As I continue to struggle with what part of my childrens' journey is appropriate to share here, I realize there is one person's journey I have full liberty to share. Mine. Is being so vulnerable to the world wise? That too is completely in my power to decide. I've come to the conclusion along with Brene Brown, that our lives depend on connection and connection requires us to be vulnerable. I also have come to learn far from feeling the need to restrain my emotions lest society write me off as a hysterical female, it is part of my feminist journey to embrace my emotions as who I am. My emotions are not my weakness, they are just as much the "real me" as my rational self. Empathy is what I hope to offer.
I've also realized this is something I do have to offer others who find themselves in similar trenches. It took me 4 years into my journey to even learn that others struggle as much as I do. I suffered so much guilt for so long that I was doing it wrong, and therefore that's why my children weren't healed yet. If I could just stop yelling and be zen all the time, they would heal. If I could just get the right time out sequence and cutting edge reward and consequence systems down my children would thrive. That if I could just be more firm my children would cease to react to me. That if I could just be less uptight everything would flow better. So many people told me that, "all kids do that" (I guess even the physical attacks and threats to kill) that maybe they were right. So it must be me. I must be flawed. I must be weak. I just needed to pull myself up by my bootstraps. I just needed to work harder and do a better job. Why was I caving into panic attacks? Why was I breaking down in sobs on a regular basis? It took me a full year to realize what I was sinking into was depression and anxiety. It took me a full year to seek professional help, another 6 months to seek psychiatric treatment, and another couple years to find enough resources that linked me to enough people that proved to me I wasn't alone.
Still, I don't see enough resources addressing exactly what its like on a daily basis to struggle with the basics of therapeutic parenting. When the disregulation, acting out and demands from not one but three children are constant, how do you use any of these tools when you can barely breathe and keep everyone safe?
I only recently realized that when I get knots in my stomach driving to pick my children up from school, when my neck tenses when I sense an outburst building, when my breathing gets shallow trying to manage so many behaviors, when my upper lip gets numb and sweaty, that these are physiological symptoms of fight and flight. Many days I do manage to meet my children with calm and empathy, but on days I am really struggling myself with something entirely unrelated to them, it is very difficult to regulate myself to respond in a connected way.
After several weeks of the doing the best myself I have done since our children entered our lives 5 years ago, I have been struggling again with depression and anxiety for the past few weeks. I was on a high, now I'm on a low. I recognize the trigger is our epic house hunt, escrow, packing, move, unpacking, and putting down our roots. I recognize moving is a major life stressor...along with divorce and job loss. This has taken the form of a lot of irritability, yelling, time in my room sobbing, and having a difficult time with therapeutic parenting.
Why be so vulnerable? Because, I'm learning that it's precisely in my own struggle that I can connect in empathy with my children's struggle.
I not only realize this move is big, but I am validating myself that it is hard and my feelings matter. This allows me to empathize that my childrens' journey is huge, and helps me find it in myself to validate their big feelings. I am also learning to vocalize exactly what I'm feeling and exactly what I need and want, and discover how that alleviates some of my symptoms and helps me feel better. My depression is often my feelings of isolation or hopelessness about a specific situation, and my anxiety is often holding back my true feelings about something important to me. This shows me the value of coaching my children to find their voice to express what they are feeling, need and even just want...as it will alleviate some of the trying to work itself out in behaviors.
My amazing husband is supporting me in this time by just sitting and being with me when I'm hurting, as well as meeting the practical need of taking the kids off my hands for long stretches on the weekends. The way this makes me feel loved and validated breathes life into me that I *can* cope, heal and even thrive. This in turn enables me to just sit with my children when they hurt, even if and especially if it looks like anger, because I know from the experience of someone doing this for me the priceless value of this. I also know the value of just meeting a need (such as just making my child's bed for them during a meltdown, or just feeding them through nasty insults) rather than lecture or consequence the behavior, because my husband did this for me when I was irritable and "hysterical" without lecturing me. Will I now take advantage of him and behave this way all the time to get my needs met? No, my needs ARE met by love shown, and when I feel better I do better. It is the same with my children.
When I am tired, hungry, thirsty or need to use the restroom...everything is that much harder to deal with and I am that much more easily triggered. It is the same with my children. The more I learn to recognize my own body's cues and self care, the better I can recognize my childrens' cues for their basic needs that they don't even recognize themselves at the ages of 7, 8 and 9 and meet them. I can then begin to teach them to do the same for themselves.
When it's all too much I can model using my voice to say how I feel, take a break in my room, chew some gum, etc. The more genuinely I self-care the better I can model self-regulation, and know the value of this over merely consequencing behaviors.
Therapy for adults focuses on coaching them to manage their own triggers, yet somehow traditional therapy for children also adds consequencing behaviors arising from those same triggers. Could you imagine consequencing an adult for a PTSD flashback with earning no treat for the night? Yet that is exactly the paradigm of traditional behavioral based therapy and traditional parenting on children with trauma. Wouldn't you simply be there for your adult loved one and find some way to connect and remind them they are safe and loved? Would you worry that would cause them to "chose" to "behave" that way again to "seek attention"? No, you know an adult who suffers PTSD cannot control their flashbacks. Neither can a child control the trauma emulating from their body. The ONLY way to begin to heal is to begin to feel safe, heard, cared for and loved. In the case of a lifetime struggling with PTSD, it is the only humane response.
The best way I am finding to provide this is experience it myself. Pain and all. Empathy. I've been there. I'm here with you. You don't have to earn your treat...we share a treat every night because life is hard and we all need a little sweetness to soften it. After all, I delve into chocolate not because I've earned it by being perfect all day...but because I had a really hard day and it is comforting.
So with that I'll invite you into my world through a mini-series on how empathy and not perfection is the stuff of therapeutic parenting. Not because I get it right most of the time, but because I *do* struggle most of the time. My children and I. Therapeutic parenting isn't a method you do to your children to control them. It is you and your children struggling side by side to heal.
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