Stuck with super glue

Stuck with super glue is a phrase commonly heard around my house.  This phrase has helped to calm anxiety, helped to lessen stress, helped to bring in to focus the here and now versus the then. It is a phrase we have spent two years working on and today it makes life much easier. Today we can drop off at school without tears, we can enter a new situation and hold hands, not be in mommy’s arms. Today he knows that mommy comes back to “get me” every time, because we are stuck with super glue. It is often the stretchy kind of super glue that lets him be in one place (school, friends house) and me be in another ( work, running errands) without him being panicked or hyper vigilant to the when or, worse in his mind, if I am coming back to get him. 

Two years ago I called my pediatrician after several weeks (okay honesty, months) of rough nights. Rough nights sometimes meant 2 hours of sleep followed by 4-5 hours of wired wide awake because he was afraid to go back to sleep, or it meant night terrors that led to him trying to physically hurt himself or me. He was two, almost three and had been with me, in my house for almost two years, the night he had a night terror so bad he left bruises across my upper arms and chest. He was fighting so hard in pure terror. It was primal fight or flight response and I knew that the sweet little boy I saw during the light of day needed help to fight the darkness of night. So my pediatrician gave me the information for a lovely lady named Donna Potter at CCFH. The day that Donna called and talked to me, I wanted to cry. Here was someone who believed that my little boy could have significant trauma pre-adoption that we needed to deal with now and she said magical words...” we can help and I think you need to see Rebecca Hubbard for CPP therapy.” I had no idea what CPP therapy was, but I was happy to go try anything that would help, that would allow him and I to sleep. 

A few weeks later we went in for our initial evaluation at CCFH. I talked to someone for a while and then we were introduced to Ms Rebecca.  Little Man did not seem to want much to do but play with the toys there that day, but a relationship with Ms Rebecca was started and healing began. We started once a week visits in 2011 just before Thanksgiving. The first time we were in her office Little Man was falling over everything, not able to control his body. He didn’t have any regulation of emotions or his body, so we set goals and started the work.  Some weeks were harder than others, but it didn’t take long to realize that while he was just a “baby” when he came home the trauma of loss had left a huge mark on his heart. 

I believed we had attached and even actually attached pretty securely, boy was I wrong. Even six months in to the therapy I could see how attachment was changing and how much deeper it could be. He started to talk about things and I realized my reality needed to change. I had adopted an infant, the books prepare you for trauma and hardships (sort of, at least they allude to there being some) when you adopt older. But very few mention how much the body remembers of trauma in a young child. Little Man held feelings of loss, abandonment, fear and the triggers were everywhere. Leaving him at school in the morning, entering a place where it was loud, lots of people and busy, telling him to wait because I was cooking dinner and he didn’t need a snack right that minute. Any of it, all of it could send him spiraling and neither of us knew why. But we were learning with Ms Rebecca and we were both getting better. I was stressing less and listening more to him, to his body language and mostly to his sleep patterns.  Sleep has been his dead give away always. When he trusts, when he is secure then he sleeps, when one or more of those is missing sleep and dark are not our friends. 

I am not sure when the phrase “stuck with super glue” came in to our therapy conversations, but it was pretty early on in the process. Little Man explained pretty early on that “I should have been in Africa earlier.” It became a daily conversation as we drove to school, it was a daily comment when I picked him up, it was a nightly routine to be “stuck” together for a while on the couch watching a show or in the rocking chair reading a book or even sometimes sitting on his bed as he went to sleep. We talked about how super glue sticks things together strong and that sometimes our super glue has to be stretchy so he can be one place and I can be another, but we will always “snap” back together. 

As therapy progressed it became less about me reminding him we had super glue, but more him commenting in moments of need about the super glue, almost as if checking to make sure I remembered that we were “stuck” together. Today we talk about there being super glue on our hands and that we can go to the mall or some place crowded and just hold hands as a reminder that we are together, that I am not going anywhere and that I will keep him safe.

Don’t get me wrong, there are still moments of hard, times that he gets triggered where fear and panic override any logic. But they are less and less, and more importantly we deal with those moments in the moment and they cause less “damage.” We recover faster. Sleep is still my “thermometer” to how calm his brain is each day. Most times it is better. Right now we are in a rough patch, but I know why and while I can’t remove the why, I can help him process it and reassure the what. Right now we remember and discuss super glue everyday and most nights. 

Little Man has control, as much as a not quite 5 year old can, of his emotions and physical movements of his body. There are things he choses not to control and we continue to work on those, But Ms Rebecca and CPP have “stuck” us together forever and he knows it, not just in words, but the body memory knows it. Through games, role plays, daily reinforcement  and weekly time with Ms Rebecca, his body memory is remembering new. 

So we celebrate how far we have come. We celebrate the work he has done. We celebrate that super glue “stretches” so we can go apart and come back together each and every time. 

2 years ago as we started therapy

Recently having fun as we look at our cotton candy tongues

Finished with therapy!

  

Stuck together with super glue- remembering the past and rejoicing in the now

             The last few days have been a bit hard with Little Man. Between being tired plus a change of schedule and current boundary testing, he has been  off. Trying not to add too much thought into it, this has historically been a hard time of year for him as well. (Yes, I know he is only 4,  how much history is there, but there is history) So I have taken tonight after I got him to sleep to sit and look back at where we were and where we are now.

He is also angry about something right now and he is spending time yelling at me, but he trusts enough to yell and know I am not leaving. He is doing all those things he should have done to test boundaries at 2 & 3 but didn't really do because he was dealing with too many other things. He is challenging me and I am tired, but when I look back, I am no where as tired as I was 2 years ago.

Two years ago at this time Little Man was having nightmares (night terrors) so bad I was  lucky to be getting 2-4 hours of sleep a night. The terror would wake him at between 12 and 1am and he would be wired, terrified of sleep coming, so he would force himself awake for hours on end. Generally falling back to sleep around 4am. The day would start for me around 5:30 and him around 6:30. I am not sure how we made it through those days, but we did and we managed to laugh and love and grow closer in our relationship. The night terrors went on for a long time; with periods of calm followed by periods of chaos.
     I just pushed through until it all got too hard and I finally reached out for help. I called our pediatrician explained the night terrors, his reactions and where we were at. She said it was time to get help. I am thankful everyday for that phone call.
   I had a phone conversation with an amazing woman Mrs P., who gave me hope and more importantly let me know I was not losing my mind. Shortly after that phone conversation we met Ms R.  and started therapy. We started to work on the things that were causing the night terrors.  I learned things about a young mind that floored me, humbled me and inspired me. Therapy has given us nights filled with sleep, days filled with more love and laughter. It has created an attachment between little man and I that never thought we would truly achieve. It has allowed him to rest, to grow, to feel safe and secure. When we started the therapy Little Man was affectionately known as "the floating head" He knew lots of things in his brain, but refused to actually feel the rest of his body. Today he mostly allows himself to take it all in. We still have work to do and we will continue, but we have come so far.

About the time we started to get help with the terrors, we started having the issues with his GI tract. Eating became a challenge again. I overlooked it, blamed it on the sleeping being weird, it being developmentally appropriate anything, but thinking something was wrong. It got worse until we landed in the hospital twice in 2 months and again for a barrage of testing  two months later. T

The GI tract is still an issue, his response to physical pain- still a challenge, getting caught up emotionally to his chronological age - still a process. But he is secure and he is doing things a 4 year old boy should be doing and I rejoice in that. We have worked hard at weekly therapy for 20 months, we have started medications to help calm his brain so he can process that this, our family, is permanent. We still are seeing doctors to work on neurological and physical issues, but we are working the process together, with a better understanding of what is going on and how to handle it.

Tonight I am drained, in every sense of that word; mental, emotional, physical, financial all of it. We got not so great news at GI today and so we face the next challenge. But at the same time we got news that the MRI looks good. Therapy is going so well that we are cutting back, scaling down the support. Mrs P. and Ms R. believe that I can handle it, that he is doing awesome and we together are good. I am nervous but excited. They have been my support and understanding in ways that are sometime hard for the outsider/casual observer to get.

But tonight I am also thankful that when he laughs and smiles with me, that  his big brown eyes can light the room. The joy goes all the way through him. That tonight he could tell me "God is in my heart and all around me and He loves me."

There will always be growth, as there is with any parent/child relationship. But tonight in this moment Little Man knows the super glue has dried and we are stuck together forever. It will stretch to let us go apart but it will always bring us back together.