Hereditary Spherocytosis is a relatively uncommon blood disorder, occurring in 1 person out of approximately 5,000.

As the name suggests, the condition is primarily an inherited one. With this condition, the blood cells are mutated, and are atypical cells with very thin walls. Because the cells are not the shape healthy red lbood cells are, they have difficulty passing through the body. However, unlike sickled cells, they do not cause pain as they pass through the body. A hallmark of the condition is that the spleen retains these cells longer because of their... more

On my post, Abused Adopted Child: Other Dissociative Disorders, a reader asked the following question:

Faith, Many of us parents of traumatized children, have reported that our kiddos, sometimes talk in different voices. I think the baby voice is probably the most common. Others might have a baby voice, robot voice, an age appropriate voice, and older child voice. Do you [think] this is related to DID?

The short answer to... more

My last several posts have been explaining what dissociative disorders are so that adoptive parents can understand their traumatized adopted children a little better. If you are parenting an adopted child with a dissociative disorder, you might be wondering what you can do to help the child heal. Here are my suggestions:

1. Provide your child with a safe environment.

A child cannot heal from a dissociative disorder until he is safe. The disorder developed because the child was routinely unsafe, so the child must feel safe before he can start... more

In my last two posts, Abused Adopted Child: Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) and Abused Adopted Child: Alter Parts, I talked about an abused adopted child's experience with DID. In this post, I will discuss other forms of dissociative disorders.

As I shared in Abused... more

In my last post, Abused Adopted Child: Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), I explained what DID is. In this post, I will explain more about alter parts, which are the parts that were previously viewed as "other people" sharing a body of a person with what used to be known as multiple personality disorder. If your adopted child has alter parts, this post will help you to understand them better and be less frightened by them.

An abused child creates... more

In my last post, Abused Adopted Child: Emotional Segmentation through Dissociation, I talked about how abused children have the ability to segment their emotions. This enables them to survive horrific abuse. Abused children who suffer ongoing and severe trauma beginning during early childhood (generally before age six) might segment their emotions to the extreme of developing Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID).

DID is the same disorder that used to... more

If you are raising an abused adopted child, understanding dissociation can help you to understand your child much better. Dissociation is a highly adaptive way of surviving abuse, and it only presents a problem once the adopted child has been removed from the abusive environment. Dissociation is an effective way for a child to survive while living in a traumatizing environment.

An abused child uses dissociation to separate himself from painful emotions and memories. He does this by telling himself "this isn't happening" or "this is happening to someone... more

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