Sometimes You Need a Little Trauma–Versary to Remind You That You Really Are O.K.

I want to go ahead and wrap up my posts about my little trauma–versary . Part I  Part II I can be walking down the street all grown up with a family of my own and I can make a conscious connection that reminds me of a fun filled family vacation and another near death, sibling experience. I can smile, laugh, shake my head and say to myself, “good times.” Little did I know that behind my conscious memory of our family trip to Oklahoma, was a deeper painful semi-conscious remembrance that through the connection of the present day fireworks to my trip to Oklahoma was only pulled forward enough from the back of my mind, that just the emotions and the feelings of fear and loss were accessible. Yet, the memory of the cause of fear, pain and loss remained tucked away and elusive. let me just...

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Socks For Smiles

About Socks for Smiles I am eleven-years-old and have a goal to collect colorful socks and other personal items, such as underwear, for foster kids. I was in foster care for five years. I was mostly given plain white socks to wear. I hated those socks! The other kids had colorful socks with fun designs and cartoon characters. It was another way I felt different. I haven't worn white socks at all since I was adopted in 2010! Now I want to help other kids feel special too. Socks may seem like a small thing, but it's sometimes the little things that mean a lot to a kid Please Help! Go check out my young fellow Foster Care Alumni, How cool is this!?...

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The Anatomy Of A Trauma-Versary Part II

PART I I love my mother-in-law. “I have left Jimmy in more places, more times than I can count or remember. …But I always went back for him.” She shrugs and laughs. And she always did. Family lore has Mr. Sunday being left behind at home, at church, in stores, in the Upper Peninsula, in Wisconsin and so on. Being the youngest of seven kids, quiet and always having his nose in a book, somebody seemed to think somebody else had gotten him, they would eventually figure out nobody did and return to find him usually in some corner reading a book before he even discovered he had been lost. He seems no worse for wear. My sister is 5 ½ years older than I am. She has always relished her role as a mother to me and our brother. When she was in Jr. High she made he and I matching outfits for her...

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The Anatomy Of A Trauma-Versary (Or My New Life As a Circus Mom)

PART II The governor of the great state of Michigan legalized fireworks this year. Yippee! Somewhere around the first thanks to a friend’s FaceBook post I had realized, knowing the family directly across from me the way I do, that I had BETTER start watering my “hay” as my kids had taken to calling my front lawn while they pretended to feed their toy horses. On Wednesday The Fourth we had walked down the block, around the corner to watch another neighbor’s well organized well planned fireworks display, which CoCo, my sensory kid HATED and Mad my anxious kid toughed out. Since I was in the house with CoCo I wouldn’t know, but I am pretty sure the middle kid was wishing she could be the one lighting them off…they all came here with their own personalities. As we made our way back home, rounded...

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Since When Is Your Anger MY Symptom?

She’s making me angry! He’s pissing me of! They are making me feel bad! Nope! Not allowed! Rephrase that please. Nobody can MAKE you feel ANYTHING, we are each responsible for our own emotions. - Therapy, Group-home, and Residential Treatment Center 101. That we are each responsible for not only our own actions, but our emotions as well is a concept that had been drilled into my head for YEARS, in some of the very same settings that parents of traumatized (RAD) children turn to (supposedly) get their children the help they need. Now, I feel angry when… because for g-d’s sake it is mine to own, you can’t say I never learned anything in exile. So, when HE makes me angry, I know it is not HIM, it is ME choosing to feel anger about the situation…HE is not MAKING me feel ANYTHING, no other...

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You enjoyed the convenience of my solitude

excuse me if I seem a little rude While I was missing my childhood, My brother and my prime You enjoyed the convenience of my solitude I will NEVER thank you for my solitude!...

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A new model of family… | The Adoption Counselor

  Brenda McCreight July 8, 2012 When is the adoption industry going to move beyond the notion that attachment is the key to everything? I mean really, the myth is perpetuated that once the child achieves the capacity to experience a reciprocal attachment relationship with the adoptive parents then there will be no further problems and the adoptive family will be no different than a genetic neurotypical family. Just look at the adoption conferences – the main topic is generally about attachment strategies. All the conferences and seminars I’m asked to speak at want something from me about how to facilitate and create attachment....

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I Feel, Therefore I Am.

I haven’t posted much lately, not because I don’t have a lot to say…that is for sure…I NEVER seem to run out of things to say. Sometimes the past and present collide in ways that make it all hard to untangle and make any sense of…and I get stuck. I took a real job last August which put me in the inner-city and put me (back) in touch with the heartache of poverty, lack of education and hopelessness that plagues a good section of our population…especially the children. It sucks. It is sad and depressing and because I spent a good deal of my childhood in foster care and a fair amount of my youth in the community we serve I can’t seem to build up the callousness and apathy that it requires to not let the whole mess depress the hell out of me. I gotten so depressed, frustrated, overwhelmed and...

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Adoption PSA From Second City

Would I find this so humorous if it weren’t so true? Discuss....

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The Medication Generation: Teenagers and Antidepressants - WSJ.com

As a parent who has attempted to medicate a gifted child into conformity, to save her the inconvenience of being exceptional, this article defiantly struck a nerve with me... Looking back, it seems remarkable that I had to work so hard to absorb an elementary lesson: Some things make me feel happy, other things make me feel sad. But for a long time antidepressants were giving me the opposite lesson. If I was suffering because of a glitch in my brain, it didn't make much difference what I did. For me, antidepressants had promoted a kind of emotional illiteracy. They had prevented me from noticing the reasons that I felt bad when I did and from appreciating the effects of my own choices. As medications saturate our culture, we may be growing less able to connect our most basic feelings...

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