Holiday Homework

Halloween is over.  Yay!  Oh, how I’ve come to hate that holiday (more on that later).  It’s November 3^rd and the Christmas crazies have begun.  I’m not talking about the “normal” Christmas crazies – the holiday themed commercials on TV even before Halloween is over, or the trees and the lights up in the stores, or even the Facebook messages from annoying people who post things like, “Careful planning.  Check.  Watch for bargains throughout the year.  Check.  Christmas shopping finished.  Check.”  I’m talking about the over-the-top hyper, the grumpy, sullen, nasty attitudes, and the looks that could kill.  I’m talking about post-traumatic stress in my adopted children.

Whether or not your adopted child’s past involved hard things that happened around holidays, this time of year is pretty much a sure-fire prescription for elevated trauma reactions in your kids.  If your children were adopted internationally, you can add the post-institutionalized, Lord-of-the-Flies orphanage behaviors to it, too.  The holidays bring out the crazies in kids who’ve suffered severe trauma.  Consequently, they can also bring out the crazies for mama and papa, especially after a few years into parenting a child with PTSD, because you get to a point where you’re always on high alert, waiting for something else unpleasant to happen.

Okay, so by now, if you’ve been reading this blog since the beginning – way back to a few days ago -- you may be thinking, “Sheesh.  This Mama T lady sure is a Debbie Downer.”  Sorry.  ‘Just trying to be real, folks.  There is joy in the journey, don’t get me wrong.  But the journey isn’t a walk in the park.  It’s hard.  I wish someone would have told me how hard it could be five years ago.  I mean, REALLY told me.  I wish I’d been better prepared.  I wish I’d learned more before I adopted, so I at least had a head start.  You know -- a REAL head start.  Not just a little inkling.  Not the kind of inkling you have that tells you it’s not going to happen to your family, though you’re sorry to see it happen to anyone else.  I wish I had the kind of head start that gave me a chance to brace myself for when I got that first hard smack in the face of trauma.  That’s why I’m blogging about this.  I don’t want you to be smacked.  I want you to be ready with a quick block to that upper left that’s coming.

If you’re newly home with an older adopted child, like I was when the holidays came along that first year, you may not realize just how much this time of year can affect your child.  I wasn’t.  We’d been home just over two months when Halloween came that first year.  I never had a problem with having fun on trick-or-treat night.  I know there are some Christians that do.  I didn’t.  My older kids always went trick-or-treating and we always gave out candy.  We never did the ghosts, zombies, witches, blood and gore stuff, but we had fun with super heroes, hobos, pop-culture and even politics.  We carved pumpkins and we went to parades.  That first year home with our younger kids, we dressed them up and introduced them to American greed just like we had our older kids.  They seemed to love it.  I didn’t know them well enough at the time to know it scared the bejeepers out of them in ways they could never fully comprehend.  They didn’t have enough language ability to tell me about their nightmares, or that they were so distracted, they couldn’t remember how to do simple tasks.  They didn’t have the tools they needed to let me know they were overwhelmed. 

By the time Thanksgiving and Christmas rolled around, things were totally out of control.  I had no clue that it wasn’t just part of the normal adjustment of becoming part of a family.  I didn’t know I could have made it easier on them, and on us, by toning things WAY down, by not overloading them with sugar and “stuff,” and by shielding them from some of the rest of America’s crazy consumerism.  Instead, I helped feed their fears.  I aided and abetted the all-too-often older adopted child’s sense of entitlement.  I fed my wants, like giving my little girl a great big doll house and all the STUFF to go with it (because I never got one and always wanted one as a child).  It wasn’t that I didn’t know a little bit about how it’s important to keep a newly adopted child’s world small, especially that first year you’re working on initial attachment, it was that I didn’t want to believe any of the hard stuff would ever hit us.  I wanted to believe we’d make it through that first year of hard adjustments for everyone and then everything would be okay.  It would be our “new normal.”  I said that a lot.  “New normal.” 

The thing is, there is nothing “normal” about raising a child you did not give birth to.  I may be setting myself up here, but I do not believe it was “God’s plan” for our two youngest children to lose their biological family, including a sibling, and be adopted by us.  His perfect plan is for children to be raised in happy, healthy homes by their biological parents.  That’s what “normal” is.  We humans messed up normal and God’s perfect plan.  Free will and all that.  That leaves hurt people in the wake – including children who become orphans.  We humans are to blame for it, not God.  Thankfully, God gives us a second chance.  Adoption is a second chance.  BUT, it is NOT part of His original plan.  I think it’s really important for our kids that we acknowledge the loss in their lives.  It’s a huge loss.  It’s a trauma every adopted child has experienced, even those adopted domestically at birth by parents who agree to an “open” adoption.  It’s not “normal.”  So I’ve stopped calling our life a “new normal.”  It’s simply “our life” and we are presented with new joys and new challenges every day.  It’s a second chance.  God is indeed a god of second chances. 

While we made it through that first year home with our kids, and our lives changed, and we found what became our new routine (if there is a routine) of our new life, there was no new “normal.”  There will never be a “normal” for us.  We need to be aware in ways “normal” families never worry about.  We need to run interference for our younger kids in ways we never imagined while raising our older ones.  So, what are some ways to run interference and keep your adopted child’s world small during the holidays?  What are some things you can do to minimize the crazies?  Let’s start with Halloween, even though it’s past.  After all, some people will leave those pumpkins rotting on their front steps until December 24^th!

Halloween:  Stay home.  Hole up.  Snuggle up.  Watch a movie.  Celebrate being together.  If candy is a problem for your kids, don’t get it.  If it’s not, give them a bag of kiddie crack and remind them it’s a once-a-year indulgence.  If you have teens, talk about the gore.  They’re repelled by it and attracted to it at the same time.  They will watch the yucky movies every chance they get, even if you don’t allow it in your house.  And they will have nightmares like a four-year-old.  Expect your hyper one to be more hyper.  Expect your internal-processor to shut down and be even more surly.  Expect the looks that could kill.  Don’t take them personally.  You’re paying the dues on someone else’s investment of hurt in their lives.  But if you keep Halloween away as much as you can keep it away, the crazies will be less.  As the kids get older, you can talk about WHY Halloween is a trauma trigger for them.  You can talk about trauma triggers.  You can talk about the bad stuff.  Keep it age and development appropriate.  Your four year old won’t be able to process the same as he will when he’s 16.  But I guarantee you, he’ll still be processing trauma for years to come.

November 1^st:  Whenever possible, avoid taking your child to Wal-mart, Target or even the grocery store.  Do this through January 15^th, or whenever the Christmas left-over sales are done.  (Valentines stuff will be all over the place by then.  But I’ll save that for a later post.)  Plan to keep your child’s world small.  I’m sorry, American consumer, but there is no reason your 10 year old needs a smart phone.  And your 13 year old doesn’t need her own lap top.  Make the holidays about family and treasured memories together.  Develop traditions.  If your kids want to remember their birth country’s traditions, incorporate some of those.  (For some, these may also be trauma triggers.  They are for my kids so we avoid Eastern European traditions for the winter holidays.)  Make Christmas WAY less about the “stuff” and more about relationships (including a relationship with God).  Set a budget – a reasonable budget – and stick with it.  Let your kid make a wish list, but don’t get him everything on that list!  Don’t even get him five things on that list.  Three tops.  And remember what I said about smart phones and lap tops.

Many kids adopted from orphanages have a sense of entitlement rather than a sense of gratefulness, like people around us usually expect.  How many times has your kid heard, “Oh, you’re so lucky to be part of that family?  Aren’t you happy for all the things they’ve given you?”  (Yeah.  I know; it’s repulsive.  The thing is, it’s true.  They are lucky.  They are blessed.  At some point in time, they need to learn that.  And it’s okay for you to realize, mama and papa, that this kid is indeed lucky to have you – just as you are blessed to have them.)  My kids are not grateful.  They are competitive.  They keep score.  They notice when one sibling gets something and the other does not.  The youngest one has no idea why she shouldn’t have all the things her adult brothers have, including a car waiting for her in the driveway.  (Remember, she’s 13.)  They want.  Want.  WANT.  And when they get, they pay attention to that thing they wanted so badly for a day and a half, put it in the closet and forget about it – unless they’ve broken it before then.

“Things” did not need to be taken care of in their lives.  Things were disposable.  Nice things they got were stolen by "caregivers" and sold in the market place or given to the caregivers' own children.  Stuff broke all the time.  Missionaries and other nice people were always there to give them more stuff.  It came.  It went.  There was no gratefulness.  Momentary glee.  Sure.  But no lasting sense of being grateful.  Just a sense of more, more, more.  And that sense of more, more, more is fed to giant proportions when they make it home into a Western family, richer than 80% of the rest of the world – even those of us under the 6-figure income mark.

Another tip:  Don’t replace things they break.  Help them figure out how to fix it (if you want) or make them fix it themselves.  If it’s not fixable, they do without it.  My daughter has already DESTROYED a pair of boots this year because she wanted new ones.  The boots were in fine shape until I told her she wasn’t getting another pair.  So what now?  Now, she has a pair of boots that have been repaired with super glue.  If the glue fails and her feet get wet, so be it.  It’s not about the boots.  It’s about entitlement for her.  It’s about teaching her to be grateful for what she has for me.

Last tip (for now):  Keep the parties and the number of people in and out to a minimum.  Too much is too much for our kids.  Too many people coming and going is bound to set off trauma triggers.  Give them tools that work for them.  For my daughter, reminding her to “Stop.  Breathe.  Breathe again.  Think.  And then come back,” will often tone down the crazy hyper reaction to trauma triggers.  This is an adaptation of the old, "Stop. Think. Relax" cognitive therapy technique.

"Stop. Think. Relax." is a good tool for us trauma mamas, as well.  Sometimes we need to “Stop, breathe, breathe again, think and come back” to the crazies so we don’t get caught up in them ourselves.  Hang in there, friends!

Puss in Boots - Movie Review

A lot of trauma mamas are cautious about the movies we let our kids see.  We know keeping our kids’ worlds small, and not allowing everything other families might be able to experience without a problem, helps us keep a reign on certain trauma triggers – things that trigger our kids and cause them pain.  There are other blogs out there where trauma mamas can find reviews of movies written specifically for those of us raising hurt kids.  One of my favorites is Gold to Refine.  You’ll find links to Diana’s  movie reviews on the side column of her blog.  Now that I have my own blog, I thought I’d write a movie review from time to time, too.  Our family does not go to movies often, but when we do, I’ll let you know what I think.  For now, let me tell you about Puss in Boots.  (Warning:  if you don’t want any spoilers, read no further.  However, as a trauma mama, you may appreciate a spoiler or two if it helps you help your kids.)

We saw Puss in Boots in 3D this afternoon.  My hubby and I took our two younger kids, as well as one of our older boys (who has a mild form of Asperger Syndrome).  All five of us enjoyed the movie.  It was funny, and there were plenty of mild zingers for the adults in the crowd.  There was no cursing, though there were a few off-color references – much that would go over most kids’ heads.  The movie is filled with plenty of action and its theme is “good overcomes evil.”  All good stuff.

The thing trauma mamas might consider, however, is that Puss and his childhood friend, Humpty Alexander Dumpty, are orphans.  The boys are raised in a Mexican orphanage where they are bullied by the likes of Little Boy Blue.  They have a kind and loving “mama” who runs the orphanage, however.  She grows to love Puss as her son, even calling him, “my boy” a few times in the movie.  Puss and Humpty emotionally wrestle a lot with their past.  Humpty is especially affected by it and makes many poor choices throughout the movie.  In the end, he makes a decision for the greater good, but gives his life to do so.  Humpty dies by falling off a cliff and being cracked open.  Inside, we see he is a golden egg.  Puss comments he always knew Humpty was a “good egg” inside.  This golden egg ends up being taken up into the heavens by the Goose – you know, the one that lays the golden eggs.

All three of my kids did just fine with the movie for the most part.  Remember, they are older.  My daughter is 13 and my youngest son is 16.  I asked them if the boys being orphans and being in an orphanage made them feel funny at all.  My daughter said no, and I believe her.  She’s a positive person and is not a deep thinker about hard things.  My son looked at me like I was crazy (but this is not unusual – he looks at me like I’m crazy as a matter of course) and also said no – with extra emphasis (“NO-ah!), and a deep Eastern European accent – which is especially exaggerated when he is stressed.  So, while he did fine for the most part, I know the orphan theme bothered him.  He said he liked the movie and he thought it was funny.  My Asperger young man (22) was stimulated by the action scenes – he always is.  He tends to chew his hands when this happens.  So if you have an Aspie, be aware that the action scenes cause excitement like most action and adventure movies do for Aspies.

I’m not sure why SO many movies seem to center around characters with tough backgrounds.  I guess it makes the character more interesting.  As your hurt kids get older, it’s hard to keep all the parameters around their worlds that you once did.  You can’t shield them from all the violent movies, or all the movies with themes that make them crazy.  You can teach them (or try to teach them) to be discerning – to consider whether or a not a movie is a good thing for them to watch, or whether the content of a movie is worth their time.  After all, there’s a lot of JUNK out there!  And if you happen to stumble on one that’s not good for you, it is OKAY to teach them it is perfectly fine to walk out of a movie (or turn off the TV).

That said, I don’t think Puss in Boots is junk.  Far from it.  It is fun and it is funny.  But for some kids with orphanage backgrounds and traumatic pasts, it may not be a movie to see.

Ever been dumped?

Ever feel abandoned?  Like nobody “gets” you?  Ever feel like you’ve placed your trust in someone you thought would always be there, but they weren’t?  Have you ever been excluded, or left out of things?  Have you been told by someone that they would pray for you when things were tough, but what they really should have said to be honest – to say what their body language was screaming – was, “You scare me, and I don’t really want to get involved?”  Ever feel as though you’ve been dumped by someone you care about, and that you thought cared about you, but didn’t?

I know a lot of trauma mamas who have experienced these feelings.  Parenting children who are dealing with the rough stuff of a traumatic past can sometimes be very isolating.  Their “stuff” is weird.  Their “stuff” causes problems for others.  Their “stuff” makes us look like we don’t know how to parent.  I’ve also read a lot of blogs, written by moms who were left out of girls’ nights or get-a-way weekends.  I’ve talked with women who’ve tried to make friends with other moms in their churches – even other adoptive moms --- but they cannot make a real connection because those moms either don’t understand therapeutic parenting or trauma, or they want to pretend trauma doesn’t exist.  I know a mom who trusted other moms – other adoptive moms, in fact – and was abandoned by those moms when things started to get rough for her and some of her other trauma mama friends.  They told her they needed to “simplify,” that they “didn’t want to think about” those hard things, and that her life and the lives of her fellow trauma mama friends frightened them.  Talk about a sucker punch!  It’s not fair to be abandoned by people you trust.  It’s not right to have people who are supposed to be the people you think would be the most trustworthy not stick around when the going gets tough.  It hurts.  It’s not fun.  And it can leave trauma mamas with PTSD scars of their own that make it hard to trust again.

I hate it.  I really, really hate those feelings.  I’ve felt that hurt and that sting.  I’ve experienced that feeling of abandonment when someone told me they thought life with hurt kids was too much for them to “handle.”  I’ve wondered, “What are YOU handling?!  -- A few minutes of empathy? – Of listening to someone else’s pain?  This is too much for you to handle?” I’ve also wondered, “What about bearing one another’s burdens?  Is it too much to ask, unless you’re the one asking?”  And I’ve been hurt.  And I can get pretty angry.  It’s hard to trust again when you’ve felt so abandoned.  I’ve wanted to hide.  I’ve wanted to run.  And the cycle of isolation is compounded even more, because I’m afraid I’ll be hurt again.  (Thankfully, in that hurt, I’ve also been reminded to try very, very hard NOT to do that to someone else!  I’ve asked God to make me more aware.  I certainly want to ask for forgiveness and make up for it when I’m thoughtless enough to let someone feel as though I’ve abandoned them.  After all, I usually have no clue.  That’s what “thoughtless” means.)  Still, we can’t stay in that place of hurt ourselves.  We have to let it go.  We have to open up again.  We have to try to remember we’ve been thoughtless, too.  We have to remember there are times we didn’t realize what our words or our actions did to someone else.  All we can do is pray we are more of a blessing than we are a burden and move on.  We can do that if we have a basis of love – of knowing how to bear one another’s burdens – to begin with. 

Have you ever felt ANY of that?  Have you ever experienced ANYTHING like this?  Can you relate at all?

The gift that the pain of abandonment for trauma mamas is this:  we get just a little taste of what life’s been like for our hurt kids.  Before their adoption, they experienced all these feelings and often, much more.  However, for them, it all happened before they were old enough to know they could be okay or that they could let the thoughtlessness of others go.  However it happened, they were abandoned, before they were able to take care of themselves, or knew how to move on – to move past the hurt.  For them, the cycle of isolation wasn’t one or two traumatic events that shook their world, it was their world!  So, how does anyone survive those raw, hard, painful feelings?  Real feelings.  Real, yucky feelings?  Yet our kids do survive.  Our kids are still here.  Where they live, who they live with, is different.  And they survive that, too.  What may have crushed any one of us is simply a part of matter-of-fact life for them.  It’s not fair.  It hurts.  It’s not fun.  And it leaves PTSD scars that run deep, and it makes it hard to trust again.

So trauma mamas, can you relate?  Can you get a glimpse of what it’s like for your hurt child to wake up and have to navigate the world with raw feelings ALL the time?  Strangely, I think most of us can.  I think if you’re reading this, and you KNOW you’re a “trauma mama,” then you can absolutely relate.  You’re aware of your child’s past and the needs that exist in their life because of their traumatic past.  You’re aware – painfully aware – of how it affects their now, as well as their future.  You’re aware of how it affects YOUR life now, and YOUR future.  And you are hoping, you’re PRAYING, and you’re hoping some more, for some peace in your life and for someone who “gets it,” so you won’t feel so isolated so often.

Some of you, dear readers, share my Christian faith.  Some may not.  I’m not a far right-wing, thump-the-Bible-over-your-head kind of person, but I am a Christian.  For me, that faith shows through in some of what I write and it will also show through on this blog.  I hope it doesn’t turn you away if you don’t share my faith, though.  I still think we can learn from one another.  But again, for me, faith is what gets me through the lonely times.  I’ve been called “weak” for depending so heavily on God and for calling out to Christ when I feel most afraid or alone.  To those folks I say, “Yes!  Weak?  That’s me!  But my God is strong.”  I depend on the knowledge that He is there for me and that He loves me – no more and no less than anyone else – but that His love is perfect and unfathomable.  I may not always know exactly what that means – and I may not understand fully who He is, but I know He is there.  I know He hears me.  I know He blesses me.  When I cry out, it is true I most often cry out for Him to come to me “with skin on.”  I ask for Him to send me someone I can see and hear, who will see me and hear me, and “get it.”  I ask for someone who won’t leave when things get tough.  I ask also to be that someone for a mom who needs the same.

My prayer for this blog is that it can serve as a way for me to be that person for a trauma mama “out there somewhere” who needs a friend that “gets it.”  I certainly don’t have all the answers.  I don’t think any one of us -- even those of us who have been at this therapeutic parenting thing for a while now -- would say we have all the answers.  We just know some things we’ve tried that don’t work, and we know some other things that have worked.  We keep trying new things, too, because new trauma drama pops up all the time.  It’s an on-going process.  It’s a 24/7 career.  If we can help one another along the way, even by just BEING THERE and being that one friend that doesn’t exclude, doesn’t run, doesn’t say “I’m praying” without also sticking around through the rough stuff, that doesn’t bail – well, then, I think we’ve found a very good thing.

Thanks again for reading this far.  We’re just getting started.  I have a lot on my brain I want to share with you.  Parenting stuff.  Therapy stuff.  Movie reviews for trauma parenting.  Ideas about “stuff” for our kids for Christmas and about how to handle the holidays.  How to be there for someone who’s struggling.  Yep, lots of things.  If you like what you’re reading so far, will you share it with another trauma mama?  Please link my blog to yours and let me know your blog address, too.  Click “share” for Facebook or Twitter below.  Click on +1 to recommend the blog to others.  And thanks for standing by me as I get this thing rolling.  It means more than you know.