Pound Pup Legacy

I began my study of Adoption & its affect on human behavior over five years ago. It (the carnage) had no name that read: Reactive Attachment Disorder. To this day, I still challenge the act and process that describes a system that has broken the lives and families of billions of babies.  Adoption , as it exists, requires more adaptations to more people than it is worth!  For now, the term, RAD, is as good of a fit any of us Forgotten Foundlings can find.  I have learned and continue to professionally explore a study that goes well beyond the behavioral aspects of Our RADical dispositions.  We have a thematic approach towards life that says:  "Trust No One!". It is for this very reason, I choose to use a tone that depersonalizes and detaches the Me from the facts. RAD has helped me define Myself in a way that has been traumatically healing. It -- Human Loss -- is a very serious, deeply personal, highly spiritual subject matter that should NEVER be sugar-coated. As far as I'm concerned, what has been done - and continues to be done - to an innocent child in the name of "repair" or "recovery" needs to be monitored and watched very carefully, otherwise serious life-long consequences will result.  When you take a child, you are taking his mind and future with him.  That mind has memories, and those memories can and will come back to haunt in ways no one can possibly predict. 

I was programmed to achieve Perfection, because my adoptive mother needed perfection in her life. I learned, (through my work, study, and writing), as an adult, in order to find True Healing and Acceptance, I must look to and accept only the facts that are presented to me. Therefore, when I write about the Adult RAD, and the childhood from whence it came, I am the sober, sombre Me who will not lie or pretend anymore, for ANYONE. Instead, I show my respect, honor and sincerity by maintaining an approach that says: "It is what it is, so work from here."

For me Pound Pup Legacy is a compilation of Old and New thoughts, theories and essays, assembled for anyone to read one thread at a time.  For a girl who operates in the Here and Now, accepting a slow process of growth and development will take some time for me to completely appreciate. However, the tapestry it weaves, I believe will eventually gather the interest of those who want to learn more about the inner-workings of the beauty and the beast who lives under a blanketed  life-experience. The birds and the bees operate differently on Our side of the busy-minded street, so be prepared to bring your Thinking Caps, and leave your feelings at the door, (after all, We are often accused of having cold-indifferent hearts.).  Perhaps that is only a perception made by those who have no idea what effect lies and secrets have on the the mind of an innocent, curious child.  There is nothing mentally ill about the brain's need to take it's time to recover from repeated trauma and injury.  Only if the brain itself is deformed can damage be pathological and irreversible.

It has to be said that as much as I believe the removal of a newborn from his natural mother for any length of time DOES cause stress, and that stress can be damaging to the brain, that does not mean that damage will be permanent.  Awareness needs to be brought to the effects chemicals in the body have on the brain.  How much is too much before the brain shuts-down?  Are certain hormones more toxic at certain ages and stages of development than others?  Can mental illness be the result of neglect, or inconsistency, and not just genetics?  Child abandonment and abuse takes on many forms and the timing and duration of these events must certainly influence the child's ability to react and recover from such stresses.  Learning and comprehension can be altered; language and expression can be stunted; concepts like time and distance can be changed -- all these are developments that take place during the growth process of each one of us.

Below is a sample of my writing when I helped moderate an adult RAD support group.  Note how I read when I allow my inner-RAD to come-out:

As far as my words being powerful - they (the words & thoughts) have power only to those who Understand their meaning, through like-experiences.  To which I must admit, Adoption is NOT the only root cause, or problem related to issues of Child Abandonment, and the Mistrust associated with Our Sunny Dispositions. Again, I find this notion of Feeling Emotion quite surprisingly odd. I do not FEEL what I express, I simply put into words the extensions of my thoughts in ways I know I am able to reach those like Me. For example, there are some people who read my writings, and get the whole picture of what I was trying to reflect; these are the people who Feel what I have written. They Get what I'm saying. Then there are those who read, but do not comprehend the full meaning or associations to which I used to illustrate a point. These are "The Deer in Headlights" responses, demanding "More" proof, examples, explanations to a Life that just IS... these are the people who will never Get It. These are the people from which I must turn away, as I cannot tolerate the waste of time and build-up of pain that gets drained and poured through me and my Thinking.  I have lost the ability to keep to Pleasantries; I am far too entangled in intensity to be bothered with talk of the weather.  For instance, a question like, "how do you feel?" has no meaning to me, as the answer in my own mind is academic. ["HUH?" ] I have no idea how it is that I am able to FEEL anything.  However, for the sake of politeness, I will give an answer that will seemingly fit the situation: "Fine" "Great!" "Lousy". These are all meaningless to me, because I don't have the capacity to link an emotion to a particular word outside of it's written definition. It is this very reason why I cannot SAY, (and mean, for sure), "I have experienced Happiness". I have no idea if I did... but that requires far too long of an explanation to give anyone, so I simply say, "yes" [or "No."]  The truth is, "Feelings" as such, are aborted experiences for many of Us.

I worry about the future; I try to ignore the past, so the present is one random experienced moment after another, melted into one block of time. Fleeting? No. They are Intense Moments in which I face a struggle that's far too complicated to be deemed "fleeting". I face the same dilemma: do I allow myself "the momentary experience", and worry about the implications LATER, or do I put a word, a name, an emotion to this particular feeling I think I am feeling, and call it something Normal. [That way, if someone asks me, "have you ever felt really happy?" I'll have a point of reference to which I can equate that Normal Feeling to my own experiences.] More often than not, however, my mind is so busy trying to Define the Moment, I miss it. [Yet another Loss.] But I KNOW Loss. It's Familiar, so I am able to accept it for what it is. It's the same, but different in many ways... therefore Loss is what ultimately defines my emotional encyclopedia/thesaurus. There is the loss of a job I didn't care for doing; there is the loss of a lover I never learned how to love; there's the loss of an expectation... all losses, but all different in the context of understanding in my brain.

I FEEL the void of Loss; but the emotional equivilient? I have only words. Lots, and lots of words.  Perhaps in a more Formal Form and forum, joined by those with like-minded souls, Words will find and have New Meaning for those who are looking and wanting to Understand 'just the right words', related to Personal Inner Loss.

~Kerry, once named Wanda Dawn