Our difficult journey through the fallout of trauma

Little Frankie has been home now for a little over 15 months and I believe that I am FINALLY beginning to understand him a little more, and am beginning to understand and learn how to parent him better. Yes my friends, after 15 months... :(

Ella came home at just over 3 years old and I had assumed that by getting a younger child it would have less issues to deal with and so consequently so would I. Bad assumption.
Frankie came home at just around 24 months old. Ella had attached really well, with no problems at all, and so I wanted another child who showed many of the same characteristics as I didn’t feel that at that point in my life I could deal with a lot of challenging attachment issues. Frankie was just a big lumpy baby when he came home and reminded me a LOT of Ella in certain ways – he wasn’t overly independent and seemed to WANT a mother, he liked me (which as many adoptive parents know is a BIG plus!), and certainly enjoyed being snuggled.

Bringing Frankie home it was obvious that he was a perfect fit for our family. He adjusted well and attached quickly. It soon became obvious that he had major issues with disassociating and that he was extremely moody. Because he did attach so well, learned English so fast and generally just adjusted so quickly it didn’t seem like there should be a problem, other than his disassociating, which we worked on. A disassociating child is much easier for others to be around than a tantruming, acting out child but disassociating is equally as serious and does hinder attachment and development, just like wild tantrums do. I mean, you just can’t go through life like that although people you’re around will like you more (and probably some of my own colleagues wish that I’d disassociate once in a while!).

Anyways, we spent a lot of time working on his disassociating and helping him come out of that more and more, especially in potentially stressful situations. In my mind disassociating was the issue that was holding him back. If only I’d thought a little bit deeper!

And all of this time I felt guilty. Why? Because all of this time while Frank was attaching so well to me, I didn’t feel like I was attaching so well to Frank. I felt that while he fit well into our family, was I really the kind of mother that he needed and was the best for him? As he began to disassociate less and less and learned to talk more and more he became more and more discontent with things and pissy. For example, while you could tell that he loved his sister (followed her around everywhere, etc) he was very ungrateful and well, pissy with her. Nothing she did was ever quite good enough for him and it just made him disgruntled. Never fully happy or content. And while I loved him, a lot of the time I simply didn’t like his personality. Not something you really want to admit, much less blog about, you know? Especially when you post pictures of his happy, smiling, cute little face all the time. What kind of a heartless bitch wouldn’t attach to THAT little face?!!

Frankie’s pissyness started escalating into angry outbursts last fall, mainly geared at his sister but also to me as well. When we’re around others he’s always the quiet, cute, sweet little boy but he was starting to treat his family like poop and I could tell that he just wasn’t happy with himself. I had never been able to put my finger on just what was wrong but last November or so I began to realize that Frank was just not at peace with himself. A pretty vague conclusion but it was a start. The next question was WHY isn’t Frank at peace with himself?

This was the point that I cracked open Deborah Gray’s Nurturing Adoptions. I’ll admit that I’d read the book before but more with a mindset on attachment, grieving and loss. And I’ll also admit that I’ve had the book longer than I’ve had Frankie...

Wow. What an eye opener! Chapter Four: “Traumatic Stress- The Symptom Clusters,” Chapter 5 “Early Relational Trauma, Traumatic Loss, and Effects on Development” Chapter 6 “Trauma and Neglect- Double Insults” – nailed my little Frankie right on! One section of Chapter 5 is “How Trauma and Neglect’s Emotional States Become Emotional Traits”. Does that not describe Frankie or what?

These chapters explain how a normal brain works and as a result, how normal development occurs. It then describes what happens to the brain when a child undergoes ongoing trauma and how the brain can not develop normally. Basically your child has an injured brain and this affects the way your child thinks and therefore affects your child’s moods and “personality”. "The brain's schema, or life pattern, acts as a filter, choosing what to remember and how it is remembered." (pg 170) Basically the "injured" brain filters out all the positive leaving only negative memories. It’s not enough to just accept your child as they are – you really need to help retrain their brain and help it to develop normally.

"Children who have negative moods as altered by loss, trauma, and neglect tend to become negative adults, often troubled by depression and withdrawal... The moods and defenses stemming from early trauma gradually become what others perceive to be the core personality. Powerful intervening variables for children include forming loving connections and providing assistance in order to heal from the effects of maltreatment. The children most likely to recover are the ones who feel safe and have confidence in handling life stressors." (pg 110)

Coming to this realization has helped ME immensely. I look at Frankie differently – he has a brain that isn’t functioning properly which affects his moods (negative) and personality (discontent). I’m not making excuses for bad attitudes – I’m just understanding them better which will change the way I deal with them and hopefully help them change at a deeper level. This will cause you to parent a child like this differently and it’s REALLY helping me like my son more because I understand that these moods are NOT “him”. They are a result of an “injured” brain that needs to be rehabilitated. You can’t help something until you know what the problem is.

To be honest, I should have figured this out WAY sooner. I mean, my kid had been abandoned (in not so nice circumstances) at 14 months old, in an orphanage for 9 months and when I got him he had completely disassociated himself from everything. DUH!!! We have no idea what his life was like before his abandonment either but I’m beginning to suspect, even though he was nice and healthy, that it wasn’t that swell.

So now we’re “starting over”. I’m learning some different ways of parenting Frankie and am praying for him even harder. I don’t see this as any different than helping your child if they had a physical handicap and trust me, it takes just as much faith!