Trauma Kid (TK)'s therapist and I have been talking a lot about the balance of power. I have acknowledged for a while that I had given too much to TK, but honestly didn't know how to shift it without being totally draconian. After talking it through it seemed that it was time to get draconian and just know it wouldn't be well received. I can handle that - I handle pushback and drama frequently. I'm an old pro.
Tonight TK got a new list of chores (okay, I said I'd be honest in this blog.....she currently doesn't have any chores right now except what she feels like doing or can get paid for). She of course flipped out and told me it wasn't fair for me to "start adulting all at once". I take umbrage at the thought that I haven't been adulting, but I admit I have let her be far too much of an adult. I can whine and lay out all the reasons. The short answer is I did, as always, what I thought was best for our family at the time. In retrospect some of it was pretty much a disastrous decision.
TK and I got into a very heavy conversation about last year. She told me that was the year I stole her childhood. I asked her to explain, and she told me I was "all over her" when she was unhappy or upset and I wouldn't just let her screw up. While some of that is crap, there is some truth in it. So I agreed - and told her the reason why. I explained how hearing her tell me that there had been a lot of nights she prayed not to wake up - AFTER the fact - was the scariest thing I've ever heard. So yes, when she got out of whack I was all over it. I lived in fear of her going back to that place. And I live with the guilt of not knowing that's where she was. So I parented from a place of fear and guilt.....and of course, love. Love is a great place from which to parent. Fear and guilt are recipes for catastrophic failure. In restrospect I see how I let too much go, gave too much leeway, offered too many get out of jail free cards - because I was scared. Scared she would go back to that place of darkness, scared I wouldn't know it.
She was surprised when I told her I slept outside her door for two weeks after she told me that most horrifying statement. She asked why and I told her I knew that way I would hear her if she did anything. She cried with me at that point. I think maybe that bought a little grace for both of us.
Of course she's 13 so I'm regulated to "bad parent". I'm okay with that. But I'm wrestling with seeing the errors and knowing the impact and, even while knowing I did the best I could in that moment, still knowing it wasn't right and was even damaging. I'm struggling to give myself grace for that.
But, as Maya Angelou said, "when you know better you do better." I'm striving to leave behind the guilt and live that out.
Grace is hard to find sometimes, Trauma Mamas. But remember that coming from a place of love is grace at its finest. I'm trying to remember that right now myself.
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