This week, today actually, we celebrate (but that's not the right word) 6 years of having Quiet Tiger in our family.
A few years ago, I did an experiment with her Gotcha Day. I didn't celebrate it. Not a mention, not an extra hug, not a special cupcake, not a gift. Nada. Anyone who has followed my blog long enough knows that trauma doesn't tell time. QT's brain does remember that traumatic day when she was ripped from the orphanage, the only home she ever knew, and was placed in my arms. For her first few years home, she'd start acting out days before her Gotcha Day. So, a few years ago I decided not to celebrate it and see what happened. Same old, same old. She acted out. Her brain remembered. It did then and it still does today. She has been going from rage to manic as I write this [draft started about 1 week to go before her actual Gotcha Day].
I don't plan to celebrate today either. We're still dealing with way too much RAD to think about celebrating this day.
#@$%@#^@*&%#^*
This is not the life I pictured for us.
Instead, I'm reading through all my old blog posts from China. You can go to the list on the right and search for this date on May 2012 to follow along.
Oh, Brooke! You were so naive! Naive and stupid! I regret those writings now. Almost every word.
Wow. The signs of RAD were there the very minute I met my girl in the hallway waiting for the Civil Affairs Office in Xi'An, Shaanxi to open for us. The then quiet, but maniacal laughing. Then the complete disinterest in any person, including the nanny whom she knew. Ambivalence. No eye contact with anyone at all. The rocking in a chair while staring blankly out the window while I signed mountains of paperwork. The rocking and banging her back and then her head, hitting her skull HARD on the door to the office. All at 22 months of age.
I remember each and every minute of my 10 days in China and the RAD signs were everywhere like flashing neon lights burning directly into my retina. I knew it then; I just dismissed it as grief at her life taking a drastic turn. I had hoped and prayed that things would get better with time and with love.
Nope. If love healed, it would have healed the moment I first held her hand in that hallway.
Sigh.
We're still doing the program that we learned at the Healing Hearts Camp last year. The progress we've seen is minimal at best. We've officially decided to fork over a check with a lot of zeroes this August for Neurofeedback Therapy. Our hope is that starting just before school starts, then continuing on into her 2nd grade year, will help those brain waves even out at a time when her stress is at an all time high -- the start of the school year. Right now, those brain waves are just all over the place and nothing we are doing is working to get her regulated.
On this 6th Gotcha Day, May 28, 2018, I seek your prayers for a summer that we can all enjoy (as vague as that may be because even I don't know what that actually means for us anymore), and that the Neurofeedback we begin in August will be a permanent help to her, not a waste of our resources and efforts, and that it does the trick to get her moving forward in her healing.
