Oh. My. Goodness.

When Squeaker was just 11 years old and frequently throwing all of her belongings out the window of her room, throwing rocks at my car, standing on top of the furniture shouting obscenities, running away, threatening to jump off buildings or into traffic, calling me all sorts of nasty names to my face or to my toddler son, and bullying the little kids, I really had to think long and hard before I adopted her about whether or not I would be able to handle her behaviors.

A near move to residential treatment, lots of stalling by social workers and attornies, a great deal of trial and error with meds and treatment teams and she finally stabilized to the point that her social worker, attorney, and I felt it was okay to move ahead. And during that time mostly what I thought to myself (and said to Ana) was, "What if she acts this way or worse when she is a teenager?"

Fast forward two years later, Squeaker's adoption was finalized this summer at the age of 13 1/2. We've had a bumpy road but it has evened out considerably from where we started.

Until the past few weeks. The good news is that so far my car has been safe and she hasn't trashed the house or her room. She has said she doesn't want to be here but has not run away. She hasn't threatened herself. So that is a great deal of progress that we've been able to hold onto.

But she has yelled at me every day this week, actually almost any time we've had a conversation. Several days she has violently screamed at me and at Ana. Although she is often sweet with the little boys, their interaction must be supervised because her mood changes so abruptly and she can take a mean turn at the slightest offense.

I have talked to her psychiatrist about the recent increase in reactivity and irritability but the doctor thinks her meds are fine for now. Living with so much unpredictability is difficult and sometimes the other kids have a hard time being friendly back when she is suddenly in a more social mood. It's hard for me and Ana too but we can do it more easily knowing some of the reason behind her erratic emotions.

Our program social worker once told us that we are able to see and appreciate the kid behind the behavior in a way that some people can't. It was a nice complement. We do love and see value in kids despite their behaviors but even more than that we can see the potential in them that is so trapped by the fear, hurt, and anger because of what has been done to them. I only hope we are as good at helping them break through all that so they can become whole and free and healthy the way they should have always been allowed to be.

Find a Happy Place, Find a Happy Place

Mega-emotion day around here. I had to have several conversations with Squeaker about how she has been treating the other kids. Talks like these always bring up a flood of emotions. Today it was tears, anger, frustration, major attitude, hatefulness, anger, fear, and yet again more tears.

For the record, I am not all that comfortable with over-the-top displays of emotion. Which is funny as they are a major occupational hazard for foster/adoptive parents of traumatized kids. Also kind of funny considering I felt like a bit of an emotional freak when I was a kid. I told Squeaker tonight that I was a lot like her when I was around her age. I cried a lot...when I was sad, scared, embarrassed, or angry. I was depressed a lot. I had (well, have) a hard time focusing. I was agonizingly shy. I hated meeting new people. I was afraid of new situations and afraid of going to school because I might do something stupid, which I did pretty much daily...and actually still do. I should probably point out that I had a very good childhood. I have wonderful, loving, Godly parents and terrific siblings. I just have one of those quirky little brains that doesn't want to balance it's chemicals right or something. With a great deal of painful effort I have gotten over most of these things. But my comfort zone is pretty small and I'm outside of it almost all of the time.

So ,despite my discomfort, I really do understand a lot of the emotions that Squeaker is going through. I know her mixed-up emotions are coming not only from mental illness but also from her very abusive history. The physical abuse was bad enough but the reports on the emotional and verbal abuse she suffered made me cringe when I first read them.

Needless to say, we spend a lot of time in messy, chaotic emotional overload when working through past and present issues. In some respects my instinctive desire to distance myself can be helpful because my feelings are not easily hurt by hateful comments that seem inevitible from traumatized kids. There is much I could just let slide in order not to deal with the constant barrage of emotions. But for her sake, I must jump in with both feet and muck around in it with her. It stretches me too because I must get over myself and my reactions in order to help her. I'm not all that good at it but I empathize and hug and correct distorted thinking when I can. She reveals more of who she really is each time and each time I tell her I love her no matter what. And we reclaim lost ground and sometimes take a few tottering steps towards healing.

And I feel uncomfortable and stupid but I psych myself up to do it all over again the next time, because inch by precious inch we're somehow moving forward.

That Hurts

Major emotional meltdowns going on upstairs tonight, emphasizing again that hurting kids can be hateful, hurtful, dangerous, and abusive in an effort to reject you before you can reject them. But they feel it just as deeply even though they expect and practically beg to be rejected in order to confirm what they think they knew about you all along.

Wait, now I'm getting confused.

It makes their broken appeals for acceptance and belonging all the more heart-breaking that they are delivered with such volatile and violently mixed emotions. Can't post details yet but we are in for an awful, painful, gut-wrenching week.