In the past couples of weeks, I have been through two “blow ups” with groups of friends. It must just be the time of year or something in the water. (Just to be clear – I did not cause any of the drama, and any of the people involved would tell you that.) As a person who has been through trauma as a child, I tend to gravitate toward other people who themselves have been through trauma during childhood. Of course, all of us bring our childhood baggage into the mix in our relationships.

In both cases, the “blow ups” were caused by misunderstandings, and the drama and hurt feelings could have been avoided if people has just expressed their feelings from the get-go. Instead of saying, “This situation is not working for me,” they held their feelings back. Then, when they finally did express their feelings, they came out much stronger and more hurtfully, causing emotional damage that nobody saw coming. That is not okay.

Traumatized children need to be taught how to talk about their feelings. When you grow up in an abusive environment, you are taught that it is not okay to have feelings, so you repress them. Repressed feelings do not just “go away.” They fester and become more intense. Then, when the person finally does express her feelings, they explode all over the person to whom they are being expressed. As was evidenced to me in two groups of friends, this dynamic continues into adulthood until the person learns how to express her feelings as she experiences them.

The best way to teach your traumatized adopted child to express his feelings is to model how to do this appropriately. That is how I learned to express my own feelings – by watching more emotionally healthy friends who knew how to do this. I have now gotten much better at expressing my feelings appropriately, as all of the friends in these two “blow ups” can tell you. Also, tell your traumatized adopted child repeatedly that it is okay to talk about how he is feeling. Feelings are never “bad.” It is what we do with those feelings that can make or break a relationship.

Related Topic:

Learning to Be Okay With Feeling Emotions

Photo credit: JulieC