16/05/2022
Trauma or ADHD?
🚗 If a child has experienced trauma or loss, we may see symptoms of ADHD or some other common childhood diagnoses in their behaviour: agitation, difficulty concentrating, and hyperactivity.
🛎 Some possible consequences of attachment injuries:
▸ changes in regulation, expression of emotions, difficulties in controlling impulses: despair, helplessness, hostility, irritability, aggression, self-harm and risky behaviour
▸ changes in self-perception: lack of self-worth, feelings of guilt and responsibility, feelings of shame;
▸ depersonalisation and derealisation
▸ interpersonal disorders: lack of trust in oneself and others, lack of friendly relations, which leads to social isolation, the tendency to re-victimisation (tendency to repeated violence) and/or victimisation of others (bullying, abuse)
▸ changes in the perception of the perpetrators: the tendency to accept the opinion of another, the idealisation of the offender, the fear of harm to the offender
▸ somatoform symptoms (conversion), hypo- and hyper-excitation, the pain of any kind in the absence of actual disease
▸ lack of attention and concentration, problems with speech and poor motor coordination
🌱 Understanding the social/family situation is essential before treating a child.
🔑 In addition to questioning, "Why is he behaving like this?", it is vital for parents to ask, "What happened to him?". Very often, the second question explains the first.
❤️ "Weird" behaviour can hide trauma of attachment.
