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Why do some children just seem to bounce back, unscathed from some terrible ordeal? Sometimes you look at a child and wonder, how could anyone survive that, let alone a small child. When I think about the abuse some of our foster children lived through, I’m filled with awe, when I see them laughing and playing.
I read an article in the newspaper the other day about a little girl’s will to survive. She wasn’t a foster child, but it reminded me of what some of them go through and survive. It happened in Momence, Illinois around June 14. A five-year-old girl was apparently in the river with her grandfather. When neither returned a search party went looking for them.
When the search party located the body of the grandfather, they were certain the little girl had perished as well. How could a five-year-old girl survive two nights alone in the wilderness? How could she get out of the river alone?
However, that is exactly what she did. The current carried her close enough to shore that she was able to pull herself from the water using a branch. Then she wandered around the eastern Illinois forest trying to find her way back to her grandparents’ house.
While researchers were looking for her, she emerged from the woods, naked, scratched, and holding raspberries. The searchers were slightly bewildered about the appearance of such a child, wondering who she could be. Upon questioning, they were all elated to realize that it was the little girl for whom they were searching. The one they didn’t expect to find alive.
How did she do it? What is it about her that gives her an incredible will to survive, alone, and scared? What gives her the intestinal fortitude to pull herself out of a river at the age of five?
Why do some children who enter foster care never lead a normal life because of the abuse and neglect they have experienced? Why do some children not only survive, but excel after years of abuse and neglect?
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I was one of those children, so I can speak from that perspective. :0)
None of us get through trauma unscathed, even though it might appear that way from the outside. Anyone who has been traumatized will deal with nightmares, at the very least. However, you are correct that those who survive trauma are amazing in being able to laugh, play, and enjoy life when others are crushed by similar, or even less traumatic, experiences.
One difference is choice. I can choose to live my life being angry, making excuses for myself, and refusing to embrace life, or I can choose to focus on the good things in my life. I choose to focus on the rainbow that appeared after the rain rather than the storm.
I heard a story about people who smuggled a Torah into a concentration camp and would “sell” reading it for bread. Some people saw the seller as an evil person profiteering by depriving others of their meager portions of food. Others saw the beauty of a faith that valued a few moments in the Torah over having food in their stomachs. It’s all about perspective.
The other big thing to remember is that those of us who have survived trauma have already faced down our demons. I have already survived severe abuse by people who were 4x my size. I will NEVER face anything in my life that will be as trying, so life holds no fear for me. I have already survived h@#$, so I feel confident in facing the “little stuff.” When you have faced death and severe abuse, meeting deadlines and passing tests just aren’t that big of a deal by comparison.
I also believe that God gives those of us who must endure trauma an extra something in our spirits to give us the will to survive. That internal force enables the child to survive, and it also enables the adult to breeze through things in life and make it look really easy. Many people who don’t know my story believe that things come so easy to me, when actually what they are seeing is my iron will that blows through barriers that pale in comparison. :0)
- Faith
Faith, thanks for sharing that. You are right, it is something that most of us have not experienced.
Julia, that is the big question when an adoptive family is looking to adopt an older child. How to pick the child who is a survivor and can benefit from good parenting. I would rather pick the child who is the survivor because the other experince would be just unending trauma for the child and his new family. I’ve done both, it would be great to have a perfect picker. John