Trying to Shed Lght on the Reality

Trying to shed light on the reality 

a guest post by a fellow trauma mama (posted with permission)

Dear friends and acquaintances, 

I'm hoping to share some of the things our Adopted families face when our kids have spent their first 1 to 8 years (in our case) in and out of the child welfare system. 

There is no shortage of factual research and evidence of many of our family's extra challenges that are specific to the developmental process and specific needs we face everyday. The problem is in denying both the parent and the children avenues for coexisting within the same social structures that cause many of these injuries. 

The abuse/neglect is due to both the actions of the biological families as well as the foster care system - so our families have these origins because we became a family through adoption. We did not cause the harm. 

In our case, I was never given any case file or factual history, but we are the ones stepping up to be the other Mom or Dads who can do better by them and help them work through their grief and the troubles bestowed upon them pain & confusion, unaddressed and long mishandled. My children experienced things early in life that had and continue to affect them and in turn affect us - we are a family who faces extra challenges in our lives that most people do not understand. 

We are fortunate that a long time ago we were brought together permanently as a family, We are able to work through things when others just let us do our thing and do not interfere. 

The purpose of this post is this issue of intolerance. As their Mom, I dedicated myself long ago to work as hard as necessary to help reverse the effects of experiences that NO child should have to go through because of the careless abusive, neglect and absence of conscious, nurturing, comprehensive child care by the adults in charge at the time. 

The harm and the damage from the maltreatment caused a few things to happen that changes things for us and you are not expected to fully understand these issues. They do affect you as you are a part of our society but not in the way that you think. We parents of children dealing with the affects of complex early childhood trauma do work on this additional aspect of development daily - for us its part of our norm. 

We are not a broken part of society or a part who is looking for your pity, we are an amazing and beautiful aspect of society that your ignorance is not seeing correctly and you are missing our blessings. 

We are the Adoptive Parents of a sibling group. We are real parents like you - but few people are willing or able to make the type of commitments we consciously accept along with our gifts (our children ❤️ ). I), It is enormous and it is a lifelong commitment labor of love that not many biological parents are capable of seeing through to the end. I look to the way in which we are treated with a constant lack of care, constantly being criticized and misunderstood as the clear evidence.

The time is past due for the people in our communities to generally understand a few things and in our communities to become more informed. 

We are acutely aware of the complex nature that early childhood trauma had on our children’s development. Please just take a step back and see our families as normal but different then yours, not better or worse just not the same. 

It would be a huge help if others in our world did not judge us based on beliefs that are simply incorrect. Basically just because you are a parent or have had classes in early childhood development it does not mean you know what you are looking at when you see our families acting up. 

Please respect our families right to privacy and our right to have a fighting chance, and pray for us to keep the faith. Support us without judgement, the parents above all else, because we DO know our children. We believe in them and we are in the front lines with them fighting. 

Secrets and lies breakdown their faith in us and most of the time we are protecting them from their dangerous behaviors. In the more complex cases, like ours, we are studying and learning and praying all day everyday for better tools and for the public to stop negatively impacting our fragile families. 

Our kids often learned to lie, cheat, steal, manipulate and play people against one another from their abusers. We are trying to teach them that it's OK to trust a loving mother or father even though that concept has been hard - literally beaten out of them. The abuse was taught to them since birth ( often when the parent was under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol) and then again by them being continuously shuffled around like property. The layers of trauma are not easy to explain. 

Outside chatter that interferes with our ability to reach them and keep them is very possibly permanently harming and re-injuring our children.

This “help” often reverses healing and reinforces the beliefs that all people are selfish and no one really does care. 

Please realize that this applies to every single adult that comes into contact with our children (who usually appear healthy).  Your attempts to "rescue" them and "help" is actually causing more harm.

Sadly these people do exist. As a parent, I'm often offended that its perfectly OK for everyone to cause more harm to my children day after day. 

Many of our kids “need,” or think they need, to control every aspect of their lives because they had none when the hurt happened. It's usually the reason they manipulate all the so called experts and adults. 

The adults all but encourage this too, with the loaded questions and the desire to be a hurt kid's hero. Taking responsibility for these controlling and manipulative behaviors is apparently near to impossible for both the outsider and our children. (We know about our kid's issue with this but the outsiders - not so much) 

I personally find it unbelievably careless for the adults that make up our society and the public at large to "wing it" with personal bias and false beliefs. As long as the truth stays suppressed, everyone can happily blame someone else and not face reality - all the while perfectly satisfied being the biggest part of the problem. 

Adults are too lazy or jaded or whatever to take a few minutes to understand things better. Maybe someday you could give the adopted parents the benefit of doubt and just listen carefully to our requests. They are usually simple but very specific. 

For us, comprehensive care is make or break and our system has across the board failed us in creating support that works. 

We do know what our children need though and it's referenced in part above . ❤  

Some Additional Posts on this Subject:
Don't Save My Child - by Confessions of an Adoptive Parent
Dear Person Who Just Doesn't "Get It"

What My Child Learned From Not Getting Consequences From School

Prioritizing Yourself, Your Family, and Your Child - In That Order

Why Do They Act Like That?

Why Doesn't My Child Feel Safe?