The manuscript is done! Whew! I told someone the other day this is the hardest “job” I’ve ever had. The title is…
Adoption Combat Zone
Deceptions and Collateral Damage
Our Story of International Adoption
Now I’ve entered the world of self-publishing and working to learn all the tips and tricks to getting a book published. I’ve learned so much during this process. About the writing process, and about myself. It’s been challenging putting our story on paper. Challenging to re-live the trauma over and over again. Knowing the decisions we made that brought trauma into our family. Taking responsibility for those decisions. Wondering how something which should have been so good, was so devastating.
I feel such a heavy burden to get our story (and the other 350 plus stories in the book) out into the hands of the public so they understand there is another side to adoption, one you can’t readily find by searching social media. Especially after the tragedy in Florida last week. The young man was adopted, had RAD and FASD, and a host of mental and attachment issues. People spoke up about him. No one listened. No one ever listens. Until it’s too late. Then everyone wants to know why no one said anything. WE DID. I have a stack of police reports a foot high. Sorry ma’am, we wish there was more we could do but until they actually DO something, our hands are tied.
Or they start blaming. Guns, bullying, no friends, not enough love at home, etc. RAD brains are broken. They need more than a group of friends and love is never going to be enough. They need intensive attachment therapy by RAD trained specialists.
Even after one of ours brutally attacked me in public with witnesses and cameras we were forced to bring my attacker back into our home and take care of her. YES! We were threatened that if we didn’t allow her back home our biological children would be removed by the “system” because we would then be labeled unfit parents.
We parents, who only wanted to do the right thing and give a child or teen the hope of a future, are broken. First by our adopted children/teens, then by the system which doesn’t protect us and makes us the “bad guy” because children can’t really be that bad, right? WRONG!
Our RAD’s are gone now. I don’t know who I am anymore. No mother should have to watch her children go through what I watched mine experience. I see how they behave now and know it’s trauma speaking. We brought trauma children into our home to help heal them. Instead, they are still broken and now so are our biological children. How did that help anyone? I really thought that on the day they left we would all feel better instantly. Somehow it makes it worse that it didn’t happen that way. My daughter said it’s like she was in a car accident and now she has to go to physical therapy to learn to walk again only it’s her brain. Exactly!
Maybe I will feel better once the book is out and I know it’s making a difference. Maybe it won’t stop someone from adopting, but at least they will be informed and know what’s possible. And maybe, just maybe, it will protect some families from being as broken as mine is.
Again, I will make the disclaimer that you might have adopted and it’s fantastic. I’m over the moon happy for you. I truly am. I wish all adoptions were like yours. More than you will ever be able to fathom I wish ours had been.
This is simply my opinion
Kathe