Tag Archives: adoption

The Quiet Talks

Leave a reply
The quiet morning talks are always so enlightening around here.  Today’s topic:  Hatred.
 
“I do love you, but I also hate you.”  Never has a truer sentence been spoken.
 
My son tells me that he, “Can’t put two and two together when it comes to any sort of consequence.”  He says, “Consequences seem like they will last forever, even though I know nothing ever goes away for longer than a day or a day and a half.”  In that moment, “I hate you.”  
 
“The rest of the time there is this feeling inside me like defiance of rules…Whenever there is a rule, I feel hatred for it…Sometimes I just won’t ask you for something because I am afraid how I might react if you say no.”
 
How frightening it must be to react so emotionally violent to every day structure, rules, and expectations?  That is a thwarted, everything-is-against-me worldview many of our traumatized children experience.
 
My compassion for the collective struggle our children experience continually increases over time, and my ability to hold my son with soft eyes and empathy grows exponentially alongside it.  Better late than never, I tell myself, though my grief for how long it has taken me is right there, just under the surface.
 
                                                                 Love Matters,

The Attach Place Logo 3Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Be Gentle and Kind

Leave a reply
When we teach scripts to parents for correcting and redirecting attachment challenged children, the first one is usually Be Gentle and Kind.  At various places around the office that direction can be heard throughout the day, every day, every week, all year long, year after year. It takes thousands of repetitions to stick the landing of a new neuropathway.
 
It occurred to me this morning that my last three Daily YOU Time emails have really fallen under the heading of Re-parenting Parents With the Script Be Gentle and Kind. 
 
I wish I had been re-parented early on to Be Gentle and Kindwith my children. I just did what was imprinted by my parents–Be Powerful and In Control.  That was misguided and made a mess of things for quite a while.
 
So, forgive me for my repetitious re-parenting script to Be Gentle and Kind.  I am simply trying to make it stick for YOU and your attachment challenged child(ren).  It makes all the difference over time.
The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Love Matters Scholarship Fund can use your contributions. Click here for more information.
 
The next Trust-based Parent Training Course in Sacramento, CA is scheduled for January 24th and January 31st. Register here.
 
Please share freely.  Your community of support can sign-up for their own Daily YOU Time email by clicking here.

 Be Gentle and Kind All the Time. Why not?

I Wish I Had An Attitude Adjustment Earlier

Leave a reply
I bought a panini maker.  Mmmmm, nothing like a cheesy/carbo-load to get the kid out of bed. What I discovered is how sweet my son is when he knows I made it for him, whether he has time to eat it or not. When he was younger, I would have pitched a fit if he lollygagged and didn’t eat it.  Then he would have pitched a fit back, maybe throwing the hot panini puck at my face. I would have insisted at higher and higher volumes that he NEEDED to eat breakfast, but why was I MAD when he didn’t. After awhile, I took everything personally.  It felt like these shenanigans were by way of gutting me with a fishing knife. I started to hate my life and my kids, too. This is the ugly truth.
If you are waiting for your children to have love in their eyes before YOU have love in yours, YOU will be waiting a very long time.  Oh, I know you used to have love in your eyes, but your child’s attachment challenged shenanigans drained you to flat, hopeless, and sometimes bitter despair. I’ve been there. I know. And, I don’t judge YOU. I get YOU. I am YOU. I am YOU years down the road.
When my kids were younger, I wish someone had bonked me on my head, like a V8 commercial, so I could have had an earlier attitude adjustment.
So, (if you need one) here is my attempt at a “bonk” on your pre-frontal cortex.  If you are a parent who adopted a child, YOU are their best hope of finding the buried treasure of love in that damaged heart (a.k.a. pre-frontal cortex.) Have I mentioned that pre-frontal cortex is my favorite set of words? Of course I have.
Here is the key:
YOU must make a DECISION every day to BE a loving person. Period.
No one loves the shenanigans of traumatized children–the mean, hateful, scary, snide, cunning, unrelenting, mind-boggling, mind-numbing, heart-stopping, shitty crap (clinical term) they dish up. No one is made for that, better suited for that, temperamentally predisposed for that.  So, YOU wishing you could give up, throw them back, leave them on a corner, put them back on a plane, or relinquish them is very human, understandable, and evidence of the magnitude of grief YOU feel to the bone.  I wish I could hug YOU.  I know you need it.
If you consider yourself capable of being a loving person, then be that in the face of adversity. Raising this kind of child is the definition of adversity. There is a payoff.  It is down the road. Essentially, your love is “paying it forward.”  It will come back to YOU.  Gandhi said it best,Be the change you want to see in the world. Be the love you want to see in your child.  It starts with YOU.
Shenanigans be damned, but not the heart-broken child or the heart-broken parent.
The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

 
Love in the face of adversity is the definition of love.

My Hindsight Might Help YOU

Leave a reply
My daughter gets regular check-ins with CPS workers because her baby is so sick and, understandably, the hospital staff thought it was possibly due to neglect. Thankfully it wasn’t, but CPS stayed on.
In the middle of last night (the only time she thinks she should talk to me) my daughter texted me that she was dreading the visit from CPS in the morning.  I responded that I remember that feeling very well.
“CPS was called on you, Mom.  YOU never did anything.”
I am forever amazed at how little either of my children remember about the vast shenanigans that occurred in our home throughout their childhood years.
CPS opened cases on me three or four times–false abuse allegations, being on the run, living on the river, living with strangers, pregnant minor, etc. Every one of them scared me to death. I know this has happened to many of YOU.  And I know many of you live in fear of this.  Some of you have lost your homes, gone bankrupt defending yourself, lost family and friends, and had children taken away because of CPS allegations.
Oh, the stress and grief of it all.
Now that I am nearly on the other side of CPS’ grip (my son turns 18 in January and my daughter is 19 now), the PTSD has mostly faded and I am thinking about what I could have done differently during the “crazy” years.
1.  I could have parented with more understanding and less control. This might have saved me from some threats at the point of a butcher knife.
2.  I could have “seen” my children as individuals separate from me, and attended to their life experience more.  I never allowed wild, revealing clothes, colored hair, outrageous talk… But I wasn’t doing it either, so what was the big deal?
3.  I could have found more ways to soothe my own pain and fear, so I wasn’t so reactive.
4.  I could have joined with others more for support–online or in local groups with others going through the same thing with their attachment challenged children.  I didn’t think I needed all that.  Who was I kidding?
5.  I could have insisted on respite for myself more (though I have to say I did a pretty good job of this.)
6.  I could have shared my fear with CPS workers more, instead of being fearfully defensive. Yelling, You don’t get it!in the face of a CPS worker was probably not that helpful.
Hindsight, I know.  Some folks often feel I am hard on myself when I talk about what I could have done differently. That is not my intention.  I am pretty forgiving of myself, as I truly know that I did the best I could at the time.  I am simply hopeful my musings on the past can help YOU in the present (especially, if you are in the midst of the crazy years.)  
I know this in my bones: Our kids get better if we hang in there and give ourselves the benefit of everything we can find to support our herculean efforts.
The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Love Matters Scholarship Fund can use your contributions.  Click here for more information.
Underarmor helps.

Halloween Bah-Humbug

Leave a reply
Halloween gets my Bah-Humbug going.  
 
Where did my playful, sense of fun at any cost, dressed-up fairy-self go?  Bah-Humbug. Dysregulation is a stir, so I’ve
strapped on my Nerves of Steel spanx (big NS on the chest) for the rest of the day, and will probably wear it under my clothes throughout the weekend. 
 
From too many cupcakes at school, through too much candy door-to-door, to no candy because “Honey, you are allergic to Red dye #4, Yellow dye#2, Blue dye of any number, and sugar–sorry–here is an organic, gluten free, non GMO, cranberry edamame vegan bar. YOU loved these yesterday.”
 
Be patient. Have compassion. Expect too much sugar, too much fun, too much cortisol, and a blowout or three.  It’s Halloween! (Yay. Bah-humbug.)
The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Love Matters Scholarship Fund can use your contributions.  Click here for more information.
This is controversial: I allowed my kids to eat their Halloween candy as soon as I inspected it (yep, I’m that paranoid) and throughout the next day. Whatever was left after 24 hours was dumped.  Some years they were rolling around with tummy aches, but mostly they ate a little all day at intervals.  When I dumped it, they had had their fill and didn’t really pitch much of a fit.  To me that was better than trying to spread the sugar out in single pieces FOREVER!

Upon Turning 18

Leave a reply
As your attachment challenged child inches toward 18 years old, YOU have some work to do.
 
1. If you receive Adoption Assistance, your child can qualify for it to continue beyond 18 by simply applying for it.  You MUST apply for it BEFORE 18, because once it stops it’s gone.
 
2. If your child is not going to be able to launch successfully at 18, then start the Social Security Insurance application process (if you haven’t already) to get financial support upon reaching adulthood.
 
3. If your child qualifies for Regional Center support, then look into sheltered work, day programs, and independent living opportunities.
 
4. Your child can continue schooling in an independent living program beyond 18 through the IEP process. 
 
5. Community colleges have programs for special needs children.  YOU might be surprised at what you find your child is capable of doing at the college level.   
 
6. There are local guides for supporting your special needs children into adulthood.  The following resources are specific to my Sacramento/California area, and can be replicated in your area by typing into Google the resource title with your city’s name:
 
 
The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Love Matters Scholarship Fund can use your contributions.  Click here for more information.
 
Transitioning into adulthood requires planning. Know your child’s rights and resources.

School Refusal

Leave a reply
This is day two of school refusal for my son.  He usually is a school lover, but he has a new teacher that treats him like a Kindergartener (he says) so now he hates it. On top of that, yesterday he sprang onto my bed around 6:30am with his new phone excited to show me the new apps he had just downloaded on it.  
 
Drolly (I think that is a real word) I asked, “Are you going to show me the apps I told you not to download on your phone (because the old phone this new phone is replacing was corrupted by your downloading APPS!!!!!!)?  Bingo, cortisol spike–reason to refuse school for two days. Okay, I might have revised history right there. The parentheses implied I didn’t say that last part, but really, I DID!  Couldn’t help myself.
 
This morning I sat down on the side of his bed and asked him to open an eye, which he did.
 
“Are you going to school today?”  The eye closed.  
 
“It is beginning to smell like something dead is in this bed. May I suggest a shower sometime today?”  The eye opened. Then closed.
 
“I’ll take that as a yes eye.” 
 
Parenting is fun.  I am enjoying it immensely.
The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

 I am not kidding.  Parenting has become fun.  I just don’t take it personally anymore–that was the epiphany that took me from parenting crazy town to parenting clown house.

I prefer the latter. It’s simply more fun.

True Story

Leave a reply
Picture this: I’m trying to find a little peace while taking my morning constitutional (don’t look it up as it is TMI) in my old-style bathroom built for about .5 people, when my daughter starts blowing up my phone with serial texts begging me to take her trick-or-treating. She’s 19. 
 
Simultaneously, my son starts calling “Mom” from down the hall while marble-mouth-mumbling something earth-shattering about his computer. Three dogs–Chihuahua, Beagle, Black Lab–sit in a stair-step row wagging and staring me down for their morning pupperonis (which, by the way, are not stored in the bathroom) while the cat flops around otter-style in the tub. 
 
Really? It’s 6am on a Tuesday.
 
True story.  Nothing like a life full of attachment challenged creatures–dogs, cats, kids. I am starting to think something is seriously wrong with me.
The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Everyone deserves a rescue.

The Quirks of Human Brains

Leave a reply
The whole Ebola situation in the U.S. tells a cautionary tale, but maybe not the one you are thinking. If you connect with the greater world via TV, Internet, newspapers, and magazines, you may have found yourself feeling a little worried about when Ebola is going to break out in your town.  Of course, it could happen (and did for those in Texas), but you are far more likely to get into a deadly car accident today, than you are to catching Ebola–and that isn’t very likely either. Just to be on the safe side, go knock on some wood (if you can find something still made out of wood.)
 
The human brain is quirky.  Much of how we think is based on pre-historic conditioning.  Yep, our brains still function as though something big and scary (maybe even hairy) is plotting to eat us at any moment. So, hearing something repeated over and over–Ebola, Ebola, Ebola, Ebola, Ebola–our brains start being hyper-alert and a bit fearful to the point where someone coughing in public sends us running for our pocket-sized hazmat suits.
 
Don’t get me wrong. I am not making fun of Ebola.  It is a terrible, deadly virus. When unchecked, like in West Africa, it is one of the worst public health crises since the Bubonic Plague.  I am, however, making a point about our human brains.
 
If YOU are telling yourself over and over again that your attachment challenged child is going to grow up to be a criminal (because your child’s brain is pre-historically conditioned so s/he lies, steals and breaks rules), then YOU are scaring your own pre-historic brain to death, causing yourself hypervigilance and over-the-top parenting, and making the situation worse.
 
Pre-historic fear or love?  
 
Fear or love?
 
Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love.
The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

 
All you need is love, love.
Love is all you need.
And nerves of steel.

Hypervigilance

Leave a reply
If something scary happens to a baby (BABY of any age–1-day-old to 3-years-old) like being taken suddenly from the mother and given to another person who is definitely not the mother, the brain goes into survival mode and the baby becomeshypervigilant, waiting for the next bad thing to happen.  For most of these babies, thehypervigilance becomes the norm for life. “Felt safety” is the only cure, and getting that is extremely hard.  Eventually, getting safety in an adoptive home is possible, but “felt safety” is harder, like creating a sculpture out of water–extremely elusive.

Hypervigilance can look many different ways in our kids.  In my house both of my children had to know what was going on in our house at every moment.  They inserted themselves into everything. When they were very young, I couldn’t clean the toilet without an audience.  By the way, this did not make them excellent toilet cleaners either. I could barely pee alone.
Today, my son is 5″10″, 17.8-years-old, and still popping out of his room the minute he hears me move about the house.  He comes rushing in my direction to ask a question; to tell me something random; to get food; to check on the dog; to get a hug; sometimes he can’t think of a reason and just stands awkwardly right behind me.  Every day when I get home from work, the second he hears the garage door open in the basement, he runs down the stairs toward my car. He cannot help himself. His need to know persists.  Before I get home he looks out the window for me dozens of times.  He isn’t scared, per se, he is anxious and hypervigilant.
I feel sad for the level of anxiety he carries that makes him so alert, on edge, and intrusive with his presence.  I used to feel badgered to death by little nips, but that is long over.  Now I feel more for him, for his internal life, for his lack of “felt safety” despite how safe he has actually been for the past 15 years.
He takes medication and neurofeedback for his anxiety.  He copes by deep breathing and thinking skills. I sooth him with hugs when he finds himself near me for no apparent reason.  His brain has 10 or so more years to fully develop.  I am hopeful that continued support in this way will lead him, ultimately, to a “felt sense of safety” in his own mind and body. I am hopeful.

The Attach Place

The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships

Love Matters,

Ce Eshelman, LMFT

Believe that change can happen and it does.