[HappyGirl36]

Hi everyone... I'm brand new to this website. I'm sitting here weeping inside because i feel like maybe i will finally get some answers. My story in a nutshell: Met DH 12 years ago. Fell madly in love. Got married. Happily ever after. 3 months after getting married, found out... DH had conceived a daughter he did not know about. !! (long story.) Amidst child support bills, back pay bills, attorneys, court dates, heartache, headaches... get this... Her mom is mentally ill... She was pulled out of mom's home by CPS due to neglect and put into foster care (she was 3 at the time). They were preparing to adopt her out, that's when they contacted us. within 6 months we were granted FULL CUSTODY, AND MOM'S RIGHTS WERE TERMINATED. Here's where it all goes wrong. They sent us through a REUNIFICATION program. what?? We sat in a class with other parents who had beat their children and learned how to find "alternate" forms of discipline. THAT WAS IT. No other preparation, no education on how to parent a neglected child, how to assimilate as a family, how to help her attach, NOTHING. Oh wait, 4 counseling sessions with an intern that did us no good. The best part is, they told me I WAS NOT A PART OF THE EQUATION. Since she had a bio mom and bio dad, as "step-mom" i was totally irrelevant to the social worker. She didn't care if i went to the parenting class with DH or not. No matter that this little girl obviously had major mom issues and the day she came home asked to call me mommy and has done so ever since. Fast forward SEVEN years later. This child does not act out, she does not disobey, she does not do anything that other parents have posted here, which makes me feel like a heel that i'm posting. But here's the problem. She does the opposite. She is perfect in every way, very parentified, very controlling. Her hypervigalence has reduced me to a twitching mess. Constant running commentary on every detail in our home, our bodies, the world. Nothing gets past her. It has been like nails on a chalkboard trying to assimilate as a family. Of course, she's with her bio dad (my dh) but she was a stranger to us and we have spent 7 years trying to bond and make sense of it all. At first I thought we were bonding well but I realize now we weren't, it was just her superficial attaching she seemed to do with anyone and everyone. Without realizing it, I slowly just resigned my role in our family and let her dad and her "bond", since I wasn't "important" in the picture. She was very neglected and i believe has mild RAD. Hates to be touched by me and says "ow" to this day, almost every time i get close. FINALLY we realized we needed help and that there WAS actually help out there for us (we haven't known what to call our situation to know where to look for help!) We found a social worker who is amazing and she helped us see that we had an adoption situation without any of the support, education, pre-placement training, etc. We have been winging it literally alone (with very supportive family members i might add) and now that i'm reading adoption books and found this website i have been in tears for weeks over all of our unnecessary pain, and how much additional damage I think it has caused this poor child. We never properly grieved all of the losses, she never got to grieve loss of her birth family, we never properly assimilated, i think we just made her attachment issues worse. I have a degree in psychology and am VERY experienced with kids, and this kid stumps me and has worn me out, and i have basically given up on trying to "mother" her. I always thought "love and consistency" will "heal her and bring her around" but the counselor has helped me understand that with unattached kids, "normal" parenting doesn't work. WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL US THIS??? I hope you all don't think i'm being ungrateful. This has been the craziest thing to go through when for 7 years i haven't known what in the heck we were even dealing with. To top it off, we then tried to conceive years later and couldn't. Infertile (my husband!!). Can we say RESENTFUL? Yes, i have been dealing with a lot of anger and resentment at how this was thrown at me and how hard I've worked to give her a good, safe, healing home (I even agreed to let DH quit his job and stay home with her, I worked full time to support the family so they could bond and make up for lost time....!!) and how fruitless it has felt. Thankfully through IVF we were able to give birth to an amazing baby boy, but that has now made my relationship with my (i don't even know what to call her) step-daughter / semi-adopted daughter even more strained, because i see how much denial i was in with her. I tried to "love her as my own" thinking that it was all one and the same and just ended up frustrated and exhausted all the time, trying to figure out why she had so many walls up when SHE asked to call ME mommy, why she STILL wouldn't trust us after all these years to care for her (when DS was born 8 mos ago, she pulled me aside and asked if i would forget to feed her now..?! i was like, are you kidding me? How could she really think i would just stop caring for her? It was heartbreaking and discouraging all at once.) I just feel like we don't belong in any category (adoption? step? older adoption? neglected child/ special needs?) and we have lived this way for so long that the chaos feels normal, which scares me. if you have ANY advice or suggestions or encouragement to help me, in the context of what you know, i'm open to anything! thank you!

[lucyjoy]

You will likely get more response in the special needs adoption forum. Lots of parents there dealing with AD or RAD.

My son says ow if I touch him or get to close. Part of it is a sensory integration issue, part of it is his fear or being hurt. He was 9 when he moved in and at 17, was still keeping a packed suitcase just in case he got moved.

I'm glad you found a SWer to help you figure out what is going on. Hopefully, this will help move things in a better direction.

There are a lot of things I wish I'd known in the beginning. There are a lot of things I wish I would have known with my first kids.

But we all do what we can with what we have. Once we learn more, we do something different. Dwelling on what could have been won't help now.

While you might feel alone, you're not. Many parents do know your struggles. Glad you found this board. There is lots of support. Post in the special needs forum, you'll find lots of help there.

[HappyGirl36]

Hi Lucy Joy,

I'm sorry if i sounded like I was whining. i went back and read my post this morning and I wrote that very late at night after a long day.

Anyway, THANK YOU for your words. You have no idea how helpful they were.

I will post in the Special Needs forum.

thank you again!!

[lucyjoy]

I didn't think you were whining, you sounded like a mom looking for support and answers. Just figured the special needs board was the best place to find it for your situation.

[mrsred]

I know it is definately not a cure all, but have you ever considered adopting her? For one thing, as step mom you have no legal rights, so if anything ever happened to dh what would become of her? but legalities aside, you said it yourself... your relationship is undefined. She is not secure in your love and care at all. Since b moms rights are terminated there shouldn't be any reason why you could not go ahead and adopt her. It wouldn't be a huge thing, but it may help some with her to know that you do love her enough to take that step. I know that with our older adotped children, when the judge said "this is forever" it did have a positive impact on thier ability to bond with us.

[joskids]

I can tell you that I've dealt with that kind of hyper vigilance (I didn't even know what that was until I had to deal with it daily) in a foster daughter we had hoped to adopt but decided against it. She watched me constantly, every piece of mail that came into this house, every phone call I made -- it was eerie to me and extremely disturbing. I honestly feel that you have done the best with what you have been given. You can never undo the baggage that your step-daughter came with. I used to believe you could make a difference -- that love was enough. Not anymore. It's a real shame that no one saw it important to include you in on the assimilation of this child into your home, seeing as you were pretty much forced to take on the mommy role. Oh, it's so easy for an unattached child to think that calling you "mommy" makes everything ok. She probably WANTED a mommy so badly but you know that she is now blaming you for everything that ever went wrong in her life. I hope that with the support you now have, years later, you can all get to some kind of healing. I think it's important to love what you can about her because, honestly, she is never going to love you the way you deserve to be loved. And it's not her fault -- but you're not always going to be able to remember that. Stay strong and keep fighting for the right to be heard.

[HappyGirl36]

Josie, THANK YOU! Your words were SO HELPFUL and SO AFFIRMING for me!

Did you ever figure out why your foster daughter did that? I have NEVER heard of anyone who can relate to this trait. I'm researching like crazy and most RAD stuff talks about kids that act out. My daughter 1. acts perfectly and 2. is such a surveillance camera that NOTHING gets past her.

When she came to live with us, i lost my life as i knew it. all privacy, my entire sense of personal space. GONE. she notices everything that changed the next morning from the night before and comments on it. (ie. ice cream carton in the trash. "AWWW, you guys had ICE CREAM without ME?! No FAIR."

it literally has made me have insane over the past 7 years and i'm JUST NOW identifying it and trying to understand it. DH doesn't quite get it. all i know is "eerie" is the word. creepy. i have never seen any kid like this before in my life. why do you think this behavior exists?

[HappyGirl36]

thank you mrs. red. you are right. i really do need to consider adopting her and your post is making me think about it.

HOWEVER. i have to first deal with the reality that is the huge defining difference here. i didn't CHOOSE her. she was "discovered" and forced upon me.

yes, that is how i feel, sad to say. many people told me i could have / should have left my DH at the time she was "discovered" and i just couldn't. he is my soulmate and i love him dearly.

i'm putting up with her dysfunction so i can be with him. i know it sounds tragic. at one point i did love her and feel towards her that i could be her "mommy" and probably would have adopted her.

but years later, having not understood her issues, my walls are so high and the distance between us is so huge and i'm worn out and kind of over it. i love her in a step-daughter sort of way and i think that might be where i need it to stay.

trying to make her "my" daughter is what got me into trouble in the first place. we are too different, and i don't have it in me to do all of the crazy work needed to "heal" her. the work that you amazing adoptive moms know you are signing up for when you decided to adopt. i didn't decide to adopt. and i would never have DREAMED of attempting to adopt a child at this time in my life. i simply don't have it in me / don't have the time / don't have the energy. sometimes i wonder if we should have let the system adopt her out to another family.

i thought loving her would be enough. now i just want to let her be her screwed up little self and work on healing myself (and my marriage) at this point in time. but i will pray that at some point i can consider the adoption thing and see if that is what will be best.

i know i sound selfish right now, that is how i'm feeling this morning.

do you have any honest feedback for me after reading this post? i'm sure my thought process is really off track.

[mrsred]

My honest feedback is that you sound like you could really use a hug and a shoulder to cry on.
As an adoptive mom, yes, I "chose" to adopt my kids. But there are a lot of days I look around at the chaos here and think "This is not what I signed on for."
My girls are especially challenging, and I understand you when you say you are ready to just let her be her screwed up self and work on healing yourself and your marriage.
The problem is, whether you chose it or not, she is a part of your life, your family and even your marriage. Without healing this relationship somewhat you will be hard pressed to heal anything else. I think you really need someone you can talk to that will not pass judegement on you or your husband. You may want to turn to a professional therapist, or find a support group. I have formed a group consiting of some friend from church. We meet here at my home once a week. One is in a similar situation as she has two adopted daughters from the foster system, the rest have quite normal lives and families. BUT they can listen to me, and even if they can't offer any advice, just knowing they love me and care about me gives me the strength and hope to face another day.

[minibus]

Originally Posted by HappyGirl36

When she came to live with us, i lost my life as i knew it. all privacy, my entire sense of personal space. GONE. she notices everything that changed the next morning from the night before and comments on it. (ie. ice cream carton in the trash. "AWWW, you guys had ICE CREAM without ME?! No FAIR."

it literally has made me have insane over the past 7 years and i'm JUST NOW identifying it and trying to understand it. DH doesn't quite get it. all i know is "eerie" is the word. creepy. i have never seen any kid like this before in my life. why do you think this behavior exists?

I wanted to jump in here and offer my perspective. I worked with children in therapeutic foster care for 4 years and worked in mental health with many foster/adopted children for several years beyond that.

The hypervigilance. You say that your step daughter came from a situation of neglect and was eventually taken out of her mother's care. That is EXACTLY the reason for her hypervigilance. Can you imagine being 3 years old and left alone in the dark with no food and not knowing when the food would come next? Or not knowing what would happen to make mom hit you this time? Children learn to be extremely hypervigilant because they try to figure out patterns. Maybe the last time mom ran out of ice cream she got so mad that she hit me. So I'm going to watch for when that ice cream container goes in the trash the next time, because then I can know when she's going to hit me again and at least I can prepare.

I know that it feels totally unreasonable and I very much applaud you for trying to figure out the answers. I know it feels like you've been living with this child for SEVEN years and you've never done anything to make her believe that you're going to act that way. Unfortunately, for children, the connections in the brain and the cause-effect with regard to caregiving forms in the first few years and is very difficult (but not impossible) to correct and it takes a LONG time.

Kids, especially hypervigilant ones, know when they're driving you nuts. This might be part of the reason that she's refusing to bond. She drove mom nuts (or mom told her that she was the problem), and they took her away from mom, so why won't they take her away from you, too?

I would suggest a good family counselor, or even better, an RAD specialist.

Best of luck!

[Adoption_Ally]

An AP friend of mine gave one big segment of this a great name: Agenda Driven.

Kid who have been through what your step-daughter has are always waiting for the other shoe to drop. They just KNOW it's going to happen.

With my son we weren't aware of this and basically ignored it. That wasn't helpful for anyone. We changed tactics drastically with my daughter(she is 14 years younger than her brother). We explained everything to her - EVERYTHING. Going to start the car on a cold morning wasn't "I'll be right back" - it was "honey, it's cold today. I'm going to start the car so it will be warm when we go to daycare." I was never one who thought I needed to explain myself to a child. But her anxiety and stress just was so high, it was just easier to take the time to explain it to her.

She's been with us for 7 1/2 years, and is an only child, but we still need to be aware of what makes her anxious. A few weeks ago her grandfather had minor surgery, and I was away overnight to be with my parents. The day I brought him home, my husband picked up my daughter at daycare. Her first words were "Can we go see Grampa?" - she needed to see him to make sure he was OK - she didn't trust the word of either me or her father.

It's really hard for us to understand how deep these fears are for these kids. WE know we aren't going to abandon them - why don't they?

And no, you didn't sound whiny - just tired and overwhelmed like all of us have felt!

[louise81]

Originally Posted by HappyGirl36

thank you mrs. red. you are right. i really do need to consider adopting her and your post is making me think about it.

HOWEVER. i have to first deal with the reality that is the huge defining difference here. i didn't CHOOSE her. she was "discovered" and forced upon me.

yes, that is how i feel, sad to say. many people told me i could have / should have left my DH at the time she was "discovered" and i just couldn't. he is my soulmate and i love him dearly.

i'm putting up with her dysfunction so i can be with him. i know it sounds tragic. at one point i did love her and feel towards her that i could be her "mommy" and probably would have adopted her.

but years later, having not understood her issues, my walls are so high and the distance between us is so huge and i'm worn out and kind of over it. i love her in a step-daughter sort of way and i think that might be where i need it to stay.

trying to make her "my" daughter is what got me into trouble in the first place. we are too different, and i don't have it in me to do all of the crazy work needed to "heal" her. the work that you amazing adoptive moms know you are signing up for when you decided to adopt. i didn't decide to adopt. and i would never have DREAMED of attempting to adopt a child at this time in my life. i simply don't have it in me / don't have the time / don't have the energy. sometimes i wonder if we should have let the system adopt her out to another family.

i thought loving her would be enough. now i just want to let her be her screwed up little self and work on healing myself (and my marriage) at this point in time. but i will pray that at some point i can consider the adoption thing and see if that is what will be best.

i know i sound selfish right now, that is how i'm feeling this morning.

do you have any honest feedback for me after reading this post? i'm sure my thought process is really off track.

Hi i am so glad to hear that i am not the only one feeling the way i do. My situation is different but quite similar to yours. I also had a child "forced on me" in a sense. 2 yrs ago my husbands sister died and left 3 children we took in the youngest, a 9 yr old girl. I too thought i could love her like she was my own and even though she has no behavioural problems i have fooled myself into thinking i would automatically bond with her. my main concern at the time was that our 4yr old son (biological) would not suffer in anyway by her moving into the family. He calls her his sister. Recently i have really been beating myself up about why i don't feel the same way about her as i do my son. It's like everything she does annoys me! I feel like she is selfish and ungrateful and nothing i do for her is ever enough, she always wants more. She will comment if i buy my son something and don't buy her. (even though her bio-logical father and his family buy her things). I know i sound really aweful as though i resent her, and in a way i think i do, i havent been able to have another child of my own because of financial reasons, and i feel really guilty about the way i feel towards her, i know shes only a child and it's not her fault, and do want it to change but don't know how to love her. i have only recently been honest with myself about how i feel and it's reassuring to read that there are other people out their who are also having probems. Like you i also find it difficult because she's not my blood neice, i havent adopted her and it feels like it's a really strange situation that i never imagined i would find myself in, it's also hard to talk to my hbs cos she is his niece and he does have some kind of bond with her. After reading that you are feeling like you do after 7 years i am more determined to get this sorted and don't want to continue living this lie (pretending i love her) i just dont know where to start.

[KathrynJB]

Happy and Louise, It sounds like you are both in very painful places, and that you feel terrible every day. That's a terrible way for all of you to live. And consider how hard it is for these kids, probably knowing exactly how you feel about them. Louise, of course she carefully measures each thing in the home. She's lost everything.

And Louise, sometimes people are stupid. OF COURSE you're a huge part of the equation!!!!!!! You're the mom raising her!!!!

So! The kids have very little choice in the matter, but YOU DO! First, I would strongly suggest that you find a counselor to talk to. For you. You need someone to vent to who can listen to you vent, understand your frustration, then give you a push to get onto the next part of loving these girls.

The next thing I would do is find a way to bond. Do you have a common interest? If not, get one. You need to find time and space to do something just with the child, that belongs just to you. You both have other kids and husbands. Leave the other kids with Dad and you and the girl go out and do something fun. Make an appointment. Make it such an important appointment that nothing can get in the way. NEVER take it away as punishment.

Then try to list for yourself things that are cool about her. Mention them to her. Even if it's something really simple and small. Or better yet, mention things you like about her to other people, while she can hear you.

It's hard, and it's hard work. But you have the opportunity to change your families and be happy.

With much love, Kathryn

[louise81]

Thanks Kathyrn. I actually feel alot more positive these last 2 days. I finally told my husband how i feel and was surprised that he was actually quite understanding. I think after admitting to myself that things weren't right and just reading a few stories and comments on this forum has really helped. i think i expected too much of myself, in that, i thought i would be able to just love her as the same way i do my son but im realising that it's actually ok that i don't and that love for her will grow. I realise i have to accept her for who she is and get on with it. I'm feeling so much better and im determined to really try hard to get to know her better, even if it's just going to the hairdressers together. I realise that i can't go on the way things are it's not fair on anyone involved. I don't want to be unhappy, but i realise im the only one that can change how i'm feeling. Thanks for youre advice and 4 not judging me 2 harshly!