Those of you who are parenting a traumatized adopted child might be wondering how you can tell if your child is dissociating. In a nutshell, your child's body might be in the room, but his "soul" is not. Dissociation is a way of "checking out of" your own body.

I was very upset one day as I hung out with a friend. I tried to pull myself together, but I was overwhelmed by my emotions. After about 30 minutes of being unable to stop crying, I chose to dissociate. My friend got a firsthand view of what this looked like, and it kind of freaked her out.

I... more

I have read numerous books to try to understand how and why dissociation happens in the first place. I have come to appreciate what an amazing gift that dissociation is to the abused adopted child. Without dissociation, an abused adopted child would have a much more difficult time surviving the trauma.

The brain stores all of our memories, and it has an elaborate filing system to enable us to retrieve our memories. For example, when I take a boat ride as an adult, that memory is "filed away" with other memories of riding on a boat as a child. The brain's... more

In my last post, Abused Adopted Child: What is a Dissociative Disorder?, I explained what a dissociative disorder is. I also talked about the dissociation continuum. In this post, I will explain more about how a traumatized adopted child develops a dissociative disorder.

Think about the human soul as being a large pond. It is fluid, and all of the emotions intertwine to make the person who he is. As the child experiences emotional pain, he freezes over some... more

Most adopted children who have been traumatized develop some sort of dissociative disorder. The most common is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but many abused adopted children, particularly those who suffered ongoing trauma for a long period of time, develop even more severe disorders. The younger a child is when the trauma begins, the more severe the dissociative disorder is likely to be.

So, what is a dissociative disorder? Let's start by explaining dissociation in general. The best description I have found is from Martha Stout's book, The... more

Several readers have asked me to write about my experiences with growing up as an abused child and share ways that they, as adoptive parents, can help their abused adopted children heal from their pasts. This series on dissociative disorders should be enlightening to anyone who is parenting a child who has suffered trauma. I will share what a dissociative disorder is and what it feels like from the adopted child's perspective. I will also provide guidance for helping the child heal.

I know many adoptive parents who are raising traumatized children. One thing that... more

Over on the Reactive Attachment blog, Nancy wrote a post entitled Tantruming or purging? in which she described the way she helps her traumatized adopted children purge their painful emotions, including anger. In the comments, mater wrote the following:

The "Catharsis Hypothesis" was destroyed decades ago by researchers who found that encouraging people to act out their anger only made them 1.) angrier and 2.) more prone to act on that anger, i.e.... more

My adopted child is also an "only child." I had always planned to have two children who would be spaced about two years apart. This was not meant to be. By the time we were invited to do a home study to adopt a second child, my son, Nicholas, was three years old. By the time our profile was being shown to expecting mothers, Nicholas was approaching his fourth birthday. We ultimately decided not to adopt again and just to enjoy our only child.

Nicholas is now going through a tough time because of this decision. He is six years old, and he just started... more

For the past several days, I have been discussing how to handle talking with an adopted child who was conceived through rape or incest. Several readers have contacted me with questions that I did not cover in this series, and I am working my way through answering those questions.

One reader asked the following question, which relates to the child's own rape rather than his birthmother's rape:

Are you going to cover rape/incest that happened... more

When we chose to adopt, we were not looking to adopt a child with a special need. If I had become pregnant, I would not have drunk alcohol or smoked, I would have taken prenatal vitamins from the very beginning, and I would have eaten more nutritiously than I ever have in my life. While this would not have guaranteed a healthy child, the odds would have been in my favor. Instead, even though we adopted what we thought would be a healthy child, we wound up parenting a child with a special need (two actually!).

There are no... more

In my last post, Parenting an Only Child: Benefits, I discussed the benefits of parenting an only child. In this post, I will discuss the challenges.

Although there is a lot to recommend having an only child, there are also some challenges. I have found ways to overcome most of these challenges, so I do not believe my son will regret growing up without a sibling.

Vacations and Holidays

Vacations... more