Whenever someone talks to me about adopting an older child, I always encourage him to adopt in birth order. For example, if you have a seven-year-old child in the home, I strongly encourage the adoptive parents to adopt a child who will be the youngest. One reason for this is that I have heard too many stories of older adoptive children coming into the home and abusing their younger adopted siblings.

This scenario happens more frequently than you might appreciate, and it is not only limited to the scenario I laid out above. Sometimes the adoptive parents adopt a sexually abused child out of foster care and then later adopt an infant. In some cases, the older adopted child will sexually abuse the younger adopted children.

Fortunately, the vast majority of sexual abuse survivors do not become abusers themselves, but, unfortunately, a number of sexual abuse survivors do sexually abuse others. When we are talking about children abusing other children, the issue can also be that the older child is trying to work through what happened to him when he was younger. Regardless of the reason, his actions create more victims that need healing.

The television show 90210 kicked off a storyline last week that is relevant to many traumatized children. Teenager Silver (played by Jessica Stroup) found out that her mother, Jackie (played by Ann Gillespie), is dying from breast cancer. Silver lives with her older sister Kelly (played by Jennie Garth) because Jackie is, at best, an unfit mother. She is an alcoholic and drug addict, and her substance abuse dates back to the original series. Let’s just say that Jackie won’t be winning any “Mother of the Year” awards.”

Kelly (who is ~ 16 years older than Silver) found out about her mother’s condition this past week, and her reaction was radically different from Silver’s reaction. Silver feels like she owes it to her mother to be there for her as she is dying, despite a  very long history of abuse and neglect. Before Silver found out about her mother’s diagnosis, she told her mother that she was dead to her. However, this news about her mother’s health has caused Silver to want to move back in with her mother and take care of her. Kelly, on the other hand, thinks the news sucks for her mother, but it doesn’t change anything.

I think the reaction of these two characters is very representative of what a trauma survivor experiences when finding out that an abusive birth parent is dying.

One of my pet peeves is when people assume that post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental illness. It is not. To assume that a foster or adopted child who has been traumatized is also mentally ill is to add insult to injury. Of course, someone with PTSD could also suffer from a mental illness, but PTSD itself is not a mental illness.

A mental illness is a biological issue with the brain, which is why bipolar disease and schizophrenia are hereditary. PTSD is not. It is not possible for someone with PTSD to pass along the disorder to a biological child unless the parent traumatizes the child. PTSD is a disorder caused by environmental factors, not biological ones. See Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Nobody is born into the world experiencing flashbacks due to a physiological problem with the brain.

A reader wants to know whether foster or adopted children who endured severe childhood trauma can ever be normal. That is the million dollar question asked by adult survivors of child abuse all over the world.

I asked my therapist this question when I was in therapy to heal from child abuse. His response was, “What is normal? Nobody on this planet is ‘normal.’” There is definitely truth to that statement. Even those who appear to be “normal” have big old ugly skeletons in their closets. Nobody lives the charmed life that we all wish we could live.

My therapist then asked me why I wanted to be “normal” in the first place. My response was a big fat “duh” – no post-traumatic stress disorder, nightmares, insomnia, eating disorder, etc. He said that we all have our issues to deal with in life. He then pointed out all of the gifts that I have that make me “not normal.” I have a lot of energy and accomplish much more than the average person does in a day. (This can be a double-edged sword, as I shared on my personal blog.) By not “being normal,” I have brought hope and encouragement to other child abuse survivors on my personal blog. I said I just want to be boring. My therapist said that is never going to happen, so I might as well let go of that illusion.

Bottom line – A traumatized child is never going to act and react like a child who was never traumatized.