Developmental Trauma (DT) can lead to profound brain and body changes that put people at risk over time. The brain and body change in order to adapt to the stress that a person is living and experiencing. At the time, it is the brain and body’s way of responding and surviving—through adaptations—the adverse stressful experiences.

Let’s dance. That is what we do, my son and I. We dance. We dance around so many things in our lives. It is a dance learned from the extreme trauma and loss my son experienced in his early life. It is a dance I learned instinctively in what I now know to be therapeutic parenting. It is a dance for our survival, individually and together.

Today my son’s fish died, and for the first time in 5 years, after spending time in attachment therapy, learning therapeutic parenting, taking courses and hours of research, my son was able to identify his real emotions. Thanks to Mr. Fish for giving my son the opportunity to learn from this.