The thing about trauma is that no matter how often the memory triggers you, life still goes on around you. It doesn’t matter if the memory drives you to an anxious panic, severe depression or tears so hard you can hardly breathe or see what’s in front of you; time doesn’t stand still even though trauma has a way of freezing time.
Every September, I’m reminded of this when I’m brought back to 8-year-old me in the days leading up to the memory of being taken away from my parents and placed in foster care with my younger brother.
Some years it hits harder than others. This year, my first year of being a parent, it’s hitting me in a way that makes me feel like the world has stopped spinning. The little girl in me wants to scream out and cry, but the adult me has to hold it together. Not just because I have a child but because I’ve also recently returned to work from maternity leave. There’s just no time for a breakdown.
Interestingly, my return to work coincides with the anniversary of being placed in foster care. As hard as returning to work is, it felt much harder, as though a similar separation as the one that occurred all those years ago was happening again.
It took adult me to convince child me that I was now in control and was not being separated from my child. Though logically, adult me knows this; I’m currently living in child me’s emotions, so it doesn’t feel this way in my heart. Every day I wake up and have to leave my son to go to work, I feel as though a part of me is reliving being separated from my mom repeatedly.
While I can empathize with almost everyone, now, being a parent, I can’t empathize with my parents. While I know their own trauma probably fueled their addiction, I’m still having a hard time understanding the why behind their decision, especially as a parent with her own trauma. There’s just no excuse.
Being back at work and away from my son is depressing. I have to fight back the urge to want to escape my own life to escape the depression. But what I’ve noticed is that my escape has become my son. When I’m feeling depressed, I hold on to him longer and tighter. I love on him extra. Even looking at his picture is enough to make me feel better. He lights up my life in a way I never imagined anything could.
Loving him is so much better than any high I’ve ever experienced. He is enough for me, And I’m grateful. But It also makes my inner child cry; why weren’t my brother and I enough for our parents?
I’m in a weird place, and while I know that this too shall pass, I feel like I’m walking up a hill pushing a boulder. This morning leaving for work, I felt my heart shattering having to be away from my son. I miss him fiercely even though he is right there.
Being a parent makes this trauma anniversary incredibly different. Instead of just reliving it through the eyes of my inner child, for the first time, I’m living it as a parent, and it hurts twice as much.
My inner child is reliving the pain, feeling as though she wasn’t enough for her parents. Feelings I’ve suppressed because they were just too much to bear. My adult self is hurt for my inner child, that she suffered abuse and neglect at the hands of her parents.
It’s a whirlwind of emotions that typically makes me want to dissociate, but I am working hard to break that response. Only working on trauma healing on top of being a parent on top of being a wife on top of working full time is difficult because life keeps moving regardless of what you or I am going through.
Life doesn’t stop for me to feel and process. Life doesn’t stop for me to scream or break down and cry. So instead, I’m currently living in a trauma fog where I’m actively fighting to be present in my life while working to soothe my inner child. While also convincing adult me that going to work and being away from my son isn’t the same as when I was away from my parents through foster care.
I feel like I’m on a seesaw. One minute capable of living my adult life, and the next completely forgetting how to be my adult self because I’m seeing my life through the eyes of my inner child, and it’s strange. I couldn’t unlock my office door this morning because I forgot how to use the lock pad. The same lock pad I’ve been using for seven years.
But this is trauma. And I know that the more I process, the better this season will get yearly. It will never go away; this will always be a part of my life, so I have to learn to live with it instead of letting it completely break me down.
I can do this by having grace for myself and knowing that while my brain is working through this trauma fog, I may forget more than usual or by reaching out to my community and asking for prayers.
I’m reminded that to heal from the trauma; I must go through the unpleasantries; the only way out is through.
Wow healing is hard work and having a new perspective as parent brings on so many emotions. Thank you for sharing❤️ The only way out is through…powerful!
Pingback: Work-Life Balance for Mothers- Diary of a Healing Heart