Note to self.

---------------------------------------------------

'Cause this is not about what you've done

But what's been done for you.

This is not about where you've been,

But where your brokenness brings you to

This is not about what you feel,

But what He felt to forgive you,

And what He felt to make you loved.

You are more than the choices that you've made,

You are more than the sum of your past mistakes,

You are more than the problems you create,

You've been remade.

---------------------------------------------

So you thought you had to keep this up

All the work that you do

So we think that you're good

And you can't believe it's not enough

All the walls you built up

Are just glass on the outside

This is where the healing begins

This is where the healing starts

When you come to where you're broken within

The light meets the dark

The light meets the dark

-------------------------------------------

Someone told me the other day, "you have to let yourself just be. Just getting through is enough. It.is.enough. One day there will be more but for today it is enough."

And for today, I'll take it. For today, having permission to stop pretending and "just be" IS enough. And for today, I'm O.K.

What I need.

I keep getting asked this question, repeatedly.

What do you need?

 How can I help?

What can I do?

I'm finally going to answer that.

• I need you to let me be sad. I need you to let me be angry. I need you to let me be discouraged.  If you don't, I will put my mask back on - And if I put my mask back on I can't heal, and if I don't heal, my family won't heal.
• I need you to stop pushing me. I need you to stop making me feel like "come on already" or "it's time to  just suck it up and deal with it". Just stop it. Grief does not have a timeline, and it is NOT linear. The more pressure I feel from you, the harder it becomes.

• I need you to understand you are not me. I need you to know that you don't know everything about me. You may have bits and pieces of the puzzle that makes up who and what I am, but I guarantee you, you don't know the whole story, so please don't think you have me "figured out" and please don't talk to me like you know what the solution is.

• Please DON'T tell me I need to pray more. I have.

• Please DON'T tell me I need to exercise my faith. My mustard seed has been misplaced. I've looked for it, but I can not find it. Anywhere. So, until I do, this statement from you, just heaps more guilt on the guilt I already feel.

• Please DON'T tell me to just give it time. I have given it time, and our family is falling apart. Very few, precious few, know how bad things really are. I don't know how much time we have.

• Please DON'T ask me, What would Jesus do? I am not Jesus. Yes, I am to imitate Him. But I am HUMAN. 100% totally and completely HUMAN.

• Please DON'T stick your finger in my face and waggle it at me. It just really doesn't accomplish anything. Depending on the day, I'll either want to bite it off or go home and retreat further into my shell and comfort zone.

• Please DO understand that I am not by nature an open person. I do not typically bare my heart and soul with people. I just simply DO NOT do that. It takes alot of courage, I mean A LOT. Respect that.

• Please understand, my blog's purpose, one of them anyway, is for me to write out and work through MY thoughts and feelings. Right or wrong, they are MINE. They are REAL, and yes they are RAW. And this is MY blog. It's also a "safe place" for me, or at least I want it to be. Home is not always a safe place to say exactly what I am thinking and feeling, church is not always a safe place to say what is really going on, I NEED a safe place. Right now, my blog IS that place, and I desperately need it to STAY that way.

• A friend of mine said this just yesterday. "You need to know in your heart that I love you...you need to know that I care about you, you also need to know that I have ears to listen, and arms to reach out" and she is SO right. I need to know that despite where I am, where you THINK I should be, despite what I FEEL and what you THINK I should feel, you love me, you're willing to not just listen, but HEAR, really HEAR me. And most importantly, no matter how long it takes, or what the end result you'll be here when the storm is over and the sun shines for me.

Esau and Jacob, Lisa and Lorelei

Okay, so I don't actually know a Lorelei, but that's not the point.

I'm convinced I'm Esau. Ok, not really. Obviously I'm not a man, I'm definately NOT a hunter, nor am I  red all over and covered in hair.

However, for no reason whatsoever God chose to hate Esau. It's true. The Bible says so. In Romans. Romans chapter 9 to be exact.

"And not only this; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac; (for the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to elevetion might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;) It was said unto her, the elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on who I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy. For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. Therefore he hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth."

God also apparently hates me. No really, I'm obedient to what I felt God was calling our family too. Our family sacrifices and sacrifices and sacrifices. And yet God shows no mercy, no compassion.

It's ok. Really. I get it. He's God, he can do whatever he wants. He can love who he wants, and he can hate who he wants. And he can harden whoever's heart he wants, even if that person is asking him not to. He doesn't need a reason, Understood.

Happy Friggin Father's Day



I hate this guy, seriously I do, I hate him. This guy has it all together.

No, really.

Even when he's a jerk, forgetful, says hurtful things and handles things the wrong way. Even when he makes me feel incompetant and like I'm totally alone in my already isolated world...

He has an unwavering faith that I'll never be able to wrap my head around.... sometimes I love him for it, other times I hate his guts because of it....

 But ALWAYS I am grateful for it - for my kids sake.

This man I call husband, works a  50+ hour work week at his civilian job, takes 9 credit hours of GRADUATE course classes a semester, and drills with the Navy Reserves once a month JUST to make ends meet because of RADison's adoption debt. When he comes home he is immeadiately put in charge of RADison because I can't deal with him. He usually attempts to do some sort of cleaning after the boys are in bed. All of that and he puts up with a wife who has lost her mustard seed faith, who is exhausted and discouraged. He never complains that the house isn't clean anymore, that his clothes aren't ironed, that dinner's not ready or that I haven't gone grocery shopping... still. He loves me through it, and in spite of it, and he does the same with the kids.

So, today, honey, even when I don't act like it, even when I don't say it, especially when I can't say it, I LOVE YOU, and I appreciate all you do for ALL of us. You are the best father-Ever.



Disturbing Dream

Not that I don't already have enough problems sleeping. Between my bad back, arthritis or whatever the crap is up with my knees, the stress of the day, neverending headaches and the worst, not to mention OLDEST matress in history... I really don't need to add freakish dreams to my repertoire of things keeping me up at night.

But seriously, besides the reoccuring dream I had as a child about someone wanting to slice the skin off my back... this was the most disturbing and random dream I've ever had. Or at least ever had and remembered.

So I'm asleep, minding my own business I might add, when all of a sudden the x-boyfriend of a daughter of a dear friend of mine and I are walking up a hill together. Now, the hill exists in real life, I know the hill well, the bottom of the hill starts at a football field and at the top of the hill sits the elementary school the Whizkid attended last year. In real life this young man just graduated high school and is a tremendous athlete. In my dream I, apparently had just graduated from high school as well because as we're walking up this hill together we're talking about the future and what kind of plans we have for the future. In real life I'm aquainted with this boy, but in my dream we must have been fairly good friends. Anyway, we're walking up the hill, that really does exist, except in my dream there are train tracks on the hill (no train tracks in real life) talking, when all of a sudden this guy says "I really need to think about how I'm going to pull this off, I need to pull this off and make it believeable" in my dream I thought well, that's a really odd thing to say, and has nothing to do with what we've been talking about but it didn't really seem like a cause for alarm to my dreaming self...

A few minutes pass and I keep walking up the hill, aparently thinking the guy was a few steps behind me. Then I hear the sound of a train coming and as I look behind me, this young man was PURPOSELY lying face down on the ground with his right arm draped across the train tracks. In my dream I knew immeadiately what was going to happen, maybe I should mention that in REAL LIFE, this boy is an amazing athlete, football is his sport of choice. Unfortunately because of poor grades he did not get a scholarship to his dream school like he had planned, and last I heard he was feeling pretty sorry for himself. Anyway, there I am near the top of the hill frozen and horrified because I know what this guys plan is, and there he is with his arm draped across the track, and there the train is racing towards him. I scream, the train runs over and rips off his arm and he's a bloody mess. He rolls from his stomach to his back screaming and writhing in pain. I continue screaming and start running down the hill...

As I race down the hill towards this boy, I see a vehicle driving up the hill. The vehicle belongs to my  real life dear friend whose daughter used to date this guy, I half mime, half shriek what just happened. My friends husband was driving the vehicle and her daughter was in the passenger seat, her reaction was heartbreaking. They speed away to where I told them said boy was on said hill...

I wake up soaked in sweat and tears... I pray for T.W.

An hour later and I still can't get back to sleep.

So there, now, interpret this for me.

R.A.D.

Oh shit.


Shit!


Shit!


Shit!


No, I have not come down with a sudden case of turrets syndrome.


About a month or so after being back in the US the thought crossed my mind that we may be dealing with R.A.D. I quickly dismissed it believing I hadn't given SV sufficient time to adjust, after all he'd only been home a month. And I can't decide if the month he spent with me in Russia counts towards his adjustment period. Now, six months into this I've decided he is going to be adjusting the rest of his life.


About 3 months ago R.A.D. made it's way into my thoughts again. It was the day he punched his teacher in the stomach. And a week later R.A.D. was knocking on my brain yet again because SV got in a fight on the playground. And again I made R.A.D. disappear. I didn't want to think about R.A.D. I mean who does R.A.D. think it is? How dare R.A.D. suggest my child could be a "son of R.A.D." a "RADison"? No way, uhn uh, I am NOT inviting R.A.D. into my house! I told R.A.D. to shut the hell up and get out of my brain. Thankfully R.A.D. left...


Until yesterday. Then R.A.D. came crashing back. First gently into my brain through an email from a new friend who has two RADlings of her own. Then furiously and without remorse like a semi crashing into my chest. I followed my new friends advice and checked out RadKid.org and I looked over the signs and symptoms of R.A.D. in children. The semi truck hit my chest at that moment, it showed NO MERCY and I could hear R.A.D. laughing at me inside my head.




Yep, I'd been avoiding R.A.D. for 6 months, and now R.A.D. was having it's revenge. I hadn't wanted to think about it, I knew then, and I know now if R.A.D.  was what we are dealing with then not just MY life will be forever changed,  but the lives of my other two children, my marriage, even the lives of my friends and in-laws will be forever changed. I don't want that. I DON'T WANT IT. I DO NOT WANT TO DEAL WITH R.A.D. I do not want my other children to deal with R.A.D. and I do not want my MARRIAGE to have to deal with R.A.D.


R.A.D. however, does not care what I want. R.A.D it seems is here to stay, the univited guest. And whether SV is ever "properly" diagnoised, this is all the proof I need: all of the signs/symptoms that are highlighted and/or underlined SV exhibits on a daily basis. 


Symptoms of RAD in Children




• Superficially charming and engaging, particularly around strangers or those who they feel they can manipulate


• Indiscriminate affection, often to strangers; but not affectionate on parent’s terms


• Problems making eye contact, except when angry or lying



• A severe need to control everything and everyone; worsens as the child gets older


• Hypervigilant


• Hyperactive, yet lazy in performing tasks


• Argumentative, often over silly or insignificant things


• Frequent tantrums or rage, often over trivial issues


*Demanding or clingy, often at inappropriate times


• Trouble understanding cause and effect


• Poor impulse control


• Lacks morals, values, and spiritual faith



• Little or no empathy; often have not developed a conscience


• Cruelty to animals


• Lying for no apparent reason


• False allegations of abuse


• Destructive to property or self


• Stealing


• Constant chatter; nonsense questions



• Abnormal speech patterns; uninterested in learning communication skills


• Developmental / Learning delays


• Fascination with fire, blood and gore, weapons, evil; will usually make the bad choice


• Problems with food; either hoarding it or refusing to eat


• Concerned with details, but ignoring the main issues


• Few or no long term friends; tend to be loners


• Attitude of entitlement and self-importance


• Sneaks things without permission even if he could have had them by asking


• Triangulation of adults; pitting one against the other


• A darkness behind the eyes when raging


And the very first symptom up there, this one "Superficially charming and engaging, particularly around strangers or those who they feel they can manipulate" that explains how we didn't know... that explains the DRASTIC difference between the child we thought we were bringing home, and the child we actually have.  

You know what I want?

Besides to take this all back?

I want my mommy. I want to sit in my mom's arms, I want her to hold me and comfort me and just listen. I want her to cry with me and then wipe away my tears.

I want my daddy. I want to lay my head on his shoulder, and I want him to look at me, smooth back my hair and kiss my forehead. I want him to tell me he loves me, that he's proud of me and that I'm gonna be ok, that I'll get through this.

I don't have a mom. I don't have a dad. Never did. Yet... I miss them now more then ever.