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PTSD

Trauma Thursday: Gravity of PTSD

Submitted by FaithA on Thu, 06/24/2010 - 05:56
  • child abuse
  • Foster adoption
  • Foster care
  • Older child adoption
  • post-traumatic stress disorder
  • PTSD
  • Trauma Thursday
  • Traumatized children

Traumatized Adopted Child (c) JulieC

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a big deal, right? You will probably be surprised to learn that many people who have been diagnosed with PTSD have a very difficult time accepting this about themselves. I truly did not even believe that I had PTSD because I believed that my abuse “wasn’t that bad” and that others had it worse than I did.

I remember the day my therapist told me that I had a diagnosis of PTSD. I didn’t understand why he had “PTSD” written at the top of a white board with a bunch of familiar symptoms listed below it. Yes, I could relate to those symptoms, but I didn’t have something that serious, did I? Incredulously, I asked him if he really believed that I had PTSD. I remember his understated head nod in response. I was floored!

Why do many people with PTSD resist accepting the gravity of their diagnosis? It all ties into the survival instinct. No abused child can risk falling into despair, so abused children find ways to keep on going while living in a hopeless situation. One way they do this is by minimizing their experience. If the abuse “isn’t that bad,” then they can continue to endure. If they accept the reality – that they are completely helpless to stop the abuse from happening – then they lose the will to keep on fighting to survive.

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Trauma Tuesday: Accepting That Some Things Will Never Change

Submitted by FaithA on Tue, 06/22/2010 - 06:43
  • child abuse
  • Foster adoption
  • Foster care
  • Older child adoption
  • PTSD
  • therapy
  • Trauma Tuesday
  • Traumatized children

Traumatized Adopted Child (c) Julie C

As someone who was abused as a child, one of the most difficult pills to swallow has been accepting that some things are never going to change. When I entered into therapy, I wanted the therapist to “make me normal,” which I defined as removing all post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. My therapist told me that this was an unrealistic goal, which was something that I did not want to hear. I would imagine that anyone parenting an abused child does not want to hear this, either.

My therapist went on to say that, while my PTSD would never be “over,” it would get easier as I learned how to manage it. Instead of being triggered for weeks, I would learn how to pull myself out after only hours or days. He has been right about this. The worst triggering I have had in a while only lasted for four days. While I felt every minute of those four days (and they felt like an eternity), I was better within days (although I did wind up catching a cold on heels of my triggering). A few years ago, I would have given anything to pull out of a nosedive within four days.

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Trauma Tuesday: Is it Possible to Have PTSD Without Flashbacks?

Submitted by FaithA on Tue, 05/25/2010 - 06:27
  • child abuse
  • flashbacks
  • Foster adoption
  • Foster care
  • Older child adoption
  • PTSD
  • Trauma Tuesday
  • Traumatized children

Traumatized Adopted Child (c) Julie C

A reader wants to know if it is possible for a traumatized foster or adopted child to have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) without flashbacks. The answer is yes.

The PTSD happens after the initial trauma – the traumatized child represses the memory of what happened. For example, I know a five-year-old child who survived a car crash that killed his mother. The next day, he was unable to recall the crash, even though there is no question that the child was involved in the car crash. The reason that memory is “gone” is because it was so traumatizing that the child repressed it. In the days and weeks following his mother’s sudden death, he was unable to remember anything about the crash because he was not ready to process something as traumatizing as being in a car crash and watching his mother die.

The child might not have any flashbacks about the car crash for many years. However, he will like experience other symptoms of PTSD. For example, he might be “triggered” every time he drives by the crash site. Even if nobody tells him that is where the accident happens, he knows in his subconscious mind, so he will probably feel queasy and/or lightheaded whenever he goes near that site.

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Guest Blog: Humpty Dumpty Had a Great Fall – 850 Miles Away, Is Dad Still There? Part 2

Submitted by GuestBlogger on Thu, 04/29/2010 - 03:00
  • Foster adoption
  • Guest Blog
  • Guestblogger
  • John
  • Older child adoption
  • Older Parents
  • Out of home placement
  • PTSD
  • residential treatment center
  • RTC
  • Single parents
  • Special needs

Another honest, real life, older child adoption guest blog from John. He is a retired commercial airline pilot who has adopted five boys, over three decades, from domestic foster care as a single parent. John and his family live in southern California.

Continued from Part 1. Every night he had to fill out a self report on his day. What did he do well, what went badly? What was most frustrating, etc. I was given a copy of them each week. Life was unfair; he was being blamed for things that weren’t his fault. The school sucked. The kids were damaged, and he wasn’t, and the staff was mean. There was another boy there that he truly disliked. Many nights his answer to “What did you do today that you were really proud of?” was, ‘I didn’t annihilate Kyle Goodman’. Kyle was two years older, and somewhat more beefy than Tyler, Kyle would not have been annihilated.

With each week there was progress. He was doing less and less deflecting responsibility, and more searching for answers. It was slow but steady. Nice even happened sometimes. We spent Thanksgiving and his birthday apart. We were going to spend Christmas night together, due to the schedule for the procedure that I needed to do with him.

Christmas night, I picked him up at 9PM, and we drove to the motel. On the way, he told me about something that really upset him.

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Guest Blog: Humpty Dumpty Had a Great Fall – 850 Miles Away, Is Dad Still There? Part 1

Submitted by GuestBlogger on Wed, 04/28/2010 - 22:57
  • Foster adoption
  • Guest Blog
  • Guestblogger
  • John
  • Out of home placement
  • PTSD
  • residential treatment center
  • RTC
  • Single parents
  • Special needs
  • Teens
  • Traumatized children

Another honest, real life, older child adoption guest blog from John. He is a retired commercial airline pilot who has adopted five boys, over three decades, from domestic foster care as a single parent. John and his family live in southern California.

Tyler had done what he had always been so good at, forcing a move, sixteen placements in five years of foster care. Now, after almost a year of adoption, attachment was happening, he had just forced another move. This time he was in a different state, many miles from home, about to start living in a therapeutic group home. The adoption was final, but Tyler was victorious, the move had happened, Dad was gone, or maybe Tyler was.

I have a Cessna 180 and flew up to his area the day after he arrived, It was beautiful flying weather. The director of the school met me at the airport and drove me to the school with all of Tyler’s belongings from the airplane. Not a large facility, a total of 20 boys, but very much out in the sticks. .

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Trauma Thursday: How to Prepare for Adopted Child with Mental Illness or Emotional Disorder

Submitted by FaithA on Thu, 04/22/2010 - 06:43
  • bipolar
  • child abuse
  • emotional disorders
  • Foster adoption
  • Foster care
  • mental illness
  • Older child adoption
  • PTSD
  • Schizophrenia
  • Special needs
  • Trauma Thursday
  • Traumatized children

Traumatized Adopted Child (c) JulieC

A reader wants to know how to prepare for adopting a child with a mental illness. I decided to post this as a Trauma Thursday topic and broaden it to adopting a child with a mental illness (such as bipolar disorder or schizophrenia) or an emotional disorder (such as post-traumatic stress disorder – PTSD). While there is a difference between a biologically-based mental illness and an environmentally-based emotional disorder, both require similar preparation.

First, you need to educate yourself on the specific mental illness or emotional disorder. What symptoms can you expect? What is the best case and worst case scenario you are looking at?

Second, determine what resources are available in your community to help you meet the adopted child’s needs. Find out who is the best child psychiatrist or psychologist in town and if you will be able to get your adopted child signed on as a patient. Determine what kind of health insurance coverage you have and whether you can afford to pay for any medications the adopted child might need.

Third, make an honest assessment about whether you think you have what it takes to live with an adopted child with a mental illness or emotional disorder. Do not think that you can just “love” the adopted child’s issues away. A mental illness is a permanent, biologically-based condition that won’t go away no matter how much you love the child. An emotional disorder can heal over time but only if the child chooses to heal, and your child might not make this choice. Do you believe you have the stamina to endure living with a child with this condition if it does not improve?

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Trauma Thursday: Decoding Abused Child’s Dreams/Nightmares

Submitted by FaithA on Thu, 04/08/2010 - 07:53
  • child abuse
  • decoding dreams
  • decoding nightmares
  • dreams
  • Foster adoption
  • Foster care
  • nightmares
  • Older child adoption
  • PTSD
  • symbols in dreams
  • Trauma Thursday
  • Traumatized children

Traumatized Adopted Child (c) JulieC

Anyone who has experienced trauma will also experience intense dreams or nightmares. Nightmares are a very common symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). They are a way that the subconscious mind tries to make sense out of trauma.

I strongly encourage anyone who has endured trauma to keep a dream journal. If your foster or adopted child is too young to keep one for himself, I strongly encourage you, as the adoptive parent, to keep one for him. Write down every detail that the child shares, including colors and locations. Look for repeated patterns because they will help you understand what the child is currently dealing with.

For example, I was plagued with nightmares throughout my adult life, even though I had no memory of the abuse until I was in my mid-thirties. I kept a dream journal to try to understand these dreams, and I noticed many patterns. For example, all of them had some symbol related to childhood, such as taking place in a Children’s museum. They had a repeated pattern of threes (three people, three similar items, etc.), which I realized was that the abuse hurt my body, soul, and spirit. I frequently dreamt about trains, which represented me feeling like I had no control over the direction of my life. (A train can only go where the track goes, and the train does not build the track.)

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Trauma Tuesday: Being Truthful about Abused Child’s History

Submitted by FaithA on Tue, 04/06/2010 - 07:52
  • being truthful about abuse
  • child abuse
  • Foster adoption
  • Foster care
  • lying about abuse
  • Older child adoption
  • PTSD
  • talking about abuse
  • Trauma Tuesday
  • Traumatized children

Traumatized Adopted Child (c) Julie C

I recently read a book that involved a young child enduring trauma. The adult characters in the book encouraged the child to “forget” what happened and move on with her life. She never talked about the trauma, and she lived her life plagued by nightmares that she could not understand. Although she had consciously “forgotten” the trauma, the trauma was ever-present in her dreams.

This is an accurate representation of what happens when we encourage survivors of trauma (abuse, neglect, etc.) to “forget” about what happened and not talk about. Even though the abused foster or adopted child might have no day-to-day recollection of the trauma, the child’s truths will scream out in his dreams. You cannot bury the truth of trauma. It stays ever-present in a child’s subconscious mind, wreaking havoc until the child processes the pain.

This is why therapy is so important for any foster or adopted child who has been abused. The trauma will not just “go away” by not talking about it and pretending like it never happened. While this strategy might seem easier for the adults responsible for the child, it is never the best strategy for the child.

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Trauma Thursday: Is a “Messed Up” Adopted Child Worth the Investment?

Submitted by FaithA on Thu, 04/01/2010 - 07:27
  • child abuse
  • DID
  • Foster adoption
  • Foster care
  • Older child adoption
  • PTSD
  • Trauma Thursday
  • Traumatized children
  • “messed up” child

Traumatized Adopted Child (c) JulieC

On Tuesday, I wrote a blog entry about the “messed up” traumatized adopted child. In that blog entry, I said the following:

Even though your older foster or adopted child might seem very normal and “fine,” the child is “messed up” inside to a certain degree (some more than others). ~ Faith

In light of this, is it worth investing your time, energy, and love in a foster or adopted child who is always going to be “messed up” inside to a certain degree? The answer is a resounding YES!!

I have shared that I have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and am recovering from dissociative identity disorder (DID). By anyone’s account, that would qualify me as pretty “messed up.” I have been through therapy and have healed in many ways, but I am never going to be “normal” because my experiences were not normal. So, am I worth investing in? My friends would tell you yes and then hit you for even asking!!

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Can You Adopt a Child if You Have PTSD?

Submitted by FaithA on Mon, 03/08/2010 - 07:38
  • adoption and PTSD
  • Adoption basics
  • Can you adopt if you have PTSD?
  • Home Study
  • PTSD

Mother and child (c) Lynda BernhardtA reader found Adoption Under One Roof seeking the answer to the question of whether you can adopt a child if you have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The short answer to the question is yes. I know because I have PTSD and adopted a child. I was also approved to adopt a second child but chose not to pursue adopting again for completely unrelated reasons.

People can develop PTSD for a number of reasons, but the two most common causes are child abuse and war. In both situations, a person experiences extreme trauma and uses dissociation as a tool to survive the extreme trauma. While the trauma is happening, this dissociation is an amazingly adaptive way to survive. It is only when you are removed from the trauma that the dissociation becomes maladaptive.

As you are ready to heal from PTSD, you might experience flashbacks. Flashbacks are not an indicator of being “crazy” (although you might feel that way!). Instead, they show that you are ready to stop dissociating the trauma, face it, and heal it. So, as terrible as flashbacks are, they are actually a sign of health rather than “sickness.” Thankfully, those who are in the position to approve your home study (social workers) are knowledgeable about this and will not wrongfully presume that having PTSD will make you an unfit parent.

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