It is common for traumatized foster and adopted children to struggle with suicidal urges from time to time. During puberty, these urges can become even stronger. While this can be quite disturbing to you as the foster or adoptive parent, rest assured that these feelings are normal and experienced by most survivors of child abuse.

When your foster or adopted child says that he wants to die, take him seriously because he very likely means it. However, what he is really trying to say is that he is in so much pain that he is willing to do anything, even die, to make the pain stop. This is very different than having a desire to die. Dying is merely a means to an end … the end of the pain.

Your traumatized foster or adopted child has experienced pain so deep that, unless you were traumatized yourself, you cannot possibly imagine the depths of the pain. Wanting to make the pain end is a rational reaction to such deep pain.

On Trauma Tuesday, I wrote about sexually abused children who feel responsible for being sexually abused by older siblings. Today, I would like to broaden the scope to talk about children who feel responsible for the sexual abuse they endured.

If you were never sexually abused yourself, you might be surprised to learn that many sexual abuse survivors believe that they are at least partially responsible for the sexual abuse that they endured, even though they were only children when the abuse happened. To an adult who was never sexually abused, the truth that a child cannot possibly invite or consent to a sexual relationship is obvious. However, a normal aftereffect of sexual abuse is for the traumatized foster or adopted child to believe that he is, at least in part, responsible for the sexual abuse, even if the perpetrator was an adult.

There is actually a rational reason for sexual abuse survivors embracing this belief.

If you are parenting a traumatized foster or adopted child, particularly one who suffered from ritual abuse, your child needs you to help him get through Halloween. To those of you who only have warm and fuzzy associations with Halloween, this might seem odd. However, to those of us who suffered from the same kinds of things that are used to be a little creepy, Halloween can be a terrifying experience.

To those who were never traumatized, seeing someone walking around in a black robe at night is creepy. If as a young child, people dressed in black robes gang-raped you, seeing the same thing is downright terrifying. It doesn’t matter that the person beneath the black robe is a cute eight-year-old boy – the sight of the black robe at night is going to trigger the terror that the child felt when she was traumatized.

A lot of what is used at Halloween to be creepy and raise goose bumps are replications of what really takes place during ritual abuse.

If you are adopting a traumatized child, the child might ask you to call him a different name. While adoptive parents frequently change the name of adopted infants, many adoptive parents are reluctant to change the name of an older adopted child. After all, if you have always been called Suzy, then changing your name to Elizabeth has got to be a quite an adjustment, right?

If your traumatized child wants to change his first name, I strongly encourage you to allow him to do so. This might not happen right at the adoption but maybe even years into the adoption. As the child’s life changes from one of trauma to one of stability, the child might want to symbolize the end of dysfunction by embracing a new name.

Many child abuse survivors choose to adopt a new name in adulthood. Doing so is a way of choosing your own destiny rather than having it chosen for you.