Surviving Fireworks

BOOM!  Crackle, crackle, crackle….

Oh, the joy of watching bursting colors splatter across the sky.  Whizzing and shooting glimmers of light dance above your head.  Fireworks!  This delightful spectacle of summer can be such a highlight.

Not so in our home.

With furry friends who get frazzled by the surprising noise and tremors, we expect a little anxiety under our roof.  We purchase calming sprays and tight “jackets” to help our fur-buddy relax.  We build a special “den” for him to hideout in.  We are patient as he stresses and do what we can to help him during this hard time.  This has just become part of the experience and doesn’t take anything away from the joy of it for us.

But this anxiety doesn’t just happen for our furry family members.  With every boom, our eldest jumps about 2 feet.  Every crackle sends shutters down her spine.  This already tense, trauma reactive child is a pile of tears and anger as the marvelous display of celebration appears over our heads.

What are we to do?

Actually, we do much of the same thing we do for our dogs.  We have calming essential oils, a pressure vest, headphones, and favorite stuffed animals close by.  We offer our snuggles and distracting abilities as best as we are able.  Again, this has become part of the experience for us.

Yet as she grows and time marches on, she challenges her experience.  Unlike the dogs who react pretty much the same way each year, she doesn’t.  She doesn’t want to.

So this year – she purchased some fireworks to set off herself.  We went out of town to enjoy time with extended family.  Time with extended family for our adopted kids is more than just family time- it is healing time, identity building time.  Every opportunity we have to be surrounded with our family history – the crazy stories of when we were younger, the teasing and nicknames that can only come from years of connection and irritations, the unconditional love that our loved ones have poured out over our kids – shape and strengthen new neural pathways in our kids.  While M may not know the science behind this (future posts to come about this), she knows that for some reason, being with Grandma and Uncle & Aunty make her feel better.  Make her feel stronger.

We gorged on seafood (we are huge seafood fans), played games and relaxed.  Then, we drove back home before the majority of fireworks were to be set off, catching some scattering and glittering skies from the safety of our vehicle.

Upon arrival at home, the kids quickly changed into pj’s and came out to ignite their purchases, complete with headphones and pressure vest at the ready.  You could still witness every jump, every muscle tightening as booms and thuds close by went off.  She did her best, watched brother light one of his treasures, then lit one of hers.  And then….

A flood of tears.

She darted off quickly into the safety of the house, yelling the entire way.  I found her in the dog kennel, with the scared dog.  Oh how they comfort each other!

Why so angry?  Because she wanted to be stronger than she was.  She wanted to “be like everybody else”.  She wanted to enjoy the show, not become the show.

And this year, as I watched M clench, struggle and desperately try to hold on, I recognized that this evening of sky-lightening fireworks is what she has going on inside her most of the time.  The bursting of energy and vibrant emotions ignited by, well almost anything really.  A smell, a memory, a thought, a hope.  It is jarring, surprising, overwhelming, and even scary.  The explosion is overwhelming.

This has been our life as adoptive parents.  Two intense years of surviving fireworks.  The fireworks of anger outbursts, violent mayhem, self-harming tantrums, and more.  We have learned this is part of the experience and we do our best to prepare – calming strategies, outside tools like therapy, special clothing for sensitivity issues, visual supports, routines and schedules, as well as environmental supports like limited access to sharp objects, etc. and decluttering spaces.

I think what I am learning the most, and hopefully helping M to learn, is that someday I/we won’t just survive the fireworks.  Someday I/we will enjoy the outcome of the combustion.  The shimmering of love, the whizzing of laughter, the twinkling of trust that comes from an explosion, the combustion of old patterns and untruths believed. The old fueling the new and vibrant “show”.

For now, I will remind myself that what I have to do to prepare for the experience doesn’t have to take away from the joy of the experience.

How do you ’more than survive’?