Trauma and memory

Yes it's possible he remembers things from his time living with his bios.

Whether you're the one to talk to him about it is probably a question for a pro who's worked with him to answer.

Hmmmm....normally, conscious, explicit, memories are thought to be laid down and amenable to recall from about 3 onwards.

I don't know whether this is one or not...but he DID see the bio people after the time when we expect kids to be able to recall stuff.

He's sure processing something. Sometimes things get a bit bumpy when kids are processing.

It's interesting that Mo is denying he talked about it...I guess it could mean that something triggered the memory and he recited it, or what he has made of it over the years, in a somewhat dissociated state, and he really doesn't recall it, or if he doesn't want to acknowledge it right now.

Perhaps the neighbour's reaction made him worry that it was too overwhelming to share?

Seems like you have acknowledged it happened to him, and reassured him that you can handle it if he wants to talk about it.

You need to be damn sure that you CAN.

I'd just let him know from time to time that he can share ANYTHING with you (if this is true) and also gently suggest that it's good to share big stuff with you (and any trusted adult you feel able to name??) than with other kids, cos they can get a bit worried.

Mo isn't seeing a therapist right now, things have been going pretty good, but this is kind of alarming. I'm still processing it right now and will try to have a more in depth conversation with neighbor mom about it (the timing of todays conversations was difficult and I could tell she felt uncomfortable) but I'm wondering if it's time for him to see the therapist again.

When he came home from neighbor's house I was working in the garden and said something innocuous like "Hey! What's up?" when he came home and he said "Dave" got in trouble for using dirty words and so he had to go in and I had to come home.

According to neighbor, part of Mo's blow by blow account included the words that were used during the fight and after asking Mo to stop and being urged to continue by son that she sent Mo home.

I think I can handle whatever he wants to talk about -- we talk and talk and talk but he rarely brings this stuff up with me and I don't introduce it.

How do you know if you can handle it?

Blimey!!!

Well, I guess you have to know that you can manage your feelings enough to not shut him down, to show him empathy and attunement without becoming so overwhelmed that he gets the idea that you have to be protected by him.

I think that's likely easier for folk like me who do not love a particular child intensely than for parents.

Why are you alarmed?

What are you worried will happen if he begins to talk about this stuff?

(Not being critical...just wanting to get to the underlying concern)

Not that I disagree at all that having a therapist lined up isn't a great idea.

I guess I'm alarmed because I truly did not think he would remember this stuff. I knew about some of it..... remember, I'd known his mom since she was about the age he is now.... she talked to me. Her life was constant violence from the moment she was born.

And I worry because we've given him the sanitized for your protection adoption responses like "they weren't getting along blahblahblah". Well, "not getting along" doesn't mean the same thing as attacking someone with a metal rod (part of the story he told) and hitting and cussing.

The story he told is believable but I can't help but think he's heard it somewhere and incorporated it as his own (he does that sometimes) but I know he hasn't heard such stories here.

Or seen such stories.

Or has anything to do with such stories.

I guess I'm alarmed because I simply can't imagine what seeing such stuff would do to a baby.

I guess I hoped he didn't remember.

I think I could handle it if he wanted to talk about it but I confess that our conversations, even the easier ones, aren't always painless for me.

I'm kind of scattershot right now, apologies.

Such experiences have a profound effect even if we have no explicit, conscious memories. There's no getting away from it.

This is what he/you were dealing with all along, whether via conscious memories or other processes.

It is possible he might be incorporating stuff he's heard about (via TV, other kids etc.) and using it to try to process what he DID experience, or what he imagines he might have experienced when trying to make sense of his history....or it might be a ridgy didge memory.

Either way it's what's always been there for him...this is not new, just more explicit.

I'm wondering whether reading Perry's "The Boy Who was raised as a dog" might be useful?

It's confronting, but less academic than a lot of the stuff about all this.

Therapy for children is different than therapy for adults. My therapy for a recovered memory came when I was about twenty years old. (The memory that I recovered was from something that happened to me at age 9.) I would think that your son should see a therapist again, boomerang. I do not know the different implications of recovered memory in the counseling of children. At the age of 20, my memory was partly accurate but also partly embellished. A psychology professor at my college helped me to sort out what was true and what was imaginary.

This is the part that would worry me. Why did he feel he had to deny what he did? And why has he adopted that as an answer or solution to deny or absolve himself instead of telling the truth- saying, 'Well, I was telling my friend about a fight, and his mom didn't like it, so she made me stop telling it.'

I mean, I know why he felt he had to lie (based on work I've done with other kids), but you don't want him to integrate this as a strategy for dealing with his difficult behaviors and issues. Because a lot of people do, instead of ever being able to admit their difficult issues or behaviors and it becomes an ingrained coping mechanism or habit which is very destructive to relationships.

I wouldn't think he could remember the actual event, if it happened. But what I'd think is that he realizes, 'Hey, here's something that's kind of interesting and would fit with the rest of my story... I'll tell this really dramatic little tidbit- even if it's not totally true- and it will make me seem more interesting.'

All kids do that. It's their way of making themselves more interesting. But all kids wouldn't deny the event occurred if there was incontrivertible proof (two witnesses) that it had.
They also wouldn't blame the result of their 'questionable behavior' (as far as the other mom was concerned - Mo got the message that it was questionable when she asked him to stop) on the other child- as in 'So and so said bad words, so I had to come home.

It's not the story that would bother me - it's his dishonest and denying behavior after having the story questioned.
I'd definitely address that.
Not in a punitive way, but in a way so that Mo would learn that he doesn't need and in fact, really doesn't WANT to get into dealing with his life issues in that way.

Thanks all. I've been ponerdering, discussing with Mr. B and doing a lot of reading over the last few hours.

When Mr. B got home from work last night I asked him, without context, if perhaps he had seen anything on TV where "this and that" happened and he had not so I explained why I was asking. I was thinking maybe Mo had wandered in, see it and adapted it as his own, embellishing when the other kid seemed interested. That doesn't seem to be the case.

The details of the story were so strange that I can't figure out where they might have come from unless it was something that he's really seen.

As we were talking I remembered getting stopped by the police a few months ago -- it seems my car tag had expired. I had the new ones in my glove compartment so it turned out to be no big deal but Mo, sitting in his little car seat, had frozen during the entire ordeal. When it was over he said "I thought they would take you away like they did my other dad".

Sure enough that was a true event that happened when he was about 2 1/2; his mom and dad had briefly reconciled but she had never redacted the restraining order she had against him. The were stopped by the police and he was taken away. Mo was there for that.

So yeah, he remembers stuff. Stuff we haven't explictly talked about.

While reading I came across an interesting article on culture and memory that said:



In therapy Mo has rehashed his life from the beginning so maybe he does remember more details than most of us do, simply because he's been asked to remember, and has been asked to remember when not so much time has seperated the event from the present.

Yeah, I think it's definitely possible. Sozlet remembers things that make me go whoa every now and then. (In terms of how far back they go.)

Oddly, I remember childhood incidents involving my older sister, that she has no recollection of, at all. Not too surprising, I suppose; only pointing out that memories can be erratic.

For sure.

She remembers things that I know are true because I was there... that is, she has accurate memories that go back way further than I'd expect.

That's just a nugget though, doesn't mean that much one way or another. Memory is tricky.

Yaya (5 1/2) regularly brings up stuff from when she was two. Accurately.

Sometimes just mundane stuff. "Hey, I've been here before! I was wearing x, y, and z, and we came from grandma's!"

EXCEEDINGLY tricky.

I have a memory that appears to go back to about two...and it is a "traumatic" one....or was to me. It's not traumatic in the scheme of things, but kids get incredibly distressed (based on heart-rate and stress chemicals) by some apparently minor things.

These stories remind me of one my parents loved to tell about when I was a baby -- We lived in Houston, a HUGE city, and there was a house that I called Pinocchio's house. They would approach it from every direction, twisting through the streets, making weird turns and I never failed to know when we were near Pinocchio's house.

We moved from Huston before I turned 3 and they had no idea how I even knew who Pinocchio was. I had them completely freaked out!

Anyway....

I ran into my friendly neighborhood psychiatrist tonight and had a chance to talk this over with her. She has an adopted daughter with extreme RAD and PTSD so she really gets where I'm coming from, and where Mo's coming from.

Thank you all so much for listening in and especially you, dlowan. I know that you deal with this stuff so much and you need to get away from it but you never fail to show up when you know I need you. (XO).

Fuhgeddaboudit!!! I love this stuff.


It's nice you have a friendly neighbourhood psychiatrist with similar issues!!!

That's a great combination.

You know, where I used to work ran a really great group for foster parents with these kids.....lots and lots of cutting edge research input, (of course this changes incrementally all the time! I just went to a great training session on the research) plus a months of meetings where parents got to talk together and with the therapists about the day to day stuff with their kids, and also to work together about how to apply what they knew to the kids' behaviour and feelings.

The parents and therapists found it a fantastic way of working together and learning together.

I don't know if there is anything like that in your area?


You just gotta weed out the nuts whan you look for that stuff.....