I accidentally stumbled upon this disturbing documentary a few days ago, and it hasn't left my mind since. The film surrounds a family who adopts two young children, not knowing the emotional problems they harboured deep inside them. The most disturbing part was the actual recorded clips of Beth's (6 years old) therapy sessions with the therapists. Here, she openly admits to wanting to cause harm and killing her brother, as well as her 'mommy and daddy'. And she has. The parents describe incidents where Beth has repeatedly smashed her younger brother's head against the concrete floor and didn't stop when he told her to. He had to get stitches. She also displayed inappropriate behaviour such as 'sticking pins' into her pets, molesting her brother, stealing knives from the kitchen so she can kill her parents, etc. Through the therapy session however, we learn that she remembers being sexually abused by her birth father as well as not having enough to eat all the time. This caused great scarring, as clearly shown. Beth was so traumatised by the abuse since she was 1 year old that she showed no emotion at all, did not respond to affection, had no conscience that told her right from wrong.
It was towards the end, when she was moved to a centre for recovery that she finally showed signs of improvement. It was actually rather moving, seeing her speak about why she did the things she did and how it made her felt; and she cried, showing feelings for the first time.
I found this documentary very disturbing at first, but towards the end I just felt sadder about the fact that there are children in the world who were abused at a young age and are left with such devastating effects. Reactive Attachment Disorder occurs when that bond is broken or never existed in the first place, so the child is unable to form the same bonds with others. They also do not feel 'bad' when they do something wrong or hurt other people.
***From watching this documentary, I thought back at my own experiences and how those were nothing compared to what Beth had experienced. I wasn't abused, wasn't left with such deep scars from childhood that I cannot function properly with friends and family. I'm okay with leaving uneasy and traumatic experiences behind and forgetting them. I say that, but I do not want to forget these memories at all, even though they do not bring good feelings. They make me feel sad and frightened, but I feel that they are as important, if not more than, the happy memories I had as a child. It was this combination, that contrast of fleeting memories that make me who I am today and how I think and interact with others. After witnessing the trauma left in Beth, I wondered if this made my trauma less in value since it is much less serious? Is there even a point in expressing these memories as 'traumatic'? I talked with my friend and she said that this does not de-value my trauma at all. Just because Beth's trauma was more 'serious' does not mean my wounds are invalid. Different people also take trauma differently. We are all on the road to recovery.