Back to the books… how to help a three year old deal with loss and suppressed grief?

Well, it was back to the adoption books over the weekend. This time gleaning all I could on loss and grief. Little Ellster is doing great – she’s a happy child who is a real joy to be around. She seems to have a healthy attachment with me – not anxious or anything. She doesn’t appear to be worried that she’ll be abandoned again and seems very secure that her old Mom will always come back home and won’t leave her anyplace. She’s like a totally different child than what came home 7.5 months ago. So why am I back to the books?

Ella has nightmares and thrashes, screams and cries in her sleep, just about every night. Her pillow will be soaked in the mornings with her tears and sweat. She started this in August after my Mom left and she started sleeping in her own room. I would wake up to her cries of “Mommy! Mommy!” and I’d rush into her room only to find her fast asleep, sobbing. I honestly believe that she was subconsciously crying for her birth mother.

She quit screaming “Mommy” at night and we had several weeks of reprieve the first several weeks of September. Either that or I simply didn’t hear her crying. I slept on the top bunk in her room while Becky was here and she would wake me up at least once a night thrashing around crying.

Our trip to Sanyu’s revealed what I had thought in the first place – that Ella has experienced a tremendous amount of loss in her short life and that she hasn’t allowed herself to properly grieve. She’s so young she might not even know how to. Everyone else just sees Ella as a happy, chipper little girl, which she is. Sometimes I question myself if I’m crazy and if I should just leave well enough alone. But my sister Becky noticed Ella’s nightmares too (Ella even had one during a nap in the car once) and was concerned. Becky has problems sleeping and with nightmares since her husband died in Feb, so she understands. They’ve both experienced loss and grief and have nightmares and cry and thrash in their sleep. So, this has urged me to do some more reading, focusing mainly on how children grieve and how as a parent, you can help them.

My findings have been interesting. Several things that popped out to me were that a) children will often grieve more for lost siblings than they will for their parents and b) children will be reluctant to talk about or mention former families with their adoptive parents, for fear of hurting them, or simply because it makes them feel too sad or because they want to “forget” their former life (denial).

These jumped out at me because Ella STILL, eight months later, prays for little Jorum every night. She doesn’t pray for any of the “mamas” that took care of her, nor Harriet – it’s always Jorum. Also, she refuses to talk about living at Sanyu’s at all. It’s like she’s pretending that she never lived there. I asked her if she used to live at Sanyu’s and she answered, after a hesitation and nervous laugh, “yes” but then said “I don’t know” when I asked what or who she remembered about the place. I don’t know if she’s trying to protect me or herself. I’m thinking its herself. I know that she hasn’t forgotten because she is an extremely perceptive little kid and remembers friends we knew that left in July, as well as other extremely random people.

So, what to do? I’d rather Ella deal with the loss of all the previous people in her life sooner, rather than later. To do this I think I’ll take my mothers suggestion and start taking Ella to Sanyu’s regularly. I’ve hesitated to make this much of a priority because last time we visited it triggered so much grief that I could barely handle it. But I think it’s what she needs to do so that she just doesn’t continue repressing it. Becky said that it really helped her to have to travel past the place twice a day, for a month or so, where her husband was killed. You simply have to deal with it.

My sister suggested waking Ella up from these nightmares - something which I haven’t been doing. I guess I just figured that she’d go back to sleep easier if I didn’t wake her up but Becky says no. Ella does require a LOT of sleep for an almost-four-year-old – probably because she’s not getting much sleep at night. She sleeps an eleven hour night, then takes a 1.5 to 2 hour nap everyday. She doesn’t always want to sleep with me but when we do share a bed it is a lot easier to calm her down at night because I don’t have to be totally awake to do it.

Gosh. And I thought helping her deal with institutionalization for the first six months was wearing! We’ll see how this works. Let the experiments begin!! And please be praying for us.

I have done some more thinking about older child adoption and if I’d do it again. I was a bit ambivalent before. After seeing other mothers with infants (both biological and adopted) and babies my answer is now, “you bet!” Now I would NEVER intentionally leave my child in an orphanage if I could help it, until they were the “right” age, but if I ever were to adopt again I’d go back with a three year old in mind. Maybe even older. Getting adopted at an older age beats never getting adopted at all.

Ella and Sanyu playing on their bike