One of the benefits of going through challenges is that you learn, gain perspective, and are, at least in theory, better able to handle the next challenge that arises. Having been in the trauma trenches for 6 years, I've had the chance to gain perspective, but I haven't had the advantage of sitting back, saying, "Well that sucked", examining what I would do differently the next time and moving on to the next challenge. This challenge doesn't really give you that pause, so you find yourself analyzing and adjusting on the fly. Yes, there are definitely times when things are pretty calm, but I admit I don't yet have complete peace in those times. While I'm not walking on eggshells as I did in our earlier trauma phases, I still am highly vigilant because I know the trauma monster is still under the bed, waiting to come out and wreak some havoc.
Inevitably I start to analyze what isn't working - specifically how I've goofed up - when I'm sitting next to my girl after a meltdown, trying to breathe in and impart peace and compassion. I'll get back to this in a minute, but first, as usual, I'll digress.
We had a remarkably good winter break. 19 days is a looooong time to be together with little break, but we had very few and very small trauma monster moments. This was exceptionally remarkable because we had some family drama that could have easily thrown TK into a tizzy. We banged heads a few times, but it was minor and could just as well be attributed to tweendom. Since the break we've had illness, snow days, work days, and basically no down time for mom. This means I have to dig even harder to stay in a place of compassion when TK goes into trauma mode, and inevitably this is the time she will.
Yesterday she was upstairs working on a "special project" for over an hour. She brought it downstairs to present it to me. It was a banner made of individual pages hung on a string. Each page had one letter and it said "Don't let anyone dull your sparkle." Well, that was what it was meant to say. She had the third and fourth letters out of order. She went into full on trauma mode, crumpled and tore it up and threw it out the front door. Then she grabbed a sticker out of a sticker book and put it on my arm, yelling, "Here. Here's your present now!" I dig through my mental inventory and came up with......nothing. I just said, "I am so sorry that didn't work. I appreciate how much time you put into it and I know you're really frustrated." Then I just got quiet and puttered around, picking up things. She went into her room and slammed the door. I will tell you that after 6 years I still never know if I'm supposed to go through that door or not. The rules change every day, it seems. If I go she'll often yell at me to go away. If I don't go she'll often yell through the door, "It would be nice if someone would check on me!"
Later that day she sat next to me and said very softly, "Mom, I don't know why I got so mad. I'm really sorry." All was well.......until........fast forward to 3 AM. TK comes into my room and says she had a nightmare. I jump out of bed to turn her back to her bedroom, and she is ticked. She wants to sleep in my bed. Nope, not happening. I find it nearly impossible to sleep with her restless, nearly adult size body thrashing around in my bed, and I am not willing to sacrifice my sleep right now. I am already running on empty after the break, snow days, etc. I walk her back to her room and she is steaming. I turn on her sound machine and she slaps it off. I sit on the floor and start patting her.
As I'm patting her the voices in my head start analyzing all the things I've done wrong with her. Not self-flagellation, just the realization that certain things didn't necessarily turn out to my favor in the long run.. For example, TK has really never had a babysitter. She had such huge trust issues when she was younger that I just never went anywhere. As she got older, she had a select few people she felt safe with, and I never pushed beyond that comfort zone. A dear friend is getting married this spring and we were discussing her bachelorette party the other day. Last night as I sat on the floor patting this angry tween (who was still huffing and flipping and expressing her displeasure as many ways as possible without words), I realized I couldn't go to the bachelorette party because who would watch TK? Then I wondered if my approach to making her feel safe was really the best answer. Perhaps making her world so small was too limiting. The balance of what she needs in the moment with what I need is ridiculously hard, and I've always chosen her needs. It wasn't totally altruistic, because addressing her needs made our life calmer and our family much happier. But as we venture further down this road, I sometimes wonder how to move out of the place of "TK first". She has a much improved ability to self-regulate, and the challenge now is knowing how far to push her. I utterly believe that pushing your comfort zone is the key to amazing growth, but pushing hers too far has dire consequences. The thought of getting back into full trauma mode is enough to turn my knees to jelly, but I will continue to try to walk that fine line between TK being uncomfortable and TK being dysregulated.
Send me some grace as I grapple with this. Take a minute and let yourself say, "Well, this sucks." Then tell the voices in your head to just hush and give yourself some grace as you think about what didn't work so well. Because the truth, Trauma Mamas, is we are all totally making this up as we go along, and for the most part we do pretty well. Given the beast we are fighting, I'd say pretty well is amazing.
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