Meltdowns

Maia has been having meltdowns, lately. It's not that she's ever not had them and they've just started, or re-started. Instead, they seem to be getting more frequent and intense.

I've been reading again about "reactive attachment disorder," and I think she suffers from that. It may not be as strong as it is in many children who have spent a significant amount of time in an orphanage or foster care, but it's there. The evidence is the manipulativeness, the rages over small frustrations, the insistence on control and doing everything herself, the selfishness and refusal to share, and the hitting, defiance and passive-resistance.

She can be infuriating when she acts in these ways because it's so outside our experience (mine and Kristina's) and understanding. IAnd confess that I haven't dealt with the meltdowns as well as I might have.

One night when she was between us in bed and kicking us for no reason other than that she wanted the bed to herself, I grabbed her roughly and pulled her out from between us. I think that Kristina thought I was going to throw her out of the bed, and I truly felt like it but wasn't going to do that. Instead, I carried her over to her bed and put her on it. Later, she got back into bed with us, but keeping Kristina between us. She was crying her angry cry, making as much noise as she could. I told her that I would count to ten and then she would have to leave the bedroom if she hadn't stopped. She did stop.

I have to remember that the meltdowns are really our opportunity to intervene in her development and change it. Thinkgin about the meltdowns in that way makes me feel better because it gives me a constructive way of considering them, but it also makes me feel almost as though I've wasted the last two years.

Last night, she had another one. She had wet the bed (she still does that on occasion), and Kristina had taken her to the shower. But she stood in a corner, yelling, and wouldn't take off her panties and shorts (she likes to sleep in shorts) or let Kristina do it. I was firm but not emotional with her and so was Kristina. We finally got her undressed and cleaned up.

That was a good meltdown, I guess.

The picture is from May 10, 2004--3 days after we had adopted her. I know that she cares about us--I can see it in her face. That's the bridge between us. We need to bring her across it.

John, Friday, June 16, 2006