nightmares

Adopted Child’s Nightmares About His “Real Mom”

Submitted by FaithA on Wed, 02/10/2010 - 07:58

Child sleeping (c) Lynda BernhardtMy nine-year-old adopted child has been having a recurring nightmare that has him very upset. He says that I walk into the room, but I am not “me.” I am not dressed like myself or acting like myself. In his last dream, I was wearing green and yellow striped shoes, and that got him so upset that he started shaking when he told me about the dream. I asked him why it upset him so much that I was wearing green and yellow striped shoes. He replied, “It’s not you. You weren’t you, mom!”

I am pretty good at decoding dreams for people I know well, and I think this dream is his subconscious processing his adoption.

Trauma Tuesday: Vivid Nightmares

Submitted by FaithA on Tue, 11/10/2009 - 07:42

Traumatized Adopted Child (c) Julie C

If you are parenting a foster or adopted child who has been traumatized, your child probably suffers from vivid nightmares. The child might awaken in a cold sweat with his or her heart racing. The child might even shake after having one.

These nightmares are the traumatized child’s way of trying to make sense of senseless trauma. In some cases, the nightmares are actually flashbacks of real events that occurred in the child’s life. In other cases, the nightmares are not true factually, but they are “true” in emotion.

For example, I had a vivid nightmare recently that was not factual but was very much true in emotion. I was my adult self, standing in my bedroom and watching a video of my child self. I looked like a really cute preteen boy. (My parents would not let me dress or wear my hair like a girl, so everyone always thought I was a boy until after puberty.)

While I was watching the video, a huge spider’s web fell on top of me, and I got tangled up in it.

My Children Are Different

Submitted by GuestBlogger on Mon, 08/11/2008 - 10:59

Girl behind bars (c) Lynda Bernhardt

Our guestblogger today is Dee Thompson, a paralegal and writer who lives in Atlanta. She adopted her daughter Alesia from Russia in 2004, at age 13 She had met Alesia when her choir sang at the orphanage in 2003. She adopted her son Michael from Kazakhstan in April 2007, when he was 10. [Dee wrote a book called Jack's New Family, to help Michael make the transition to an American family. It's in Russian and English. Available on Amazon.]. Michael was beaten by a gang of boys at age 5 and left to die. He lost his right hand due to frostbite. Both children are now healthy and happy. Dee writes a blog called “The Crab Chronicles,” to give the world a picture of her family and encourage people, by example, to adopt older kids. Her struggles are similar, yet different to most families who adopt older children from orphanages.  

I worry sometimes about my 17-year-old daughter Alesia [adopted from Russia at age 13] and school friends telling her things. She is still so naive, unsophisticated, and trusting. I've had to tell her over and over that when she turns 18 next year she will still have 2 years of high school and she will need to live here with us. Friends at school and possibly even some ignorant adults tell her things like "Oh when you're 18 you can do what you want. You'll be an adult." I just want to slap people like that because they do not understand.

Abused Adopted Child And Nightmares Of Abusing Others

Submitted by FaithA on Wed, 04/23/2008 - 07:10

One of the most distressing types of nightmares that the adopted abused child might experience is dreams of abusing others. Your adopted child might be afraid to talk to you about these dreams because then you might think that he is going to become a child abuser himself. As long as your abused adopted child is distressed by these dreams, you need not fear that this is an indication of a propensity to abuse. It is actually just the opposite.

The subconscious uses dreams to work through things that are bothering the abused adopted child. A dream about abusing another child is really the child's way of trying to make sense of what he has experienced.

I was horrified the first time I had one of these dreams.

Traumatized Adopted Child And Recurring Nightmares

Submitted by FaithA on Tue, 04/22/2008 - 07:57

Adopted children who have been traumatized frequently experience both nightmares and night terrors. I have always suffered from nightmares. I pretty much expected to have one every night throughout my life. It was only after healing that I starting having dreams that were not nightmares on a regular basis.

A friend of mine (who was also abused as a child) and I took a quiz about nightmares and were shocked to learn that the average person only has one nightmare a month. I did not know that my experience was abnormal until reading that.

The nightmare that a traumatized child experiences is very different from a run-of-the-mill nightmare.