They'll leave lots of clues about what triggers their trauma response. Now that I understand what Cody has been through and am more realistic about who he is, I grieve about not being able to fix this. And I grieve for the innocent child that someone hurt, irreparably. Our traumatized children need to grieve too. In this culture, we don't always teach our kids to learn how to deal with losses that are final-like adoption.
Traumatized children have a lot of mourning to do so they can do some living.
And the more mourning they do, the more room they have in those broken hearts for love. Because many of our children will never have contact with their birth families, we must teach them to live with the loss and ambivalence that are normal in adoption. We were experiencing our son's traumatized feelings and behaviors in two very different and conflicting ways. In the face of this splitting behavior, John and I thought we were going insane and knew the stress Cody was creating could easily turn into a couple's brawl. But when parents fight, traumatized children are quietly satisfied because they have put their rage and misery out there where other people can handle it for them.