though you have no concept of privacy.

There are days that I can now be in the kitchen while you are in the family room. You wander in every so often, ask for a hug, get a drink, and wander back out. I watch you still, you know, even when you are in the next room. I value my time alone, but I watch you nonetheless, your past behavior having instilled in me a type of hyper vigilance of my own. I always need to know what you are doing, where you are. So in a way, I get it.

Sometimes I can get too comfortable with you. Sometimes I think you are "over it". That maybe, just maybe, we have accomplished something here, you and I, and you have finally learned to trust.

The other night you and I were alone. Your dad had collected your older brother from the tree out front and took him off to run errands, leaving you and I alone. I pulled out the fruit for the frozen fruit salad you wanted to make, and gave you a big bowl. You were so calm and thoughtful. You poured the cans of fruit into the bowl, adding the frozen strawberries that you and your brother had picked earlier in the summer. You chopped bananas with your kid knife and mixed everything perfectly. You gathered the plastic containers and carefully spooned the fruit mixture into each bowl, snapping the lids on proudly. You were calm, thoughtful, and 100% focused.

As you stood on your little stool at the counter I moved around behind you, cleaning up the kitchen. We chatted about the day we picked the strawberries. We talked about how long it might take for the fruit salad to freeze. I moved from the kitchen to the laundry room, putting towels in the washer and hanging up a stray set of car keys I had found on the kitchen counter. I was gone maybe 20 seconds. As I turned around I nearly tripped over you. You stood in the hallway, your hands sticky, still holding the spoon you were using to fill the bowls. "Where are you going?", you ask me. "'I'm not going anywhere.", I respond. "I heard the keys.", you say. I explain that I was just hanging them up. You look up at them, eying them suspiciously. "You and I are home alone, kiddo. I can't go anywhere without you!", I remind you.

You stand there, in the hallway, sticky fingers and dripping spoon, until I finish what I am doing and move back into the kitchen. For the next hour, until your daddy comes home, you stick right by my side. And then, at bedtime, I decide not to leave the house, and you scream my name as Daddy carries you up the stairs. My heart breaks, again.

Here I was, starting to relax. Here I was, thinking that you were having a great night. Calm, thoughtful, focused. You were having fun, cooking and spending one on one time with Mommy. But there it was. Your hyper vigilance. There it was, just hanging out there right under the surface, where it must always be. The moments of calm trick me into thinking that you have finally caught on, that you truly understand that we are a family. And maybe you do, but you are still that same scared little boy I held close to my heart in that hot orphanage, day after day.

A few days later I mentioned your hyper vigilant key moment to my husband. "That is so sad.", he said. And it is, sad. But it is also a good reminder to me. A reminder that you are not yet there, not yet ready to be pulled away from me. You get on the school bus happily each morning, following your older brother up the steps and sitting in your assigned seat. But then, on most days, you cause havoc in your kindergarten room. You settle down and go to bed easily if I am not in the house, but if you know I am home you scream and carry on as though you may never see me again. What are you thinking? What goes through your mind when you act out in school? What are you thinking when you are being carried off to bed? I cannot fill you up, despite how much time I give you. I give you all I can, giving until I feel depleted. You are literally stalking me, and there are days that I just want to hide from you. There are days that I actually do hide from you. (shhhh...) But when that happens, I simply need to remember that day in the laundry room, with the keys. I need to remember that look in your eyes when you thought I was leaving the house. I need to remember how you can go from calm and focused to scared in a heart beat. I need to remember that you have two years of hyper vigilance practice on me. I have only been doing this dance with you for three years. You have been doing it your entire life.  I need to remember that even a simple activity like cooking together in the kitchen can end in a reminder of your abandonment fears. If I remember that, then I can get up tomorrow, early early, when you wake me up at the crack of dawn, and I can hug you tight. If I remember that I can take a deep breath the next time you rattle the locked bathroom door, your questions continuing even though I am not even in front of you any longer. If I remember that I can smile as I talk to your principal on the phone, listening to notes from your school day. If I remember that I can take each moment as it comes, which, it seems, is what you do. If I remember that, I can stop and love you where you are. Wherever you are, every day.

Sharp Sticks at the Breakfast Table

School has started! Oh my goodness, people, can I tell you how excited I am that this summer.is.finally.over. OVER! I know, I know, we had a great time these past three months. We managed to complete nearly every activity on our Summer Bucket List. Swimming, family roadtrip to the beach, biking, hiking, ice cream, fire flies- oh yes, we did it all. My boys went to a NASCAR race and to museums. We definitely made the most of our summer. (Planning, people! It is all about the planning! Stay tuned, our Fall Bucket List is coming soon!)

But in between the ice cream and the swimming were a lot of moments of chaos. Normal, for us. Raising kids can be chaotic for every family. And I swear that raising boys is just louder and dirtier. So raising two boys, one of who is a little RADish, is all chaos, all the time. You get used to it.

But now, at least until the school starts calling with concerns over the RADish, now is MY time. I get my quiet house back. My peaceful work day. My ability to think and to use the bathroom on my own. Heaven, people. Seriously, this is how low I have sunk. I think being able to walk to the bathroom without having to sneak and not having my heart stopped five times a day by a five year old running at my office door in an attempt to break in is heaven. H-E-A-V-E-N.

So today was the first day of school. By the end of last school year my oldest son had regressed to eating sugary cereal and cheese and crackers every morning for breakfast. Getting protein into this kid is not easy. This year, I have planned. I prepared ahead of time. I have searched and searched for interesting, healthy, protein packed breakfasts. I know I won't be able to stave off the Lucky Charms forever, but one day at a time, right?

Today we ate our breakfasts off skewers. That's right, sharp sticks at the breakfast table. Tomorrow? Maybe fire...



This morning's skewers held together strawberries, grapes, waffles, and scrambled eggs. I cooked the eggs in mini muffin tins, in the oven at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. They pop out as cute little scrambled egg muffins, which are super easy to pop on a skewer. Add a little ketchup and syrup for dipping and a great breakfast was had by all!

What did you have for breakfast on your first day back to school?

breakfast success!

 

 

The Extended Family Vacation- part one

This post is the first in a short series on taking our little RADish on an extended family vacation. A two day road trip, a large house full of kids, a dangerous ocean.... what could go wrong?



Next month we are heading to the beach. Me and the boys will be loading up the car and starting out on the longest car trip we have attempted since our youngest joined our family. Both boys have been campaigning heavily to fly, and they might be on to something. But we are going to drive it. A real family vacation, a road trip.

And when we get to the beach, we will find ourselves smack in the middle of my husband's large family. That's right, we are taking our chaos, trauma and behaviors to a large beach house and rolling out the circus for the family. I am seriously considering just packing beach towels and alcohol.

The list of things that we cannot do as a family of trauma has gotten smaller over the past three years. This summer we have gone strawberry picking. My husband took the boys to a loud, hot, crowded NASCAR race. We have been swimming in the crowded pool in our new neighborhood. We have accomplished longer car trips and not lost anyone at large playgrounds. We made it through a cousin's birthday party. We have rolled with the punches too- scrambling to find a full time summer sitter when my little RADish got himself kicked out of daycare and taking lots of deep breaths when behaviors ratchet up. But nothing we have managed to accomplish so far this summer will hold a candle to what we will face come the first week of August.

  The extended family vacation.

 

 

When I tell people that we are heading to the beach, five families, seven kids between the ages of two and eleven, with a high schooler and college kid thrown in to round out the mix, I get a smiling response. "Oh, that will be so much fun!". "What a wonderful opportunity!". And I agree. It should be fun. And it is a nice opportunity, in theory. These well meaning people? They have no idea.

 

After two days on the road we will emerge from the car, toys and books falling out as we open the doors. We will gather the trash- I'm thinking it will mainly be ripped pages of books and broken happy meal toys we will be filling that trash bag with- the garbage of the traumatized. A month of planning and preparing for those two days will still have us dragging ourselves out of the car, two exhausted parents, one cluelessly happy seven year and a sullen five year old with a settle to score.

 

We will then spend the next week in a state of hyper vigilance. While our relatives drink ice tea and spend time making memories, relaxing as their children play, we will be following our youngest son around, working hard to stay one step ahead of him. He will be smiling and happy and we will feel stupid as we keep a watchful eye over absolutely everything he does. We will drag him away from his cousins and his fun before something goes wrong, attempting to offer him sensory breaks, which he will refuse. We will flounder, unsure of our parenting skills on a good day, let alone with so many eyes upon us. We will question- should we let him go back and play? Should we force the break? Eventually my husband and I will let the frustration get the best of us and we will argue.

 

Another time we will forego the sensory break, letting our youngest son continue to play with his cousins. Someone will get hit, or something will get broken. "Boys will be boys", we will hear. "All kids act like that, you should have seen what my son did at his age!".

 

We will spend a lot of time alone, just the four of us, on this trip. It will be great, quality time, fun and maybe, just maybe, a little relaxing. This hiding will come with a price though. Even if it is not happening we will still feel judged. Relatives will try to include us. They will not understand that it is better for our little family to spend some time alone. That we are OK with this. We will feel as though we are letting someone down during most every moment of this trip. Spend too much time with the large group and we may not be doing what is best for our son. Keep him secluded and we may be helping his anxiety, but also appear as though we have something to hide. I am exhausted just thinking about it, and it is still a month away!

 

And then there is the parenting style that we have adopted. So far in this life of ours we have adopted two kids, a puppy, two guinea pigs, a fish or two,  and about a million parenting styles. Parenting a child of trauma with attachment issues  requires a specific set of skills that we are just beginning to learn. Skills that are not in the arsenal of main stream parents. Techniques that find us not punishing as others might think we should. "Why are they letting him get away with that?". Why indeed.

 

 

So why are we going? Why spend a week of precious vacation time, time we need to reserve for doctor's appointments, therapy intensives, self care? With two kids, one with a cleft palate and one with attachment issues, we are booked solid with appointments, all requiring one of us to take time off work. Why drive for two days, amid fighting, while dodging shoes and toys thrown at us from the backseat? Why spend a week in hyper vigilant mode, attempting to anticipate our youngest son's next move? Why take our circus on the road to the beach, adding an ocean of dangerous water to our live circus show?

 

I'll tell you why. Because my oldest son deserves to spend time with his extended family, and he radiates sadness if we don't do things as a family. Because my youngest son loves to play in the sand, and is just beginning to enjoy swimming. Because despite how hard this will be it is a great opportunity to show him, once again, what a family is. How a family feels.  How a family acts. Because I will experience moments of absolute joy as I play in the sand with my son, or as I watch him have a sweet moment with his aunt. Because at the end of the day I hope to be able to tally up more good moments than bad.  Because I am not going to make excuses for my son. I will explain reasons but not give excuses. Because he has a right to share these experiences with his family. Because this is who we are, and there is no reason we can't do this. I might be crazy and over optimistic, but I really think we can do this. Bring on the sun!

 

 

Stay tuned for more posts in the "Extended Family Beach Vacation" series. Topics to include sharing details of our story with family, preparing my RADish for our road trip, and taking essential oils on the road. 

My Dreams Are Pinned to a Shiny Red Bicycle

I am pinning all my hopes and dreams on a small red children's bicycle. OK, that might be a little too dramatic. But it is totally true to say I am pinning a lot of hope onto this shiny new bike. My youngest son's shiny new bike. I have prayed for a breakthrough like this. Yes, I have prayed for the power of a bicycle to come and rescue my son. To some my bike prayers may seem silly. To me, it's just another day.

My youngest son has RAD. Reactive Attachment Disorder. This is the latest in an alphabet soup of diagnosis. ADHD, (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). SPD, (Sensory Processing Disorder). PTSD, (Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome). Possible FAS, (Fetal Alcohol Syndrome). Toss in anxiety and you have an alphabet soup no parent would wish to serve their child. I have come to learn that the diagnosis doesn't matter as much as the treatment. And I have learned that it is not one size fits all when it comes to treatment.

OK, now it's test time. Let's practice that alphabet. The SPD my son displays is a direct result of his FAS and RAD. One of the treatments for this is to teach him to take what we call "sensory breaks". We want him to take these breaks to break the cycle of hyperactivity, brought on by anxiety and PTSD. He doesn't want to take these breaks because he likes the way he feels when hyperactivity sets in. Plus this hyperactivity causes chaos in the household, which keeps him in control, something he is seeking thanks to his RAD. Got it?

The types of activities he needs to complete for these sensory breaks does not always make sense to someone not well versed in how the brain works. Which is me. With my oldest son, if I want him to calm down, I simply tell him to stop whatever activity is winding him up and offer a quiet one, such as an art project, a walk, or a TV show. When I want  my alphabet soup son to calm down I need to offer him activities such as jumping, bouncing, swinging, push ups, and bike riding.  And it usually goes something like this:

Me: "Let's take a sensory break!"
Son: "NO!"

And this goes on for a while. And then goes on some more. He'll try an activity and then discard it 30 seconds later. He doesn't want to change, and he cannot process why this would be good for him. As he winds up tighter and tighter his older brother watches and decides he wants to join in the fun. While he will listen when I tell him to stop, he cannot fully process they "why" part of my request either. And I wind up feeling like the mean mom who never lets her kids have any fun. I can't win, because if I let the fun and hyperactivity continue it will literally take hours for the youngest to wind down. He simply cannot play like other kids. Confused? Me too. Imagine how difficult this is to explain to a 7 year old!

So, back to bike riding. After years of refusing to pedal a bike my youngest has finally joined the party. And we celebrated by getting him his very own bike yesterday. He was beyond thrilled. After trying it out last night he asked if he could ride it some more this morning. (Notice I said he asked. He didn't demand. He didn't just run outside and do it himself. He asked! Progress. Slow, but it is there.)

He likes to ride his bike. Maybe, just maybe, he will occasionally accept this as a sensory break. Maybe he will do this activity for longer than 30 seconds at a time. Maybe he can complete this activity with his older brother without it going south and ending up in hurt feelings and tattling. Maybe I can actually do something else, every once in a while, instead of standing over him administrating a sensory break.

I have learned that there are no quick fixes here. It will take years to bring my youngest son back from the edge of early life trauma. So I celebrate this tiny victory that has been won in the form of a shiny red bicycle. We celebrate the small stuff around here, the every day, the mundane. There is always something worth celebrating- that alphabet soup of diagnosis? They keep our young family on a constant roller coaster of emotions, so we look for the small victories. And today that victory comes on a bike. A shiny, red, big kids bike. And I could not be more proud.

I see you

I see you over there. Yes, there are 30 little five year olds running around the parking lot and 30 adults- moms, grandmothers, dads, all trying to keep their young charges from running past the orange traffic cones meant to corral the safety towners until the gates open. Yes, it is loud, with babies crying, kids laughing, cars trying to park. Yes, I am just as distracted as the other moms, watching my oldest son hop around the parking lot, chatting with the older brothers and sisters of the safety towners. This kid of mine, he knows everyone. I watch him smile and wave to his friends, totally confident and sure of himself. To be honest, he is a little jealous. His little brother's safety town has permanent structures and a great little town to drive around. My youngest son is wrapped around my leg, hiding from the noise and people. Sure, if I encouraged him he would run off with his older brother. He would laugh and hop and race around in circles like the other little ones. I don't encourage this, though, because, unlike the other children waiting in the parking lot he will not be able to calm down when it is time for class to start. In our world there is a time and a place for "free play", and this is not it. I pick up my youngest. He wraps his fingers through my hair and pets my head as he pops his thumb into his mouth. I whisper into his ear.  "I am so proud of you! You are doing great with safety town!" He vacillates between agreeing with me and saying "No, I'm not doing good." We have some self esteem issues to work on with this one.

There is a lot going on, here in this parking lot, but I still see you. I see your son smile at my youngest, the light of recognition in his eyes. I wonder- day care? Pre school? Church? I bend down to my son, questions on my lips, ready to point out his friend and ask where he knows him from. Your son takes a step forward and then I see it. You pull him back. I watch you tell your son "No." "Don't go talk to him."

My oldest appears back by my side at the exact moment that I turn away from you. I heard about you. My sweet husband told me that you had refused to let your son say hi to our youngest the day before, that you acted as though you knew our family from somewhere. My oldest confirms my fears. You do know our family. From church. From daycare. Daycare. Sigh.

I take a breath. I have a choice here. I can be mad. I can tell you how thankful you must be that you have typical, cookie cutter children who never have behavior issues. I can tell you how thankful I am that your children have obviously never suffered at the hands of someone they expected to be able to trust. I could ignore. But this is just the beginning. If we have found ourselves at the same daycare and at the same church, then we very well might find ourselves in the same school class. I know your kids go to our school; your older son was in my oldest son's first grade class. Our kids are friends, and I am not about to allow my oldest son to lose a friend over your narrow mindedness. What happened at that daycare was nothing. A blip on our radar screen that we have already forgotten about. Frankly, it wasn't even the worst behavior we have seen from our sweet boy. Please. You have no idea. My life is busy. Job. Therapy. Doctor's appointments. Kids' activities. Time with my husband. Family fun. House. Managing the household. Errands. Relationships to maintain. I don't have time to educate the world on what can go wrong when babies aren't loved. Or even worse, when babies are starved or abused. I don't have time to educate you. But I know I have to push past all that. My oldest son deserves to have a chance at maintaining his friendship with your oldest son. And my youngest son deserves something too. Understanding.

Yes, this is uncomfortable for me. Yes, I would prefer to not have to step outside of my comfort zone. I want to turn away from you, folding my son into my arms. But I know that this is just the beginning. There will be more moms like you. Moms who need a little education. And I can't run from them all.

No, I can't run. I can use each incident as a teaching opportunity for my boys. As learning opportunities for myself. I can refuse to be narrow minded. I can refuse to allow my oldest to be embarrassed by his little brother. I can refuse to allow my youngest to think he is any less than. I can refuse to hide. This week we are at Safety Town. We will be at Sunday school. We will be at the family wedding. We will be at the bowling alley and the amusement park and the restaurant. We will be at the beach. So yes, I see you. I see your looks and I feel your judgement. I don't care. Bring it on because we are only getting stronger every day.

My Life as a Parent

©Copyright 2014 1 Attachment & Trauma Network (ATN)

Note: This letter was written by members of the Attachment & Trauma Network (ATN) as an example of how to talk about your own personal experiences and share your family’s struggles with people who may want to, but don’t, understand. Feel free to use any parts of this document as you edit this story to make it your own.  NOTE: This letter has been adapted by Beth Wilkison to reflect her journey with her son. The original text can be found  here.

–Julie Beem, Executive Director, ATN (www.attachtrama.org )

 

My Life as a Parent of a Traumatized, Attachment-Disordered Child

I’m giving you this letter because you have expressed an interest in my experience as a parent of a traumatized, attachment-disordered child. It is not a story I relate to you lightly. My child has some very special needs and because of this, so do I. I need people to understand what our family faces, not just judge us as incompetent. It isn’t fair what happened to my child or to me. But it is what we are both facing, and we face it together everyday.

First, I’d like you to know that this letter was not written just by me. Parents from all over the country are using it to tell a uniquely tragic story. This letter isn’t the ranting of one isolated, overwhelmed, and oversensitive adult. I did not "do" this to my child. My child came to me this way. Chances are he would be struggling with these same behaviors and emotions in any family. My child's problems are not the result of poor parenting by me. In fact, parents of traumatized children are some of the most courageous, committed, resourceful, insightful, misunderstood and stressed-out parents around. We are not just bellyachers. We are in fact, front-line troops in the battle for civilization itself. If you think that’s somehow overinflated, consider the statistics that most of today’s prison population was abused and/or neglected and many have attachment-related emotional problems.

So here is what happened—when my child was a little baby, at the time he was most vulnerable, he did not get his basic needs met. Perhaps, he was not picked up when crying, not fed when hungry, left alone for hours, or left with various strangers for days. Perhaps he was beaten, shaken, or otherwise physically or sexually abused. Perhaps he had chronic or unmitigated pain due to medical procedures and had no way of communicating his distress. I might guess at these details of my child’s trauma, but I will never likely know the full truth. Because of this neglect and abuse, my child became traumatized and was convinced that he was going to die. He learned that he could not trust anyone to meet his needs. And every day since, when my child wakes up in the morning, this deep-seated anxiety gets reloaded. In order to survive, he has become unconsciously committed to never, ever being vulnerable again. He uses all of his basic survival intelligence to control an outside world he feels he cannot trust. All his existential energy is focused on keeping people far enough away so he won’t get hurt again, but close enough that they won’t leave him either. Unfortunately, he is never really satisfied with either proximity and is therefore constantly in a “push them away/pull them close” dilemma. As his adoptive parent, I live every day in this no man’s land of damaged intimacy. I’ve been emotionally wounded from the many times I’ve tried to break through my child’s formidable defenses. Those who don’t need to get as close—teachers, relatives, neighbors, etc.—won’t experience the full intensity of these primal defenses. So if you are lucky enough to see him withdraw or witness one of his rages, you are probably getting close—so good for you! But if this does happen, please remember that you are witnessing a child stuck in a desperate fight for survival—he has become once again that scared, traumatized baby, absolutely convinced he has to control you and everything in the world in order to be safe. It can’t get more primal than that.

As his parent, I am dedicated to helping him realize that I am not his enemy. It is that stark, I’m afraid. But not hopeless. My child has made great progress and has come so far.  During these past three years  I have tried many approaches to parenting my special child. The standard, traditional disciplinary approaches used by my parents were obviously tried first and were an instant failure.

His response is more primal, more subconscious, and has little to do with a situation or possessions involved. It has to do with the fear that’s triggered,  the trust that was broken, the chaos he feels. It’s like he is having emotional seizure, as cascading brain chemistry takes him over. He doesn’t choose this – I don’t choose this—it just happens. So our days are often filled with emotional explosions and uneasy calms between the storms. When it does get quiet, I’m nervous about when the next bomb will hit. Each day is filled with anxiety, fear, guilt, and shame for us both. It is like we’re living on an emotional minefield, and the mines keep regenerating, exploding again and again.

What I face daily is, that despite my best efforts to be a loving caregiver, my child’s early developmental trauma has created a discord that is a true paradox. For example, I may try to gently calm my upset child, but this is not experienced as soothing to him. So his trauma is triggered and he may withdraw, shut down or lash out. This causes me to get stressed as my child reacts counter to my intention. Now my stressful reaction starts to feel familiar, even “safe”, to him, so he works (often subconsciously) to expand this, and we descend into deeper and deeper dysfunction and chaos. To my child’s trauma-injured brain, this dysregulated feeling, which feels painful to healthy people, actually feels normal to him. And I’m left feeling stressed, angry, and emotionally spent.

Absolute total consistency (at home and at school) helps tremendously. Parenting traumatized children is nothing like parenting emotionally healthy children. The responses you receive can be very unrewarding and punishing, since moments of closeness and intimacy can be  rare and can trigger a trauma reaction. My beloved special child is often willing to do for others (even complete strangers) what he is not willing to do for me (this is another behavior common with attachment disorder). To be honest, this drives me crazy.

The damage done due to early childhood trauma and not being able to safely attach to a trusted caregiver has left my child with the emotional development of a toddler or infant. But the big difference is that my child is not a toddler. He’s five years old now. Imagine the terrible-twos lasting for years and years, escalating in intensity and effect— suddenly I’m the parent of a 100+ pound, physically coordinated, verbally adept, emotionally trigger-happy baby. This is what I worry about happening. And what I am working so hard to prevent.

Imposing limits isn’t enough. My child must be helped to accept these limits and internalize the self-regulation, self-soothing, and self-control required to do so. Rewards and punishments focus on the outside, observable behaviors, not the internal underlying process that creates these behaviors. At the same time, he does not need us to lower our expectations for either his behavior or his academic performance. What he needs is help in accepting and reacting to these expectations with flexibility and self-control. He needs to restart the developmental process and move beyond an emotional toddler. He needs to move out of this developmental disarray toward a more civilized, balanced inner process.

Our family needs support, education and understanding. We did not expect that this would be our daily reality, and it isn’t easy. Although it is much easier than it was, still, at times,  I may seem stressed, fearful or angry. I am occasionally overwhelmed. I am making significant sacrifices so that my child can rise above the chaos of his trauma and find true hope and healing. We all have amazing abilities to adapt, as adversity can deepen us and perhaps this will be so for my child as he confronts deeply sealed wounds and transgressions. But we must go beyond intellectual definitions of “normal” and “cured” and think of it in another way: Can someone’s affliction, which has shut off various levels of meaning from his life, be mitigated enough to possibly reopen some of those channels? Or put another way, if left alone without special effort, will these kids descend into more and more chaos? Clearly, the answer to both questions is yes. Therefore, the effort and sacrifice I’m making in my life for him, and the help you are now hopefully willing to give me, is of great value. Help me help my child realize the true blessing life can be.

Thank you for reading this.