Regression Pitfalls

One of the big themes when learning about adoption is regression. Regression, if you do not know, occurs when your child is exhibiting past behaviors or a younger mindset. Basically, they lose mastery or progress on skills or behaviors that they have learned. In my experience it is usually the most recently gained skills, but it seems to differ depending on the trigger.

Regression happens due to a trigger. In my children’s case, it is when they are dealing with situations or feelings that are either directly due to their trauma or in some shape or form, tangentially related. Reminders of the grandparents, like a location associated with them or a holiday period, are big triggers for my girls.

The most likely subject of regression tends to be hygiene. No matter how far we move along the hygiene scale, that always seems to be the first thing out the window no matter how long they have been exhibiting good hygiene. They stop brushing their teeth, showering or using the toilet properly.

Yes, it is very frustrating to have to go over toilet hygiene with your nearly adult children. Do I understand it? Yes, which is why they do not get punished for not doing these tasks. They do, however, get mom’s “lecture”. We go over that their feelings are causing this disconnect. I remind them that good hygiene makes us feel better. When we care for ourselves, it lightens the load in our heart and head.

We go over ways to deal with our feelings that are not so negative. Most of the time, the problem is they do not have anything else to occupy their brain. They hate down time. My youngest tries to be constantly engrossed in activities to avoid thinking about these things. This in turn, leads to burn out, and the feelings come anyway.

I remind them that they can always talk to me and we go over other people they could talk to when they are feeling like this. We talk about their connections. The people in their life right now who could help either listening or by getting their minds off of dwelling on these thoughts.

We cannot change the past, but we can do something right now to change the future. There is a bit of brainstorming and I remind them of their previous goals and intentions. We talk about why it did not work and what we can do to get the results they want.

Success in trauma recovery is not so much about how often you are successful, but how few times you are unsuccessful. My youngest and I count how many weeks have happened since the last outburst of bad feelings. We keep track of how long she can go without self-harm thoughts. We celebrate that these events are becoming less commonplace. I try not to let her focus on the failure, but to point out how successful she truly has been.

I think the hardest thing to explain to your kids is that everyone feels these feelings sometimes. We all can feel left out. We can all feel like we have the most unique problems. We can all struggle with intrusive thoughts. We all slip up on our path to success.

The key takeaway is to remember that one slip up does not mean we just throw everything away. We need to acknowledge our weakness and get back on track.