Hurt People Hurt People

Hurt People Hurt People. One of my friends on FB who advocates for pro-life issues posted this today and I thought how well it correlated to my day.
We've cancelled Christmas for Tabitha. There, I said it. If you feel the need to come over and punch me, be my guest.
Upon cleaning out Tabitha's room to:
1)purge old books/toys in preparation of Christmas
2)do a deep cleaning
3)pack up toys to go to attic for bad behavior this week
we came across not one, not ten, but numerous dolls/toys/animals that had been destroyed.
Now, when I was a kid I wrote on things and cut dolls hair and generally practiced being as artistic as I could on things, but the key thing is I still enjoyed those toys. I cut Barbie's hair but it made her more of 'mine' that I had placed my mark on her and I enjoyed her more. Same with cabbage patch dolls bearing frankenstein-ian scars and dolls who got whore-ishly applied permanent makeup. Misguided, yes, but I never tossed these toys out after adulterating them, I was more endeared to them.
Tabitha refuses to see any intrinsic value or sentimentality assigned to her toys. Special things we've bought her on vacation at Disney World, trashed, sliced, cut, gutted. Special toys her grandparents bought that we've had countless conversations about their 'specialness'... same treatment.
We boxed everything salvageable which was one small bin and put it in the attic. Her room is a bed and a few books, placed out of reach so she can't harm them.
I know it's a RAD thing and the FB form is loaded with hundreds of people in this world who are parenting similarly challenged children. This is typical behavior for a RAD sufferer.
The worst thing is the guilt. The guilt you feel when other people hear one fraction of the story and make you feel completely inept.
It's not about us. We suffer all the more because we yearn to give then normal. We yearn for them to be able to handle normal, for them to desire it for themselves.
Jacob was doing so well yesterday through the process, we went through his books and toys too to make a huge donation to charity and he was great.
So great, I told him he could stay up as late as he wanted playing Mario. We had just bought him a Mario costume at Wal-Mart and he stayed in costume and played all night, a treat I would not mind giving him on the weekend, he is 8 after all.
This morning I open the door to tell him to take a nap prior to Church and find not only did he stay up all night, he refused to go to the bathroom and so his room smelled like a men's restroom, with little puddles spread across his room and once he helped clean it up I found where he had squirrelled away the costume and the soaked undies, trying to hide something we already knew occurred.
It is examples like that that prove that as much as we try to give them 'normal', to look past their RAD and want nice things for them, they can not handle it. Tabitha, who isn't even our food-sneaker had mounds of food refuse stuck behind her bed, along with animal voice boxes, stuffing, beads from the animals "guts". Her carpet had been drawn/scraped with crayons. She had shoes hid where the laces had been removed, after telling me the shoelace necklace she was wearing had been a gift from someone at school. The lies have no end.
The amount of disregard, the blatant lack of remorse. Their stoic expressions when confronted with these revelations is maddening.
I feel for those misguided parents whom decades ago tried that form of therapy where the older children were 'reborn' through physical ordeal. Children were hurt and I think one or two were actually killed through it, but I completely understand the concept of trying to free the child of their past and trying to get them to be see themselves as a new person. I am hoping the baptisms will do this for them.
We spoke with Fr. Liam yesterday and their baptisms will be after a set of classes to help them understand the sacrament. Because they are older children, they will be taught and instructed in the meaning and importance and I love that. I am looking forward to see if these classes will help them at home too.