The Underground World of RAD--why are we "underground?"

The Underground World of RAD are a group of parents and caregivers, usually moms (adoptive, foster, bio, or stepmoms) who have, or have had, children with Reactive Attachment Disorder living in our homes.

We are “underground” because children with RAD have a specific set of symptoms that make it hard for the outside world to detect what’s going on. Professionals, including therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, medical doctors, clergy and teachers are most often “snowed” by the child. The child looks, to the outside world, as if she were a perfect angel-- while at home she is full of rage and abusive behavior. 

Why is she angry and abusive? Because Reactive Attachment Disorder is caused by trauma. Children with RAD have been abused and/or neglected when they were very young and their brains didn’t develop in the typical way. They really have a right to be angry. They do not have a right to be abusive.

Here are a few of the symptoms that relate to this particular piece of RAD, where the child fools the outside world:

• cannot give or receive honest affection
• often engaging and charming, but only superficially
• false allegations
• gaslighting 
• triangulation 
• extreme manipulation
• little eye contact

When the child with RAD is at home, she is angry and abusive. She’s often frightening to be around. Often the nicest thing she has to say is, “I HATE YOU!” while pushing mom away.

When mom takes her kids outside to play with the group of neighborhood kids and mothers that gather in the afternoons, the child with RAD is sunshine and roses. She waits until her mom is talking among all the other mothers and then runs up with a big smile, throws her arms around her mother, and beams up at her, “I love you so much mommy!” As soon as the other mothers start to gush about how sweet she is, she angles her head so no one else can see her eyes and they meet her mother’s, throwing her a triumphant smile.

In the early days of this happening, the mom acts instinctively and pushes her daughter away. The lie is too much for a new RAD mom. The other mothers are horrified. (As time goes on, the mother resigns herself to this display and steels herself for the smiles and hugs that hurt.)

And this is the beginning of a life of isolation from friends.

This same story often plays out inside the home with her parents. When dad is home the child with RAD is easier, maybe not sunshine and roses, but much easier to live with. The moment dad leaves the house (even just to the garage or to get the mail), his daughter lays into mom and younger siblings doing things that, if he had seen or heard, would have had her father charging back in like an angry bull. So often, he never sees the abuse. He sees what she wants him to see. Later, when the kids are in bed, he finds his exhausted wife curled up in bed sobbing. Through the tears, she tells him what her day was like. He is confused. His daughter seemed fairly happy all evening. His wife is distraught. Her anger slowly fades to depression. He begins to wonder if she’s not well…is that why she keeps telling him stories that are obviously blown out of proportion? Has she not attached?

And this is the beginning of a life of isolation from her husband.

Grandma is visiting! The child with RAD really puts it on for her grandmother and they bond over makeup, nail polish, and clothes. Grandma is ecstatic over her girly granddaughter. She’s fun and sparkly. Sure, she’s a “spirited child” and “quite the handful” but her bright smile and booming laugh are infectious. While mom gets her kids ready for bed upstairs and away from grandma, her daughter says hateful things to her and pushes her away, hits her brother, and kicks the dog. Later, when mom, in tears, tells her own mother about what is going on, it’s brushed aside, “Oh well…you and your sister were bratty sometimes too.”

And this is the beginning of a life of isolation from her family.

Due to the nature of RAD most of us are not believed. Many of us have taken to online groups (and if we’re lucky, in-person support groups) where we can speak the truth. It’s such a relief to find that we are not alone in this life of fear.

And so, Reactive Attachment Disorder remains largely misunderstood and hidden.

There are many safe groups out there, most are closed and you have to ask to join, some are even considered “secret” where someone has to invite you to join. And yet, there are thousands of women who find their way in and find solace in a tribe of sisters who are enduring daily abuse in their own homes. 

Are you a parent in the trenches, or have a child with RAD somewhere in your family? Join the facebook group called The Underground World of RAD. This is a safe place to find support. This is also a place where we will be educating professionals. You can learn more once you're there! If you're a mental health professional that would like to learn more, please contact me julia@TheMotherRanch.com

Please feel free to share this post (and maybe share just a little of your own story.) Make sure to set your own settings for your facebook post to "Public" so others can share as well.

We are getting the word out! 170,000+ people read my last post and it's all because of you! I see your posts flying across facebook and feel the power behind your words. I see you telling others, "Please share, I've made it public." and I am in awe of your power. I've gotten dozens of emails telling me stories like, "I posted my story on facebook and a long lost friend contacted me. We had the best talk, she listened and really heard me!" or "I posted my story on facebook and 60 people had supportive things to say!"

I see you. You are vulnerable, with your heart exposed to the world--scared but doing it anyway. 

Hi, I'm Julia and I'm a trauma-informed certified Equine Gestalt Coach, Reiki Master, and artist. I combine my skills to create an individualized care plan for each client. As an adoptive mother of two (one healthy and one with RAD), I am intimately familiar with the trials and tribulations RAD moms and their glass children face as they navigate the muddy waters of life with a mentally ill child. While I see many types of people in my practice, my heart and my specialty is the health and healing of RAD moms and their glass children. 
Learn more at The Mother Ranch.

Florida School Shooting and the Underground World of RAD

There is an underground world of RAD moms and they are more frightened than ever this week. The Reactive Attachment Disorder facebook groups are lit up with information and worry about the Florida shooter. It's coming up because the shooter was adopted, the police were at his home multiple times as he grew up, and then to top off his trauma, his adoptive parents died. These RAD moms are saying: "This will be my kid someday."  and "This is why my child with RAD needs to be somewhere safe."

We don't yet know what Nikolas Cruz's early years were like, and may never know as his adoptive parents are deceased but there are a lot of similarities to the life we know.

New York Times: 
In the hours after the shooting, people who knew Mr. Cruz described him as a "troubled kid" who enjoyed showing off his firearms, bragging about killing animals and whose mother would resort to calling the police to have them come to their home to try to talk some sense into him.

CNN:
Broward County Mayor Beam Furr said during an interview with CNN that the shooter was getting treatment at a mental health clinic for a while, but that he hadn't been back to the clinic for more than a year.  "It wasn't like there wasn't concern for him," Furr said. "We try to keep our eyes out on those kids who aren't connected ... Most teachers try to steer them toward some kind of connections. ... In this case, we didn't find a way to connect with this kid," Furr said. 

Gordon Weeks, another attorney representing Cruz, added, “When your brain is not fully developed, you don’t know how to deal with these things. That’s the child I’m sitting across from. The child is deeply troubled and he has endured significant trauma that stems from the loss of his mother.” 

As RAD moms, we wonder, "Does Nikolas Cruz have RAD?"

What is Reactive Attachment Disorder or RAD?

A quick and easy description is given by the Institute of Attachment and Child Development: A disorder in which children’s brains and development get disrupted by trauma they endured before the age of 3. They’re unable to trust others and attach in relationships.

Unfortunately, it's so much more than that quick and easy description.

RAD is often thought of as only a mental illness that adopted children suffer from but this is not true. I know children with RAD who are step kids, bio kids, foster kids, and adopted kids. This isn't an adoption issue, this is a trauma issue. As children from severe trauma often end up in the system and are adopted, RAD is most often found in the adoption world. However, not all adopted children have RAD.

RAD symptoms:

• cannot give or receive affection
• no empathy
• extreme manipulation
• long arguments over ridiculous things
• hypervigilance  
• often engaging and charming, but only superficially
• nonsense questions and unrelenting chatter
• “mad peeing” (peeing all over the house when angry, years after potty training and up into teen years—this can happen with feces as well)
• crazy lying and stealing
• little eye contact
• no cause and effect thinking
• poor hygiene
• triangulation
• parents (particularly the mother) seem hostile and/or confused


Severe RAD symptoms are the above and also:

• threatening behavior, particularly toward the mother and siblings
• hurting or killing pets
• abusing mother and/or siblings--physical, emotional, verbal, psychological, sexual
• false allegations
• threatening harm to self or others
• gaslighting 

Again, these behaviors all stem from early childhood abuse and/or neglect. Children with RAD are angry and they have every right to be.

If Nikolas had early childhood trauma, from losing his birth mother and/or abuse or neglect, then he could have undiagnosed RAD. As we all scroll through facebook and watch the news we are faced with judgements aimed at the adoptive parents of Nikolas: 
"He needed more discipline."
"A good spanking would have fixed him."
"Where were his parents?"
"Maybe this wouldn't have happened if the parents would have spent more time with him."
"Why wasn't he in therapy?"

The mere thought of this riles RAD moms. We work hard to get help for our children with RAD, we learn therapeutic parenting skills, we beg for help but are more often than not met with misunderstanding and simple parenting strategies. "Try a sticker chart!" we are told. "Hug them more, spend more time with them. They just need more love!" We are not believed when we tell the truth, "My child is trying to harm her brother." We are surrounded by ignorant (not stupid, but ignorant) "professionals" who have very little, if any, trauma training. 

We need and want help but there are so few resources out there and the good ones are often private only. No insurance will cover them. If RAD parents are able to get their child in, these resources can work on the children with less severe RAD. 

But what about the children with severe RAD? 

These are the kids who have killed their pets and the parents are not believed. 

These are the children whose parents have had to defend themselves against physical attacks, have been listening to their child with RAD tell them she wants to kill them and then they find the knives she's been hiding in her bedroom and the parents are not believed. 

These are the kids who have tried to maim and/or kill their siblings (please read about glass children!) and the parents are not believed. 

These are children who rape their younger siblings and the parents are not believed. 

These are the kids that no one knows how to help. Yet. Some of them can live in super structured group homes where people care for them but do not love them. As surprising as that seems, the "care not love" can help. Love is much too frightening for children with RAD. Love triggers them and creates the violent behaviors. This is hard to believe. It took me years to realize the truth. To get an inkling of how this works, read the bottom paragraph of this post. Others end up in prison for the things they do. Still others continue to be in their adoptive homes and the entire household lives under video cameras and terror.


What You Can Do


As a nation, we know we need better mental health services but what can you do, right now, today?

Be kind. Suspend disbelief. Reserve judgement. Listen. Find out more. Be supportive. 

The next time you hear about a troubled child, don't immediately jump to the conclusion that the parents are at fault. When you hear about a mom who has found a group home, an RTC (Residential Treatment Center), a boarding school, or a wilderness camp for their child with RAD and you think, "How could she?? I could never!" please remember she isn't talking about children like yours. She's talking about a kid who could easily be the next mass shooter. She's not being a drama queen, she's lived through things you might be thankful you don't know about. Her search for a safe place for her child with RAD, is to keep her family safe, her loved ones and friends safe, her community safe, and her mentally ill child as safe as possible. We don't want our child with RAD to have the opportunity to hurt others. We don't want to be the parents of the next mass shooter. If you know someone who is making a decision to place a child she loves outside of the home, support her. Then, hold your healthy children close and be thankful for what you don't know.

Join The Underground World of RAD facebook group.

Hi, I'm Julia and I'm a trauma-informed certified Equine Gestalt Coach, Reiki Master, and artist. I combine my skills to create an individualized care plan for each client. As an adoptive mother of two (one healthy and one with RAD), I am intimately familiar with the trials and tribulations RAD moms and their glass children face as they navigate the muddy waters of life with a mentally ill child. While I see many types of people in my practice, my heart and my specialty is the health and healing of RAD moms and their glass children. 
Learn more at The Mother Ranch.




 

RAD Moms, Glass Children and COPING SKILLS

Children are well known for their impressive coping skills.

Said no one ever. 

Glass children even less so. When parents are overwhelmed with the care of a special needs, mentally ill RAD (Reactive Attachment Disorder) child, their glass children end up with gaps in their emotional growth. One of those gaps is coping skills. 

Moms themselves are barely holding on by their fingernails and are just doing their very best to keep everyone safe day by day. Their coping skills are pushed to the edge, how are they supposed to teach appropriate coping skills to their glass children?

They don’t. 

No. They can’t. 

So, glass children learn coping skills from:
•watching their stressed out mothers and fathers
•watching their mentally ill sibling/s with RAD
•watching other siblings
•watching friends, if they still have any (RAD families are often isolated due to the nature of the mental illness)

This is why one of my jobs is to teach self-awareness and self-regulation, aka coping skills. Horses are amazing at this work. They won’t connect when kids are dysregulated but when a simple, “step one” coping skill like breathing is implemented, the horse tunes back in with the child—proving to them that it works and rewarding them for trying. As the simple skills are mastered, we move on to more difficult emotional work, like speaking feelings out loud and asking for what they want or need. Big work for kids who have always been known as “the good ones, the quiet ones, the ones who never need anything.” 

If you have a child with Reactive Attachment Disorder and a healthy child who needs extra support, please contact me at julia@themotherranch.com or 720-635-7015. Watch your "easy kids" for signs of depression, withdrawal from the family, immersing themselves in obsessive behaviors that keep them checked out from reality, and bursts of rage. Set up a free tour of the Mother Ranch and visit the facility, the horses, mini donkeys, goats, sheep, chickens, and dogs. Sessions here gives your child a chance to get away from the life of a glass child, learn self-awareness and regulation (coping skills) and how to create safe and connected relationships. 

Hi, I'm Julia and I'm a trauma-informed certified Equine Gestalt Coach, Reiki Master, and artist. I combine my skills to create an individualized care plan for each client. As an adoptive mother of two (one healthy and one with RAD), I am intimately familiar with the trials and tribulations RAD moms and their glass children face as they navigate the muddy waters of life with a mentally ill child. While I see many types of people in my practice, my heart and my specialty is the health and healing of RAD moms and their glass children. 
Learn more at The Mother Ranch.

Reiki with a horse in attendance

Last year, I began offering Reiki sessions in our open, airy barn with myself and a horse as the practitioners. The Reiki table is set up in our cute barn and one of our sweet horses is loose in the barn with us. Horses "read" our energy constantly and are very interested in helping us heal. Your horse may stand nearby and lend their loving support, you may feel warm breath on you or even a soft and gentle nose. Often, there is so much more.

I have learned so much from the horses about their own ways of finding the physical or emotional pain stored in our bodies. I have learned to follow their lead and work with the healing energy they are sending to our clients. When I'm doing traditional Reiki I am able to find problem spots in a client fairly quickly but when I'm working with a horse partner--that time is cut in half, at least! They quickly scan and pinpoint the area, pointing it out to me with their nose and they are NEVER wrong. It is an absolute joy to work with such angelic healers. I often feel like a conduit for the horse. I add my own boost but they have SO MUCH POWER. Many horses want to help us but our own fears and often, rules, hold us back from experiencing their true healing nature. In many circles, horses have to "show respect" by standing an arm's length from us or they are never allowed to turn their rear toward us. I understand where this training comes from, and always, safety is of the utmost importance. But when our horses are given space to be themselves and the opportunity to be close to us, they shine in ways most people have never even imagined.

Two quick illustrations: Celita and I were scanning a Reiki client when Celita pointed out her feet. I joined her in that area. She slowly took a few steps away, turned and, just as slowly, stepped back and placed her tail and rear end against the right side of my back. Horses, like people, have chakras and certain horses, like Celita, have a gift of working with them. This is one of the reasons Celita is an excellent Reiki horse. Our client's root chakra (at the base of the spine--human or horse) was blocked and in pain from an old emotional trauma. As we continued to channel energy, Celita began gently leaning back on me, I braced myself and stayed where I was. The client began opening up and telling me what had happened to her. Celita leaned harder. I put my left foot out to brace myself, letting her pour her energy into our client. After about 10 minutes, Celita felt our client had had enough work in that area, took her weight off me and walked a short distance away. I was in awe but wondered if that was it for the day--but no, she came back and continued her work with until the end of the session. 





I wondered if horses had a particular way to discharge any energy that didn't belong to them. I have things I do after coaching or Reiki sessions and horses do too. Sometimes they go roll after a session. I've seen them kick up their heels and run, walk slowly back to the herd, or get nuzzled by the herd. I haven't yet noticed a particular pattern with a particular horse. I'm guessing they just do what feels right in the moment--probably the best bet for any of us in the healing arts!

Celita and I often do this work together, with Wynter occasionally taking her place. She and I have an understanding and trust each other--we have known each other longer. Wynter and I are quickly building that same type of bond and he is beginning to show me his own gifts.

My second story has actually happened with several clients. So many of us have heartaches and the horses feel that in us. Celita and I were each doing our own versions of a scan, when she pointed out the client's heart. I moved to that area with her and began Reiki. Celita moved away, walked around the table to my side and stood behind me. Her head was hanging low over my right shoulder and, because she's a big horse, she reached all the way over so her nose was nearly touching on the other side of the table. She pressed her chest against my back and there we stood for quite awhile, sending healing energy into our client's heart. As is often the case, the client opened her eyes and began telling me the story that related to her heart. Sometimes the telling of the story (which is often a secret) and always the Reiki, helps to open the chakra, relieving stress and physical discomfort. 

The horses and I offer this type of Reiki year round now. Yes, even in the winter! I have a lot of fleece blankets for clients, a pillow, and of course you are fully clothed, so just bundle up! 

Give me a call at 720-635-7015 or send an email to julia@themotherranch.com to find out more or set up an appointment!

Hypervigilance

Hypervigilance is an enhanced state of sensory sensitivity accompanied by an exaggerated intensity of behaviors whose purpose is to detect activity. 
Hypervigilance is also accompanied by a state of increased anxiety which can cause exhaustion. Other symptoms include: abnormally increased arousal, a high responsiveness to stimuli and a constant scanning of the environment for threats. Hypervigilance is a symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD. --Wikipedia

What does this mean for children with Reactive Attachment Disorder or RAD? First childre with RAD have PTSD. It has been said that untreated PTSD caused the RAD. Second, they are on high alert, all the time. They are constantly scanning for danger and ways to take control--if they have control they feel they will be less likely to encounter danger. I can't blame them. With their early childhoods chock full of danger and lack of control, this makes a lot of sense.

If only scanning for danger was the only thing they were doing. Having RAD means they have a specific set of behaviors or symptoms. Because of the trauma they have endured before the age of 3, these children are unable to trust others and cannot attach in relationships.

Some RAD symptoms can include:

• cannot give or receive affection
• no empathy
• extreme manipulation
• long arguments over ridiculous things
• hypervigilance  
• often engaging and charming, but only superficially
• nonsense questions and unrelenting chatter
• “mad peeing” (peeing all over the house when angry, years after potty training and up into teen years—this can happen with feces as well)
• crazy lying and stealing
• little eye contact
• no cause and effect thinking
• poor hygiene
• triangulation
• parents (particularly the mother) seem hostile and/or confused

Severe RAD symptoms are the above and also:

• threatening behavior, particularly toward the mother and siblings
• hurting or killing pets
• abusing mother and/or siblings--physical, emotional, verbal, psychological, sexual
• false allegations
• threatening harm to self or others

What does this mean for mothers of children with RAD? It means they too, have to become hypervigilant to keep the rest of the family safe. It actually is even worse--they have to become more hypervigilant than their child with RAD. As the child grows and develops new behaviors and strategies to keep control, a mother's hypervigilance grows as well, in order to stay one step ahead and keep everyone as safe as possible.