Left On the Side of the Road

According to KSDK News, a woman put her adopted son out on the side of the road because she couldn't deal with his problems.

"55-year-old Judith Andrews of Ypsilanti, Michigan told 2 On Your Side that she left her adopted five year-old son along Grand Island Boulevard because he has a an attachment disorder."

 

I've heard anecdotally from family therapists that there's a brewing epidemic of adopted kids showing signs of reactive attachment disorder, or RAD. I'm sure a lot of adoptive parents realize that there can be adjustment problems, and they don't get the help they need to deal with them.

An awful lot of us -- myself included -- can empathize with that feeling of being abandoned in our loneliness. This story brings up a well of grief in me. But I don't think anyone who hasn't been as bereft as this child is can truly understand the utter despair he must feel. He must have hoped, at least dimly, that having a family would bring him out of his isolation. Instead, he got the ultimate rejection.