Building ~ A New Season

Thank you for stopping here at Exuberant for Life!  I’m so glad you are here.  

I started EFL in 2016 to focus on sharing blogs, podcasts, digital graphics (art) and more, all with the hope of sharing video content eventually.   As child-rearing and health issues took center stage, I wrote and spoke what I could while focusing on my 1st priorities.  Many years have passed, and as these blogs are bursting with content I am now ready to transition into sharing via different methods.  These blogs will remain for now as an archive of sorts, and occasionally as I find unpublished content I may add here for future reference.  My goal is to expand to write books on various topics, while building a subscription base at Substack, and develop a robust Youtube channel.  

Please feel free to dig around here and on the connected blog sites, take whatever is helpful and share anything you want to.  If you’re able to leave a tip, that would be fantastic.  You can also become a Patron to contribute financially to our digital content.  We also have online shopping available with items created by our artistic family members.  Check out links below to give into my work.

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My Latest Venture

During the decades of rearing our young children and tending to our big family, my energies for writing were minimal.  Now that the youngest are nearing young adulthood and almost 13, I have a lot more time to get into the depths of perspectives I so enjoy through the mode of written words.  In order to bless my family too, I decided to leave all blog content here for free, while allowing readers to subscribe for $7 a month to my written articles over at Substack.  

We have searched for ways to experience win/win/win options.  This new way forward gives: 

1) Me the pleasure (when I have extra time and bandwidth from tending to family and home) of being able to write to my hearts content and share what bubbles with my dear readers. 

2) Readers get to follow along the written journey as I share from heart, soul and mind.  

3) My family gets the benefit of financial provision by way of your subscription.  

I really like win/win/win scenarios and am thrilled to finally be putting it all together.  

Note: as of today I am laying all the foundations and digital connections required for Substack, as well as getting the YouTube channel ready  where we will begin releasing content any day.  

There is a back log of material waiting to be edited and uploaded, and it finally seems like things are in order, the time is right and Spirit says NOW.  

Thank you for following along for free this long.  PLEASE wander around here in blogger as much as you'd like, here and at my other blogs: The Missing Generation, Hope for Narcissism, and at the main site at Exuberant for Life.  

To get more into the depths with me via my writing, which is my passion, please consider subscribing below today.  I offer a free week trial in case you would like that.

As always, I bless you to seek the Holy Spirit for His leadership, direction, comfort, correction, peace, attunement, and joy for your life.  

You are adored 

(no matter what).

~Kate Mazur

From the Castle (our 700 square foot home on a hilly, sand duned-forrest)

Midwest USA

in honor of the life of Charlie Kirk 

& SLG finishing its current season

About this Blog

This blog is devoted to sharing educational articles, videos and materials surrounding issues involved with REACTIVE ATTACHMENT DISORDER.  

In seeking to understand my own experience rearing a child who carried deep emotional trauma, I searched the world for answers to what seemed to me to be an excruciatingly painful and confusing problem.  

As a woman and mother who loves children and the heart behind adoption, I was surprised to experienced much pain while walking along side a child who had been severely wounded early in life.  

Long after that child was grown and living successfully on her own, I took a deep breath, began to face my own sorrows and anger (etc) relating to the years of following my intuition and looking for principles to cope with what felt like an absolutely awful situation.  I found the strength to look for understanding and insight into what had happened during those years of living life together.

I decided to share here where my journey for knowledge and truth led me in order to heal my own heart and mind from the pains involved with loving a child with severe attachment problems.  

This blog contains articles, links to books and video interviews with people I found during that intensive learning period.  

One fascinating thing I learned was that during the time frame I was raising the child who'd suffered severe physical and emotional traumas, brain science and how the attachment center  in the brain works was JUST being done.   The books I would have gleaned much from had not yet been written.

At some point, I hope to share my own stories.  For now, I leave this blog as a way of a trail you can follow in case you are rearing someone who was traumatized by someone other than you.  

Being left to pick up the pieces can be daunting, and if there is an attachment disorder like RAD, the inevitable processes of loosing family and social base, having financial hard ships, doubting self and having awful marital struggles (all consequences of rearing RAD) are all part of the unfortunate package.  

I hope by sharing here, we might understand what is at the root of RAD, educate ourselves and each other and be able to walk out in confidence loving a child who reacts to being loved.

By clicking through to articles and watching videos you can learn how RAD affects children, the families who adopt them as well as the women who step in to nurture a child who has been hurt by someone else.

If you are an adult dealing with RAD within yourself (often diagnosed as BPD), a family member who would like to support someone who is rearing RAD, or a family looking to adopt/become step-parent to a child who was severely traumatized there is a lot of information here to glean from.  

The more I learn I realize I have had a life long experience with attachment issues.  I hope you find practical things to help you on your journey.  

It's my belief that love alone is not enough...or at least "love" toward one of these precious children needs to be looked at from a completely different grid than what seems natural.

Suggested Materials include affiliate links to resources you can purchase online.  Should you purchase materials through the links provided here, I might receive a small commission at no extra charge to you.

The links to written articles by various authors are in no certain order.

The videos are in no certain order. 

If any of the information provided has been useful to you, please kindly consider a generous donation.  

Please use the button below to donate by debit or bank card or to pay by PayPal.   
Donations are not tax deductible.  Refunds not available.

  

Carrie O'Toole And Her New Book, Relinquished: When Love Means Letting Go

Ryan Dobson Talks Adoption

Jessie Hogsett: Detached, Surviving Reactive Attachment Disorder

Introduction To Parents Of Children With RAD

Attachment Part Two, with guest - Forrest Lien

Help for Kids with Attachment Disorder, with Guest Forrest Lien

Attachment Disorder Q&A with Guest - Forrest Lien

What is Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD)? - Mental Health with Kati Mo...

•RAD Questions Answered•

{The Drama Triangle}~ Rad The Victim

• PTSD In Parents of Children With Reactive Attachment Disorder •

What It Feels Like To Parent Reactive Attachment Disorder Children

Reactive Attachment Disorder •SYMPTOMS•

One Reason People Don't Get It

What is Reactive Attachment Disorder, & How it Developes

Effects on NON-RAD SIbling's in the Home

I remember hearing an old, wise preacher state if you have older children who were abused, don't let them around the younger children because they WILL abuse them.

This is a different side to that issue.

To watch the youtube clip, click the play button on the image below.

~ Why You Can't Show Emotions To a Black Hole~

This is a strange concept to me but one I've found VERY helping in dealing with the now-grown child.  It has also helped me in dealing with my mother who seems to also have reactive attachment problems (from my point of view).

To watch the youtube clip, click the arrow on the image below.

What NOT To Do With A Rad Child •For Family & Friends•

This woman's videos brought me much information in order to look at what I needed to have during those years with the traumatized child.

Click the video below to watch the YouTube clip.

Reactive Attachment Disorder: What Every Church Going Person Needs to Know

In my desperate scramble to find answers, I stumbled onto this video.  While I disagree with this man on many principles expressed in much of his other material, I value highly the information he shares here.

If you know anyone who wants to adopt a child, please watch it.

If you have or want to adopt a child, please watch.

If you are a step parent or know anyone who is, please watch.

If you belong to a church group of people who value life and adoption, please watch this.

Click the arrow button in the box below to watch the Youtube clip.



As for my own story, the child I reared did not have 5 of the symptoms which are the most obvious.  I think that's why it took me so long to get a grasp on what was happening.  Also, when I did look for info when the internet was barely a thing, I kept looking for "radical" attachment rather than "reactive."

Had I known this information while I was walking along side that child, I would have done things VERY differently.  Knowledge helps empower us to walk in wisdom and in strength.