Priya and her tantrums

Priya is this beautiful child, little girl who monopolizes my world by all her questions, her nervous and excited behaviour, and her inability to bond and attach like most children do.

I have yet to get an actual diagnoses of attachment disorder, because the RAD therapist who live here broke her back holding a kid with attachment disorder. I am not surprised at all. When I finish doing therapuetic holding with Priya, I am sore all over. I have bruises where she has managed to kick me, pinching bruises, sometimes bite marks, but usually just a very exhausted feeling that doesn't go away until the next day.

Holding Time, a book by Martha Welsh has become my mainstay for protecting myself and the kids from Priya when she is in her worst disregulated mood. It often comes out of nowhere. Usually from a feeling of fear, where she is not sure that she will be safe.

Those loud sucker toilets in stores are the worst. Commotion in crowds. Me asking her to stop doing something. These and more can bring on the worst temper tantrum a 4 year old could have. Worse than Lakshmi's SID tantrums, that usually end when I give her a nice firm hug, or brush her with the SID brush, a very small brush that has hundreds of tiny bristles.

Her tantrums have gotten so bad that I have resorted to finding a respite family to care for Priya one a week or less, so I can get a break from her, and give Ravi and Lakshmi the attention they absolutely don't get when Priya is home.

There is a well known therapist in the attachment disorder community I participate in, that uses a man by the name of Walter Buenning to come into the home and stay for 2 - 3 days, diagnose the child/ren, establish just what types of behaviours are going on, and also train the family to handle these situations then observing them to make sure they are managing the child correctly. I want to bring him into our home to help both Priya and Ravi, but it is so cost prohibitive, that I don't know when I will be able to hire him. The cost of hiring him for the 2-3 day weekend is total around $6000.00.

I hope that I will be working soon, so I can start to save for this therapuetic intervention for our family.

Many families with adoptees who have RAD or difficult attachments have sworn that this man works miracles in the lives of those who live with kids with RAD.

I love Priya so much. I want for her what Lakshmi has...that total trust, that happiness, that ability to enjoy life without trying to control it. I am hoping that this is what works for her. She is 4 years old now, and I have been dealing with these behaviours since the day I picked her up at the orphanage. Sometimes I feel so overwhelmed that I just want to take a long nap, and not wake up for several weeks.

Jyotsna