may break my bones but words will never hurt me. I remember saying that as a kid. I wonder who came up with the phrase. Not enough to google it but still I wonder. It isn't true. Words can tear right through our heart. Words like, "I want my real mom!"
Yes the Fabulous Miss M hit below the belt today. She was on her way to her room for being inappropriate and I'll just leave it at that. She was angry.
She just woke up struggling today and I am not sure the reason why. Apparently thoughts of the past had come a knockin and her heart was hurting so she decided to hurt mine. It worked but my therapeutic Mom brain kicked in and we used it.
I went in and asked her why she wanted her real Mom? What is a real Mom?
She said a real Mom is the person that takes care of you "I guess". I asked her who took care of her and she said that I do.
We talked about a lot of things and something that she did seem to follow was the fact that we are her real parents because we have papers from a judge that say so. I brought out all of the kids birth certificates from the state. They all pretty much look the same and the wording is such that she can read it herself. Each child's name and then our names as the parents. I showed her that we have a special safe that we keep these papers in because they are important to us. She seemed to take it all in.
The fact is she is hurting today. Her hugs were stiff and fake, she had Chinese water torture on her radar today, she did a million and two things to push me away and yet try to remain in control of me and my attention.
We will get the train back on the tracks and keep on keeping on. A few days ago she was doing amazingly well and she has made a great amount of progress lately but it does tend to be 3 steps forward and 2 steps back and today we took a few steps back. Hopefully tomorrow we will once again be moving forward.
It was amazing to see Mr.'s reaction to what Miss M said to me. He had that shock face :-0 and said, "She must be trying to tell a joke or something. You are the real Mom!" He can give me a hard time in his own way but that kid has a sweet heart.
7 comments:
I agree. She has made a lot of progress lately and is just regrouping. It is great that you were able to therapeutic parent when she hurt you. You rock!
I'm so sorry that she hurt your feelings but think that you did an amazing job of explaining and processing.
Mr.'s comment was priceless.
I love that you were able to take out the birth certificates and have the paper do the talking. Sometimes our kids shut down to ANY emotional reasoning (because adults can't be trusted) and they only can "hear" concrete evidence (like a piece of paper..) Sad but true.
Below the belt is right!
But Mr, he deserves a prize.
sometimes they work so hard to hurt us, you handled it so well though!
Mr. is a sweetie!
My kids birth mom dumped them in the foster care system. They weren't taken away, but they still do this. My daughter occasionally says she wants her mom. Both kids say they want to go "home." I try not to show it hurts.
I think mine does it for many reasons including:
1. She's in a bad mood and she wants everyone to feel as bad as she does so she hits below the belt.
2. She's had a bad dream or something triggered a memory that has upset her. She doesn't actually want her "mom," she just wants to feel better and safe.
3. She's homesick (my daughter was 9 when she entered foster care for the last time).
4. She's idealized the past and doesn't remember what it was really like - she just knows it's better than this, "Mom never made me..." do chores... eat veggies... deal with things I don't want to think about...
5. She's mad at me and wants to hurt my feelings.
I usually just say things like, "Does that make me your 'fake' mom? Cause believe me if I were made of plastic this is not the body I would have chosen!" Mostly I ignore it "You're upset about having to go to your room right now, we can talk about that when you're calm." I figure the less I react to it, the sooner she'll stop the behavior because it's not getting the response she wanted. Then in therapy we talk about her feelings for biomom, which I assure her are OK with me. I also NEVER criticize biomom in front of her. I just try to just give her possible reasons (not excuses!) for why biomom may have acted the way she did.
I hate when people say things like this, but I did this too, as do my "neurotypical" bio kids. I said "I wanted to go live with my dad, " or "I wish I was adopted." My biokids just say, "I hate you. I wish you weren't my mom." "I wish Ms. So and So was my mom she never makes her kids do..."
Big hugs! You're a good mom and you are her real mom!
Mary in TX
Mary your top 5 reasons are right on the money! Thanks so much!
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