Child Collectors Extraordinaire

[LilMissMetaphor]

Thing is, it's not just long term care for her - they now have FIVE kids who are likely to never live independently, and only four who will presumably grow up to get usual jobs.

I just read one of her older posts where she admitted she doesn't know what will happen to the kids once she and Anthony die. But she doesn't worry about it because it's out of her control. :roll: I guess "rescuing" them now is more important than worrying about what's going to happen in fifteen or twenty years.

[mostlylurk]

Same here. Adeye's last few posts to me hint a bit like she might have realised that she's bitten off a bit more than she can chew, but of course God will fix it all if she prays hard enough.

They just got a puppy. I'm not holding out much hope that she's going to come to her senses anytime soon.

[Bellatrix]

I just read one of her older posts where she admitted she doesn't know what will happen to the kids once she and Anthony die. But she doesn't worry about it because it's out of her control. :roll: I guess "rescuing" them now is more important than worrying about what's going to happen in fifteen or twenty years.

Erm, excuse me for asking but how are they still allowed to adopt more children? How does the US system work when it comes to delivering some sort of paper claiming the parent(s) have been approved to pursue domestic or foreign adoption through agencies?

[lovemygsp]

They just got a puppy. I'm not holding out much hope that she's going to come to her senses anytime soon.

She is disgusting. Not only does she have several high need kids she can barely take care of but now she adds a damn puppy to the mix?!! I'm fostering a 10 week old puppy and I am hardly getting any sleep because she needs to go out ever 3ish hours and feed several times. There is no way she is able to take care of that dog properly.

No doubt she was from a puppy mill or backyard breeder and will end up in a shelter within a year because of some kind of behavioral issue because she didn't have time to train it and won't want it after the cute phase. stupid stupid people.

[Joan of Snarc]

When I saw the pictures of the puppy with Kael, I thought, "Awwww. Cute puppy." Then I thought, "No way would I add something else that pees and poops and needs care to that household."

:animals-dogrun:

I'm not surprised that Hasya is blind; you could tell from the pictures that her eyes weren't even close to functioning properly.

I wonder if Adeye has given up all pretense of homeschooling. Before the most recent adoptions and hospitalizations, usually when she mentioned homeschooling it was along the lines of "Ugh. We are so not into homeschooling this week. Anybody know a good 5th grade math curriculum because that's so beyond my abilities! So glad homeschooling is over for the year, etc."

She seems really poorly suited to homeschooling and with everything else she's got going on, I'm sure those older kids aren't getting a proper education. If she would put them in public school, I bet they'd flourish AND she'd have more time for medical and therapy appointments for her special-needs kids. I'm sure the biokids + Hannah Claire love their siblings, but they deserve their own lives and pursuits. I hope they're not stuck babysitting all the time.

[chaotic life]

If she puts her older kids into school, the burden on her increases. She can teach "Character training" in lieu of academics and have her older children participate in a great deal of the care of those fragile children. If they go to school all day, then she has only herself and what home healthcare she can get. My guess is that she doesn't have home health aides helping her and opts instead to get her CNA certification (probably what she was in school for last year) and gets CO to pay HER to be the home health aide for the children.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

If she puts her older kids into school, the burden on her increases. She can teach "Character training" in lieu of academics and have her older children participate in a great deal of the care of those fragile children. If they go to school all day, then she has only herself and what home healthcare she can get. My guess is that she doesn't have home health aides helping her and opts instead to get her CNA certification (probably what she was in school for last year) and gets CO to pay HER to be the home health aide for the children.

I thought she DID finally send the original 4 kids (3 bio sons plus the first adopted daughter - i.e. all 4 of the normally school-functioning kids) to some sort of school program, though? Wasn't she going on about how it was some Christian-based thing and how they liked the fact that it was halfway an outdoor program? I'll have to go dig around on the blog and see if I can find it.

On the one hand that would mean she has less burden of homeschooling (though all those kids are at grade levels where probably she can just tell them to go do workbooks, if they're fine with the SOTDRT life anyway) but as you say, it would be less people at home looking after the other kids.

In particular... Haven. She's the second adopted daughter, who at age 11 functions on the level of a 3 year old, except that she also has absolutely no functional communication skills - no speech, no sign, apparently not even "bring a glass to Mom and touch her arm to get a drink" going on. Mom says it's PTSD. (Mmm hmmm.) Anyway, when pressed about Haven's communication skills, Mom always says only "we love her just as she is, we don't care if she can't talk" but then added "and anyway [first daughter] always knows what Haven wants, anyway, so we just ask her." It's like J'buddies on steroids.

So if first daughter is away at school, what then? And that's not even considering the other 3 disabled kids at home, including of course Hasya who, as far as I know, still has a BROKEN LEG. I guess it's just splinted and she's on pain meds? I just can't imagine...

You're probably right about Mom being the home health aide thing, though. Still though, as MOM, she's likely to not outlive all those kids.

I can't help but wonder what the first 4 kids might have to say in oh, 20 years.

[chaotic life]

IIRC she put them in a co-op. Quite a few homeschoolers rely upon them to provide all of the education but they are not the same thing. They were invented to provide supplemental education and there's a sect of homeschoolers that just give up teaching and think 1-2 days per week with volunteer parent teachers IS going to school. I don't think she's got them in full-time schooling. I could be wrong though. It sounded like a co-op to me when she blogged about it.

Between the CNA pay she's got to be getting for those five kids and the ad revenue she's getting fom her blog, I guess she could afford a good private school for the normal kids. I just don't see her giving up all of her helpers for full-time school hours. The downside to making the CNA pay for yourself is that you don't also get helpers to come help you. Though, I guess she could put in for some of the kids to pay her and some of them actually get nurse aides to provide services. However, given that she's gone LONG periods of not even getting state funded therapies for the kids because she thinks faith and love is all they need, I cannot imagine she would opt for actual nurse aides over getting paid herself.

I actually wonder if the fact that CO will pay a parent for the nurse aide hours if they get their CNA was part of why they moved back from VA. VA sure as snot will NOT pay the parents ~ $2K per month to parent their medically fragile kids the way CO will.

[valsa]

In particular... Haven. She's the second adopted daughter, who at age 11 functions on the level of a 3 year old, except that she also has absolutely no functional communication skills - no speech, no sign, apparently not even "bring a glass to Mom and touch her arm to get a drink" going on. Mom says it's PTSD. (Mmm hmmm.) Anyway, when pressed about Haven's communication skills, Mom always says only "we love her just as she is, we don't care if she can't talk" but then added "and anyway [first daughter] always knows what Haven wants, anyway, so we just ask her." It's like J'buddies on steroids.

This angers me so, so much. It's just so stupidly short-sighted and selfish, and the worst part is that the Mom isn't the one who's going to suffer when it blows up in their face.

What happens when the parents die and first daughter is either unable or unwilling to care for her sibling? Haven will likely be stuck in a care facility with absolutely no communication skills and possibly no one to advocate for her (certainly no one to advocate for her 24/7) I've cared for patients who physically cannot do much (if any) self-care, but at least they could communicate what they needed to caregivers. Someone who is denying their own child even that much autonomy and dignity is a monster in my eyes.

[klf7412]

This angers me so, so much. It's just so stupidly short-sighted and selfish, and the worst part is that the Mom isn't the one who's going to suffer when it blows up in their face.

What happens when the parents die and first daughter is either unable or unwilling to care for her sibling? Haven will likely be stuck in a care facility with absolutely no communication skills and possibly no one to advocate for her (certainly no one to advocate for her 24/7) I've cared for patients who physically cannot do much (if any) self-care, but at least they could communicate what they needed to caregivers. Someone who is denying their own child even that much autonomy and dignity is a monster in my eyes.

I haven't commented on this particular "fundie" due to the fact that I know them... I just want to point out that they have attempted to help Haven in all ways possible.. They had that girl in every therapy known to man when she got home, and all of them terrified her, which in turn, made her shut down. And, while from afar the whole PTSD thing might sound crazy, it does fit haven. From all the trauma she has been through, she regressed in to her own private world. Eventually, they stopped with the therapies because not only were they not helping, they were making her worse.

[chaotic life]

Then like we see with Haysa and Kael, they were poorly prepared to provide for what Haven needed. Having PTSD does NOT negate Autism and the behaviors she has described of Haven does not fit PTSD but Autism. Micah had both. It made it extremely complicated to work with him, but the option of leaving him with NO ability to communicate was never an option. It wasn't an option for the two with even more severe PTSD than Micah either. Communication doesn't have to be her physical voice but Haven has nothing else either, and no that's not an acceptable place to leave her.

I was always the first person to stop methods that scared my kids but I have NEVER simply stopped seeking help because of trauma and fear. I go back to the drawing board and try again. That wasn't done with Haven.

[chaotic life]

Just for comparision, my son who had Autism and PTSD never potty trained. There were points in his years when he was *almost* there and points where it was basically a deliberate weapon he used to push buttons. What I did NOT do was give up. It was only in the last week of his life that I completely gave up on working on potty training. Yes, I knew for years that full potty training wasn't going to happen for him. However, I was not about to give up and let him stop striving for the best he could achieve. He wasn't dead yet, and until he was I was not about to give up on helping him live and thrive.

I had the same approach with speech. Yes, he was able to verbalize and Haven has not. However, his expressive language was nearly void. He had a huge vocabulary and the strangest atypical form of echolalia whereby he would repeat everything back in question form for ions after he heard it. The month before he died we finalized an IEP to increase his speech therapy because again we did not give up on living as long as he was still alive.

Retreating into her own world is cause to do it differently but not to not do it at all.

[klf7412]

Then like we see with Haysa and Kael, they were poorly prepared to provide for what Haven needed. Having PTSD does NOT negate Autism and the behaviors she has described of Haven does not fit PTSD but Autism. Micah had both. It made it extremely complicated to work with him, but the option of leaving him with NO ability to communicate was never an option. It wasn't an option for the two with even more severe PTSD than Micah either. Communication doesn't have to be her physical voice but Haven has nothing else either, and no that's not an acceptable place to leave her.

I was always the first person to stop methods that scared my kids but I have NEVER simply stopped seeking help because of trauma and fear. I go back to the drawing board and try again. That wasn't done with Haven.

I agree with everything you said, however, (imo) Haven truly is a unique case. Haven could not handle ANY therapies, that was the issue. It wasn't like she simply didnt like a particular therapist or didn't respond well to play therapy. Therapy in general made her shut down. She would freak. That is why they decided to stop all together. From what I know, they still work with her at home and she has made more progress. I am not sure about sign or anything, but I know she is continuing to progress.

[So Many Lies]

If you have that many kids though, it doesn't really seem like a family... just maybe a better version of an institution. She seems caring, but has obviously admitted there's no way SHE (the mother) can give her attention to all of her kids.

Really reminds me of Mia Farrow. Woody Allen, not that I could like or believe anything he had to say on the matter given Soon Yi, said Mia's home with it's adopted children was a lot like a children's home more than a family environment.

[chaotic life]

My 5th child thought he had entered a smaller orphanage and not a true family. Took him years to understand family and attach. When stressed, sick or upset, he will STILL pull back and retreat into himself. However, for the most part, he is the biggest mama's boy you ever met now. He was the warning to me that there HAD to be a point when I stepped back and recognized that you can tip a family too far and it does become nothing but an instutition when children need families.

FTR, Haven is not "a unique case." There mere fact that they justify giving up on working with her under that claim shows me they are NOT as capable as Adeye paints the picture on her blog. Haven and her issues are EXACTLY what you can find yourself parenting when you intentionally adopt a child that you were notified was a non-verbal autistic before you adopted her. My childhood best friend's parents adopted one from the foster-care system exactly like Haven, also from a horrifically traumatic past (because children do NOT need to come from orphanages to have been sadistically traumatized by adults who were supposed to protect them). The difference is that his family included a Special Education teacher mother who was friends with his last fosterparents and asked her to do respite for a weekend and she never gave him back. She was horrified that they *just like Adeye* had given up and decided he was a "unique case" and therefore could not respond to therapy and needed to be allowed to retreat into that world he was hiding in. He's now 22, still non-verbal. However, he lives in a group home, uses communication devices. My friend says he's quite the jokester and smart-alec and truly outgrow his childhood autistic tantrums. That is a future Haven will NOT have because they are NOT working with her to give her that. It is NORMAL for non-verbal autistics to be EXTREMELY resistive to efforts to give them communication skills. It is NOT normal for PTSD children to respond in that manner. She has PTSD but the symptoms they insist are her PTSD are NOT. They are her autism and on how to help her with those, people in this thread are NOT wrong.

She's not a unique case. They can tell themselves that all they want to justify what they have done. She's not unique. She's actually quite typical for what she has and what she's been through, including how she responds to formalized therapy. My friend's mother had the speech therapist train her so that his therapy looked like play in the bathtub where she was doing both feeding and speech therapy but he was actuallly getting therapy in a manner he did NOT know was therapy and did not have the poor reaction to. In fact, resistence to therapy is classic autism. Autistic children, especially profoundly autistic children are extremely non-compliant and fight you tooth and nail. They even retreat into their own world and refuse to come out. It doesn't justify giving up.

[chaotic life]

You know, you CAN have a large family and be commited and the parent. Mia Farrow retired from acting and raised her kids. I never saw anything to suggest that she was anything but MOM to those kids. I think the fact that her and Woody Allen's three children cut all contact with him and continue to this day is telling. I think it is also telling that her children are grown, successful and credit her as a mother for their upbringing would indicate she did it right. She had the resources to get the help she needed and to be there, fully engaged with her kids.

I've got 8 in the house and I know them and their hearts intimately. However, I would not consider adding more as long as I'm raising these 8 because I know this is my limit now. My oldest leaves for college in two years and we've discussed adding one more when he's gone and we're 100% conflicted on whether we will or will not. I won't add more kids than I can parent and be fully committed to. My last child got dumped on my doorstep at a time when I didn't think I could parent him and he proved to be just the challenge I needed to keep myself from drowning in the grief of losing his brother. I would not have sought out to adopt him, but I wasn't going to throw him away after he was dumped on us. I'm grateful for his patience in this imperfect mother as he has grown and thrived and done exceptionally well for where he's been. It doesnt mean I would go out and seek to add another right now either. It means I'm not heartless and won't throw away a child who has been thrown away so many times he doesn't believe people who don't throw kids away actually exist in this world.

I get the heart sentiment that leads people to be collectors, at least when the sentiment is good when it starts. You help one child and give them the world and you realize the power to give that world to children. You start to see children in need and see YOUR ability to give children the world and want to do it again and again. However, you have to at some point recognize that you are not superhuman and your ability to give children the world ONLY works in balance of your ability to continue to provide that for the children already IN your home, and your first priority is the children that are already yours. You either have to stop looking at the children in need, or you have to steel your heart to NOT continue to try and take them in.

The very reason I'm working towards my Nurse Practitioner degree at this point is because I want to continue to impact the lives of children, but I HAVE to stop giving those children my life and my home. If I don't, then I will hurt the children I have brought into my home by disrupting their lives, stretching the resources to the point that I cannot maintain them at the level I have raised them, and spreading their mother so thin that they are not being mothered in the manner they desperately NEED to be mothered. I can make a difference in a lot of children's lives in a smaller but dedicated way without having to BE THE DIFFERENCE to a child in the way I was for the ones in my home. It doesn't make me less than. It's a different way of touching the lives of children.

Child collectors don't make that transition in their thinking. They get so accustomed to rescuing children that they don't stop and evaulate when the rescue becomes poor and the family becomes unstable for the effort, then you have not done a very good job at rescuing. There are millions of children in this world at-risk. Being the world to one, or two, or even twenty is just a drop in the bucket. The stream of need is never going to end. The ability for ONE person to make a difference is finite. You have to transition to a level of advocating, working, touching lives but not bring them HOME with you to continue to make a difference in that derth of need. If you cannot, you just hurt the children already in your home and those you bring into your home.

Most of the families we've discussed, they have tipped the scale too far. They have gone to the point of causing harm and not maintaining what they set out to accomplish because they cannot or will not check their bleeding heart and find a way to quit trying to save the entire world and to focus on what they CAN do. There is no doubt that every family has their own tipping point, but every family DOES have a tipping point and once you tip it it becomes rather clear that you went too far and began collecting.

[Bellatrix]

The very reason I'm working towards my Nurse Practitioner degree at this point is because I want to continue to impact the lives of children, but I HAVE to stop giving those children my life and my home. If I don't, then I will hurt the children I have brought into my home by disrupting their lives, stretching the resources to the point that I cannot maintain them at the level I have raised them, and spreading their mother so thin that they are not being mothered in the manner they desperately NEED to be mothered. I can make a difference in a lot of children's lives in a smaller but dedicated way without having to BE THE DIFFERENCE to a child in the way I was for the ones in my home. It doesn't make me less than. It's a different way of touching the lives of children.

Child collectors don't make that transition in their thinking. They get so accustomed to rescuing children that they don't stop and evaulate when the rescue becomes poor and the family becomes unstable for the effort, then you have not done a very good job at rescuing. There are millions of children in this world at-risk. Being the world to one, or two, or even twenty is just a drop in the bucket. The stream of need is never going to end. The ability for ONE person to make a difference is finite. You have to transition to a level of advocating, working, touching lives but not bring them HOME with you to continue to make a difference in that derth of need. If you cannot, you just hurt the children already in your home and those you bring into your home.

It's interesting to note that there is a conscious feeling of the powerfulness of being somebody's saviour. The families that do go overboard appear to have parents who have a bit of a God-complex, or at least one of them. I found quite a few of the child collector blogs scary to read. The way the blogging mothers (in most cases) go on about how they've rescued another new addition. And then, as soon as the new kid has done some minimal progress and is smiling enough (obvious evidence of a done and dusted salvation), they move onto a new one. The fact that they blog on such regular basis with often a pile of happy face pictures tends to go in that direction as well.

The families who have gone overboard often don't offer the best life possible to their children but merely the lesser of two evils. When I see so many special need children adopted one after the other, I can't help but think that in the majority of cases, they're in a better place than where they came from but that it is not a sufficient reason to continue the adoption chain. Caring for a child goes beyond taking them, getting them accustomed to your family and daily life so they're comfortable around you, snapping pictures of them looking happy and playing. Caring for a child translates into a long life journey multiplied by each one you have/take in.

[ILoveJellybeans]

Yes, I totally agree. Theres a limit to the number of children each person can look after (for some its bigger than others, for some people this limit is 2, others can cope with a large family), care for and know before it gets to the point where its practically an orphanage but one where everyone is related. Sure, theyre better looked after than in most orphanages, like the one Hasya came from, shes certainly better off in a place where shes getting love and attention and not shoved in a crib all day. The problem with people having loads and loads of children in short succession, is that with each child, it gets harder to get to know them and spend time with them individually. Sometimes it gets to the point where the children are just seen as a unit, and thats what you want to avoid as a parent.

The mentality of thinking about "saving" the next one as soon as the newest child is home, makes it seem like the other children are being forgotten once they appear to be doing okay.

[klf7412]

Chaotic Life,

I've read your two responses, and honestly, I do think you might be right. I've never parented or been around a child with autism or a child with the sort of trauma Haven does, so I just always assumed they knew what they were doing. I think I just have way to much love and respect for them as people to think that they could be giving up on their child... but your posts made a lot of sense. And you say Haven isn't unique.... For me, she was. I know a lot of children that have been adopted not only internationally, but also that have experienced disruption and I have never seen needs like Havens. That is why I considered her a "unique case"....

[chaotic life]

I understand and I don't think they have done this to Haven to intentionally neglect her needs. I think they have done this out of ignorance. In the first place, Adeye's CONSTANT insistence that Haven does not have Autism is massive form of denial that interfers with her ability to HELP Haven. Non-vebal is NOT a symptom of PTSD. It's just NOT. The tantrums that Haven throws are NOT a symptom of PTSD. They are NOT. The reason Haven looks so "unique" for PTSD is because Adeye and her husband are tyring to force this square peg child into a round hole she doesn't properly fit into. They assume that PTSD versus Autism are an either/or situation. They are NOT.

PTSD is a major complication for an autistic child. As the Psychologist told me when she finally diagnosed Micah, an autistic child will learn certain behaviors as a survival response under the trauma and stress and while much rehabilitation can be formed, there are certain behaviors that cannot be UNlearned when an Autistic child learns them under PTSD conditions. In our case, the fact that Micah used his bodily fluids as a weapon was something we could not, and did not unlearn. That didn't mean we ever stopped trying but we understood that we would have limited success no matter how hard we tried.

Because of Haven's history of rejection and horrible abuse under the word "autism," Adeye sees herself as protecting Haven by keeping that word away from her now. She's wrong. This is not a Chinese orphanage. The diagnosis of Autism is NOT a condemnation. It is a label to frame SUPPORT, not to condemn a child.

I've been there. We were told that Micah was mentally retarded. I spent a year taking him to every doctor, therapist, specialist I could think of telling them that I had never seen ANYTHING like this child. Over and over again, I verbatim described Autism to experts and didn't even realize it. Over and over again, they missed the diagnosis. The only thing I knew about Autism before Micah was that it was a condition that required crazy intense levels of parenting and I was not willing to adopt and parent someone with Autism. A year into it, with a diagnosis of PTSD, Bipolar, RAD, SPD, etc, etc, it was the father of a grown autistic son who meet us at a chance encounter at someone's home and trailed Micah all night with a stupid grin on his face saying, "Micah is JUST LIKE my son." I kept retorting, no, Micah is MR not Autistic. Two weeks later, I was communicating with a family trying to find a new family for a little Chinese girl IDENTICAL to everything Adeye has described about Haven. I contacted a parent to parent support mentor with three ASD children trying to undertsand the child's behaviors. I finally asked her, other than the reality that this girl was non-verbal, how was she with Autism difference than Micah? The response was that she was not. It was startling, heartbreaking, devestating and humbling to face the reality that yes, Micah had Autism.

Adeye tries to deny what is right in front of her face. She thinks she is protecting Haven by keeping that word at bay. She's not fooling ANYONE who understands Autism. She's not. That parent who told me about Micah told me that parents of Autistics can often just *tell* a child with Autism. I thought she was nuts.....until two years later I saw a LOOK on a friend's toddler and realized what I too was looking at.

I don't think Adeye and her husband are deliberately giving up on Haven. However, their actions born of love and ignorance have in fact given up on that child and her needs. The sad reality with Autism is that you DO have to start on rehabilitation therapy as soon as possible. The longer you wait to get services, the less you will ever help a child recover and hold for long-term functionability. At some point, Adeye decided that love was enough, for Haven, for all of the others, and has put therapy and services as peripheral and not terribly important. That idea that you can love a child enough to overcome is misguided and dangerous. That's what posters here take issue with. Many who have responded DO know Autism and DO understand what it takes to live with it, to work with it, and to help a child acheive functional skills. Adeye is DENYING that help to her daughter in her thinking that she is protecting her.

[klf7412]

I understand and I don't think they have done this to Haven to intentionally neglect her needs. I think they have done this out of ignorance. In the first place, Adeye's CONSTANT insistence that Haven does not have Autism is massive form of denial that interfers with her ability to HELP Haven. Non-vebal is NOT a symptom of PTSD. It's just NOT. The tantrums that Haven throws are NOT a symptom of PTSD. They are NOT. The reason Haven looks so "unique" for PTSD is because Adeye and her husband are tyring to force this square peg child into a round hole she doesn't properly fit into. They assume that PTSD versus Autism are an either/or situation. They are NOT.

PTSD is a major complication for an autistic child. As the Psychologist told me when she finally diagnosed Micah, an autistic child will learn certain behaviors as a survival response under the trauma and stress and while much rehabilitation can be formed, there are certain behaviors that cannot be UNlearned when an Autistic child learns them under PTSD conditions. In our case, the fact that Micah used his bodily fluids as a weapon was something we could not, and did not unlearn. That didn't mean we ever stopped trying but we understood that we would have limited success no matter how hard we tried.

Because of Haven's history of rejection and horrible abuse under the word "autism," Adeye sees herself as protecting Haven by keeping that word away from her now. She's wrong. This is not a Chinese orphanage. The diagnosis of Autism is NOT a condemnation. It is a label to frame SUPPORT, not to condemn a child.

I've been there. We were told that Micah was mentally retarded. I spent a year taking him to every doctor, therapist, specialist I could think of telling them that I had never seen ANYTHING like this child. Over and over again, I verbatim described Autism to experts and didn't even realize it. Over and over again, they missed the diagnosis. The only thing I knew about Autism before Micah was that it was a condition that required crazy intense levels of parenting and I was not willing to adopt and parent someone with Autism. A year into it, with a diagnosis of PTSD, Bipolar, RAD, SPD, etc, etc, it was the father of a grown autistic son who meet us at a chance encounter at someone's home and trailed Micah all night with a stupid grin on his face saying, "Micah is JUST LIKE my son." I kept retorting, no, Micah is MR not Autistic. Two weeks later, I was communicating with a family trying to find a new family for a little Chinese girl IDENTICAL to everything Adeye has described about Haven. I contacted a parent to parent support mentor with three ASD children trying to undertsand the child's behaviors. I finally asked her, other than the reality that this girl was non-verbal, how was she with Autism difference than Micah? The response was that she was not. It was startling, heartbreaking, devestating and humbling to face the reality that yes, Micah had Autism.

Adeye tries to deny what is right in front of her face. She thinks she is protecting Haven by keeping that word at bay. She's not fooling ANYONE who understands Autism. She's not. That parent who told me about Micah told me that parents of Autistics can often just *tell* a child with Autism. I thought she was nuts.....until two years later I saw a LOOK on a friend's toddler and realized what I too was looking at.

I don't think Adeye and her husband are deliberately giving up on Haven. However, their actions born of love and ignorance have in fact given up on that child and her needs. The sad reality with Autism is that you DO have to start on rehabilitation therapy as soon as possible. The longer you wait to get services, the less you will ever help a child recover and hold for long-term functionability. At some point, Adeye decided that love was enough, for Haven, for all of the others, and has put therapy and services as peripheral and not terribly important. That idea that you can love a child enough to overcome is misguided and dangerous. That's what posters here take issue with. Many who have responded DO know Autism and DO understand what it takes to live with it, to work with it, and to help a child acheive functional skills. Adeye is DENYING that help to her daughter in her thinking that she is protecting her.

I get what your saying... It's still sort of hard to digest, as I have always assumed they were doing a good job with her... What would you say about the Dx's they have received for her? Doctors said it wasn't autism, but extreme PTSD.... Would you consider it a misdiagnosis just like Micah's?

[chaotic life]

Yes. I would assume it was a misdiagnosis. I love and trust the family doctor that was Micah's main physician. I love and trust Micah's Psychiatrist. However, they were both on the list of professionals that told me Micah did NOT have Autism. They were two of the people I had to fight against the hardest when I got his diagnosis. They were also humble enough to both apologize when he was diagnosed, to admit it was clear he did have autism and to acknowledge that they were so focused on all the *other* issues he presented that they missed what should have been easy to see....except that he was bizarrely atypical in everything he presented.

They weren't wrong in what they DID see in Micah. He did have all of those other issues they diagnosed and treated. However, when I insisted upon tapping into the ASD community, it was only THERE that suddenly I could describe some bizarre behavior and have myself interrupted before I finished while someone else completed the sentence of what I was trying to say. I'm not in that home. I only know what Adeye feels it's okay to share with the entire world in a non-annonymous blog. What I can tell you is that EVERY ancedote or behavior I have EVER seen her describe about Haven fits perfectly under the concept of Autism and does NOT fit under PTSD. I've parented both. I've parented PTSD to resolution, and I parent PTSD that is chronic and may never heal.

I've SEEN non-verbal related to PTSD and it's NOT like Adeye describes Haven. What she describes of Haven is non-verbal related to Autism.

I woul assume the doctors have missed the Autism, either because they have seen the PTSD and themselves assume the two cannott be co-morbid, or because they know exactly what Adeye would do if they dared to call Haven autistic and thus focus on the PTSD because it's a label Adeye *can* handle. Adeye has invested her entire prespective on Haven upon the child NOT having Autism....except nothing she has ever described about that child fits with her not having Autism. Doctors are not perfect. And, if it is clear from her blog how Adeye would react to Autism, it has to be even more clear to the doctors and therapists working with Haven. There's a REASON even Adeye's blog supporters keep telling her that Haven has Autism, it's because the child's symtoms and behaviors are consitent with Autism. Micah was SEVEN when he finally got the diagnosis. It wasn't because he didn't have Autism for his first seven years. It was because every expert, every teacher, every therapist, every doctor, even his retired RN fostermother ALL missed what was right in front of their noses. Micah wasn't just Autistic, he was profoundly Autistic. It wasn't a bad word to diagnosis. It opened my ability to mother him in a way he COULD respond. It opened what little resources and support we could get to help him acheive the best of his ability to acheive. It wasn't a magic fix anymore than it was a bad word. Accepting what everyone missed simply helped me point us down the path of what DID help him, in what limited ability it carried TO help him.

What Adeye has tried with Haven hasn't worked. Rather than fight and search for the right path, she's decided it's simply okay to love Haven and leave her where she is inside her own head. I suspect at this point Adeye has streched herself SO thin with four other fragile and high needs children that she barely has time nor energy to consider trying to advocate and fight for Haven. That is my point about when you turn from kindhearted to collector mentality. Adeye and Scott can no longer truly devote what Haven needs from them and have decided it's okay to NOT fight for her. They cannot now give any of the children in their home sufficient attention and care and are operating on "good enough." It's not an acceptable place to stand. It's just not. Not for Haven and not for the other four either.

[klf7412]

Yes. I would assume it was a misdiagnosis. I love and trust the family doctor that was Micah's main physician. I love and trust Micah's Psychiatrist. However, they were both on the list of professionals that told me Micah did NOT have Autism. They were two of the people I had to fight against the hardest when I got his diagnosis. They were also humble enough to both apologize when he was diagnosed, to admit it was clear he did have autism and to acknowledge that they were so focused on all the *other* issues he presented that they missed what should have been easy to see....except that he was bizarrely atypical in everything he presented.

They weren't wrong in what they DID see in Micah. He did have all of those other issues they diagnosed and treated. However, when I insisted upon tapping into the ASD community, it was only THERE that suddenly I could describe some bizarre behavior and have myself interrupted before I finished while someone else completed the sentence of what I was trying to say. I'm not in that home. I only know what Adeye feels it's okay to share with the entire world in a non-annonymous blog. What I can tell you is that EVERY ancedote or behavior I have EVER seen her describe about Haven fits perfectly under the concept of Autism and does NOT fit under PTSD. I've parented both. I've parented PTSD to resolution, and I parent PTSD that is chronic and may never heal.

I've SEEN non-verbal related to PTSD and it's NOT like Adeye describes Haven. What she describes of Haven is non-verbal related to Autism.

I woul assume the doctors have missed the Autism, either because they have seen the PTSD and themselves assume the two cannott be co-morbid, or because they know exactly what Adeye would do if they dared to call Haven autistic and thus focus on the PTSD because it's a label Adeye *can* handle. Adeye has invested her entire prespective on Haven upon the child NOT having Autism....except nothing she has ever described about that child fits with her not having Autism. Doctors are not perfect. And, if it is clear from her blog how Adeye would react to Autism, it has to be even more clear to the doctors and therapists working with Haven. There's a REASON even Adeye's blog supporters keep telling her that Haven has Autism, it's because the child's symtoms and behaviors are consitent with Autism. Micah was SEVEN when he finally got the diagnosis. It wasn't because he didn't have Autism for his first seven years. It was because every expert, every teacher, every therapist, every doctor, even his retired RN fostermother ALL missed what was right in front of their noses. Micah wasn't just Autistic, he was profoundly Autistic. It wasn't a bad word to diagnosis. It opened my ability to mother him in a way he COULD respond. It opened what little resources and support we could get to help him acheive the best of his ability to acheive. It wasn't a magic fix anymore than it was a bad word. Accepting what everyone missed simply helped me point us down the path of what DID help him, in what limited ability it carried TO help him.

What Adeye has tried with Haven hasn't worked. Rather than fight and search for the right path, she's decided it's simply okay to love Haven and leave her where she is inside her own head. I suspect at this point Adeye has streched herself SO thin with four other fragile and high needs children that she barely has time nor energy to consider trying to advocate and fight for Haven. That is my point about when you turn from kindhearted to collector mentality. Adeye and Scott can no longer truly devote what Haven needs from them and have decided it's okay to NOT fight for her. They cannot now give any of the children in their home sufficient attention and care and are operating on "good enough." It's not an acceptable place to stand. It's just not. Not for Haven and not for the other four either.

Who is Scott? LOL!

I get what you are saying.. and it does make sense. At first, I was like "Huh? Children with PTSD can be nonverbal", so when you explained that her form of non-verbal-ness (Yes, I made that up!) doesn't fit PTSD, it made more sense... I also agree about Haven having PTSD and some form of Autism.

[chaotic life]

Ugh, Anthony. I got names confused, not Scott, lol.

Yes, you can be non-verbal with PTSD but it's not an ongoing condition but a situtional anxiety provoked response. Permenantly non-verbal AND refusal communicate in general is NOT PTSD.

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publicat ... ptsd.shtml

That is a good list of PTSD symptoms except the list fails to explain that they are magnified and in stereo to the point that they prevent you from being able to engage the world around you. When my sons are triggered on their PTSD, they will go non-verbal, can do it for days, cannot communicate, cannot use their voice, cannot reach the world around them. However, when they feel SAFE again, it goes away. It is not a perpetual state. That's not PTSD. Whomever told Adeye that is PTSD is WRONG. A perpetual state of non-communciation including resistent to verbal and non-verbal attempts to communicate is Autism not PTSD.

[klf7412]

Ugh, Anthony. I got names confused, not Scott, lol.

Yes, you can be non-verbal with PTSD but it's not an ongoing condition but a situtional anxiety provoked response. Permenantly non-verbal AND refusal communicate in general is NOT PTSD.

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publicat ... ptsd.shtml

That is a good list of PTSD symptoms except the list fails to explain that they are magnified and in stereo to the point that they prevent you from being able to engage the world around you. When my sons are triggered on their PTSD, they will go non-verbal, can do it for days, cannot communicate, cannot use their voice, cannot reach the world around them. However, when they feel SAFE again, it goes away. It is not a perpetual state. That's not PTSD. Whomever told Adeye that is PTSD is WRONG. A perpetual state of non-communciation including resistent to verbal and non-verbal attempts to communicate is Autism not PTSD.

Thanks for that website... I actually have PTSD*, so I kinda feel stupid now that you are saying things that make so much sense. :oops: I never questioned whether Adeye was right about Haven not having Autism or anything like that...

*Before you think "This crazy woman has PTSD yet can't see that Haven has more than just PTSD?!" I would be on the "lower end" of PTSD (if that makes sense...) and I just always assumed Havens was super extreme.

ETA: And I am just continuing to feel more stupid as all of my PTSD issues will go away "Once I feel safe again". I should have noticed something because Haven's is a constant.