ADOPTION: Blog Post #34 – Reactive Attachment Disorder

Posted September 2, 2017

Today, I am not sharing a chapter excerpt from my book, ADOPTION: Encouragement and Advise for a Hopeful Journey. Instead, I want to share a note I found in my desk just now while I was organizing for another year of homeschooling:

Mom –

I know this letter won’t make-up for all I have done wrong, but I am so sorry for all I have done to you and the whole family. I will not ever place the family in danger like I have done and I honestly hope I can restore all the relationships I have damaged. Thank you for being there for me and I’m sorry I ever doubted you. Love you so much.

Truly, Destiny

Heartbreaking. It is a miracle that she not only wrote this, but that every single word was spelled correctly and she used fairly reasonable grammar and punctuation. My RAD daughter was also extremely dyslexic, and up until two years ago, was always behind in academic ability in school. Finally, she was on her way – to college, to dreams fulfilled, to the great life she envisioned for herself after so many years of pain.

The downward spiral began a few months earlier, after her birth mom contacted her and my adopted daughter wasn’t ready for reunification. In response, she got involved with the wrong crowd,experimenting with drugs to the point of addiction. High on meth, she let a “friend” use my car without my knowledge. She drove it home damaged, days later than when she was supposed to have come home from her job and school related activities in town. After detoxing in her room for a week – me checking on her, bringing food and water every two hours – she summoned the focus to write the above note on a lovely ‘thank you’ card.

I thought perhaps, once again, she could pick herself up, get back on the horse, and give the straight and narrow good life another go ’round. Instead, RAD kicked in and she went back to her toddler traumatized brain. The one that reacts without thinking, that leads without love, that sabotages every good thing. Six months later she would be declared dead, having been brutally murdered.

For 14 years we worked every day on attachment, connection, correction, and all the other things in life children need to be taught by their parents. It was relentlessly agonizing. Yet, my late husband and I persevered through one crisis after another, determined to never, ever give up on the traumatized daughter we had come to love but not trust. I don’t regret a minute of it. It was my duty and choice as her mother. It is part of my adoption journey. It kills me that she died so horribly, yet I know God spared her from a fate worse than death. I am relieved He picked her up out of the destructive pit of sin in which she was mired, then carried her home to heaven, for eternity.

Reative Attachment Disorder. The saddest thing I have ever known. If only birth parents would realize what severe neglect and abuse can do to kids, harming them for their whole life ahead, often leading to their premature death. Some children can overcome it with intense therapy and strong parenting; some can’t.

God’s ways are the best. When we don’t parent the way He intended, it is the children who are harmed, and our hearts are forever broken.

sharimcminn

Shari Howard McMinn is an author, editor, farmer, writer, and most importantly Mom to 11 children. Widowed very unexpectedly on June 2, 2013, Shari continued the direction of her life built with her late husband, Cary, and launched her public speaking and writing business which he had often encouraged her to do. Drawing from her 'over the top' life, she writes non-fiction and presents PowerPoint talks on issues related to family life, including adoption, childhood nutrition, family economics, homeschooling, and proactive parenting. She is available for broadcast interviews and presentations in Colorado and surrounding states, as well as Florida and Georgia. A dynamic speaker, Shari engages the audience with her true-life storytelling and practical advice based on experience and biblical wisdom.