My Journey With Attachment Disorder

Good Therapy

March 29, 2008


I am feeling good about some things and wanted to jot them down. This week our new strategy has been for Tony to spend as much time with “Mom” as possible. We are avoiding television and other things that would interfere with human interaction as much as possible. I am reading my second book on attachment disorder, When Love Is Not Enough, by Nancy Thomas. So far, it seems to be very good, and I think I will learn a lot from it. One thing I already feel bad about, though, is that she recommends that RAD moms be stay-at-home moms and spend at least 6 hours a day with the RAD child. That’s simply not possible, but we will just have to make good use of the time that we do have.



Yesterday James had to take Tony to a store to purchase some clothing items he needed for his first ever baseball game, which is today. Our strategy is that Tony doesn’t go to any stores, or if necessary, he would go with me. However, I was at work, and we weren’t sure if the clothing store would be open after I got off work. It was stressful for James, because Tony is very hard to please with all clothing items. (It’s part of his disorder.) And, because he wanted things he didn’t have to have, and we couldn’t afford anything extra. It was expensive enough just getting the essentials. James survived, though, and didn’t come home with any extras. (Yea for James!)



When I got home, Tony was fuming about his new clothes and how they ‘felt’. It is to be expected, because he has a hypervigilant awareness of everything he wears from socks, to underwear, to pants, belt, EVERYTHING. To make matters worse he is required to wear an athletic cup. I totally understood his frustration and I responded very calmly. I finally convinced James to leave the house, because he had really had all he could take. Tony and I had a really good “working” time. I allowed him to express his frustration verbally, and even encouraged him to growl, and yell and tell me how annoying everything felt. When he could listen to me, I told him that I understood that it was very hard for him to wear all those new things that felt different and annoying. I told him that there would be other boys who had never worn an athletic cup, and they would be annoyed, too. I told him that I was a lot like that when I was a kid, too. I was fussy about how my clothes felt, too.



Then we talked about ways to deal with his frustration. I suggested that he wear them around the house for a while. I said, “Let’s play a game together to help you get your mind off the way your clothes feel.” We played a fun word game for about 15 or 20 minutes. Then he decided he had all he could take, and changed into his comfortable clothes. I told him it was time for him to have some sitting time, so I could finish checking my e-mail. I asked him to write or draw anything he wanted to. He could write or draw about his frustration, or really just anything he wanted to.



Later, he wanted to watch TV. I explained that TV was not good for him right now. (Nancy Thomas recommends NO TV for at least a year!) I told him that the TV and Nintendo and other electronic games got in the way of the relationship between him and me. I said that he had a hole inside of him where “mom” should be, and that we need to spend lots of time filling up that hole.



Bedtime was late because he was all wound up about the ballgame Saturday, and the new clothes, etc.. But he eventually went to sleep. Saturday morning he wore his new uniform to get his baseball pictures made. He fussed and fumed while he got dressed, but he did make it long enough to get the pictures made. I specifically gave him permission to fuss and fume about how they felt, and I asked James to be patient and not complain about the grunts and growls. And he looked so handsome! The game is late this afternoon, so we still have that ahead of us.



When he got back from the picture-taking, I suggested that he get into his comfortable clothes and spend some sitting time. (The sitting time is used any time I think he needs a transition from something stimulating to a calmer demeanor. It’s also used when I need to be doing something else and can’t be working with him.) After a few minutes he brought up the fact that his birthday is in about 2 weeks, and would we get him a PSP game for his birthday. I decided to use the time for some good therapy. I told him (again) that right now what he needed was a lot of time with Mom, and that a PSP game would interfere with our time together. He wanted to know how long it would be before he was ready for a game. I told him there was no way to guess about that. I would just know it when the time came, because Moms know that sort of thing. I reminded him that he could make the time go faster by getting lots of practice doing things “Mom’s way.” Eventually, he will learn to trust that Mom knows what’s best, and that Mom loves him and will take care of him and keep him safe. Then he will trust me. That will be the beginning of being able to give him tiny freedoms and see if he can handle them.



He went on talking about how he missed his Nintendo and that it was my fault because I told “Coach” that it was his favorite thing. I took the opportunity to see if I could get him to express his real anger in words. I told him in a loud voice—Tell me how you fell about that! He yelled, “I’m mad cause you told Coach about my Nintendo and she took it away.” I said, “You can do better than that. Tell me again!” He yelled it again, and I said, “Good job telling me about your anger.”



Then I told him that what he really needed more than a Nintendo was love. I told him that, because Amanda had not given him a mom when he was little, that we needed to work really hard at giving him a mom now. He talked about why Amanda would do that, and I told him to tell me how it made him feel. I encouraged him to yell out his anger. “She didn’t take care of me!” Who? “Amanda didn’t take care of me. She didn’t love me. She didn’t care about me.” I told him to say it again and really put his anger in his voice. He repeated it with a little more feeling. But I can tell that he is still holding in his feelings. The real anger is not coming out in his words yet. Question for Dr. Corbin: Is it that he hasn't internalized the fact that the anger he feels today is because of Amanda? Is it that he isn't able to "see" Amanda in his mind? I can tell the words he says are just not really connected to the real feelings yet. Is it that he is afraid to feel the real anger? Is there a way to help him with that?



I talked to him about how he has a wall around his heart because he is afraid to let people love him. He doesn’t trust us to love him and take care of him. He said, “How can I learn to trust you when you take my Nintendo away?” I said, “Excellent question! The way you learn to trust us is for us to always do what we say we will do, whether it’s something you like or something you don’t like. For instance, if I said that after you clean your room up we can go get an ice cream cone, but I don’t keep my promise, would you trust me? And, if I said that if you steal again we will sell your Nintendo, but we don’t keep our promise, would you trust us?” I told him that it will take time for him to learn to trust us, and that we would have to show him many times that we keep our promises so that he will learn to trust us. Whew! It’s not even noon yet, and we have worked hard today!


Warrior Mom

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