WADS

Here’s a spectrum for you: a Sneaky Spectrum.

On one end we have G, who does stuff like shouting “Don’t look! I’m changing!” when doing a changing-inside-towel thinger at the beach. As you might imagine, he’s not much of a sneaker. His sneaking is always cartoonish and ridiculous – stomping down the stairs on his tiptoes with a sheepish expression on his face as he tries to sneak a granola bar after bedtime, spitting his greens into the toilet then forgetting to flush…

My father told me when I was very young that I was a bad liar and I’ve pretty much not lied since. That was a pretty good teaching. He also tried to teach me to be subtle and ladylike. Which did not work. Both of which – not lying, not being subtle (subtlety usually reads to me as manipulative) – now totally make sense in my corner of the spectrum.

At the other end of the Sneaky Spectrum, we have Z, who is a Master Sneak. And it scares me because I have no idea how to deal with it.

Here’s an example: WADS. One of Z’s special habits is making little balls of chewed up paper with water and spit. She likes to take them in and out of her mouth, and store them for long periods of time. This results in a reeking, festering mess; and, in her mother here, a mixture of exasperation, disgust and compassion. Obviously, wads fulfill a deep need in my daughter, whether for oral sensory seeking or something more emo-, and orphanage-related. But…I need to help her fulfill that particular need in a healthier way.

So I tried Solution 1: No Water in the Bedroom. This did not work, as Z is worlds above me in the Sneak Department. She found a myriad of ways to sneak water into her room and create wads. Stashing water in the containers of “beauty products” I gave her so she wouldn’t eat mine…a tiny doll’s mug under the bed with murky, saliva-y water…wads hidden wrapped in non-masticated tissues next to her bed “in case she needed to blow her nose”…

Over years, we’d have the talk – “Please don’t chew up paper and leave it in your room. It’s not healthy because the wads get full of germs and smell bad too.  If you need food or a drink I will give them to you…” OR “You may NOT have water in your room!” – and a few days (or weeks) later I would find a glass (or another vessel) of water and an (increasingly tiny) container full of paper/water/spit wads.

Innovative.

The mildly unsanitary aspect of the wads gets to me less than the sneaking. The worst part is feeling that I am somehow helping her to become a Master Sneak.

Telling Z not to do something just doesn’t work. (Lest you forget that this is a Full Spectrum we are working with, telling G not to do something doesn’t always work either. But he’s – I was going to say more sanitary, but no – less potentially dangerous in his efforts.)

Like many children with attachment disorders, Z has a deep underlying need for control. I can wear myself out supervising her every moment, but we are already almost there. And I need to help her learn healthy habits and heal her attachment disordered behavior, rather than training her to stay one step ahead of The Law.

I’ve long known I need to do something indirect, something subtle in this, the Matter of the Wads. Unfortunately, my brain just does not work that way!

Meanwhile, over the years, my early bird G spends his mornings reading; early bird Z seems to spend them making wads.

Until now!

Solution 2: After years of worrying about the implications of Z alone in her room with needles and scissors, I finally gave her a whole bunch of sewing and weaving stuff to play with at her own discretion.

I noticed a few weeks after the crafty gifts that these activities seem to have worked to channel/redirect her wad-making energy, indirectly and subtly!

This was so indirect and subtle I didn’t even know I was doing it.

Anyway: Huzzah!

Fingers crossed on the sharps.

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama

PAIN – SQUARED

Parents who have children who were adopted from orphanages often have to ‘teach’ their children to acknowledge pain to themselves and to express pain to others. Although Z came into our family at only nine months of age, she had already learned not to react to her body being hurt, or to express hunger or thirst through a baby’s only language (tears).

Instead, she expressed herself primarily through screaming if being put down at any time. Once she found someone to hold her at length, a single person devoted only to her and her brother (to whom she was immediately attached as well), she was not about to be abandoned. This was particularly acute during her first weeks with her family, during which not only did she demand to be held at all times but also to be walked around while being held, resulting in SEVERE sleep deprivation for all concerned.

Arriving home, we embarked upon a plan. I had heard that children whose most basic needs for comfort have not been met may present a range of developmental and emotional challenges and I had bright ideas to “fix” some of these potential issues. Reacting to pain came first: a strategy of exaggerated response to any possible injury quickly taught Z that if something happened to her that potentially did not feel good, and there was someone nearby to help, she could get a response to her feelings and be the beneficiary of comfort measures, such as an ice pack or the proverbial band-aid.

To this day, though, Z doesn’t even blink an eye at pain when she thinks no one is looking! I have watched from the kitchen window as she has fallen – hard, or been accidently but vigorously wacked with something from afar by her clueless brother. She never makes a sound…or even a face. I wonder: did she somehow never develop some important aspect of the neurology to feel pain because of those early months of neglect? Is she just brave as heck? Does she feel the pain, but less?

G and I, being highly sensitive personages, have to work really hard not to scream when we, like, step on a stray drop of water (no - really), so this is definitely a germane question in the Full Spectrum family.

Whereas a casual hidden observer could probably catch G or I writhing privately in agony several times a day, I’d wager that observer would never see the same in Z. Z has learned that public expression of discomfort leads to results, but when there is nothing to “gain” by reacting, she seems to have decided not to waste her energy.

Similarly, she doesn’t seem to notice hunger or thirst unless in the environs of potential indulgers, in which case she will avail herself of various and sundry treats. G and I, within an hour or two of not eating, invariably find ourselves starving, even trembling, with hunger. Much longer and we become vague, lightheaded, nauseous. I happen to be hypoglycemic, and G may be too; perhaps equally significant is the fact that we both had our needs met as infants. Our physiology (sensitive) and our early environments (sensitive to our needs) matched. 

Z, in contrast, seems to be able to function indefinitely without eating, unless food is offered to her. That is, her energy stays high, her focus sharp, her spirits strong -- whether she eats regularly or not…[Obviously, I haven’t performed experiments on her, I am going on seven+ years of observation.] It’s hard to imagine she could be experiencing hunger in the profound and extreme way that G and I do and still function so well, but, as must be asked vis-à-vis her pain, doesn’t she feel some hunger? She knows her situation now is one in which her needs can be met, and yet she still self-limits on those needs…unless – and this is a real possibility -- her physiology just really is that different.

That her response varies so widely according to context potentially indicates a reduced sensitivity to her own body’s cues and/or a self-imposed (conscious or un-) denial of self-nurturing and/or a really advanced mastery of social capital. Would Z be more sensitive overall, and therefore more vulnerable, had she been nurtured differently in her first months?

People sometimes ask me to blurb their books or products or blogs on this blog and I recently agreed to read a novel about reactive attachment disorder (RAD) by a reader named Michelle Weidenbenner. Her book is called Scattered Links (http://www.amazon.com/Scattered-Links-Michelle-Weidenbenner-ebook/dp/B00HP3X6R4) and it is about a Russian orphan’s journey. I haven’t finished it (and it seems to have some Christian undertones, which may be a plus or a minus or neutral for different readers), so I haven’t yet got a blurb. I was struck powerfully, though, by this sentence from the preface, which is written in the orphan’s voice:

“We never learn how to ask for what we need because when we do, no one listens.”

I’d never connected Z’s inability to acknowledge pain or hunger with her inability to ask for what she needs or wants. Z’s refusal to ask for things comes across as regal, but it’s at base a survival strategy, a sad concession to a disappointing start.

The other day we saw a “Wild Women Don’t Get the Blues” bumper sticker and Z asked what it meant. I explained that women have often been taught to do as they are told and that doing so, just for the sake of obedience, makes women unhappy. Women should follow their own dreams and beliefs, I told her, and then they won’t get “the blues.” But sometimes the other people who make the rules -- and the other people who follow the rules -- don’t like when you make your own rules, and they might call you “wild” or “different” or “crazy,” even. And that’s okay, because you will be happier -- and stronger -- for following your own heart.

Of course, she’s still too young to make up her own rules. And I assured her I still get to boss her around for a Long Time. But I want her to know, and I will continue to say to her:  if something (or someone!) hurts you, or if you are hungry for something, speak up, my daughter!!!! How we feel – in our hearts, our bellies, our bodies, our beliefs – matters. YOU MATTER.

Now, let’s eat!

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama

Springtime at the Orphanage

Tra la la…”Sweet lovers love the spring…”*

Tra la…

Let’s see…

This time last year, we were in discussions about a possible 504 Plan** for Z. The year before that, we sought attachment-disorder-specific therapy for a situation that was spiraling out of control – and out of the range of bearable.

This spring we are facing a renewed cycle of tantrums and other behaviors, many of which have lain dormant since as long ago as, well, last spring. I’ve had to write Z’s teacher several times explaining that she had not had breakfast due to a meltdown; now I know to pack extra snacks – stuff like that.

While Z sometimes says things she intends to be very hurtful (a wee bit embarrassingly for all, these things often seem funny to adults in the vicinity: “You stupid poopoo mother I will hate you forever and kill you With! This! Doll! And then I will never! Ever! Eat the BAD, DUMB dinner you cook again!”), she more often proceeds directly to the pre-verbal, with growls, shouts, kicks and screams prevailing.  We’ve come to understand that this regressive behavior demonstrates Z’s ongoing need to be nurtured as (if she were still) a baby.

The cycle of the seasons clearly has deep meaning for Z.  The merry infant who smiled back at us from her taken-in-February referral photo had, by the time we arrived in China in July (this was as fast as the process allowed) to bring her home, seen and felt things no child should endure. I cannot say whether Z endured any definite abuse. We were not allowed to enter the orphanage in Fuzhou (Jiangxi province). Certainly there was a significant level of neglect, and, judging by how skinny Z was -- and how voracious – a bona fide shortage of food.

Z’s orphanage experiences are still reverberating in her body and mind in ways unfathomable to those of us who at the very least had adequate food and some constant presence in our infancies.

Sure, we’d all like to have been loved unconditionally and to have known we came first to our parents and maybe some of us didn’t get that and yeah, that sucks. No, it really does. And we - some of us - do have cavernous, terrible, enduring holes inside where that love should have gone. But anyone privileged enough to be reading (or writing) this blog probably had their most basic needs met. Z didn’t. She’s traumatized. It comes out in the spring.

As the years have gone by and we have been able, with the help of our therapist, to identify this pattern, it has helped all of us feel less hopeless. It’s given us some context, rather than leaving us flailing in the dark as our family degenerates, seemingly out of the blue. I can say to Z, “Springtime is sometimes hard for you,” and that might let her know both that she is accepted and that this, too, shall pass.

We are not alone in having a child who hits a rough patch in the spring (or in some other cyclical context). Whether through embodied trauma, allergies, transitions…certain times of the year can trigger strong, often unhealthy behaviors and feelings.

This spring, partially to address these issues and partly because we’ve put our house on the market, we embarked on The Deep Cleaning of the Bedrooms. While each child cleans his or her room weekly, with some help from Mama, this was a whole different endeavor. I swear, between recycling and straight up trash I hauled several hefty bags out of each child’s room.

G’s room was a giant mess, but Z’s room was a project. A certain kind of masterpiece, actually. Millions of tiny twists of paper had been squirreled away in every possible crevice. There were a lot of unfamiliar (to me, anyway) toys, and pieces of candy and candy wrappers and Oreos (Oreos??!) in hidey-holes and in bags within bags (whenever I come across a snazzy second hand purse or am given one, it goes straight to Z). 

Progressing from irritation to wonder, and back and forth again, I stood in awe at the complexity and skill of Z’s hoarding.

When we were done (after many, many sensory breaks for all) and we’d dealt with the garbage and recycled the recycling, Z was as happy as I’ve ever seen her. You could actually see how light she felt, how purged. Without prompting, she expressed her desire to “be really peaceful all the time now!” and to “draw instead of ripping and hiding things!”

Nice ideas. Let’s hope they work, at least a little. Spring cleaning is traditional in many cultures and maybe there is a deeper source to this impulse than just the practical, cleaning-cleaning part.

In any case, I do believe we will aim for a Deep cleaning every Spring from here on in.

I’ve always suspected that when parents try to correct for the wrongs done them by their parents they probably will be causing equal yet opposite forms of wrongs to their own children. Butanyway, I try to work on the heart level too, because my generation is big on endowing our children with unconditional love.

Sometimes we have this exchange, which both children find quite boring:

FSM: “Do you know what is the most important thing on earth to me?”

Children: “We are.” (Ho Hum.)

FSM: “Do I love you completely in every way no matter how you act?”
Children: “Yeeees.” (With ennui.)

FSM: “What do I think you are?”
Children: “Marvels.”

Marvels! The great cellist Pablo Casals said this about children:

Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe, a moment that will never be again. And what do we teach our children? We teach them that two and two make four, and that Paris is the capital of France. When will we also teach them what they are? We should say to each of them: Do you know what you are? You are a marvel. You are unique. In all the years that have passed, there has never been another child like you. Your legs, your arms, your clever fingers, the way you move. You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything. Yes, you are a marvel. And when you grow up, can you then harm another who is, like you, a marvel? You must work, we must all work, to make the world worthy of its children.

Pablo Casals (1876 - 1973)***

Springtime at the Orphanage might’ve been terrible, but, here, it’s got marvels too.

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama

* "It Was a Lover and His Lass"

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

It was a lover and his lass,

   With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,

That o’er the green cornfield did pass,

   In springtime, the only pretty ring time,

When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;

Sweet lovers love the spring.

Between the acres of the rye,

   With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,

Those pretty country folks would lie,

   In springtime, the only pretty ring time,

When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;

Sweet lovers love the spring.

This carol they began that hour,

   With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,

How that a life was but a flower

   In springtime, the only pretty ring time,

When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;

Sweet lovers love the spring.

And therefore take the present time,

   With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,

For love is crownèd with the prime

   In springtime, the only pretty ring time,

When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;

Sweet lovers love the spring.

** 504 Plans relate to a wide range of “impairments” to learning, the variety of which may or may not fall under “Special Education” criteria. Z’s disruptive classroom behavior -- which stemmed from her attachment disorder -- was impairing her ability to learn as well as disturbing her teacher and fellow students.

Here is a good definition of a 504 Plan from http://specialchildren.about.com/od/504s/f/504faq1.htm :

Question: What Is a 504 Plan?

Answer: The "504" in "504 plan" refers to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act, which specifies that no one with a disability can be excluded from participating in federally funded programs or activities, including elementary, secondary or postsecondary schooling. "Disability" in this context refers to a "physical or mental impairment which substantially limits one or more major life activities." This can include physical impairments; illnesses or injuries; communicable diseases; chronic conditions like asthma, allergies and diabetes; and learning problems. A 504 plan spells out the modifications and accommodations that will be needed for these students to have an opportunity perform at the same level as their peers, and might include such things as wheelchair ramps, blood sugar monitoring, an extra set of textbooks, a peanut-free lunch environment, home instruction, or a tape recorder or keyboard for taking notes.

*** http://blog.gaiam.com/quotes/authors/pablo-casals/55416