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Well, I'm in and out of these forums, depending on how my son is doing at that time.
Here's a good one. Are you ready to create a contingency plan for your 8.5 year old son. When his best friend is coming before he wakes up in the morning. But, he's scared because he's been having really bad nightmares again, which of course means he's been flooding the bed. So, you had finally put him back in pull-ups because its getting cold outside and you don't want him to be wet and cold during the night. But, now his friend is coming and he does not want his friend to know that he still uses pull-ups. Can you hug him and not cry while you help him figure out a plan to get the pull-up off and disposed without the friend catching onto the fact that it was ever there?
Or, on the flipside of screaming, can you handle a child who still bores holes in the floor when he's really upset and no matter how and what you try he will not open his mouth, not even if he starts to cry. Oh, but he'll swing his fist at you. He just won't talk and tell you what is wrong.
Are you ready to cry into your pillow at least once a week because he's shown you just a glimpse of what haunts him in his nightmares? Are you ready to feel vile, unadulturated hate towards the adults that hurt him so badly? Are you ready to face the situation that you couldn't protect him, you can't help the nightmares and someday he'll grow too big to let you hold him while he thrashes and screams in his sleep. So, you cry because you're worried about who will hold him when he screams in the dark then.
Are you ready for adoption workers and therapists to all tell you that because he is doing so 'well', he doesn't need therapy and they won't see him, and because they say he's doing so well insurance won't cover therapy. But, those awful nightmares still coming back, and he doesn't think he's doing 'well' when the nightmares come. You don't think he's doing 'well' when he can't battle the nightmares. But, you're stuck researching online and trying to love him enough to him to feel safe because those nightmares DO come, and their awful and they scare even you. He can't sleep alone and you never know if he's going to feel safe to sleep with his little brother, or if he's going to require sleeping in your bed this night. And, once again, that hate for those evil men wells up inside you, and you just want to scream to God WHY? How can men be so evil and hurt someone so innocent and little? And, then you have to wonder, again, whether your son will ever heal, or if hoping he can learn to just live with his nightmares is as good as its ever going to get for him.
Last question...Can you watch this child take a nightmare free nap and then be able to just move forward and let things go when he comes out with a sheepish grin and wants some lunch. He still won't talk to you, but he's grinning now and interacting with his siblings. So, can you just shake off the morning and pretend it didn't really happen? Can you not hold it against him that he ruined everyone's day for school and left you in a foul mood? Can you just walk away from it and realize that there's just no point in thinking about it now, because you know soon its all going to start over again and you can deal with it more when it does? Can you just hug him and give him some of his favorite lunch that you made for him 3 hours ago and just call it quits for school for the day? Because that's all that is really going to help him and if you can't do that, then you aren't going to get far parenting him.
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