Many of us live with children with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Most people are only familiar with this in the form of war veterans. They don’t realize that “average” people can, and do, have this disorder.



Our children have PTSD from surviving the things that put them into foster care in the first place. Whether it’s one of the various forms of abuse, or neglect, it has left an impression on the hearts and minds of our kids.

But what about us as parents? Some of us live in a war zone on a daily basis. We may be living in a home where screaming, cursing, destruction, theft, and violence are part of our every day lives.

If you’re living with this, do you have secondary PTSD? Do you jump when you hear a plate crash? If your child starts yelling, do you wait for the violence to come next? Are you fighting with depression?

On Nancy Thomas’ website, under the seminar handout section and the Rebuilding the Broken Bond seminar, you can find a list of the symptoms for secondary PTSD. I will list a few of them here.

Some of the symptoms are rather vague, but if you go through the list and find yourself relating to a majority of them, it might be time to call a doctor or counselor.

• Loneliness and alienation
• Feeling that you’re unlike other people
• Feeling disconnected from other people
• Loss of illusions of security
• Alternate between trying harder and giving up
• Stress on significant relationships(marriage, etc)
• Helplessness, hopelessness, and anger = rage

These are just a few of the symptoms, but I hear these things so often from parents that call the Attachment Disorder Network for help.

I didn’t realize how much Sammy’s behaviors were affecting me until he was out of the home for several months. I knew I was not happy and not the type of person I wanted to be, and this was far from my parenting dream.

It wasn’t until Sammy came home on a weekend pass that I realized something was very wrong. He dropped something, and I jumped. My heart raced, I was waiting for the “same old” behaviors to start again. I was living in fear. Sammy’s stealing was a big button pusher for me. I processed this with my counselor, and she hit the nail on the head. In most people or families, your home is your safest place to be. For me it was anything but safe. I lived with a criminal in my home. I didn’t have to worry about bad things from the outside getting in. I had voluntarily let them in.

To people who do not live the life we live, we look angry and unreasonable. There is a perfectly reasonable explanation for this. We’ve earned our war stripes.

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