When Love Isnt Enough
[Applause]
at maturity
coastal redwood trees grow to about 350
to 370 feet tall
for context that’s roughly goal post to
goal post
on a regulation size football field it’s
as tall
as the statue of liberty if you’ve ever
wanted to be a tree hugger
a redwood’s a great place to start as
long as you’re cool with linking arms
with
12 to 15 of your best friends and kind
of doing like this
redwoods are enormous so it would stand
to reason then
that the roots must run very deep
actually the roots of a redwood tree
reach down only about three to six
feet in the sandy loamy soil in which
they grow best
three to six feet that’s about it
instead those roots grow outward in long
networks intertwining with the roots of
the trees
around it sometimes even becoming fused
it’s literally the strength of the many
that holds up the one
now when i think of what the roots of a
redwood tree look like it’s sort of what
i
imagine the brain might look like as
synapses are wiring and things are
firing and
information is passing from one side of
the brain to the next much like
food and water passes across roots of a
redwood tree
it’s a network and an infrastructure in
our brain that’s wiring for growth
all right so i’m not a doctor clearly
i’m just a mom i’m a mom
who has read books and gleaned as much
information and tried to learn as much
as i possibly can
about a child’s early brain development
so from my uh layperson’s perspective
here’s what i’ve come to learn
before a baby is born the brain stem is
the first part of the brain to develop
in utero
it’s the thing that controls involuntary
actions things like the fact that
you just do breath into your lungs
or the fact that your heart is beating
in your chest even now
without you even thinking about it the
brain stem is also responsible for our
most
primal fight or flight reaction and when
we’re faced with a threat
the brain stem literally takes over and
tells the rest of the brain
don’t even worry about it i’ve got this
the brain stem is responsible for the
core of what keeps us
alive now when a baby is born
their brain is most open to learning and
they’re gathering
information at an incredible rate about
the world around them
they’re learning cause and effect things
like i’m hungry
and i cry and someone brings me food
awesome or i’m lonely
and i cry and someone picks me up and
holds me
gives me nurturance and love
but what about when a baby uh when their
environment is not met with those same
cause and effect
situations instead what about when a
baby is met with uh
i’m hungry and i cry but there is no
food
or i’m lonely i’m scared and i cry
but no one’s coming
well a baby’s brain is gathering
information about that
as well and it’s learning really there’s
no point in crying because no one’s
coming
adults don’t take care of you you can’t
trust them
and if you’re going to survive in this
world it’s up to you
to take care of yourself that
early brain wiring is what’s responsible
for something called reactive
attachment disorder
i’d love to tell you about l elle
is vibrant and active
she is impossibly perceptive that girl
sees
everything she loves pancakes with
sprinkles in them she loves
jeep rides with the top off and if you
were downtown a few saturday nights ago
she was the one
with her bubble wand out of the top of
the jeep letting the wind
blow bubbles into the summer air behind
her
that girl is hilarious she can crack
jokes
and farts that’ll make you laugh
and groan at the exact same time much
like any eight-year-old
she’s amazing
elle came into my family’s life like
unexpectedly like a
leaf blown in on a breeze in october
of 2013.
she was the granddaughter of a former
employee and i came to know about this
little girl who needed a place to stay
and so
i just said well she can stay with me i
knew her family had some things that
they needed to get figured out and
squared away
a couple months before she had been
removed from where she was living
in a 2001 chevy impala on a gravel road
on a reservation somewhere in north
dakota
she was with our family for two and a
half months and then again
another breeze blew her along
like a leaf to be with another relative
in another zip code she was there for a
year gone from
us for a year and then tumbled her way
back in when she was removed from
that situation for unsafe living
conditions
and neglect in her formative first
36 months of her life when her brain was
gathering
all this information
she learned not to trust
her brain was wired for survival she
learned early on that cause and effect
of the world around her
and now i can say wired for survival and
on a surface level you can think you
probably know what that means but
the way the brain works in a child with
reactive attachment disorder and ptsd
is so misunderstood
it’s a disconnect that can look like an
inability to
give or receive love i call it her
dishrag hugs when she can come in
to the side for a hug and she sort of
goes through the motion
but there’s really no emotion behind it
it’s really hard as a parent when you
give your child a hug
and they bristle against you makes me
question my parenting worth like if i
can’t
have my child give or receive love
then what does that say about me
reactive attachment disorder can also
look like a compulsion to control every
situation
small situations but for instance i
might say today we’re gonna go to
the grocery store the car wash and the
bank and she’ll say we’re gonna go to
the car wash first
which you guys it doesn’t matter one
iota if we go to the car wash first
right
but what she’s doing is she’s trying to
gain control
and again what’s the big deal it doesn’t
matter
but when she gains control in those
small situations over and over and over
again
she’s proving to herself that she can
take care of herself
make the decisions and she doesn’t need
adults to survive
she’s literally fending off her own
attachment
it can also look like an inability to
handle everyday situations
from an early age say 3 we would notice
these tantrums that were deeper more
intense than
anything i’d ever experienced i’d try to
explain it to people but they’d always
say
oh that’s just how kids are she’s three
she’ll go through it
only i’ve parented three kids before her
and this was like nothing i had ever
seen
we noticed they started to be clustered
together like if she was going to have
one she was going to have two
or three they were clustered together
and it seemed like when she got off
balance it was
really hard for her to find her way back
to center
but now when adoption was finalized in
october of 2016 of course
things were going to get better she
would know that stability was here she
had a forever home
love was freely given and we were so
excited to join her on her healing
journey of course things were about to
get better
but that’s what’s so tough for people to
understand about reactive attachment
disorder
is instead of things getting better the
deeper the relationship goes
the worse it actually gets see
relationships are scary
and the more the brain fights against it
it’s like they’re trying to
sabotage the relationship because it
seems way too good to be true while at
the same time
being terrified of making a mistake
and losing it
she goes into overdrive and
everyday frustrations are really
difficult for her to handle
things that are simple like being told
that uh
you need to brush your teeth take a
shower and
uh and and comb your hair before you can
have screen time
it seems like she just can’t handle
those things
she goes into overdrive and like i said
in an instant she loses
all reason she uh goes into a tailspin
now you or i can say that uh
you know maybe we’ve had a bad day and
we can say man
i cannot handle one more thing
but even those of us who might struggle
with our patients probably have a pretty
reasonably sized window of tolerance
again the number of things that we can
accept in a day
for kiddos with reactive attachment
disorder their window of tolerance
is exponentially smaller and those
everyday little frustrations send them
into a tailspin
again after adoption instead of things
getting better they actually got worse
and in the months and years that went by
uh these tantrums would escalate and
behind closed doors people could have no
idea
what was happening
anxiety and rage would take over her
body so
fully that she would scratch the
undersides of her arms
until they’d bleed
she screamed so long and so loud one
morning that she
burst the capillaries around her eyes
and the visual reminder of that episode
lasted
long after it had finished
with a flip of a switch she was out of
her brainstem
things were getting worse after an
episode
she’s just exhausted and i remember once
as
the rage turned to tears and her little
body was just spent she started to say
owie mommy it hurts it hurts it hurts
and i said what baby tell me what hurts
tell me what hurts
i will never forget the look on her face
as she slid down the wall fully
exhausted and said
everything everything
hurts
i was completely at a loss
we had tried everything we felt helpless
she had been in counseling and play
therapy weekly
since she was three years old and again
things weren’t getting better they were
only getting worse
i talked to a friend of mine who
actually works in child protection was
really familiar with elle’s case
and she said melissa i know you’re
trying
and it’s not your fault but what you’re
doing is not helping
if she had a broken leg you wouldn’t
just
put a band-aid on it and then praise the
days be excited about the days when she
didn’t limp no if she had a broken leg
you would get her to a doctor and you
would get her the help she needed
and so in may 31st of
2018 my little one entered a
prtf so a prtf that’s a psychiatric
residential
treatment facility
see our family has learned symptoms and
diagnoses
we have learned to navigate the lingo
and learn systems we never
even knew existed
she was in residential treatment for 652
days
nearly two long years
but while she was there she worked
really really hard and
we worked to best understand her and
meet her needs and and
help her grow and thrive and she made
so much progress
she was nearing her discharge date this
spring and we were so excited to visit
the school where she would go
and uh again she was just so excited
about discharge coming up
she’d made so much progress that as we
visited visited the school this day
uh there was this lovely little girl who
came over i mean bless her nurturing
little soul
she came over and rubbed elle on the leg
and said
it seems like you’re a little scared but
you don’t have to be scared we’re all
really nice here
oh my gosh this girl i was so
compassionate
i was just really thankful
but on the way home that afternoon elle
looked out the window and she was quiet
and finally she said thoughtfully you
know what mom
sometimes i really don’t like to be
touched
you guys this was huge she was learning
to
express her needs identify what they
were to begin with
communicate them and stay on the level
it was huge we were excited she was
coming home
i’m a big fan of bose
you put a bow on something you wrap it
up neat
tidy present perfect package
i was so excited to give this ted talk
tonight
and to talk about reactive attachment
disorder
i was excited to tell you about like her
story
cause and effect and then getting help
and and and
everything being great in the end
perfect story arc right
only i’m finding bows don’t exist on
mental health packages
and many times it starts and stops lots
of
progress setbacks and sometimes it feels
like you’re right back at square one
elle was discharged on march 13th this
year into the world
of coven and all of her excitement and
expectations about
going to school and making new friends
and playing with the friends she already
had
were dashed in an instant
the therapist that was we were given a
new therapist and she was going to come
into our home once
twice weekly if needed and suddenly she
was no longer able to come
due to covid so elle went from
full inpatient therapy where every
second of her day was structured
to the world of covid where there was
very little ability to establish
any kind of routine and her
disappointments and
things like the dogs barking and loud
noises triggered
flare-ups of her ptsd she would find
herself
out of her window of tolerance back down
into her brain stem to where
things like even the doorbell ringing
would send her
diving under tables or hiding behind
chairs
she was back into her brain stem once
again
things culminated with some really scary
and harmful violence
descriptive threats of things that she
said she would do to herself
and to others
until one thursday night we found
ourselves
completely scared completely disheveled
doing an emergency admittance into
behavioral health
a few days later she was transferred
back
to her psychiatric residential treatment
facility
i felt like i’d failed her once again
it wasn’t the bow that i thought i was
going to put on this package tonight and
bring to you again cause
effect perfect story arc it’s not what i
thought we’d be talking about but still
i wanted to talk to you about reactive
attachment disorder because i need you
to understand
we need you to understand because elle
and kids like her both in
and out of the system are affected by it
and it’s affecting you and it stems
from birth parents who weren’t given the
tools that they needed to be successful
parents because their parents weren’t
given the tools and their parents
weren’t given the tools
i needed to talk to you about this
tonight and and help you understand
because
knowledge helps break chains
i need you to understand that
parents of kiddos with reactive
attachment disorder are behind closed
doors
giving everything they can
doing what they think is best even when
it’s the hardest thing they’ve ever done
and elle needs you to understand her
because kids with reactive attachment
grow up to be your kids classmates they
grow up to be your co-workers
and they grow up to be adults who will
parent children
themselves dr bruce perry is an
expert in the field of child psychiatry
and reactive attachment disorder
he says by conservative estimates 40
of american children will go through at
least one traumatizing event before age
- but what matters most is not the
event itself
no it’s how
the community of adults stands tall
around them
we need you to be redwoods
because even if we look like redwoods
the truth is
every single day we feel like we’re
failing and we feel like we’re falling
down
again what matters most is how we hold
each other up and can rely on one
another
he says fire can warm or consume
water can quench or drown
wind can caress or cut
and so it is with human relationships we
can both create
and destroy nurture and terrorize
traumatize
and heal one another
no this isn’t the bow that i thought i
was going to put on this package and
bring to you tonight
it’s not the story that i had hoped
because there aren’t any bows and
things are messy but still in learning
about those redwood trees
i’m learning how they hold one another
up
you know i’m learning about their roots
elle wasn’t given the roots that one
would hope in her early
early years but still those roots have
been determined they have been resilient
and they have grown outward
again they have touched the lives of so
many others
i have to believe that the roots that
are forming in her life
every single day are the ones that will
hold her up
standing tall and strong as she grows
i have to believe in her healing
and even when it’s really really hard
i have to believe in hope
so tonight i’m asking you to be a strong
redwood
and stand tall and believe in that hope
with us
you