Gary is out of town, again, and when he is, we try to find something different and fun to do. Sometimes it is sitting in the cool booths at USwirl and looking out at the mountains. Other times it is swimming at the pool. Other times it may be a treat of In and Out burger for dinner... or cereal... just something that puts a little fun into a day. So today since it was early out Monday (really not cool to have MONDAY be early release days... really... after a weekend I could use a couple extra hours at least to catch up!!!) we decided to hit Trafalga... a little fun center close to our house. We got unlimited passes (includes 2 water parks for summer) for Christmas and needed to go get our ID's made. Since it was snowing hard and still early the front desk guy talked us into a round of laser tag. I have never played... ever... guns arent really my thing. But in the spirit of "fun" I said what the heck.
If you know my Molly Shen, you know she worries. And when she has nothing to worry about, she finds something to worry about. She must ask me every day how much gas is today. On Christmas day she was worrying about what she would pack in her lunch on the day back to school. One of her biggest fears is the dark and scary things. She has nightmares all the time that she is stolen... so telling her we were going into the dark where we would shoot people and try to not be shot didnt go over so well. I pretty much drug her into the pre game room to watch the video. I strapped her vest on and put her laser gun into her hand KNOWING that i would probably have to haul her out of there screaming.
And then the game began... and she realized no one could hurt her and she went crazy. She snuck around... she crawled past doorways, put her back to walls and raced to hidey holes... it was the funniest thing to watch. It was like watching some cops and robbers show. As soon as we were done she asked if we could bring dad back when he gets home... she thinks that maybe he has some ex police skills that she could learn. (And she wants to be able to sneak up on him!!!)
Tonight she is tucked into my bed... sleeping on her dad's side of the bed... she isnt scared to sleep by herself...oh no sir... she just wants to help me out if I need something during the night and dad isnt here...
Monday, January 23, 2012
Sunday, January 15, 2012
no judgements please.
Before I feel like I can resume chronicling our life again, there are a couple of "elephants" in the room that need to be dealt with... sorta the main reasons I quit wanting to share. I was not in a place to discuss them privately yet it didn't feel right to just ignore them.
Some of our close friends know. Our family knows and our neighbors know, but it is a topic i avoid in public if at all possible.
If you are involved in the community of adoption at all you have heard the term RAD. For those who don't know what those 3 letters stand for , it is Reactive Attachment Disorder. It is a mental illness (condition) that can happen to anyone with a history of trauma, most commonly is seen in some adoptive children. RAD can manifest in many ways... from very slight to severe. Sometimes it can be treated and other times it can not.
Our family picture looks a bit different now... Bis is not in them. We made the very difficult decision to place him into a therapeutic group home a few months ago. Bis has severe RAD, as well as several other mental illnesses.
Life over the past few years has been miserable and scary. Bis had progressed to a point where he was extremely violent. It is hard to explain for those that have not lived it... on paper there is no way to express the nightmare that life was for all of us... including Bis. We had alarms on doors. He had made a plan for how to kill all of us, including his teacher at school. He explained to us how he would do it and what he would do with our bodies. He would describe in great detail the order in which we would die... When we locked up all the knives and scissors in the house, he made his own. He attempted to kill the dog. He attacked Gary with a golf club and Addie and I with a hammer. We had "escape" plans in place... how Noah would get the little kids to a safe place while Addie and I would work on containing Bis. We had the police involved on a couple of occasions. There is 4 years worth of stories I could blog.
Bis is getting help... the help he needs desperately. We dont know what the future holds. He may need to live in group home setting for a year, or 5 years, or the rest of his life. We just dont know at this point.
We are healing... we are learning to not live in fear. We are learning how to relax and enjoy life. We have lived a life that no one should have to live. We have had to make decisions no one should have to make. We have peace with our decisions and we see the healing taking place in our home. Bis struggles with therapy, but he is in an amazing wonderful place... a place that allows him to be the best him that is possible. We have made some incredible friends (you know the ones that see you on your worst possible day and just step in and help out??) and we have had "old" friends that have stood in the gap with us... we have also been judged, questioned and talked about. I would just like to say... you are welcome to walk a mile in our shoes, but those are shoes i wouldnt wish on my worst enemy.
Some of our close friends know. Our family knows and our neighbors know, but it is a topic i avoid in public if at all possible.
If you are involved in the community of adoption at all you have heard the term RAD. For those who don't know what those 3 letters stand for , it is Reactive Attachment Disorder. It is a mental illness (condition) that can happen to anyone with a history of trauma, most commonly is seen in some adoptive children. RAD can manifest in many ways... from very slight to severe. Sometimes it can be treated and other times it can not.
Our family picture looks a bit different now... Bis is not in them. We made the very difficult decision to place him into a therapeutic group home a few months ago. Bis has severe RAD, as well as several other mental illnesses.
Life over the past few years has been miserable and scary. Bis had progressed to a point where he was extremely violent. It is hard to explain for those that have not lived it... on paper there is no way to express the nightmare that life was for all of us... including Bis. We had alarms on doors. He had made a plan for how to kill all of us, including his teacher at school. He explained to us how he would do it and what he would do with our bodies. He would describe in great detail the order in which we would die... When we locked up all the knives and scissors in the house, he made his own. He attempted to kill the dog. He attacked Gary with a golf club and Addie and I with a hammer. We had "escape" plans in place... how Noah would get the little kids to a safe place while Addie and I would work on containing Bis. We had the police involved on a couple of occasions. There is 4 years worth of stories I could blog.
Bis is getting help... the help he needs desperately. We dont know what the future holds. He may need to live in group home setting for a year, or 5 years, or the rest of his life. We just dont know at this point.
We are healing... we are learning to not live in fear. We are learning how to relax and enjoy life. We have lived a life that no one should have to live. We have had to make decisions no one should have to make. We have peace with our decisions and we see the healing taking place in our home. Bis struggles with therapy, but he is in an amazing wonderful place... a place that allows him to be the best him that is possible. We have made some incredible friends (you know the ones that see you on your worst possible day and just step in and help out??) and we have had "old" friends that have stood in the gap with us... we have also been judged, questioned and talked about. I would just like to say... you are welcome to walk a mile in our shoes, but those are shoes i wouldnt wish on my worst enemy.
Friday, January 13, 2012
it has been a little while...
Hello... i should probably introduce myself... I am Denise. :-) So many times i have sat down to update this blog and turned off my computer. I have said I would blog, but havent. There has been some tough stuff. And i didnt really know how to blog it. But ignoring it was difficult too. Then there was the privacy issue... we lived where my little family needed to be protected from a world of lies and abuse. A place where facts were exchanged for lies and where sadly victims were cast as the "guilty".
But... time has passed and wounds have healed. We are safe... we dont look over our shoulders or turn our heads as people whisper behind our backs. We live free and loved and happy now.
And it was sitting around the table with the kids just talking that the blog was mentioned, and i realized how important it was to all of them. That they missed it. And for whatever reason, the blog is a big part of them... and so it has been edited (and probably will be some more). It has been given a bit of an update... (thanks Noah for getting the stomach flu... which kept me home looking for a break from the laundry).
so we started over. We refused to give into the lies. We chose to believe that God could turn everything into good. We stand on that. God is good. All the time.
But... time has passed and wounds have healed. We are safe... we dont look over our shoulders or turn our heads as people whisper behind our backs. We live free and loved and happy now.
And it was sitting around the table with the kids just talking that the blog was mentioned, and i realized how important it was to all of them. That they missed it. And for whatever reason, the blog is a big part of them... and so it has been edited (and probably will be some more). It has been given a bit of an update... (thanks Noah for getting the stomach flu... which kept me home looking for a break from the laundry).
so we started over. We refused to give into the lies. We chose to believe that God could turn everything into good. We stand on that. God is good. All the time.
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