Reactive Attachment Disorder?
I thought it was bunk, especially given the subject, a 3 year old little girl in New York.
I was told that she would never attach to anyone in her entire life. I thought it was not only foolish, but cruel.
The notion of even diagnosing a 3 year old girl only added to my disbelief. Perhaps growing up with too many re-runs of Timmy and Lassie, I felt it was a cold and cruel label for a beautiful little girl who just needed love and some time to adjust to loving adults.
I was wrong.
This beautiful little girl had no inclination towards human beings, pets, toys, dolls, or anything. She attached to nothing. Over the next few years, no amount of work caused her to attach.
I have read of Post Cold War attachment studies where Soviets took away babies for testing. Having read about Nazi tests on Soviet prisoners of war, Jews, and the mentally disabled, I knew that humans were capable of such tests. In the Soviet tests, babies on either side of a nursery, all born the same day, received the exact same food and medical attention, save for one thing:
1/2 the babies were never given human touch, while the other half were held and rocked by nurses.
As you likely guess, those who were not touched (outside of having their diapers and clothing changed; that is, minimal handling), were, by and large, severely mentally retarded, intellectually disabled, sickly and prone to disease, while their counterparts, handled and rocked by nurses, had far less issues.
With an Attachment Disorder, the child is unable to make a strong attachment to humans. They can appear almost 'zombie' like, with distance from other humans, almost void of emotions, positive or negative. Some only show blank stares, while others show anger and rage, but few positive emotions.
The little girl that I met had suffered horrific neglect. As I learned the details of the neglect, I understood how she came to be the way she was: disconnected.
I love kids. I always have. I could not wait to be a father and have been rewarded greatly in life from the relationships with my children. I look forward to becoming a grandfather. How could it be that the same gentle touch, the same teasing, the same attention and game playing could not bring a child out of this terrible fog?
Eye witness accounts cemented what had happened to this little girl.
It was not just that she was left alone. This form of neglect is bad enough. I believe it was what caused the mental health issues of genius, but raving lunatic Bobby Fischer. For this little girl, a "novelty" to her parents, her life would have been better if she had "only" suffered from being left alone. For her, the Neglect went much, much further.
Her parents were drug addicts and grifters.
A grifter is one who moves from place to place, finding someone to exploit, living a parasitic life until caught, and then simply moves on to the next city and the next victim, often pulling in lots of money along the way. Father was a dull addict, but mother was razor sharp, both in intellect and mouth, and could talk any city into putting them up in a hotel, and get more "services" (often traded for cash) or freebies than anyone I had ever met, before and since. She always had several cell phones, a computer, internet access, and such things.
Like her husband, she never worked a day in her life, but drove fancy car after fancy car, working out lease deals under various names and identities, constantly "falling" and getting supermarkets to pay her off, usually a few thousand dollars, in exchange for her promise not to sue. She and her husband went through money like water, buying drugs, yet always had money, partly from scams and partly from drug re-sales. When caught, she became like a wild animal, attacking others, playing the victim and always finding a soft hearted, soft headed person to take up her cause. From Florida to New York, from the West Coast to East Coast, she left a trail of victims everywhere she went.
I had never met lazier people in life. Never. How lazy?
She refused to fill out the forms for government money, though she possessed the intelligence to do so. She actually would talk workers into filling them out for her. They refused to do anything for themselves. They were so lazy that not only would they never pick up after themselves (or the child) nor bathe, but they would even mess their own bed, overnight, high as a kite, rather than "have to" get up and use the bathroom, knowing that the hotel staff would be forced to clean up the vile mess. They laughed when $5 per hour hotel maids balked. (back then) When the hotel would lose workers, eventually they would kick them out which forced NY's social services to find yet another place. No amount of reasoning with them would get them to use the bathroom. They came to meetings smelling like body odor, tobacco, and urine. It initiated my human gag reflex. The mother thought it funny and enjoyed making people suffer. When she was going to scam someone, however, she bathed.
Mother kept a steady stream of oxycontin coming in, on top of all the other drug activities, as she played doctor against doctor, carried her own x-rays with her, and found, online, a rare disease that she threw in the face of anyone who dared challenge her. With her, there was always the element of violence about to break forth, especially when her own words were repeated back to her, highlighting the deception. Her eyes flashed a frightening anger, and I often found myself backing away from her, or putting a table, or chair, between us.
The child was a novelty, given a foolish novelty name, and was nothing more than extra money from the government. She was exploited for every possible penny, and then some. The parents came to meetings without her, but refused to tell the social worker who was watching the child. Because he had a hispanic name, the parents would often claim that he did not understand due to his ethnicity. He withstood the insults and attempted to keep at his job.
Mother was a master manipulator and exploiter. Not only did she exploit from State or city government resources, but private resources as well, and would quickly turn around and pawn whatever it was that the child was given. Churches were a soft touch, as most did not require any kind of labor in exchange for money or food, ignoring the mandate: "If a man will not work, neither shall he eat"; as they both laughed at how gullible churches were.
The mother refused to disclose information about where the child was, or who was watching her.
She hated the child.
Social services of NY learned that the child was never watched by anyone, much like Zanny the Nanny, she created aunts and babysitters who did not exist.
She would allow someone to give the child a toy, with a huge smile, only to grab it away, snarl in the child's face and give "the signal."
It was "the signal" that devastated me the most and made me understand how it was that his child, with all the love possible from loving, talented, devoted foster parents, the child would not, that is, could not, budge. She could not attach.
The "signal" was a nasty look, and at the "signal" the child literally ran across the room, sliding onto the floor, and crawl under the bed.
There she stayed for hour after hour after hour while her parents either got high, slept off their high, or went out to scam so more.
Yes, she was left alone for many hours, from the time she was born, which meant that the signals of the brain were not stimulated like other children. Yet, she was not mentally retarded, perhaps from the genetics of her brilliant, but devious mother.
She lived her life under a bed, watching and listening to her parents have sex, eat, and get high. She was given a small amount of food to keep her quiet, but also ate it under the bed.
By the time she was three, she never cried.
I never heard her cry, a single time.
God knows, I cried enough for both of us.
If I told you that the mother won her child back years later, moved to another state, and became a minor celebrity advocate for mothers, having received honors and awards, you'd likely struggle to believe me.
I sometimes look back and think of this child, especially when the pop-novelty source of her name is heard or spoken, and ask myself if it was like I saw it to be.
When I hear of a child with RAD or Attachment Disorder, I shudder. I know the neglect that goes on in order to create this scenario. I know that the time frame for the brain to be stimulated came and went and cannot be recovered, no matter how hard we try.
I know how a 10 year old can kill.
I have met such kids, though only a handful, and they are unlike any child you can imagine. You must get out of your mind the notion of a kindly grandmother's touch, with warm cookies fresh from the oven, holding the child, and breaking the coldness in the child's hurt heart.
It isn't so.
Then prepare yourself for the mothers of RAD children.
They will say how wonderful they were and how normal they were and that it was just all something genetic.
Don't buy it.
However, when you read about a parent who adopted a baby who developed RAD and went on for crime, do buy it and listen carefully.
As science progresses, we may learn of the earliest of brain damage, even pre birth, that comes from neglect, drugs and violence. Violence witnessed by a baby is something I liken to an 'almost car accident' in which you grab the wheel, slam on the breaks, and find that you are safe, but your heart is racing and your adrenaline (and other hormones) are pumping furiously through your body.
What caused your heart rate to slow?
What caused your hormone levels to drop?
Answer: It was your ability to 'reason' with yourself: "I am safe now" and within moments, your body relaxes. If your body does not relax soon, the imprint upon the brain may become permanent. We often call this Post traumatic stress disorder. My father, a signalman in the US Navy in the Sea of Japan, 1945, spent the next 50 years suffering from nightmares where he would awaken in a cold sweat yelling, "the Japs! the Japs!" as he spent too many minutes, above deck, in sheer terror of a suicide bomber (kamikaze attack), where the moments turned into minutes and his brain recorded the fear. (It is why parents must keep their sons from pornography...more later)
The baby who witnesses violence has a similar hormonal rush, yet is utterly without the reasoning activity: the baby can't talk himself down from it.
Violence becomes imprinted upon the brain. Many times, the child, as a boy, will return to this violence during the hormonal change of adolescence, whereas many times the child, as a girl, will later seek out violent men for herself.
It is this risk that adopting parents take and I have learned of many true stories including one where the same household produced a Presbyterian minister, a medical doctor, but the oldest, adopted as an infant, a drug addict and violent criminal. Obviously, all three received the same love, care and attention that brought the first two advanced educational degrees.
The three mothers in our tragic story of the 10 year old killer are acutely neglectful. Commentators that excuse one mother or the next tell more about themselves than about the story.
A mother drops off her newborn to a woman who tells her, "if you don't, my 10 year old will refuse to go to camp" yet does not see this as a blaring red flag? What of those living in the basement? Ever think to wonder about them before dropping off a newborn, incapable of self protection?
We will hear the mother of the 10 year old blame the State. Some believe that the State (government itself) is their savior and the state should know all, be everywhere, and control everything; the same attributes people of religion ascribe to Deity. They think the state is responsible for them and their social welfare, from the cradle to the grave. Lawsuits will likely follow as greedy lawyers seek to cash in.
A baby is dead.
A 10 year old will become the burden of taxpayers for the rest of her life and will be a walking time bomb.
I met one RAD boy who's father had regained custody of him. The father split from the mother, who moved in with a violent drug addict. By the time the boy was three, he was institutionalized. Father came back into his life and by age 10, he was given home visits.
The father and his new wife had an infant. He said the boy was talking quietly to it and without emotion or warning, took a pillow and held it over the newborn's face. Thankfully, the father had been carefully watching and the child was safe.
The boy got up, without emotion, and packed his belongings for the institution, as he knew he was going back.
Even outside playing, he would seek out squirrels, in an attempt to capture and kill them.
He showed no emotion. No joy, no sadness, no in between. Nothing.
He was a twin, and he had a sister who, also institutionalized, was released to her father's care and doing better.
The strange thing about the twins:
When social workers finally found them, they were three years old.
The girl had no hair, was emaciated and was filthy.
The boy was clean, plump, seemingly healthy, and never beaten.
The girl was beaten daily, and even had her hair pulled out from her, while the boy was pampered and favored with food and toys.
At age 10, she was in better shape than he was and experts had more hope that she would be able to live outside the institution.
I used to bristle when the press would interview a mother on television who would talk about how evil the state was in taking away her child, all because she was poor.
She failed to tell the camera about the food she swapped for drugs, or how she put her cigarette out on the baby's feet to quiet him down, so she could have sex with her violent boyfriend.
Neglect is evidenced by the very words that come out of the mouths of the abusers, as they blame others.
"No one would give him a chance" said Carnel's mother, regarding why no one wanted to hire Anthony Bennett, convicted violent felon, with scary tattoos across his face.
Do you really believe that a mother who locks her child in a closet all day, while she gets high, when said child comes out with RAD and commits a violent crime, she is going to say, "I am so sorry. I locked him in a closet so I could get high"?
She won't. This is why you read Statement Analysis: You have the intuitive thought that you may not be hearing truth.
There is a correlation between blaming others and neglect.
I hope this helps you understand RAD a bit. I am emotionally attached to the material here, as you can see. Blaming others only continues the problem, and even strengthens it.
Regarding the 10 year old with RAD:
There were three negligent mothers in this home, and likely three abdicating fathers as well. Their laziness and selfishness and inattention all conspired together in the perfect storm that brought death to the most innocent of all in the household: the newborn.
