One thing I hear from Bear often these days is "The only time I am angry is when I am with you." I don't believe this is true but I do believe his anger is worse when he is near me. That is because anger is a secondary emotion that builds from sadness or fear. Yes. When he is near someone who loves him, someone who wants to love he becomes afraid. This makes him angry. It makes him sad. It is a big jumble of confused emotions. I can see the confusion on his face when I talk with him.
If I am gone he has great anxiety. He worries about when I will be home and asks dad every little bit "When will mom be home?" Then when I do get home he runs outs and says "hi" If I try to talk with him he finds away to make it into anger and stomps off. Does this make sense? Yes. It does. He also has a great fear of abandonment. It is really his number one fear. He is afraid of love but his fear of abandonment is even worse consuming so much of his time.
As long as our kids have RAD the age does not matter much. They need lots of reassurance, comforting and empathy. They need special treatment when we leave and when we return. Will it make them angry? YES. But it will also lead to healing. Much as some ointments hurt a wound' empathy, love and care may make our child more afraid and yet help them to feel safe.
Never, never, never quit!
5 comments:
And, even if love scares them, they know who they can let that anger and fear out on that will still be there for them, no matter what.
Great point Jeri! And that does show some degree of attachment!
Thank you for this post, Brenda! My RADling's recent response every time she is angry is that I am the one that frustrates her and just being around me makes her angry. I never looked at it this way. Thanks for the new view!
I agree that we should never give up. The only thing that scare me is that Bear is at the age when teens start dating relationships and any sort of closeness like that is going to rebound . . .
Peggy Sue,
Oh so true. We have not allowed him to date yet at 17. There are many reasons for this most of which are too personal to reveal. Right now we do focus on preparing him to leave home as an adult. I tell him often that his relationships with women will be much like his relationship with me. He needs to work on that. He says "No because they will be nice to me and you aren't."
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