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I am noticing that Nancy Spoolstra is having as difficult of a time, as I did, in shaking off the aftereffects of reading Deborah Hannah’s An Unlit Path. I also felt much the same way when I read Dandelion on My Pillow, Butcher Knife Beneath My Bed a couple of years ago.

In many ways, for us emotionally battered adoptive moms, it’s much like ripping off a scab and exposing our wounds; our very raw nerve endings. Since we pour everything we have into parenting, we often feel that the resulting behaviors, on our children’s part, reflect very negatively on us personally.

Being older now, 52, and often unable to sleep what with all this tossing, turning, fretting, planning and trying to come up with innovative solutions, I just gave up the attempt this morning, and came downstairs to drink coffee while reading through Nancy’s ADN postings that she’d linked.

What jumped out at me was her description of her own parent’s response to her methods of parenting very troubled children. I, too, was verbally challenged by my parents.

My mother had sniffed, and made pointed barbs, regarding many of my attempts to get help for a very disturbed child. My dad’s only suggestion was, “send her back,” like she was a pound puppy, like that was an option? As bothered as I was by the lack of mental health facilities and treatment for obviously mentally ill children, he was of the ‘cut your losses now’ old school of thought, still not getting it that I am as attached to my adopted children as I am to my one birth child.

I am attached; this child wasn’t, nor is she now, yet she is not labeled RAD, because she isn’t. She is labeled schizo-affective disorder, she’s often delusional, she’s labeled bi-polar and ODD along with PTSD. She has resided in a psychiatric facility now for nearly four years.

Yet I have often been treated, by others who are frustrated with her inability to improve, as if my parenting were somehow to blame. I also liked Nancy’s comment that eventually she grew tired of caring what others thought about her parenting, and I so agree. It really does get old, parents of children with medical disabilities are not looked at in an askance manner, yet parents of children with mental disabilities are often given this undue pressure and negativity.

Notice that I’m now being presumptuous enough to call Nancy by her first name alone, feeling like we’re sister soldiers in this fight for our children? I’m very grateful nowadays for the vast resources of the internet, for online support groups, for searches for help and facilities, for stories of other’s experiences, and for the ability to instantaneously email a professional or a cohort.

I’m fortunate, and vocal about it, to have an adoption caseworker who has helped me navigate these waters, I’m equally as fortunate to have a psychologist who is well-versed in adoption issues, and even out local mental health facility here is effective.

This is, by far, a very difficult battle