THE BLESSING OF BEING HUMBLED

A while back I posted about a real, difficult struggle our family was dealing with. I wish I could say that things got easier after my post. I wish I could say that we now live in the land of "rainbows and unicorns". However, even with the advice of counselors, things got worse. After tons of research, advice, and prayers, we have had to come face-to-face with the fact that we believe our youngest son has Reactive Attachment Disorder. It is one of the things that adoptive parents pray never enters their family. We have learned that.....it effects many adoptive families. 

I am not sure why I was not better prepared for this possibility before completing our adoption process. Maybe I was so confident that "it would not happen to us".....I am a "super mom" after all....that I did not study up on it as much as I should. Maybe our adoption agency didn't talk about it much because they feared that less people will adopt if they knew the "real" possibilities of what challenges my enter their home. Maybe adoptive families did not talk about it much because they felt ashamed or guilty that they had done something wrong.

However, over the last six months of diving in to the world of RAD, I have read countless Facebook, blog, and chat group entries from families all struggling with children who have R.A.D.. It is an absolutely exhausting disorder that impacts the entire family. I have never known exhaustion or frustration on the level that I do now. 

It has been a humbling experience to admit that, although I think I am a pretty, darn, good mom.....I don't have a clue on how to handle a child with R.A.D.. I have beat my head against walls, collapsed to the floor in tears, raised my angry fists in the air, and had moments of helplessness and hopelessness for my adorable, beloved son.

We are still dealing with helping our son explore his own fears and sadness in healthy ways. I am still learning parenting strategies that will promote an environment where my son feels safe and encourage real, sincere bonding between the two of us. It is still very difficult. It is still exhausting. A book that has revolutionized my parenting though in the last month is, Beyond Consequences, Logic, and Control: A Love-Based Approach to Helping Attachment-Challenged Children With Severe Behaviors, by Heather Forbes. It has opened my eyes.....and heart......to see my son in a new way. I am hopeful that we are on a path that will lead to real healing.

Through this humbling season, I have seen blessings. I know I am a "super mom" for my son because of the courage I have had to muster to admit that I needed help. That simple, but hard step has opened the door for me to:

-embrace and be embraced by a community of parents dealing with the same struggle.....adoptive parents are rock stars! 
-grow in my parenting of ALL of my children
-become a support to other moms struggling with all sorts of things
-helped me to become more compassionate
-helped me to see how conditional my love can be....and how to become more intentially unconditional.
-know I am not alone or a failure.
-know there is hope for my son.

So "Super Moms", always remember to look for the great blessings in the incredibly hard moments. They are there. Don't allow your frustration or exhaustion to blind you from seeing the blessings. Allow the hard times to keep you humble in your "superness". For when you are humble AND super, you are in the perfect position to see all of blessings surrounding you.