42% of the way there

That, my friends, is 8 out of 19 days of winter break we have survived.  Almost halfway there.  If you have never counted down the days during a break, you probably don't have a trauma kid (TK) in your family/circle.  Because I count down every break - 3 day ones are pretty doable, one week ones are tough, and the long ones - like now - are a struggle.

Many TKs (like mine) thrive on structure and sameness, predictability and schedules.  TK is very flexible within a structure, but a complete lack of structure leaves her feeling adrift and unsure.  The first few days are fine, but by day 6 or so she becomes more needy (pat me to sleep, let me sleep in your room) and more easily dysregulated. Of course right now that is compounded by the hormone swings of  puberty, so it's a double whammy.

Thanksgiving break had some challenges for us.  It reminded me that while TK has come far on this healing journey, she is still overwhelmed and prone to dysregulation when we are with large groups of people that are important to us.  She feels she is competing for attention and acceptance, and this often leads to a resurgence of trauma behaviors - sometimes physical but more often verbal.  Some say this is because she is the only child of a single mom, so she is accustomed to being the center of attention. That is quite possibly part of it, but much of it is the scarcity mentality so common in trauma kids.  If someone else is getting the attention/manifestation of love, there's less for me.  This is worse in "high risk" situations- when the people involved are all dearly loved, even the hint of rejection is devastating.

So we've kept our world small this break.  This means we have had a scant few visits with our loved ones, a few people at a time.  The plus side of this is TK has not felt the fear of rejection, and our loved ones have not had to deal with a dysregulated TK. The down side of this is I am the sole provider of emotional support, the entertainer, and the recipient of all dysregulation and puberty moments.  

The part that is still, to steal TK's word, confuzzling to me is how well TK does in social situations at school and other peer environments, but she falls back into massive fear of rejection when older kids and adults are involved.  I'll have to ponder that one for a while and see what bubbles up.  

So we have 11 days to go.  In the first 8 days I've had about 2 hours without TK; I expect that will be about the same for the next 11 days.  But we will, as always, do what needs to be done and handle it.  Not always with grace, but always with love.

Hang tough during your "time off" (yes, I'm laughing - or crying!), trauma mamas.  I know only too well how hard it is to make your TK's world small, and I know the price you pay for that.  Grab the grace that comes with doing what is best for your TK.  We can do this, trauma mamas. 

Sending you grace to get through the holidays.  Feel free to send some back in return.