Dog Eat Dog

Or,
more accurately...

Dog Passively Aggressively Manipulate Other Dogs Into Doing What He Wants. 

We are struggling here.

And it's all about the C word.

CONTROL.

One of our adopted kiddos is brilliant.
No seriously. 
Homeboy is wicked smart.
S.M.A.R.T.
In fact, he's downright gifted.
I feel a freedom to brag on him
cuz.....ya know....
it had absolutely nothing to do with me. 

It's not as though him and I have been reviewing Latin flashcards together since infancy or discussing the Pythagorean theory over Cheerios as a young toddler.
It's all him.
It's all in the way He designed him.

And it's beautiful.
And it's hard. 

Because along with his Bill Gates style brains comes one heck of a knack for being manipulative.

He's good at it.
Nay.
He's really, reeeely great at it.

And for the most part,
the other two are completely oblivious to the aggressor standing right in front of them.

That's good.
That's bad.
I don't know.
I fluctuate.

In some respects I am so thankful they are not fully aware of the scope to which they are being pulled like puppets on a string,
but then the other part of me feels as though I need to constantly defend them.

Would you like a small example?

Ok.

The Wii.
Last week they were all playing together.
The gifted one wins.
He always wins.
But through some crazy insane serious of events he
~gasp~
LOST.

He lost.
Once.

He lost once.

And as the other one jumped up and down with excitement and a big smile on his face
the gifted one chimes in coldly,

"I let you win."

And the crushed look on the other one's face?
Well, let's just say it was heart wrenching.

I know you can pass it off as normal sibling behavior but trust me, this is one small example and the damage is being done.
He needs to learn that being manipulative in your relationships is incredibly unhealthy,
and they need to learn a sense of self. A sense of confidence.

And it's constant.
Like a river running through our house I can't, for the life of me, see where it originates and I certainly don't see where it ends. 

It's him getting them to do what he wants to do.
What he wants to play.
How he wants to play it.
All. The. Time.

And the longer this goes on the longer I can see the others losing their own voice.
So I intervene.
And intervene.
And intervene.
And intervene.

Always in love,
always in logic,
always in explaining the situation.
And he gets it.
In fact my explanation of why behavior x is not ok is truly not even needed.
He knows.
Trust me.
He knows.

So this is the dance we do.
Him always trying to outsmart them
me always trying to bring it all back around,
and then it builds.
The rage.

The all. out. rage. 

It was constant in the first couple of months home.
And it has since significantly improved.

What was once every day many times a day,
is now only a couple of times a month.

But you know what?
It still flat out bites.

It bites.

It's not even a scream.
It's definitely not a yell.
It's like a guttural cry coming from somewhere deep inside him that I cannot even begin to find.

And lately, it always end with the same thing.
"You are NOT my mommy!!!!!!!"

So here I stand before you.
Ready to admit it.

He's traumatized.

He.
Is.
Traumatized. 

He's traumatized.
There you go.
I said it.

By his past,
by his present maybe for whatever reason,
by a series of events in his first 7 years of life that I had no control over
yet here I am,
trying to put those pieces back together for him again.

He is dealing with issues that are waaaayyy above the thresholds of his still 8 year old brain.


16 months here and I can still see that look in his eye.


Still.

The vacancy that comes over him,
the tongue that sticks partly out of his mouth,
it's that moment that he retreats into whatever safe place he can find the corner of mind.

And it's hard.

I'm no expert, that much I'm sure you've figured out by now.
But I can only imagine the two simply have to be related.
His unquenchable need to be in control
and his hurt.
His immense, intense, far-reaching hurt.

Those two forces within him have such a hold on him.
So it is here we begin,
and it's here we find our new starting point.

We are going to start counseling for him.
Because though there is no visible wound that I can put a band-aid on,
there is a heart need that is screaming for healing.
Good thing I know a great heart Doctor.

"And I will restore to you the years that the locust have eaten," Joel 2:25

Back to FAQ tomorrow.