Empathy - A Balm For The Parental PTSD Brought On By Your Child's Trauma

I have been mulling over this post for the past several weeks. I have typed and deleted posts one after the other because they didn't adequately portray what I had on my heart. I am not sure this one is any better, but after being contacted by various people, I am going to give it my best shot. I don't want people reading this post to feel that the life of a trauma parent is without blessings and success because it isn't that way at all. Nor do I want to give the illusion that I am on the brink of a break down, although that can be a distinct possibility for a trauma parent at any given time. Rather, I want to give a glimpse, inadequate though it is, into the thought processes of those of us who parent children who's very existence was built upon trauma, pain and loss. 

I have been amazed at the hundreds of shares and comments my post, When Your Child's Trauma Causes Parental PTSD, generated. In reading the comments it was clear that those of us parenting children/teens with early childhood trauma are all in the same boat. We are all weary, begging for non existent or hard to attain services and burning out in the process. There is a chronic lack of resources, time and funding necessary for those in our care to succeed. To compensate, we as caregivers pour everything we have into our children in order to keep them and their peers safe while maintaining the family unit,

Being teacher, parent and therapist to one or more children is simply too much, but we find ourselves filling those roles and more, because the alternative requires stepping through the right hoops in the correct order to possibly attain services that may or may not be successful. The enormity of our child's needs can be overwhelming at best and when you feel alone in your journey you can be sucked into an abyss of fear and anxiety. In my previous post many people commented that they had hoped I would have some answers to this dilemma, but unfortunately I am searching along with you all. However I do have one ray of hope, empathy. Having someone come alongside you and ask how things are going and offer a listening ear allows us to let go of just a little of that debilitating stress that hovers over us at all times. Knowing someone cares may be the only thing that keeps a parent from throwing himself under the bus in a desperate attempt to save a child who is falling apart. That probably sounds extreme but those of us in the trenches of trauma know it is anything but extreme. The lengths we will go too, even at great harm to ourselves is a testament of our desire to see our child happy and in a good place emotionally. 

There are things that happen in our home's, things that no one beside's the child's therapist and a few close, trustworthy friends will ever know about. Our children act out their trauma in the only way they know how and sometimes it is truly frightening to see and we know that we dare not leak out such information both for the child's sake and because we have already experienced the shocked expressions when we shared before. There is something particularly defeating to know your story, or your child's story, is so painful that others can't read or hear about it, but you are required to live with this desperation and do so with a smile on your face.

I used to think that in order to truly empathize with someone, I needed to experience similar circumstances, but that isn't true. Having said that I will say there is a special healing that takes place when you are broken and someone who has come through the trial you are currently ensconced in,shares their story and offers words of comfort. This weekend after a rough evening away my daughter had a typical trauma reaction. I heard her sobbing her heart out in her bed. I left her cry for awhile before going to her and asking questions. Her first words were, "Mom, will you cry with me?" Now I haven't lost my bio family, I haven't endured many of the things she has, but my heart could hurt with hers. We cried, we talked about our hurts, talked about the losses in our lives and how seeing other people happy can feel like your heart is being ripped out when you are so sad inside. As a child, she had no concept of my losses and what was driving my tears, but we shared our grief and that lessened the pain.

This parenting journey is hard. Things like abuse, trauma, neglect and prenatal exposure bring untold pain. We discuss things with our children that weren't even on the radar when we were their age. Life has taught them at an early age that pain is around every corner and sadly, as unprepared parents, we took on their trauma responses and developed our own PTSD. There isn't much people, outside of professionals, can do for us, but you can pray and encourage us. It might become wearying to ask how things are going and hear the same worn out response, "We are hanging on by a thread, please keep us in your prayers." But think how much more exhausting it is to live this life...to have so much trauma that the thought of tomorrow brings fear and anxiety? Imagine living with that for years? Imagine seeing your child in so much emotional pain that he can barely breathe and knowing that no one can or will help you? Imagine a child who has been so conditioned to destroy everything those around him hold dear in order to keep up a wall between himself and you, that he decimates the lives of his family? Imagine cringing at the thought of your child walking in the door from school, or fearing that he won't come home at all and you will have to call the police again. Imagine the hopelessness of  feeling as though no one can help your child, no one can help you? Imagine life without joy, life without hope....that is what trauma does, it sucks the joy and hope out of the life of it's victim and then goes on to claim those closest to him. Trauma victims and their loved ones live this life every day. You may not see it, they will go to great lengths to spare you, but it is there simmering under the surface, begging for someone to care enough to listen.

As victims of trauma we are told to count our blessings, practice self care and remember that God has a plan... and our hearts bleed a bit more because sometimes the only blessings we can come up with are things like having air to breathe (and in reality you sometimes can't help but wish that the air would just vanish so you don't have to do this anymore). When there is no energy for self care because even breathing hurts, and in your humanness the thought comes to mind that if this is God's plan then this is too hard and you don't want to continue on, it is at these times that we need people to hold up our weak arms. You might not be able to provide the services my child needs, you might not have thousands of dollars lying in a drawer just awaiting a needy child, you might not have time to get the necessary training so you can babysit a child with attachment disorder, but you can care. You can offer encouragement and speak words of truth into a suffering parents ear. Your kind gesture may be all that is keeping a hurting parent afloat. As one parent so aptly put it, "Why can't the people telling me to practice self care realize that my hair is on fire and my hands are tied?" In other words, trauma parents, especially those of us who have children with complex trauma, can't afford the price of self care be it the physical price or the horrific repercussions in terms of behavior. When we can't get a break, your kindness and thoughtfulness may be the only be the only thing standing between us and complete and utter chaos.

This post is totally from a parents point of view. I in no way intend to discredit the pain and anguish a child endures concerning the circumstances that are behind the behaviors that can drive a parent into the ground, that is a topic for another post.

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