Trauma, the Brain, and Dysregulation: What ALL Foster + Adoptive Parents Should Know

Jun 17

Jun 17 Trauma, the Brain, and Dysregulation: What ALL Foster + Adoptive Parents Should Know

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"Today your lid was flipped for over 60 minutes straight.

It felt like an eternity for me,

I can’t imagine how it felt for you.

We’ve spent many hours of many days like we did today...but it’s been awhile since it’s been as hard as it was today. There was a time when you were on fire more hours of the day than not.

Today your system caught fire and it broke both of us as we fought for you to find calm ground.

I’ve learned what sets your amygdala on fire, I’ve studied the forming + developing of your brain, I’ve researched ways to support you during some of the hardest pieces of your life...which started before the day I became yours.

Trauma is a beast that comes to steal, kill, and destroy and today it got the best of you for what felt like forever. I held you close, soaking in your stress like a sponge, singing the song I’ve sung to you since infancy...the words I strung together just for you in the early days of walking with you through the terrifying hours of dysregulation.

I began slowly naming the things I saw in our view, pointing out present realities in between the repeated chorus of Your Song. Slowly but surely you fell asleep in my arms, exhausted by the fire set to your system for more than sixty long, sad minutes.

Life can be so hard. So cruel.

“You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother's womb.” Psalm 139:13.

You are perfectly and wonderfully made, and don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise."

When I posted this on Instagram I forgot most people have no idea what I am talking about. This has become our normal lens we see life through; it is much of our conversations and also my Late Night Can't Sleep Researching.

First, I'd like to share that the scene described above is one I know well. I know it for my kids but I know it for many kids in my community. We have a close-knit group of friends who are parents through foster care and/or adoption, and we often are sharing the struggles of dysregulation and broken attachments. So, though this account is intimate, it's quite typical for our and many of our friend's lives.

My Instagram filled with DMs (direct messages) asking what I was talking about. What was I saying? Was this a tantrum or an injury? Or did something happen and was a kid really on fire?

After hours of receiving message after message asking what was happening, I decided to attempt to explain the basics of what I know to be true of the brain and trauma and dysregulation on my Instagram stories, under the tab "Trauma Talk".

I am no mental health expert, aside from the fact that I live it every day with my kids and I watch it in my community.

As I shared what felt like one million and one grainy, 15 second videos explaining the basics in typical-parent language, my DMs filled up faster. Questions and "me toos" and clarifications and ahas and more questions.

I received messages from parents saying they were in tears listening to me explain this, because for YEARS they have wondered what was so different about their child's behaviors and they could not figure out how to "get their behaviors under control."

"What everyone else does for discipline doesn't work, but it is all we know so it is all we do. Thank you for shedding light on this, and now I have so much reading and research to do." <-- This was a consistent message.

I could fill in a whole screen about how tragic it is that we as a society have failed in the way of mental health. We have failed to equip parents to parent, to raise kids who are hurting even when they don't "look" like they are hurting. We have failed to protect the most vulnerable and instead placed stigmas and labels on kids who actually are completely human and deserve just as much respect, chance, and love as you and me.

But instead, I will fill this screen attempting to describe what I shared in my videos.

First things first: see this image below? See Ira (held by Loren) and his look of wonder as he gazes up at a helicopter? That is sort of how I have felt over the last few years.

I have felt my jaw drop open realizing all the things I have learned about the brain and trauma — even prenatal trauma — make so much sense. I have felt wonder at the MASS amount of messages I received over the last few days regarding foster and adoptive parents's complete...lack of education or knowledge regarding this.

That we are not prepared by the organizations placing vulnerable children (who all come from hard places) in our home is a tragedy.

family of four, san diego coronado beach

TERMS TO KNOW

PREFRONTAL CORTEX: this is where the brain is able to express personality, make decisions, find logic, filter and moderate behaviors. It helps plan complex cognitive behavior. The cortex is the only place where self-control can be accessed.

AMYGDALA: this is where the brain reacts to stimuli. It is a processing center receiving incoming messages from our senses and internal organs. It stores old memories, and emotions + feelings associated with memories both good and horrible. It is highly involved with different emotional responses, including fear and the changes fear makes in the body.

{TRAUMA}TRIGGER: a stimulus causing someone {consciously or subconsciously} to recall a memory of a previous psychological {or physical} trauma. The trigger/stimulus may not be frightening AT ALL but if the stimulus triggers your amygdala, it can be indirectly reminiscent of an earlier traumatic incident and turn into a trauma response. Side note: sometimes the triggers don't even make sense to us, but they are there and they are real.

TRAUMA/STRESS RESPONSE: fight, flight, or freeze are the three main categories of trauma responses.

Let's break down the trauma responses a bit. Hopefully you will be able to identify what kind of response you typically have, and what kind of response your child or children have.

FIGHT: think of this as someone fighting to survive. Crying, yelling, hands in fists, punching, ripping, stomping, kicking, smashing, breaking things, rage, eyes are angry, glaring, snarling, tight jaw, grinding of teeth, suicidal feelings, homicidal feelings, burning stomach, metaphors like bombs.

FLIGHT: think of this as someone fleeing to survive, physically and emotionally. Anxiety, shallow breathing, moving a lot, restless legs or feet or hands, numbness in legs, eyes darting, excessive movement or exercise, big eyes, fidgety, restless, feelings of being trapped, tense, sense of running, mania.

FREEZE: think of this as someone literally frozen. Stiffness, heaviness, feeling cold or frozen, feeling numb, looking pale, feeling stuck in some part of the body, breath holding, restricted breathing, sense of complete dread, pounding head, decreased (though sometimes increased) heart rate.

Now that we have the vocabulary down, let's talk about the process. I tried to find a really great diagram that makes sense, but alas, I couldn't. If you have one, send it my way. If you are good with digital design and wouldn't mind working with me for free to create something, send me an email. We could really use a visible diagram for us parents trying to learn this outside of an educational setting.

I am going to attempt to explain this in blog-form, how I have come to know it. Forgive these google search images while I work on getting my own images up :) Also when I say "our kids" I am typically referring to "our kids" in the foster and adoptive community at large.

Let's say from the palm of the hand to the wrist is the primitive brain. The primitive brain controls the functions we typically don't have to think about: breathing, heart beat, etc.

Tuck our thumb in and that is the mid-brain...imagine that to be the amygdala.

Bend our fingers over the thumb and that is the cortex. The cortex is the only place in the brain where logical thinking and problem solving happens. The cortex is the only place in the brain where self-control is accessible.

THE LID HAS FLIPPED

Our {pre}frontal cortex is known as our brain's lid.

Sometimes, a trigger occurs and the lid of our brain is flipped and our entire prefrontal cortex loses control.

If our prefrontal cortex is in charge of cognitive functioning, reasoning and logic, making decisions and filtering our behavior... that all goes out the window and you can imagine — maybe even can remember or think of a time — how out of control the body becomes.

The amygdala then becomes in charge which kicks in our survival mode / trauma responses of either fight, flight, or freeze.

I truly like to think of it as the brain on fire, setting a body's entire system on fire. At least, that is what fight feels like for me and when I am helping one of my kids whose response is fight. I assume for freeze, it feels more like everything is numb. And for flight, everything is restless.

While a person's lid is flipped — and it's important to realize that every single person's lid flips — there is absolutely no self-control, no regulation, no sense of calm. There is only "survival mode."

We call this dysregulation.

When the person's system is dysregulated.

Because I am a foster and adoptive parent, I see this happen A LOT.

WHEN THE PARENT'S LID FLIPS IN RESPONSE TO THE CHILD'S LID FLIPPING

Sometimes if someone else's lid is flipped, we flip our lid in response. Especially if this little person's behaviors are coming off as rude, disrespectful, ungrateful, etcetera etcetera. It's easy to forget what is beneath the layers of reactivity {reacting and pushing against love and security and attachment}.

In order for any sort of progress to be made in a heated, lid-flipped situation, we've got to get at least one person in the situation regulated. Hopefully this is the adult, the parent, the supposed-safe person.

As my children's parent, I work really hard to be self-aware and notice if I am feeling triggered or feeling my lid beginning to flip.

I have learned time and time again that I do nothing helpful when I respond to them with a flipped lid, and I end up needing to repair more damage done. The grace in these situations — when my lid flips — is that through the repair together, so much healing and connection is found. When I step away, collect myself, calm down, and return to my hurting child to look directly in their eyes, hold their hands, and genuinely apologize for the way I responded to them...the connection and healing for both of us is one of the most powerful experiences of my life.

When I begin to feel the boil rise in my chest, the warning sign I have come to know, I usually let that child know that I need to take a minute to calm down. I shut the door and step out of the room to breathe. I regain clear thinking and recover my cortex portion of the brain.

Sometimes it's really easy to do this.

Other times it takes me talking to myself and reminding myself of these truths: my kids are hurt, my kids have lived through the worst kind of childhood, my kids need me most when they are fighting me or pushing against me, I am their safe space and they are worthy of my humility.

Through those truth statements, I am always able to calm down and become the adult again. I can regain my cortex control.

I have had a lot of opportunities to practice this as a parent and as a wife, especially in the last year and a half. Self-aware practice really does make it get easier to remain calm during my children's bouts of dysregulation. That doesn't mean I am perfect or I don't make mistakes or I don't still need to step out for a break. It just means it is becoming a habit, and one I want to continue forming.

KIDS IN CARE + WHO WERE ADOPTED + THE REWIRING THAT HAPPENS

Imagine growing up experiencing one or multiple of the following as your normal: physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, lack of shelter/home, lack of community support, observing your parent(s) become intoxicated one way or another, being around people that don't feel safe. Likely, you would be the one to take care of yourself: it is up to you to survive. Your brain would begin to operate out of the amygdala, more than the cortex.

Though this is unsafe and unhealthy, this is still your normal. These are still your parents/parent, and this is what you know to be your life. To be normal.

Imagine hearing a knock on your door. Likely there are tall men in official outfits (police officers) who may look intimidating to you as a small child. Your parent likely begins freaking out and fighting, screaming even. Imagine being forced to leave the only life you know, put into a car with people you've never met, and are driven to one of the following places: a hotel room with an adult from CPS/DHS, the DHS office, or a home you've never seen in an area you are likely unfamiliar with and people you've never met. They don't look like you, they don't operate how your family does and you have NO idea if they are safe, they may have a different color skin and also different religion. You have lost everything you have known except maybe a bag full of items. Yet another deeply traumatic event, furthering the rewiring of the brain.

What do you mean by "rewiring,?" you might be wondering.

As our amygdala becomes the main portion of the brain functioning, it rewires to work that way. Which means, some things (triggers) end up causing us more stress than is typical, because that is the brains new autopilot. Survive. Stress. Amygdala. Fight/freeze/flight. The person becomes overly sensitive and hyper-alert to things they and their brain perceive as threats, even things as "little" as tones of voices, specific words, and gestures. You know how a child who was abused flinches even at the smallest of body movements? That is a great example of their trigger response preparing to fight, flight, or freeze to survive.

This is how our kids's brains who join us through foster care are wired. And this is tragic. All they're trying to do is survive.

But what about kids removed or placed at birth?

There are many factors that play into how, even children removed at birth are affected by trauma and the wiring of their brain.

Imagine being unexpectedly pregnant, and in a situation you know or the state knows you are unable to parent or raise this baby. I don't know about you, but the simple fact of just knowing I couldn't parent or raise the baby growing inside me would cause me heightened stress.

But even before that reality sets in, think through this: whatever that situation is, the situation leading you to be unable to parent the baby in your womb...THAT is likely causing high levels of cortisol (stress) to be present in your system. Whether it is a lack of job, lack of housing, lack of community or support, an abusive relationship, lack of whatever...

These EXTREMELY high levels of cortisol being produced not are affect the mother carrying the child, but the baby in-utero. These hormones are forming the wiring of the developing brain in the womb. The brain of the baby will be wired for hyper-alertness and over-sensitivity, causing a lower threshold for triggers. This leads to being "set off" or having a "lid flip" easily and frequently.

Not only this, but when removed at birth or as a baby, they are also experiencing that trauma of leaving the only smells, sounds, and heartbeat they know.

On top of the intensity of stress in the womb, some (NOT all) mothers also struggle with addictions to substances and alcohol. Substance exposure in-utero also greatly changes the way the brain is wired.

Many babies are born prematurely when under a lot of stress. This lands them in the category of already starting off a "bit behind" and their bodies continue fighting to survive, instead of developing in a typical "healthy" way. There can be medical trauma, or lack of physical touch, SO MANY THINGS.

All of this contributing to the way the brain is being wired and rewired. Their brains are formed and wired to operate with lower thresh holds, high alertness, and sensitivity to many things (such as sensory processing!). The way trauma plays out in each individual person varies greatly, but its a dangerous path to wander down assuming your child of adoption or foster care doesn't "deal with this." I would invite and challenge you to dig deeper, for yourself and for them.

Listen, we've covered a whole lot of ground here in this space. If you have not known any of this, it's a lot to take in. Hopefully eventually it will just become the lens you use to see the world, especially kids we know are from hard places like adoption and foster care.

I am absolutely going to create and hold more space for this conversation on my blog. Because I have four children, all with incredibly high needs right now, my blog has been a bit dusty. But I want to continue sharing what I know, what I have learned, and how this has shaped the way we try and want to parent.

I believe if we can start this kind of healing in our homes, maybe...just maybe it will move itself out into a world where there will be less violence, less suicide, less homicide, more healing.

For now, download a little printable I created for us parents needing an extra little reminder that our children are worth us regulating ourselves.

You can hang it in your bathroom, in your car, in your kitchen, or put it in your purse. It's a reminder of the truths of your children. I honestly need to remind myself these things MULTIPLE times a day.

It is in the truth that I find grace.

NEXT POST HERE: LEARNING TO CONNECT IN MY DISCIPLINE

Be sure to subscribe so you get the next blog post...I will aim to make it shorter. I will touch on: when our kids are labeled "the bad kids," why children from adoption or foster care or any other significant traumatic life-event(s) are much more dysregulated, why we cannot just label these kids as "bad" or stigmatize them with "poor behavior" and how to begin understanding them more, TBRI, Connected Parenting resources, secondary trauma, and the tools to do our best to prevent dysregulation from happening often.