After a hiatus lasting several weeks (due to an insurance change), we started therapy for our daughter again last week. We met as a family group, and today was our first one-on-one with our daughter and her therapist.

The therapist took our daughter in, and said she’d be back out for me a little later. Having done this with our previous therapist, I settled in with my knitting, figuring I’d have a good 45 minutes or so. So, I was surprised when, about 20 minutes later, they came to get me!

We headed back to the therapist’s office, and she said, “Why are... more

A new study on the effects of sleep indicates that women fair worse from bad sleep then men do. According to researchers men’s health was relatively unaffected by sleep quality. However, women who didn’t get a good night sleep suffered physically and mentally. Physically, poor sleep affected women’s blood insulin levels and resulted in higher levels of markers of inflammation and of fibrinogen. Mentally, the study showed that women who didn’t get a good nights rest had more symptoms of depression, hostility, and anger.

What does a woman’s sleep quality have to... more

Throughout my series on resilience, I have been primarily focusing on the resilience of abused adopted children. Now let’s talk about the resilience of adopted children who were never abused. They, too, need resilience as they face their adoption histories.

I was quite disturbed when I first learned about the book The Primal Wound by Nancy Newton Verrier. In a nutshell, the author asserts that... more

In my last post, Is Resilience in Abused Adopted Child a Genetic Trait?, I stated that I do not believe that resilience is a genetic trait. I make this assertion based upon my experience in talking with hundreds of adult abuse survivors from all walks of life who reacted to the abuse very differently. Whether an abuse survivor has become very successful professionally or struggles each month to pay the... more

In my last post, Resiliency and the Adopted Child, I kicked off this series about resilience. I shared that a reader named Fenyimom and I had a discussion going on Perceptions of Irresponsible Adult Adopted Child about whether all adopted children who had suffered abuse had the ability to lead productive... more

On my post, Perceptions of Irresponsible Adult Adopted Child, a reader named Fenyimom and I discussed our differing views on the ability of adult survivors of trauma to be able to succeed as adults. I take the position that all trauma survivors who have maintained their sanity have the ability to make good choices and heal. Fenyimom disagrees. (I recognize that those whose sanity snapped will... more