Imagine you are running a race. Let's say a marathon. Only it had rained the night before and the trail is now a muddy mess. You are running along still managing a steady pace when you see someone has fallen in the mud. As you slow to check if she is okay, you see her shoes were lost in the process (don't think about how realistic this is, just go with it okay?). She accepts your hand to help her up, but glares at you when she realizes your hand had some mud on it which added to her own. She is visibly upset and starts going on about how important this race was to her. It had always been a dream of hers to run a marathon and finishing this race is what she wants more than anything else in the world. Since you are already miles into the race yet still far from the finish line, you decide to offer her one of your shoes. You figure you can both make it a little better with one shoe each. Again, she accepts, but seems angry that you are only offering one shoe. "How much good is one shoe going to do me anyway?"
The two of you get back moving, a bit slower with one foot bare, noticing for the first time how many rocks are lying hidden in the mud along the trail. Apparently this stranger also managed to lose her water bottle. You see her eyeing yours as you reach for a drink, so you offer to share. She takes it, and with another several miles left to the race, she finishes off the water and hands you back an empty bottle, asking if you have anymore. That was all the water you were carrying and she rolls her eyes and huffs when you say as much.
Over the last few miles, the other girl moves further ahead and you lose sight of her for a little while. It is almost like the running with one shoe doesn't even phase her; if you didn't know better you'd think maybe she always runs barefoot. As you near the finish line, foot sore and bleeding from the rocks, you catch sight of her again. Your heart leaps as you realize she is SO close to meeting the goal she so desperately wanted to reach! The shoe and the water and coming in last place is all worth it in that moment. Then, suddenly, about 10 feet from the finish line she sprawls onto the ground. Only, she didn't trip on anything. She tripped herself. At that moment, she sees you coming up from behind and starts screaming that you tripped her! Everyone surrounding the finish line begins to look over, trying to figure out what the commotion is about. It now looks like you were so desperate to not be in total last place that you knocked another runner to the ground. Surely no one really thinks that, do they? You look around, aghast, and just when you think things could not get any more ridiculous, she starts shouting some more. This time she is shouting about how you have repeatedly knocked her down and even stole her shoe!
You try to shrug off the accusations, hoping she will calm down so the race can just be done already. After all, there is only another 10 feet between her and her greatest dream. She begins to cry. Sobbing that she can't finish and it is all your fault. No amount of coaxing gets her to move toward the finish line and she throws the shoe back at you wishing she had never met you because you have ruined everything for her. Eventually, as everyone else begins to scatter since the race is pretty much over, she finally pulls herself up and starts walking. In the wrong direction! She is walking BACK to the starting line! Over 26 miles away. Without shoes or water. When you try to get her turned around, she tells you to just go away and leave her alone already. Finally you decide you can't do anything further and leave to go find someone who might be able to better help her. As soon as you start walking in the opposite direction toward the crowds to find help, she shouts over her shoulder, "See?? I knew you never cared anyway! You wanted me to fail!"
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Now. Imagine repeating that scene. Not once. Not twice. Not a few times per year. But every single hour of every single day of every single week of every single month. If you can get that picture in your head and fit that analogy over every area of life, then you might be able to grasp just a small piece of what it is like to live as a parent of a child with RAD (Reactive Attachment Disorder). Sometimes (today, for instance) it is like this except repeated approximately 7,236 times in one day.
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If you know a family with a child who struggles with RAD, please be aware that this is the life they live (more or less). Not every now and then, but continuously. Even if there are good moments. Even if things look okay from the outside looking in. Your prayers and practical support are so vital. We are among the few who have been seriously blessed with both prayers and support on an ongoing basis. No one parent or set of parents can do this alone.
If you are a part of a family living with the reality of RAD, please know that your efforts are not in vain. Those baby steps count. Even if they are tiny, tiny, itty, bitty, and it is one step forward and three steps back. They count. Because love always counts. Whether you feel loving or not doesn't matter (let's face it, how many of us really *feel* loving towards someone who is consistently hurting us?), the fact that you are still there - still giving your shoe and sharing your water and seeking out help for the very person who is driven to harm you - this is you loving your child in the middle of all their hard stuff. You are doing God's work and it is not in your own power or by your own strength that you will keep running this race; only by his grace and in his strength can you go on. Day after day after day after weary, long, maddening, exhausting day. Hold on and know that you are not alone in this race. There are many of us who have been there, are there, and we get it. Hang on with all you've got; hang on with all the strength God gives you; because for a child with RAD, hanging on is what love looks like.
[It was actually my husband who came up with a similar marathon analogy recently, however I could not remember the exact details so I elaborated with my own version here.]
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