Continued from here ...

Beth's assessment that she hadn't felt such deep pain for quite some time reminded me of some issues we had when she was around 5 or 6, and a conversation I had with Daniel Hughes about her behavior. I honestly can’t remember what exactly she was doing that was sending me mixed messages, but I remember being confused about how to respond to her. I described her behavior to Dan and he asked me several specific questions about her history. The conclusions he drew about her behavior completely fit what I knew to be true about her.


Beth is unquestionably genetically predisposed to being a happy child. She much prefers feeling good to carrying around a good pout. She was not a happy child when she joined us at the age of nearly three years old. She was so motivated to attach to a mom and to feel better about her life that she very willingly stuffed her negative feelings into some recess of her mind (and/or body.) The behavior I was observing at age 5 or 6 was a resurgence of negative feelings that she didn’t know how to address and didn’t want to address.


Not only had I called Dan Hughes for advice, but I had also called Nancy Ashe. I combined Dan’s therapeutic viewpoint with Nancy’s knowledge of life as an adoptee, and with those tools I managed to open a few more doors. I asked questions about school and life that I hadn’t known to ask (but Nancy Ashe opened my eyes) and those questions resulted in answers that allowed me to label and address the feelings that came with those life experiences.


So when Beth was telling me Sunday night that she hadn’t felt such deep pain in a long time, I told her all the information I shared above. Additionally, I pointed out how caught off-guard she had been by the feelings and experiences of the past week. I compared it to being out in the snow …


I said if she went outside on a cold day but was well-bundled against the cold, she wouldn’t be uncomfortable or shocked by the conditions. But if she suddenly found herself without her warm clothing, but instead was cold and exposed, she wouldn’t be so comfortable. She would feel vulnerable and surprised.


I said that was what had happened to her last week. She had witnessed first hand some of the very same losses that had deeply affected her. She was not prepared for the exposure and the sense of vulnerability that had accompanied that experience. She was caught by surprise and that loss of control further rocked her world.

To be continued ...

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