Trauma Is A Dementor

For years I have been trying to explain to others how trauma affects my children.  And for years it has felt like I'm speaking in tongues to walls.  Recently it occurred to me that I should use an analogy from popular culture to describe what it's like to live with developmental trauma:

"Get too near a Dementor and every good feeling, every happy memory, will be sucked out of you. If it can, the Dementor will feed on you long enough to reduce you to something like itself – soulless and evil. You’ll be left with nothing but the worst experiences of your life."

Does Professor Lupin's description from the Harry Potter series give you a better idea?

Developmental trauma often begins in infancy or early childhood and it begins externally.  It may start seemingly small... a baby cries and no one responds, a toddler goes hungry for a few days, a Dementor hovers over its prey, adding traumatizing experiences as time passes.  Developmental trauma is rooted in neglect and abuse - in multiple, chronic traumas over time otherwise known as adverse childhood experiences.  It often most severely affects children under the age of five in the most vulnerable positions who have not yet been able to form a secure attachment with a reliable, supportive adult.  Devastatingly, this external Dementor will irreparably affect a child's brain development and, in simplest terms, place the child into a constant state of fight, flight or freeze.  And at this point the Dementor moves from being an external factor to being an internal force as well.

My daughter's trauma is more than a Dementor who got too close from time to time while she lived in an orphanage, it's a Dementor who lives inside of her, despite the fact that she has long been removed from her external traumatic circumstances.  It rears its head every time there's a trigger, a fear, a stressor, a pressure, a memory.  And then it seeps and oozes out of her into every fiber of her life.  It latches onto family and onto friendships, it creeps into classrooms and therapy rooms and playgrounds.  It soaks into birthday parties and vacations and community outings and holidays.

My girl doesn't know yet how to cast her own corporeal Patronus to protect herself from the trauma bubbling over all the time, meaning we have not yet found a single intervention or even a combination of interventions that has allowed her to learn to reliably cope in the frequent moments when the Dementor attacks.  And while we, as her family and her village, try to serve as a non-corporeal Patronus, hovering like a mist over her developing heart and mind, offering security, guidance, love, stability, we are not a fail-safe defense against the powers of the Dementors and that fact alone rocks us to our caregiver core every single day.

Harry Potter did not know what he faced when he first encountered Dementors on the Hogwarts Express because trauma can look confusing to the untrained eye.  It might appear like bad parenting or like a child lacking discipline and self-control.  It may look like emotional dysregulation, like aggression and destruction, like self-injury and suicidal thoughts, like hugging perfect strangers, like nightmares, like poor academic performance and mental disorganization, like extreme self-reliance and need for absolute control, like lying, stealing, manipulation, and like the inability to form trusting and lasting relationships.  Developmental trauma may be (mis)diagnosed as anxiety, Reactive Attachment Disorder, ADHD, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, alcohol and drug addiction, intellectual disability, sleeping or eating disorders, depression, etc.  What developmental trauma will not be diagnosed as is developmental trauma because DSM-5 does not include or allow for this diagnosis.

Not every person experiences developmental trauma or trauma at the Dementor level - though recent studies estimate that nearly half of the children in the US have been exposed to multiple significant traumatic events - and not everyone is equipped to walk alongside those who did.  But no matter what, you can raise your awareness about this debilitating epidemic and, through your understanding, patience, and tolerance, you will be like chocolate, the perfect antidote for anyone who has been overcome in the presence of Dementors, whether it be the persons who are suffering the trauma or the ones who pay the toll of caring for them and who also struggle under the weight of the Dementor's presence.

Chocolate alone, of course, will not be enough to address developmental trauma in any child's life.  Complex and varied interventions are needed and they will have to be tailored individually.  My sweet girl, for example, is not able to participate in certain treatments yet, but has seen some improvements through play therapy and neuro-feedback - neither of which is covered by our medical insurance.  But there's so much more we could explore and try with her if it were available in our area and if it were covered by insurance.  This is why we need change not only in how we view, understand and support the victims of developmental trauma in our personal lives, but also in how we acknowledge, assist, and treat them in the public areas of medicine, mental health, education, employment, and so on.  Finally, we need to reduce the occurrence of trauma in and of itself by investing in children and families who are most susceptible to the powers of the Dementors...

... because this is not acceptable - no child deserves the Dementor's Kiss:

"You can exist without your soul as long as your brain and heart are still working. But you'll have no sense of self anymore, no memory, no... anything.  There's no chance at all of recovery.  You'll just - exist.  As an empty shell. And your soul is gone forever... lost."

Some Months... May, Oh May

The time between Easter and the last day of school always seems to go by in warp speed and things tend to spin out of control here until I make that final bus stop pick up in May at which point it almost instantly feels like a giant weight lifted off my shoulders.  May was so busy in addition to our regular therapy-filled calendar:

Charity walk
Mother's Day breakfast
Mother's Day brunch
Star Student (poster, pictures, sharing sack, estimation bag, letter to the student)
Bridal shower
6 field trips for the public schoolers
Anniversary date
Neighborhood block party (which I helped organize)
Multiple medical appointments
Touring a school
2 end of school year parties
2 movie mania parties
1 dinner and art class
Re-shingling the patio roof

Hello June!  Welcome.

Spring Traditions

May is bringing some of the year's favorite traditions to our family.

Strawberry picking and freezer jam (Ella helped me a lot with the latter):

And, of course, homemade buttermilk waffles with fresh strawberries:

Our seasonal weekly farm box deliveries have begun:

And the last day of school (which we commemorate by giving a sweet treat to all the families who have been with us at our bus stop all year and decorating our driveway) has passed:

Happy Summer 2019, everyone!

Happy Anniversary

Happy anniversary to my love.  We celebrated with a simple daytime date: a leisurely breakfast followed by a one hour hike and then a little bit of shopping.  During our hike we decided to venture off on a side trail and came upon a little fairy garden with a sign that seemed there just for us that day.

IAC 455-458 Results

The following referrals were issued in IAC session 455 which was held on March 7, 2019:

1) Greek dossier from April 2012 referred a male child aged 1 year and 7 months

2) French dossier from January 2015 referred a female child aged 1 year and 5 months with features in health status and a family history

3) US dossier from August 2016 referred a male child aged 1 year and 9 months with features in health status

4) Italian dossier from February 2017 referred sisters aged 9 years and 5 months & 7 years and 10 months

5) Italian dossier from November 2017 referred brothers aged 10 years and 2 months & 7 years and 2 months

6) Italian dossier from December 2018 referred a male child aged 10 years and 11 months with features in health status

7) Italian dossier from February 2019 referred brothers aged 10 years and 11 months & 11 years and 11 months

8) US dossier from March 2019 referred a waiting child (#3234) with a profile on the MOJ site

9) US dossier from March 2019 referred a waiting child (#3656) with a profile on the MOJ site

10) US dossier from March 2019 referred a waiting child (#2541) with a profile on the MOJ site

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The following referrals were issued in IAC session 456 which was held on March 14, 2019:

1) German dossier from April 2013 referred a female child aged 5 years and 8 months

2) Italian dossier from December 2014 referred sisters aged 6 years and 6 months & 4 years and 1 month

3) US dossier from November 2017 referred sisters aged 5 years and 9 months & 7 years and 1 month with features in health status and a family history

4) US dossier from March 2019 referred two waiting children (#3232 & #3530) with a profiles on the MOJ site

5) US dossier from March 2019 referred a male child aged 12 years and 2 months

6) US dossier from March 2019 referred a waiting child (#3426) with a profile on the MOJ site

7) US dossier from March 2019 referred a waiting child (#3594) with a profile on the MOJ site

8) US dossier from March 2019 referred siblings (#3252 & 3273 & #3274 & #3275) with profiles on the MOJ site

9) US dossier from March 2019 referred a female child aged 1 year and 3 months with features in health status

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The following referrals were issued in IAC session 457 which was held on March 21, 2019:

1) Italian dossier from June 2013 referred a male child aged 7 years and 4 months with a family history

2) French dossier from December 2017 referred a brother and sister aged 5 years and 9 months & 7 years and 9 months with features in health status

3) Italian dossier from August 2018 referred a brother and sister aged 5 years and 9 months & 10 years and 1 month with a family history

4) US dossier from March 2019 referred a waiting child (#3124) with a profile on the MOJ site

5) US dossier from March 2019 referred a waiting child (#3564) with a profile on the MOJ site

6) US dossier from March 2019 referred a waiting child (#3657) with a profile on the MOJ site

7) US dossier from March 2019 referred a waiting child (#3722) with a profile on the MOJ site

8) US dossier from March 2019 referred a waiting child (#3596) with a profile on the MOJ site

9) US dossier from March 2019 referred a waiting child (#3496) with a profile on the MOJ site

10) US dossier from March 2019 referred a waiting child (#3601) with a profile on the MOJ site

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The following referrals were issued in IAC session 458 which was held on March 28, 2019:

1) Dutch dossier from July 2012 referred a male child aged 2 years and 6 months

2) Italian dossier from June 2014 referred a male child aged 8 years and 1 month

3) French dossier from October 2014 referred a male child aged 1 year and 3 months wit features in health status and a family history

4) Belgian dossier from March 2015 referred a waiting child (#3763) with a profile on the MOJ site

5) US dossier from January 2017 referred a male child aged 2 years and 3 months with features in health status and a family history

6) US dossier from August 2017 referred a male child aged 7 years and 8 months with features in health status and a family history

7) Italian dossier from March 2018 referred a female child aged 10 years

8) US dossier from September 2018 referred brothers aged 10 years and 1 month & 8 years and 5 months with features in health status and a family history

9) US dossier from March 2019 referred a waiting child (#3424) with a profile on the MOJ site

10) US dossier from March 2019 referred a waiting child (#1735) with a profile on the MOJ site

11) US dossier from March 2019 referred a waiting child (#2644) with a profile on the MOJ site

How To Close Out A Home School Year

The last few weeks of the school year can be tough for students whose exhaustion from work and excitement for summer are steadily mounting.  Home school is no exception to that rule, so here are some tips from Ella and me on how to survive the end of the home school year and still obtain valuable educational hours.

Health and Safety/ Life Skills: when table work gets too drudging, we opt for tasks around our home.  Anything from baking bread to pool maintenance, planting vegetables to organizing closets is fair game because some day those skills may come in handy.

Movies and Videos: with resources like YouTube and Amazon, it’s easy to find movies that tie into the curriculum. For example, Ella recently watched and very much enjoyed Hidden Figures which connected with social studies (segregation, space exploration) and Ohio Studies (John Glenn).

Field Trips: strawberry picking, an afternoon at the zoo, and a trip to the bank to open a first savings account all intertwine with portions of the fourth grade curriculum and count toward our required 900 hours.

More PE: sunny days are back again and riding bikes, jumping on the trampoline, and swimming are all considered physical education in this home school.

Music and Art: we saved some lessons in these two subjects for last because it’s really more fun to learn about Duke Ellington and try swing dancing than it’s doing fractions.  And Ella’ll take trying to draw a Gothic building over a grammar lesson any day.

Quiet Reading /Read Aloud: reading fiction has been a highlight all year long, so when we feel like a break, but still need to get those hours in, we can pull out our respective novels or read together in our shared books.

In less than 100 hours, my big girl will no longer be an elementary schooler, but move into her middle school years.  Cue the tears – time’s flying.  Didn’t she just start Kindergarten?

Five Years

Five years ago today we met Ella in Armenia.  The walls around her heart were like a fortress.  The transformation continues.