I was out to lunch with a great friend yesterday and was talking about the last year or so and what it's meant to be a mom, but not only being a mom but a mom to 2 children who have come to me in such different ways. I realized, as we were talking, that I haven't shared with many the grief and anger that I've been going through since Skye has come home. Nor have I shared some poignant things that happened in the first few days of his homecoming that set the stage for the dance we've been doing ever since.
As I was putting dishes away just now I was thinking about my first trip to Guatemala and the immense emotions that went with that trip. I held Skye, who was just a little baby, for the first time and also had to give him back for the first time. No one but an adoptive parent who went through this process will ever truly understand the heartache and grief that follows when you hand your child to someone and watch him drive away. The only thing that I am so grateful for is he really had NO idea who we were, so being driven away was so much worse for us than him. There is a grief that encompasses you that can really only be lifted as your child sleeps in your own home for the first time.
But this is where our story gets muddy. Skye's first night in our home was perhaps the hardest and most painful moment of my time as a mother. He was sleeping with Chris in our bed and as I came to bed to sleep with my son he rolled over on his back, put both feet on my and pushed me out of my own bed. We were so new at all of this that I just left and slept in another room for the next 3 nights. The following days any time Chris showed me any affection Skye would throw himself on the floor and wail. Yes it is heartbreaking. Yes the manifestation of his trauma was the saddest thing I have ever witnessed. But what very few people have ever gotten, or expressed that they get, is that the person he was rejecting was his mother. You can go through every book, every reason, everything everything everything, but as his mother I cannot express to you how heartbreaking it is to be rejected by your own child. Again we can go through the psyche of all of this, but the reality is YOU are not living in my skin and feeling the sadness that can envelope you. The frustration that you can never do anything right, and the grief that your own child despises you. May I remind you that I am a counselor and I understand the reasonings behind all of this, but the heart hurt is the piece that is not logical.
So why am I writing all of this today? Because I feel like for the first time in a very long time I understand my own part in this dance, and I understand how I did not share the grief that I was feeling. I'm most likely going to be writing parts of my thoughts over the next few days for 2 reasons:
1. To download them out of my brain
2. To allow someone else who may be facing the daunting task of raising an attachment disordered child to see that there is hope, and that you are NOT alone.
I have made more mistakes in the past 15 months than I can ever express. And I forgive myself for those mistakes. I did not go into each transgression with low intentions or the thought that my behavior was going to "damage" my son. I was a mom who was so confused, stuck, angry that I didn't know what to do. And I will say that I went through months of counseling to help me, but it's like putting a bandaid over a gaping wound, it held it shut but it didn't heal. The healing takes time. But more than time, the healing takes telling, which is what I am doing here.
Today I realized, well in the past week or so, that I don't hate my son anymore. You can say what a terrible thing to say. What an awful mom I must be, he's such a hurt small little boy who didn't choose this. And I will agree to all of it. But what no one really says, is "you poor mom. this must be so hard on you. how heartbreaking to have your son reject you. how scary that must feel." Again I realize that focus always goes on the child, but without the mom the child is lost. No one has ever been able to flip my switch as quickly as Skye can. No one has ever made me question everything there is about me as well as Skye can. What I will say is that I have persevered through this madness and am coming out the other side. For the first time in months I feel more like myself than I have in so long. I can't say I'm grateful for what Skye has put me through, I'm not there yet. What I can say is that I'm grateful that I'm finding the capacity to love him, despite all the crap we are going through. That I'm grateful that a few of my close friends have understood that what I needed to hear wasn't "poor Skye" but "how are you doing?" "What can I do to support you?"
This process is far from over, and I do what my counselor suggested to keep me on the even keel - I don't wake up every morning hoping for a good day, I wake every morning expecting a tornado and give my thanks that night when we have calm seas.
