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<blockquote data-quote="scent of cedar" data-source="post: 609030" data-attributes="member: 1721"><p>Okay. The difference between that mom who is able to function, whatever is happening to her child, and that mom who, like me, zooms into fight or flight when the phone rings late at night...no, I don't think that is what I mean to say. What I mean to say is that there is no mom who could go through what we go through, here on the site, for the years we go through it, and not have the anxiety of dealing with an at-risk child key her own traumatic woundings.</p><p></p><p>There is nothing the matter with us. (With me.) We are battle-fatigued, as anyone who does battle over years would be.</p><p></p><p>We have been under such intense stress, for so long a time, that all the stress responses must be stored in the same place. Old anxiety over difficult child comes up attached to other old traumas. Like pulling an old fishing line out of the water. There will be things tied to it, or growing on it, or growing on the things that were tied to it ~ but they all come front and center when you pull the line out of the water, looking for solutions to the current crisis. It isn't that our brains are showing us something we need to cope with the current, anxiety-producing situation. Our brains are pulling out all the stops, giving us everything we have, in the hope (or the expectation) that there will be something, there on that fishing line, that applies to the current situation. Until we go through the anxiety, discarding whatever happened then as a potential solution for the current problem, the anxious feelings are as intense as they were when the initial trauma happened.</p><p></p><p>If the event were not traumatic, had not been anxiety-producing, it would not have been stored on that fishing line.</p><p></p><p>So, that imagery could explain the wide-ranging nature of the negative imagery and self-talk happening yesterday. Interesting too, that my determined intent to 1) survive it 2) survive it in a healthy way (there is a difference) enabled me to see what was happening for what it was. I still experienced the feelings...but I was present enough TO experience the feelings. I was present enough to experience the negative feelings as echoes of something over and done, rather than as overwhelming, real-time, present moment anxiety. (Really, it was the craziest thing, the way the negative imagery was all over the board. When I examine past anxiety events, I realize I heard/saw all that stuff then, too. Response at that time was "Not now. Got to deal with this, got to save difficult child.")</p><p></p><p>And that kind of thinking ups the ante, and fires those desperate, all over the place responses we call nervous breakdowns.</p><p></p><p>Interesting. I love my brain and the way it works, risking everything, tearing off all the old blinders, so I can have access to everything I know, to help my child. Nothing very cowardly in that now, is there. I do get it that a little kid can no more stop an adult abusing a sibling than she could stop a tidal wave from sweeping everything that mattered away. Intellectually, I get it. Nonetheless, we learn what we learn, from such situations. And this cannot be undone. It can only be accepted, and the lesson learned then, retaught. </p><p></p><p>I hope this means that, as I become familiar with feeling the feelings behind these old traumas without becoming overwhelmed and creating new, present-day overwhelming anxiety, I will be able to see what is there without condemning myself, without feeling hopeless, without feeling helpless to cope with the danger my child is in. At bottom, the anxiety response seems to have to do with old trauma, keyed by present day certainty that, just as I could do nothing for my siblings (or myself), I will be unable to protect or change anything, for my child.</p><p></p><p>Or myself ~ which keys into another whole "This is how someone ~ wrongly, as it turns out ~ taught me I can be treated." fishing line.</p><p></p><p>"Good. Bring it on." said Cedar, whistling past the scary things in the dark. :O)</p><p></p><p>So, this is getting to be more like therapy than helping one another cope with at-risk kids. Nonetheless, this is what happened to me, as I coped with at-risk kids for such a long time. Initially, I remember feeling that I could deal with it. It did take years before I lost faith in my ability to save either child. And it took more years to learn the true nature of the problem. As it turns out, our son hadn't fallen prey to whatever I did to our daughter, our son got caught in addiction. And our daughter, our sweet, little girl...turns out to have been mentally ill for such a long time.</p><p></p><p>Mental illness runs in my family too, Recovering. </p><p></p><p>So, there you have it. When we realized the nature of difficult child daughter's problem...I would have given almost anything to make it something I did, something I could change, for her.</p><p></p><p>I can't change this.</p><p></p><p>I was reading a post this morning...I think it was Dancerat's. She was talking (or someone was talking) about marijuana and lack of ambition, lack of clarity. And though I always report that formerly addicted difficult child son is doing well, is pulling himself out of that behind-all-his-friends place where his addiction took him...difficult child son still uses marijuana, daily. And he just isn't picking up the way he should have done, by now. There may be people who can use marijuana daily and still function. I don't know about marijuana, so much. But what I would say now, having read that post this morning, is that any mind-altering substance (including alcohol) steals the edge we need to triumph in the world. Once we are older, once we have accomplished whatever we accomplish, it doesn't matter so much. It is our time to play, and explore, and be curious about everything, again. But when we are young, we should stay away from anything like that. </p><p></p><p>So, that's what I have to say, this morning.</p><p></p><p>Each of us, though we may feel like emotional wrecks, though we may feel we aren't strong enough, or bright enough, or kind enough, or whatever enough it is, to help our children be who they were meant to be in our dreams for them...each of us is doing amazingly, superhumanly, well. Unhealed trauma is nothing to fool around with. Out of desperation to help our children, out of desperation, as Signorina wrote, to steer our younger children toward the success we dreamed of for all our children, we are pulling out all the stops built in to protect us from our own traumatic woundings. And, though the woundings will be different for each of us, we all have those times when we couldn't prevent something bad happening, to ourselves or to someone we love. Dark, painful places where the best we can hope for is silence, is never to go there, to be that person it was happening to, again.</p><p></p><p>But we do go there, for the sakes of our children.</p><p></p><p>As Recovering is sharing with and teaching us, there is a healthy way to do what we cannot escape doing. Part of that process is acknowledging what is happening, acknowledging the root of our anxiety. The other, and more important piece, is trying to stand in a place of strength, as we respond to the overwhelming feelings that are called as we pull out all the stops looking for a way to save our children, or to prevent damage to our easy child kids. Recovering and MWM are right. Just taking those actions which indicate we intend to survive this well keys a different feeling, changes our internal perceptions of who we are and what we deserve and whether we will succeed.</p><p></p><p>It has to do with taking hold of the tools that will get us through unremitting, unimaginable pain.</p><p></p><p>In our hearts, we have to claim the right to our own lives, right in the faces of those old, traumatic memories drawn out of the water in our desperate searches for anything, anything at all, that might help us turn things around, for our kids.</p><p></p><p>Well, that's what it looks like this morning, anyway.</p><p> </p><p>Cedar</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="scent of cedar, post: 609030, member: 1721"] Okay. The difference between that mom who is able to function, whatever is happening to her child, and that mom who, like me, zooms into fight or flight when the phone rings late at night...no, I don't think that is what I mean to say. What I mean to say is that there is no mom who could go through what we go through, here on the site, for the years we go through it, and not have the anxiety of dealing with an at-risk child key her own traumatic woundings. There is nothing the matter with us. (With me.) We are battle-fatigued, as anyone who does battle over years would be. We have been under such intense stress, for so long a time, that all the stress responses must be stored in the same place. Old anxiety over difficult child comes up attached to other old traumas. Like pulling an old fishing line out of the water. There will be things tied to it, or growing on it, or growing on the things that were tied to it ~ but they all come front and center when you pull the line out of the water, looking for solutions to the current crisis. It isn't that our brains are showing us something we need to cope with the current, anxiety-producing situation. Our brains are pulling out all the stops, giving us everything we have, in the hope (or the expectation) that there will be something, there on that fishing line, that applies to the current situation. Until we go through the anxiety, discarding whatever happened then as a potential solution for the current problem, the anxious feelings are as intense as they were when the initial trauma happened. If the event were not traumatic, had not been anxiety-producing, it would not have been stored on that fishing line. So, that imagery could explain the wide-ranging nature of the negative imagery and self-talk happening yesterday. Interesting too, that my determined intent to 1) survive it 2) survive it in a healthy way (there is a difference) enabled me to see what was happening for what it was. I still experienced the feelings...but I was present enough TO experience the feelings. I was present enough to experience the negative feelings as echoes of something over and done, rather than as overwhelming, real-time, present moment anxiety. (Really, it was the craziest thing, the way the negative imagery was all over the board. When I examine past anxiety events, I realize I heard/saw all that stuff then, too. Response at that time was "Not now. Got to deal with this, got to save difficult child.") And that kind of thinking ups the ante, and fires those desperate, all over the place responses we call nervous breakdowns. Interesting. I love my brain and the way it works, risking everything, tearing off all the old blinders, so I can have access to everything I know, to help my child. Nothing very cowardly in that now, is there. I do get it that a little kid can no more stop an adult abusing a sibling than she could stop a tidal wave from sweeping everything that mattered away. Intellectually, I get it. Nonetheless, we learn what we learn, from such situations. And this cannot be undone. It can only be accepted, and the lesson learned then, retaught. I hope this means that, as I become familiar with feeling the feelings behind these old traumas without becoming overwhelmed and creating new, present-day overwhelming anxiety, I will be able to see what is there without condemning myself, without feeling hopeless, without feeling helpless to cope with the danger my child is in. At bottom, the anxiety response seems to have to do with old trauma, keyed by present day certainty that, just as I could do nothing for my siblings (or myself), I will be unable to protect or change anything, for my child. Or myself ~ which keys into another whole "This is how someone ~ wrongly, as it turns out ~ taught me I can be treated." fishing line. "Good. Bring it on." said Cedar, whistling past the scary things in the dark. :O) So, this is getting to be more like therapy than helping one another cope with at-risk kids. Nonetheless, this is what happened to me, as I coped with at-risk kids for such a long time. Initially, I remember feeling that I could deal with it. It did take years before I lost faith in my ability to save either child. And it took more years to learn the true nature of the problem. As it turns out, our son hadn't fallen prey to whatever I did to our daughter, our son got caught in addiction. And our daughter, our sweet, little girl...turns out to have been mentally ill for such a long time. Mental illness runs in my family too, Recovering. So, there you have it. When we realized the nature of difficult child daughter's problem...I would have given almost anything to make it something I did, something I could change, for her. I can't change this. I was reading a post this morning...I think it was Dancerat's. She was talking (or someone was talking) about marijuana and lack of ambition, lack of clarity. And though I always report that formerly addicted difficult child son is doing well, is pulling himself out of that behind-all-his-friends place where his addiction took him...difficult child son still uses marijuana, daily. And he just isn't picking up the way he should have done, by now. There may be people who can use marijuana daily and still function. I don't know about marijuana, so much. But what I would say now, having read that post this morning, is that any mind-altering substance (including alcohol) steals the edge we need to triumph in the world. Once we are older, once we have accomplished whatever we accomplish, it doesn't matter so much. It is our time to play, and explore, and be curious about everything, again. But when we are young, we should stay away from anything like that. So, that's what I have to say, this morning. Each of us, though we may feel like emotional wrecks, though we may feel we aren't strong enough, or bright enough, or kind enough, or whatever enough it is, to help our children be who they were meant to be in our dreams for them...each of us is doing amazingly, superhumanly, well. Unhealed trauma is nothing to fool around with. Out of desperation to help our children, out of desperation, as Signorina wrote, to steer our younger children toward the success we dreamed of for all our children, we are pulling out all the stops built in to protect us from our own traumatic woundings. And, though the woundings will be different for each of us, we all have those times when we couldn't prevent something bad happening, to ourselves or to someone we love. Dark, painful places where the best we can hope for is silence, is never to go there, to be that person it was happening to, again. But we do go there, for the sakes of our children. As Recovering is sharing with and teaching us, there is a healthy way to do what we cannot escape doing. Part of that process is acknowledging what is happening, acknowledging the root of our anxiety. The other, and more important piece, is trying to stand in a place of strength, as we respond to the overwhelming feelings that are called as we pull out all the stops looking for a way to save our children, or to prevent damage to our easy child kids. Recovering and MWM are right. Just taking those actions which indicate we intend to survive this well keys a different feeling, changes our internal perceptions of who we are and what we deserve and whether we will succeed. It has to do with taking hold of the tools that will get us through unremitting, unimaginable pain. In our hearts, we have to claim the right to our own lives, right in the faces of those old, traumatic memories drawn out of the water in our desperate searches for anything, anything at all, that might help us turn things around, for our kids. Well, that's what it looks like this morning, anyway. Cedar [/QUOTE]
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