We spent the weekend running crazy. I was the solo parent, as my husband and oldest daughter were back East visiting the college she will attend next year. I found myself diapering, cathing, cleaning, laundering, feeding tubing (is that a word?) and generally running the second I swung my legs out of bed and my feet hit the floor. We had two major outings that I needed to attend and we really haven’t done anything very big socially with Zorey. She was perfect…charming…loving…adorable, and having walked this road before, we knew we would have to ‘pay the piper’, and this would involve complete meltdowns and full body rocking the moment we stepped into our home. Zorey’s brain is wired for FEAR. Her early orphanage experience has changed the connections and activations in her brain.
pay the piper – to pay the cost of something. to bear the unfavorable consequences of one’s actions. It originates from the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. The town of Hamelin agrees to pay the Piper to get rid of all the rats. When they fail to pay him, he steals their kids.
Zorey was born in an orphanage, which means she was not touched or ‘seen’. She was diapered and fed; but never seen. Seeing a child, is what a mother and a family does. Seeing is the love and commitment of family. Seeing is the response a family has to meet the needs of a child. A baby cries, a mother ‘sees’ the need and responds. So for a child that has experienced an orphanage, whole parts of your brain barely develop because needs are not met, not seen. If you run into nothing but danger and fear, your brain gets stuck on just protecting itself from danger and fear.
Zorey’s referral picture from the orphanage.
Strangers tell me I have the most adorable, precocious, confident child. How can I explain that this tiny, adorable 2 year-old is caregiver shopping? That what looks so charming and lovely in a typical child, is actually a symptom of deep insecurity and dark fear in my child?
Over the years, Darren and I saw a pattern in many of the children we fostered. The higher the level of neglect and the more moves within the foster system, would bring to our door a child with no sense of personal space, who would show affection indiscriminately. The first child I noticed this with, was an 18 month-old baby girl. I walked into the DCS building and was taken to an office filled with toys and games. She was sitting quietly in a DCS officer’s lap contentedly sucking her thumb. I walked over and knelt down in front of her and she immediately smiled and threw her arms towards me. “Mama”, she spouted. As a new foster mom with an absolute lack of understanding and knowledge, I thought this was a good sign. I thought that this loving and charming 18 month-old, would easily weather this traumatic foster care move. I thought that she could easily transition to another family, and accept the care of another mother, just like nothing bad had ever happened. I was completely ill-prepared because the loving and charming child I picked up in that office, became a distant and cold baby inside my home who used affection as a means to an end. She had a dire need to control every situation and an even deeper desire not to ‘love a mommy’. This child knew pain and neglect and fear on a base level, and she sat in a place where loving a mommy could mean a return to that dark place. A mommy had failed to protect her, a mommy had neglected her, and in her mind, a mommy is the biggest threat to her survival.
So we spent a year trying to reach this baby. It was two steps forward and three steps back, as she fought any true attachment. As she worked to transition to an aunt far away, we tried prepare her family for her attachment issues. And just like me on that day in the DCS office, the aunt met her and she flung her arms around her neck and called her “mama’. She left and I worried for her because I knew the depth of darkness she struggled in. I was devastated to hear one year later that the aunt could not handle her and sent her to another family member’s home. Each move hammered home the isolation, unworthiness, and pain of rejection. Each move solidified the one thing that children with attachment believe; “I am not loveable”.
Indiscriminate affection describes the behavior of a child who shows affection toward or charms anyone and everyone. This is a survival technique learned to gain the attention and affection of adults. It was established from not having a stable, consistent and affectionate parent to show them what healthy attachment looks like. It reflects the insecurity of a child who is unsure of when they’re gonna be able to get what they need and from whom. And so they take whatever opportunity they can to approach whoever is friendly, and they do so in a charming way that often is misunderstood as friendly and, in my child’s case, precocious. But it is a symptom of deep insecurity in a child that needs to be dealt with.
Our job with our children from trauma backgrounds is to help them feel safe and allow room for their intense emotions. The dark parts of trauma will never go away. We have this false theory that children are resilient to trauma and that early events are not remembered.
The hardest part for me to remember, is that my child’s response to a present situation is often steeped in the past darkness. That there are times that I am parenting my child and they are not present and living in that moment. It is during these times that I have to turn off my natural instincts to correct and discipline, and just sit in that past space of hurt and fear. It’s holding my raging child and whispering, “Mommy loves you” over and over, knowing that rejection is her way to remain safe..from me.
I must battle my own fear of rejection because it’s not easy to keep pouring into a deep pit that seems bottomless. The negative behaviors and the screaming rages are wearing. It seems there is never a moment that we aren’t stepping into something new. There are also moments that these behaviors are hard to love and see past. The screaming fits and the full body rocking are not so charming and precocious. I struggle with the rejection of my child and I know I have been here before with Israel. Adoptive parents talk all the time about bonding and attachment when it relates to the child. They don’t really talk about the struggle to attach to a child who rejects and spews hurt and pain. Yet that is a very real thing and it should be talked about. It is not an easy thing to see past behaviors and attach to a child who is trying hard to reject you. It’s work and it takes time, and it’s pretty scary. This kind of fear is a pretty heavy thing to carry for months on end.
I think Zorey must feel all of this on such a deeper level. For Zorey to let down her guard and begin to trust us, is a huge risk. It means treading back into that dark space where her very survival depended on keeping adults categorized as unsafe and unpredictable. The thing that kept her alive and sane through the darkest of experiences and the deepest of fears, has not been a mother. No, she has sat there and survived alone and to share this space with me is a big ask, and it could never be healed over night.
Yes, she’s charming and adorable and cute, and I can’t wait for the day that she ignores you to run off and play with kids her age. I can’t wait for the day that she is indifferent to the adults in the room and loses her charm. Mostly I can’t wait for the day that the piper no longer plays the tune that my child marches to.
