Don't we all want a fairytale ending to this story? She's been in the care of a wonderful great aunt of a cousin twice removed from AS all these weeks. Baby Elaina is happy and healthy and enjoying life as a toddler in the month of June in Toledo, Ohio. God, that is my desire here. But, look at the house in which she was last seen alive! Look at the video of the mom swatting her with a magazine at the edge of the porch! Listen to the stories of the verbally and physically abusive mom and the recovering heroine-addicted boyfriend. What is the reality?
I always want to ask, "Why?"
Traumagenic dynamics- trauma is passed down through generations. AS is several generations in the making. According to her sister, their mother was not in their lives. Was AS abandoned by her mother? Was she left unprotected? Was she 'thrown away' or 'tossed in life's murky waters and swift currents'? History repeats itself.
If you go to the zoo, watch the mommy gorillas. They carry their babies on their hips. They do everything with their baby on their hips. They eat, they poop, etc. with their babies attached to them, or very close by. And if another tribe member comes close to them, they turn their hips to the opposite direction, so their baby can't be reached. Oh. and they bear their teeth just to let everyone know they will fight to the death to protect their young. And what if gorilla moms don't display these instincts? Then, the zoo-keepers remove the babies, raising them by surrogate, and sterilize the moms, labeling them as, "anti-social".
Oh, if only it was as easy for us humans.
To me, AS is looking like a typical borderline (personality disorder): depression; anxiety; substance abuse; impulse control; black and white thinking; fear of abandonment; raging; etc. It's a serious mental illness. It doesn't mean she's not responsible for her actions. It does, however, explain her self-destructive nature and her disassociation/disconnection from her feelings/empathy.
I fear her sweet baby girls have always been at risk for severe abuse and/or neglect.
I'm wondering if any mental health professionals lurking on this board can explain the subconscious abandonment fears that plague borderline moms when their babies start to walk. I have been told they will defend against that inevitable independence on the baby's part by abandoning the baby first, either emotionally or physically, or both?
Could that phenomenon be at the heart of this "disappearance"?
I pray that this sweet baby, Elaina, is safe and wrapped in loving arms right now. Mostly, I hope that her beautiful, sad eyes are sparkling and twinkling with joy and peace. This is the kind of story that makes me so badly want to believe in God. Elaina deserves that kind of love and protection.
