Parenting with childhood trauma is the hardest yet most rewarding work of my life. Showing up each day with all the old wiring that I must unplug, reroute, and patch up. It can be exhausting.
I have to soothe the woman who never learned to love herself…all while tending to the needs of my children.
Nothing else matters if I can’t get this right. When I feel overwhelmed and I’m in the parenting trenches, I’m pulled into the sounds and feelings of my own childhood… it’s as if I’m in two places at once and battling the challenges simultaneously …but with the terrified brain of an abused child. Most days, I rise to the challenge; some days, fewer and farther between, I fail – I yell, I cry, I run into my room and bite my fist as hard as I can to calm myself down.
I let me family know often – the particular ways in which I struggle. My husband gets details, my children don’t. But they all know it’s not their fault on the days I just can’t get it together. I don’t pronounce these things to evoke anything other than pride – hopefully- that I was able to overcome my past enough to carry my babies to shore.
They will be free, my children. I cling to this fact – they will be free.
B🤍