Eliza figured out that Lake Powell was only 4 hours away from Phoenix and convinced us to meet her and her roommates there on Friday night to spend the last glorious day of summer. It wasn't a hard sell. We stayed on the houseboat for the night and spent the perfect summer day surfing and George boarding and exploring Navajo canyon. It was so fun for Tony and I to watch Eliza's kindness and competency. She is truly an emotionally healthy human with healthy normal attachment and we are both amazed and filled by just being around her. We loved watching the patient and skilled way she taught her roommates to surf. The girls were all great sports and even without total success, they all tried!
We had planned to take the boys with us. They had both agreed to go and then, as per usual, sabatoged our family event by refusing to go. It's the pattern that Wilson set many years ago. Sam was weeping and swearing and Max just locked himself in the bedroom. It is a most confusing, disconcerting feeling to offer your kids a gift, a night on lake powell in a houseboat with all the good food I could think of, and have them reject it with so much anger and venom. Their reaction is such evidence of disrupted attachment, because any other kid on the planet would have loved a day on the lake.
We've cancelled Max's phone, which is like taking away an alcoholic's beer, so he is desperate and panicked. Sam has also lost media privilege, temporarilly, because he had a great day of connection with Grandma and Grandpa and us when we got home.
It's been a year since Max was in the wilderness program. He follows the rules and is mildly respectful at home and at school, but there has been no change in his ability to form healthy relationships. Every relationship he has is superficial and 100% self-centered. He gives nothing, unless it's with a motivation to get something. We can't force healthy attachment, but we can stop funding unhealthy attachment vices, like the phone. It isn't pretty.
Last Monday Wilson attended counseling with Tony and I. He is doing pretty well right now. His job at Three Point Center for attachment-challenged adopted kids is a miracle beyond words. He has true empathy for them, is gaining perspective and insight for the parents, and even attends counseling with the students he oversees. In the session Wilson expressed the overwhelming shame that he's felt for most of his life. He talked about how hard it has been to be a constant disappointment to his parents. He expressed regrets that he couldn't be the big brother that set an example for his younger siblings and even suggested that he was responsible for them not staying in the church and going on missions. He talked about how hurtful it is when Cooper calls him stupid and the horror he felt after slapping Eliza. We had to share hard things about how his siblings are afraid of him. He asked us to begin trusting him, and we are anxious to, but we also have to respect the boundaries that his siblings set. It was really healing and I'm so grateful that he went and that we have Tiffany to help be a "place of safety" for us to heal.
Yesterday I received a gift from my Heavenly Parents. I lay on a beach that they had created with a stunning blue sky, perfect temperature of sun rays warming my skin. The sand was soft and the sound of waves was utterly soothing. There was no wind, no bugs nothing uncomfortable. I lay there feeling loved for a long time. I think that gift was given to me so I can return to that place when things get hard here.
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