Grown In My Heart » PTSD

Russian Children and Abandonment: Current News

Marcie — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 17:00:32 +0000

This is a group post from Grown in My Heart Writers, something we have never done before but given the topic we decided we needed to.

Marcie says:

We’ve written about dissolution and disruption before because it happens in adoption. As much as people like to shove it under the proverbial rug and pretend it doesn’t exist or that it’s the worst possible thing a parent can do to a child, it happens. Unfortunately, it happens more than we think.

Mirah Riben, a family advocate at Advocate Publications told us Friday that there aren’t ANY national statistics on adoptions that end in disruption or dissolution in the US. According to the Child Welfare Information Gateway, “Most of the data that are collected are for adoptions from public agencies or those under contract from public agencies. No national studies are available on disruptions or dissolutions of intercountry adoptions or adoptions from private sources. There are no national data collected on the number of independent, private, or tribal adoptions.”

But, this isn’t a case of dissolution or disruption, is it? It is child abandonment.

Now, as a mother of a Russian born son I find the current case of Artyom (aka Artem) Justin Hanson to be absolutely horrific. Honestly, I don’t understand how anyone could simply send their child back to an orphanage, BUT (and don’t judge me too harshly here) I’m actually happy the child is alive instead of in a situation like Chase Harrison or the Emelyantsev’s (just two in a long recent line).

The media is reporting that Torry Hansen adopted Artyom 6 months ago from Partizansk, Russia. Torry’s mother, Nancy states that Artyom has severe psychological issues, that he routinely threatened and abused them, and that he had been physically abused with a broom while in his orphanage. She also states that the Russian orphanage lied to them and did not reveal all of the medical information needed to raise him.

Sounds very much like my son…the one who was traumatized by a broom when I first brought it out (we assume he, too, was beaten by a broom. It took him over a year to even look at one.). So, do I understand what she went through? Sure.

I have a son with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, Bipolar, Sensory Processing Disorder, PTSD, anxiety, Auditory and Visual Processing Disorders, etc. Like Artyom, he is violent and I DO sometimes feel like we were lied to because the orphanage we adopted him from knew we could provide better care for him than they could. It pisses me off.

But, I would NEVER send him back. I would never find a new home for him, not matter how hard my day was.

He is MY son. And I do whatever it takes to help him.

Melanie Recoy says:

As an adoptee, I find this horrifying. A child abandoned and institutionalized only to be abandoned and institutionalized again. I admit I don’t know the whole story, I have only read the initial reports about what has happened, but I will say there is absolutely no way the actions of the adoptive parents can be justified.

Maybe the child had problems, either organic or resulting from his early experiences, or both. Maybe he was difficult, frightening, or even violent. He could have been a threat to other members of the adoptive parents household. It doesn’t matter. These people were his parents, his forever family, he was theirs as if born to them. Can you imagine non-adoptive parents just putting their child on plane with instructions to put him in an institution when he arrived?

There are ways for families to deal with troubled children, even if they feel that the child can no longer safely be in the home. These parents should have done this. Child abandonment is illegal for a reason. No matter what reasoning they might cite for their actions, what they did is illegal, inhumane, unloving, and cruel.

Hartley Steiner says:

I have been in the adoption world long enough to hear of many families that have been forced into disruption because of many different issues. For me, all of those occasions have involved children adopted domestically. And in each instance it required a great deal of support from social workers and state agencies — and often doctors, therapists and psychiatrists.

The current situation involving Justin Hanson gives a horrifying example not of disruption, but of something all together different and illegal: abandonment.

Should this family been forced to dissolve their adoption, the reasons surrounding this I am admittedly unfamiliar with, they should have taken the appropriate steps to do so while keeping the child safe.

Tonggu Momma says:

As the mother of a six-year-old who was found abandoned as a newborn on a street in China one cold March morning, my heart simply breaks for this eight-year-old. I will never forget the pain I heard in my daughter’s voice when she first connected the dots to realize that “being found” meant “being left.” How much greater the pain might this newly-adopted eight-year-old feel… to have memories of being all alone throughout the experience; to live through abandonment not once, but twice in less than a decade; to internalize that it was a personal rejection, rather than a rejection of any child, any baby because of life circumstances; and to later process that one of the most painful moments of his life played out before the world media?

While I do not know the circumstances surrounding this situation, most specifically what led this adoptive mother to make such a choice, I DO know that she made a most public, inhumane, negligent, humiliating and yes, even political statement with her actions. There are ways to seek help while still safe-guarding the physical and emotional well-being of every member of the family. While the adoption community often differs on the topics of dissolution and disruption, I think we can ALL agree that this was criminal abandonment… and a most cruel form of it.

It breaks my heart to say this, but at least Artyom “Artem” Savelyev/ Justin Hansen is alive. And I thank God for it.

Michelle Mc says:

I opened an email this morning with the link to this most disheartening story. My first reaction was, “Really? She did that? How on earth did she get him all the way there without anyone realizing what was going on?” After reading a few accounts, I’m still not sure all of the facts are out in the open. It doesn’t matter. Putting a child on a plane to send him overseas and abandoning him in the process, making him carry a note explaining that he’s being sent back, is wrong. Given that this was such a public way to abandon a child (how could it not make the news?), my inclination is that this woman had reached a breaking point. Regardless, she is the adult. He is a child. He is a broken, abandoned child, back at an orphanage, among one of 740,000 other Russian children without parental custody. Adults–we have to do better than this. We must do better than this.

Raina says:

I don’t know where to begin. I can tell you my first response was not outrage or disbelief, as it should have been. Nor was my first response a protective reflex to send Ms. Hansen to the far reaches of the world, alone, rejected, abandoned and confused as her son must have felt, although it should have been. My first response was despair – for what the boy has been through, for what humans are capable for doing to one another, and for all the failures of many people in this story.

I honestly can’t make heads or tails of this story. I’m not knowledgeable about contemporary adoption laws, issues, reform and advocacy, as my GIMH colleagues are. I only know what I have lived – abandonment and adoption have been with me my whole life. Ms. Hansen and Artem haunt me. It would be so easy to demonize Ms. Hansen, but I can’t help but believe that she truly felt she was doing the right thing. Perhaps that is my inner adoptee speaking – we are programmed to believe that mothers abandon for their children’s own good. I can’t help but hope that another family with find their happiness in this innocent boy. Perhaps that is my inner adoptive mom speaking – hoping that a family’s love can cover the wrongs done to any child.

We are all relieved that Artem is at least alive. However, I also believe there are worse things than death, and I’m not sure if this could be one of them. I know the damage one rejection does to a child. I can’t fathom what a second would do. I have spent many years contemplating the ways that people can hurt one another and the ways we can heal each other. In a world that fails so many of our children, I can only pray that we haven’t lost Artem Hansen for good.

Lisa Says:

Maybe this single mother tried to get help and nobody listened to her. Maybe she was so desperate and alone and frightened that she didn’t know what to do. And just maybe she feared that she was becoming a monster who might snap; maybe she was afraid that she would hurt or even kill this little boy.

This is terrible and tragic, but it could have been worse… much, much worse for this little boy. Have we already forgotten Lydia Schatz who died only two months ago? Another internationally adopted child who was beaten to death by her parents.

I don’t know Torry Hansen’s story, and maybe she is a vile, wicked, selfish woman – but maybe she is not so different from me or you. Perhaps she was reduced to somebody that even she could no longer recognize.

Please don’t think I am making excuses for her… I’m just glad that the boy is alive.

My mind is swirling with sad thoughts about this situation; I think it is time to take a breath and walk away from the computer. I have plenty of dirty dishes to wash.

If you have more emotional energy to think about adoptions that don’t make it, go to the blog, Is There Any Mommy Out There to read the post, Differences.

Carissa says:

I have really been trying to think this situation through for the last few days. And at first read this situation angered me, what mother would send her child to a foreign country (even one the child had been in for 7 years prior to becoming her child) without anyone knowing her son was coming or any word to him about what was going on. I was angry that it appeared that the woman was only thinking about her, what about this child ~ what about everything he had been through in his short life. I am usually a child advocate and not really a parent advocate (even before I became an adoptive parent I gave very little benefit of the doubt to parents who did things that would affect their children).

Then a friend, a good friend, made a few points that I had not even considered like what if this little boy had been suffering from some major issues from before he was born or even that had occurred during his institutionalization, what if mom had major post adoption depression and really was not thinking clearly, what if all these things played together and this appeared to be the only option to her at the time. But I wonder if that was the case where was this woman’s support system, the people who could help her see clearly. The question that has been swimming in my head is where was this woman’s agency? I read an article that said just 4 short months after the adoption everything was good according to a post placement report ~ so all of the problems occurred in just three months? Really, how much help could she have sought in three short months? Not much in my opinion, the circumstances of his life for seven years cannot be undone overnight, it takes time, it takes love.

The other thing that I wonder about is how much information this woman was given about Russian orphanages, about what it is possible that her new son had seen or not seen, what it took for him to survive to this point, what the transition to loving family would be like because I am here to tell you that I do not think that the adoption community puts out there enough that rarely when you arrive home with your new child is it all roses and rainbows and the older the child the less that chance. I know that all I read were the happy stories, the ones where the children “fit like a glove in their family immediately” and that is NOT what happened in our family and as soon as I put out there that it was not what I had been expecting (or been told to expect) I had fellow adoptive parents coming out of the woodwork letting me know they had been there and it does get better and if not there is help, even if that help may also include a new home for your child to do what is best for him/her.

I agree with everyone else that at least this little boy is alive, and I thank God for that but I also pray that someday we get the whole story instead of the bits and pieces that are out there now, there has to be more to the story. And maybe it is a good time to take a look at those adoption agreements and make it so this type of child abandonment/abuse can never happen again.

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And He Rages

admin — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 12:22:16 +0000

He is a very complicated little boy.

Raging, eyes dilated, staring into the unknown. Arms flailing, legs kicking into space. Hitting whatever they come into contact with…usually me. Most often me.

He picks up the Retro Rocket, Gus’s favorite rider bike and whips it, hurling it across the floor, skidding it on the hardwood and gets pissed that it starts making noise.

“3, 2, 1, Blast off.”

He screams at it to shut up and slams his foot into the wheel, only to send more noises into the living room chaos.

In the corner, Gus starts to cower and looks at me in wonder. The dog, now used to AJ’s madness, quietly slithers away to his own retreat. Gus, familiarizing himself with his surroundings, takes a seat in the Pickel chair out of harms way. I have taught him well.

AJ begins to swear his favorite and only expletive, God Dammit. He’s standing now in the middle of the room, staring at me arms fisted at his sides, mouth open as wide as it can possibly go, eyes closed. Hard stance.

This is the part that always scares me. Yes, I am afraid of my own son. Sad, I know. But I’m afraid of the unexpected. Afraid of being beaten by him. I don’t know what comes next. Who will he attack? What will he throw? I’ve had dreams where he comes up to my bed in the middle of the night with a knife and that, THAT, scares the crap out of me. Do I think that he is capable of it at 7? Heck no. But I don’t know who he is going to become.

His next move doesn’t shock me. He drops to the floor in a W sit, hitting his own leg in frustration. He’s whining now….

“I don’t want to, I don’t want to.”

I respond calmly that I know he doesn’t but it’s time.

He searches the room. I know this look. He’s looking for something to throw so I cut him off, taking two steps toward him and clasp my hands around his wrists to gently remind him that he is not supposed to throw. In my attempt to do this though I have inadvertently lowered myself into an Asian squat and making myself available for the headbutt.

Headbutt received. Shit.

Not so calm anymore because I’m on my arse in the middle of the room, holding my head AND getting kicked. AND? He’s yelling at me to SHUT UP. AND? I’m not talking.

AND? Gus is now screaming at him.

Welcome to chaos.

I only asked him to get his pajamas.

Alcohol Exposed, Severe Sensory Processing Disorder, BiPolar Disorder, PTSD, anxiety, OCD, and multiple learning disorders. He’s only turning 7 in May and he’s so, so, disoriented. But I love him.

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Protected: Dissolving an Adoption, a Call for Help

Marcie — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 12:51:39 +0000

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Post Traumatic Stress in Post Institutionalized Children

Marcie — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:26:03 +0000

Since adopting AJ we have been dealing with symptoms of Institutional Autism, something that the Autism community thinks is a quack theory but an illness and diagnosis that we know to be very real.

We know that AJ had a very traumatic life in the orphanage but we don’t know why. Sometimes, we all know, it just happens. When we visited him he seemed happy, content, very excited to see us and comfortable with his caregivers, although they were rough with him. We do know that he spent almost 3 months in the hospital directly after birth before being transferred to the orphanage and that he had transferred orphanage rooms several times since his arrival. This, by itself could lead to trauma because of the consistency issues.

The American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) for the diagnosis of PTSD is that “the person experienced, witnessed, or was confronted with an event or events that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of self or others. The person’s response to the event must involve intense fear, helplessness, or horror.”

Daniel Hughes, PhD, and author of several attachment books including Building the Bonds of Attachment: Awakening Love in Deeply Troubled Children and Attachment-Focused Parenting: Effective Strategies to Care for Children (Norton Professional Books)
says that the most common cause of PTSD is abuse and neglect. He calls neglect “the trauma of absence.” While many assume that abuse is far more traumatic than neglect, we now know that neglect is equally harmful. We also know that the combination of abuse and neglect can be shattering to a child’s psyche.

So could this be where AJ’s PTSD stems from? And is this where his Institutional Autism stems from? Is he so traumatized that he retreats?

The same article states that children resort to a fight or flight response but if they can’t flee they go internal. We see this often with AJ, especially if he gets in trouble. We often see his eyes glaze over and he retreats into his “autistic state”…using echolalia and a retreat and repeating nonsense words to escape from reality.

But, he also becomes hyperactive before bedtime because we know that that was a very scary time for him the orphanage. He avoids sleeping at all costs.

Interpersonal trauma (such as abandonment, neglect or abuse) is experienced as more severe than trauma of nonhuman origin (such as a car accident). In interpersonal trauma, the severity increases with the closeness of the relationship. Thus abandonment or violence inflicted by her mother would be experienced by a child as extremely devastating. Secondary adversities, such as displacement or relocation after the traumatic event add to the likelihood of developing PTSD. Therefore, an infant who has been abandoned by her birthparents, traumatized by a stay in an orphanage, and is then adopted by strangers is at exceptional risk for dissociation and chronic PTSD.

PTSD can also has an effect on the development on children, including delays in cognition, gross and fine motor, and language development. Children can relieve trauma in any number of way, though nightmares and sleep (AJ did this through night terrors every night for two years), through flashbacks, through imaginary play, through hyperarousal, (another one of AJ’s issues) or by shutting down (which AJ never does).

Treatment? Some suggest Holding Time but our attachment therapist said this was not something for sensory hypersensitive children and for adoptive children who don’t trust. They only time I hold is when he is not being safe (but that is another topic).

reprinted from 2007

By now we know that most of his issues stem from neurological brain disorders like Sensory Processing Disorder, Early Onset Bi-Polar, and possible Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, the most prevalent of which seems to be the Bipolar because of the success of his treatment. After reading The Bipolar Child: The Definitive and Reassuring Guide to Childhood’s Most Misunderstood Disorder , I knew that most of AJ’s symptoms were there from the time of adoption, some of them masked by his trauma. As he came out of his orphan shell the layers of the onion metaphorically peeled and the real person started to reveal himself.

As hard as his behavior was to witness, it was harder to know that he was struggling and I could not help as much as I wanted. I had to stand next to his crib at night and watch him scream in terror because he wouldn’t let anyone talk to him or touch him during his 20-30 minute night terrors. I had to withstand hours of restraint holds to calm him when he raged. And when he threw tantrums when there was too much noise or someone touched him I just scooped him up and held him.

I didn’t care that people saw him belt me in the face or kick me in the shins.

They didn’t get it. They didn’t get him. Some still don’t. But, does it really matter if they do? We get him.

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