A family counselor and pastor shared with my husband and I a profound perspective on children who have experienced trauma. Trauma in adoption, trauma from childhood, trauma from war, trauma from loss. Everyone has trauma. However, this pastor explained a process of trauma for kids who have come from places of pain in a way I have never visualized before.
If a bomb explodes and a soldier is seriously wounded in battle, maybe even loses a leg, the trauma from that injury results in shock. No pain. Just survival. A soldier can physically drag themselves to safety without feeling the pain of the injury.
Later is when the pain sets in. Later, the agonizing terror of what has transpired sets in. The pain has been there all along. They are just now starting to FEEL IT. God has created human beings to survive. He has created us with the ability to go into traumatic shock in order to get out of danger and get help.
Trauma in children from difficult backgrounds, adopted children, or really anyone who has experienced dramatic and traumatic life changes can experience this phenomenon as well. In the midst of trauma, the injury, the abuse, the loss—these kids are surviving. They are experiencing the “gift” of shock. They can and should get help. Whatever that looks like. Receive medical attention or therapy. Be given tools, and coping skills to survive. But they may not “deal” with what has transpired for some time. They aren’t ready. They are surviving. I believe God knows when they are ready. Finding the right therapy, the right book, the right counselor is good and helpful but in the end, God allows the healing to take place when they are ready. I believe this timeline is different for each child. In my personal experience and experience with adopted teens, the pain and healing starts taking place in young adulthood. 17-18 years old. Therapeutic tools that have been presented to them for 7 years only now are starting to take root and provide comfort. This doesn’t mean therapy hasn’t been working. It just means my child had not reached the point at which they were ready to feel and cling to those coping skills for survival. They are reaching that point now.
I have experienced this phenomenon in my own life. I lost my dad to cancer when I was 16. A very traumatic experience. He died at home while I was in the room. I watched him deteriorate before my eyes in a matter of 3 months. I was a junior in highschool trying to do life, take piano lessons, have sleepovers, drink slushies, and help take care of my dying father. Traumatic. It took time to feel the effects of this trauma. Even after his funeral I didn’t cry for a month. I couldn’t cry. But when I did, it came long and it came hard. Pain stabbed my heart so intensely I couldn’t breathe. It was time to feel. It was time to heal. I will never “get over” the death of my dad. But I have learned how to live “with” it.
My loss of a parent from illness is far different from the more personal and direct trauma of abuse, neglect, and abandonment experienced by many children. Children from trauma need time to heal before they can process, feel, and heal. The explanation of trauma as a severely wounded soldier in battle will forever live in my mind as a way to process and heal from my own experiences, but also as a drive for compassion for those experiencing, healing from, or just surviving the “after shock” of their own trauma and pain.
A Loss For Words 