RAD?

I guess I really don't know where to start, I've research and read TONS online. Everything I've read has pretty much concluded that if not diagnosed as a child you never will be.
Is this true?

RAD symptoms pretty much describe me to a T.

I can't overly complain about my parents, I was an extremely difficult child, I just wish they would've forced me to get help.

I was adopted as an infant. I left the hospital (a little late because I was premature) and went directly to my parents.
I was felt as though I didn't belong and told my mother on several occasions (before I was five) that I didn't belong with them, I wasn't their child.
She said I always just knew.
I pushed and pushed and pushed that I wasn't theirs and I didn't belong until I was in 6th grade and then they finally explained the adoption and as much as they could about my back story.

Although they have had me since I was VERY little, I wasn't officially adopted until I was about 3 years old. I had to go to court with them and I guess played peek-a-boo with the judge (I don't remember any of this), so I don't know if somehow I understand more of that than anyone knew and it affected me. I don't know if I just never formed that bond that children do with their care givers.
I don't know as I even have RAD.
My mother (adoptive) is a difficult woman, who struggles with depression and her own issues. NOTHING is ever "good enough" for her, she is never satisfied.

What I do know is that I struggle with severe anxiety everyday.
SEVERE.
I know that I struggle with my self image, my self worth, and the idea that I am worthy and capable of being loved.
I keep people out, I hurt the people I love them.
I am self destructive and I refuse to get help.
I have made the appointment to go talk to a counselor several times, and never go.
I protect this thing that makes me so upset and ugly. I don't know how to explain the affect it has and what it does to me, my life and the people around me.
I'm afraid that if I go, there won't be help, just more people to judge me.

I'm afraid that I won't be able to change after 27 years and that I am just broken.
I am afraid of facing the things that REALLY bothering me.

I guess I am just looking for some thoughts, experiences, and maybe some advice.

Hi eksulli,

My mother (adoptive) is a difficult woman, who struggles with depression and her own issues. NOTHING is ever "good enough" for her, she is never satisfied.

Its a great pity you were adopted by a person with so many issues. I think this is the source of your difficulties, not the fact you were adopted.
I say this as someone who feels like you do, but I was not adopted. My mother was a cold woman, self absorbed, control freak (NPD) Ironically I used to dream of being taken away by social services and being fostered or adopted by someone nice.
I never felt I belonged to my natural mother. I thought if she was my real mother she'd love me, but she didn't.
I truly believe it doesn't matter who cares for you, natural mother or adoptive mother as long as the carer provides unconditional love, TLC. Its quality of care that matters, not who provides that care.
You don't sound like you have RAD to me.
I work at a foster school the children there have been expelled from normal school because they are so disruptive. Some of them have symptoms of RAD.

I can't overly complain about my parents, I was an extremely difficult child

What makes you say you were difficult, in what way exactly?

I have made the appointment to go talk to a counselor several times, and never go. I'm afraid that if I go, there won't be help, just more people to judge me.

I think you should go, I know its not easy talking about things that hurt, but you only 27 still young plenty of time to change/heal. No one will 'judge' you, they are there to help not judge.
Have you ever spoken to your doctor about your anxiety? He might be able to help.
There is help out there for you, but you gotta go and find it.
You feel broken, its time for change, time to start dealing with those issues. There is no easy fix, but things can get better, really they can.
((((((hugs to you))))))

Greatexpectations wrote:Hi eksulli,

My mother (adoptive) is a difficult woman, who struggles with depression and her own issues. NOTHING is ever "good enough" for her, she is never satisfied.

Its a great pity you were adopted by a person with so many issues. I think this is the source of your difficulties, not the fact you were adopted.You don't sound like you have RAD to me.
I work at a foster school the children there have been expelled from normal school because they are so disruptive. Some of them have symptoms of RAD. ((((((hugs to you))))))

What is this issue you have with invalidating attachment issues in baby adoptees? Most adoptees struggle with these issues, as well as issues they have with their adopive parents. Even adoption as a baby has an effect on how babies learn to attach, not just older adoptions.

Just because you wished you had been adopted or taken away, does not give you the right to minimalise how much adoption hurts. Many adoptees wished they'd been able stay with their birth parents.

Don't project your own issues onto other adoptees, it's this kind of attitude that adds to the burden we already feel, and just invalidates our loss.

Stop making other people's adoption issues about what you went through. Are you using us as some kind of scapegoat for your bad upbringing? And who says that you would have been adopted by 'someone nice'. What a simplistic way of looking at adoptive families, who are no different from natural families. Many people are abused or even killed by their adoptive parents.

You have no idea how triggering what you're saying is. On an attachmend disorder board of all places!

eksulli wrote:
What I do know is that I struggle with severe anxiety everyday.
SEVERE.
I know that I struggle with my self image, my self worth, and the idea that I am worthy and capable of being loved.
I keep people out, I hurt the people I love them.
I am self destructive and I refuse to get help.
I have made the appointment to go talk to a counselor several times, and never go.
I protect this thing that makes me so upset and ugly. I don't know how to explain the affect it has and what it does to me, my life and the people around me.
I'm afraid that if I go, there won't be help, just more people to judge me.

I'm afraid that I won't be able to change after 27 years and that I am just broken.
I am afraid of facing the things that REALLY bothering me.

I guess I am just looking for some thoughts, experiences, and maybe some advice.

Hi

I can relate very much to your story. I was adopted at 6 weeks, and had a lot of atachment issues, as well as abuse (emotional and physical) from my avoptive parents. I am 29 now.

Being adopted, it is very difficult for us to realise what is our issues from being adopted and what is caused by our adoptive parents. We are constantly told we are 'lucky' and should be 'grateful' which is extremely invalidating and painful, when you think of the loss and grief we have experinced. I have struggled with a lot of anger, as many adoptees do.

I would advise you to read adoptee blogs, they are great for realsising that you are not alone. Many adoptees are speaking out about how society treats adoption, and how the needs of the child are pushed aside. And don't get me started on the whole 'adoptive parents are saints' belief'. What a way to make adoptees feel like second class citizens.

Please don't blame yourself for being a difficult child. You were in pain and nobody understood. I am 29, close to your age, and back then nobody really understood attachment and adoption. Nobody cared about the effect it had on the baby, on the birth mother and the adoptive parents. I also pushed and pushed, tested them, I had a lot of anxiety that they would abandon me.I would not accept affection, had a lot of control issues, I was very angry. I felt rejected, abandoned and unwanted. As a toddler I would not be held, and that was definitely an adoption issue.

But, my adoptive parents were abusive. I think my behaviour may have been hard to handle, but that is no excuse for what they did. Adoptive parents also have their own issues, and may expect too much from the adoption. It has been very hard for me to know what is my issues (I am not good enough) and what comes from my parents. People seem to think that adoptive families are perfect and with parents who 'really wanted you'. Which shows thye don't see adoptive families like other natural familes.

Please feel free to PM me, I can really relate to you, and how you have self-defeating behaviour. I have also had severe anxiety, anger, body issues. It's like reading about myself!

I have done many things that have helped. I found Trauma Release Exercises have helped me with my initial trauma of being separated from my birth mother, and has reduced my attachment issues. When a baby is separated from the birth mother, they learn that the mother won't come to soothe them, so they close off. But since doing the TRE I am more open, I can self-soothe.

You should check out a book called 'Reinventing your Life' by Jeffrey Young. He invented Schema therapy, which helps with self-defeating behaviour. It sounds like you have an abandonemnt schema, and it's never too late to change.

Lily82,
Look, I am really sorry your adoption did not work out. The fact is most work out really well, comparable to people who are brought up by their natural parents.
I certainly had NO intention of being in any way invaliding and if the poster does feel that then I am sorry.
The poster wrote this, and I have replied to best of my ability

eksulli
I guess I am just looking for some thoughts, experiences, and maybe some advice.

Lily82
Please do not attack invalidate and my experiences just because they are not the same as yours. You are not the only person who hurts.
GE

Greatexpectations wrote:Lily82,
Look, I am really sorry your adoption did not work out. The fact is most work out really well, comparable to people who are brought up by their natural parents.
I certainly had NO intention of being in any way invaliding and if the poster does feel that then I am sorry.
The poster wrote this, and I have replied to best of my ability

eksulli
I guess I am just looking for some thoughts, experiences, and maybe some advice.

Lily82
Please do not attack invalidate and my experiences just because they are not the same as yours. You are not the only person who hurts.
GE

I am not invalidating you! Wow, talk about projection! I know I'm not the only person who hurts, but what you are doing on this board is out of order. This is not the place to work out your issues. People do not get taken away by 'nice people' who adopt them.

This is not a case of 'adoptees are better off with their adopive parents'. How is this relevant to this condition? These are YOUR issues.

How are you sure that most adoptions work? And the issues here is you saying that baby adoptees do not experience attachment problems. I have a lot of knowledge about adoption issues, and most adoptees suffer with psychologial problems and have a very high suicide rate.

You are talking on an RAD board, where people come to talk about their attachment issues, not be told that their problems are probably not from being adopted.

How are you sure that baby adoption does not cause attachment issues? Are you an expert?
Read 'The Primal Wound' about the effects of taking a baby away from their birth mother.

I really didn't mean to start such a war. Honestly.

I would fully accept that is was RAD, but what it is I don't know.
I'm certain it must be an attachment disorder. I just don't know how to google, attachment disorder/adult/adoptee and come up with anything but RAD.

Which from what I've read is diagnosed young, often in more foster/orphan cases or severe severe cases. I do understand that it's rare, and odds are it's not exactly what I have.
It's the closest I can come to understand myself and my issues, so I thought this board may be helpful.
I appreciate all the responses!

Being adopted, it is very difficult for us to realise what is our issues from being adopted and what is caused by our adoptive parents. We are constantly told we are 'lucky' and should be 'grateful' which is extremely invalidating and painful, when you think of the loss and grief we have experinced. I have struggled with a lot of anger, as many adoptees do.

Pretty much nailed it.
I was always guilty and angry (AND still struggle after seeing the horrific things my biological siblings who weren't given away had to go through). I struggle MORE now with my feelings of resentment over being adopted, because, well, I WAS the lucky one. I never saw it that way. I tormented myself over being so worthless that the people who were supposed to stand true wouldn't.
I dreamed that maybe my parents died in a car accident and would've loved me, but there was no other way.
I was angry that it was so. I was hurt and upset that they just "didn't want me".
I was crushed.

Please don't blame yourself for being a difficult child. You were in pain and nobody understood. I am 29, close to your age, and back then nobody really understood attachment and adoption. Nobody cared about the effect it had on the baby, on the birth mother and the adoptive parents. I also pushed and pushed, tested them, I had a lot of anxiety that they would abandon me.I would not accept affection, had a lot of control issues, I was very angry. I felt rejected, abandoned and unwanted. As a toddler I would not be held, and that was definitely an adoption issue.

Also SOOOO similiar.
My adoptive mother always tells me I was the most difficult child she's ever known.
She thought she knew what she was doing (she was 37 and had 3 older children 13, 15 and 18) when they adopted me.
I was COMPLETELY different.
I tested, and pushed. They used to have to lock me in a room by myself because I would get so hysterical and throw such terrible fits.
At one point our kitchen utensil draw ended up empty and it was because I had hidden all the spoons and spatulas between my mattress and box springs so they couldn't spank me anymore.
I do not remember any of this. I do not remember much at all from my childhood. These are stories that are frequently, regaled with laughter, by my parents.

I can also remember having horrible black out fits when my mother would leave me with a babysitter or at the daycare.
I would scream and panic (panic attack, hyperventilate panic) because I was certain she would die and I would never see her again.
I remember that feeling. I remember the pain and the fear associated with them even going to get groceries. I hated being separated from them, even though I think I probably seemed just as miserable to be around them.

I was NOT an easy child. But they SHOULD have gotten me into some sort of counseling.
By the time I was a teen, hell had broken lose between my mother and I, and I adamantly refused help, going as far as telling them I would lie through my teeth if they forced me to go.
In my teens my adoptive mother flat out told me, "I was the biggest mistake she had ever made."
I think I retorted, "Join the club".

I feel that I have ONLY ever been a mistake.

Eksulli

Please don't think you are the cause of this argument.
Greatexpectations told you that she didn't think your issues were from being adopted, and she believes that infant adotion does not cause attachment issues. And then did the old 'wish I'd been adopted by nice parents' routine, which as you know is thrown at adoptees all the time. I didn't want you, someone struggling with adoption issues to have to deal with that, on top of realising your pain.

Well the hiding things so they don't spank you, that is abuse, OK? No child deserves to be so scared that they hide things out of fear of being hurt.

I also had a lof of issues with being separated from my parents. I too would have a meltdown if I was sent to a babysitters house after school. And my mother would scold me for being awkward and ruining things for her, instead of realising I was having extreme abandonement anxiety. I would feel like i would never see them again, it was terrifying.

With your biological siblings. Like you I struggle with this guilt and this fantasy idea of my biological parents. But here is what I've learned. We just 'are'. There is no special reason that we were adopted, or that our siblings didn't. We shouldnt have to carry this burden around, for the mistakes the adults in our lives made, when we were babies. We are only responsible for ourselves, there's only so much we can carry.

Do non-adoptees walk around feeling grateful they were't aborted? So why should adoptees have think this way about being adopted? This wasn't something we could control.

I have been doing my own research on RAD for 4 years, my husband gained custody of his daughter just before she turned 3, she was diagnosed at age 6, and is now 8 years old. What I've found during my relentless searching for someone, anyone who can help me heal my child has lead me to articles written about children being adopted at birth that still have attachment issues. This could be because the child was traumatized in the womb by outside factors such as physical abuse of the birth mother, screaming and all the other things that can happen in an unstable environment. It can also be caused simply because the mother was depressed or highly anxious during the pregnancy with no outside influences at all but the hormones she produced during the pregnancy can leave a lasting effect on the fetus. And then there are other factors such as drugs and alcohol, the birth mother not having enough food or not eating the correct foods and even by the birth mother projecting negative thoughts about the fetus. The truth is we may never know the "why" any person has attachment issues but there is always hope for each person to heal. I would like to suggest a book authored by an adult survivor of RAD told in his own words. This is the best book I've read to date that shows me what my daughter is living and because of Jessie's journey and eventual healing I have more hope than ever that my child will heal too.

http://www.amazon.com/Detached-Survivin ... ds=hogsett

Hey This is Jessie Hogsett. Author of Detached Surviving reactive Attachment Disorder-A Personal Story. I was diagnosed with RAD at age 12. I have been through hell and back, but I can tell you it is survivable and you can lead a normal healthy life. You have to work hard and want to change and be willing to accept risks and open up. But you can do it. If your wondering how or why, take a look at the book. It gives real first hand insight in to my mind as a RAD child and gives tips and suggestions on how to work through your current situation to get to the point of healing. Hang in there. You can do it!!