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Healing Directions
By Ann Waller
When I first started thinking about writing an article on Caregiver PTSD, I hesitated. I knew it would involve thinking back into the past–dredging up all of the mental anguish and physical suffering involved in the days when my primary responsibility was taking care of children with FASD and PTSD ruled my life. But I also knew it would be worth it, if I could help others find their own pathways to the level of health, wholeness and peace I now enjoy.
Actually, at that time, thinking “backwards” was the norm. I was stuck in ongoing, frequent trauma and crisis. (I started to change the “I” to “we,” but my husband’s way of surviving was being a workaholic, so I don’t think he was traumatized as much or as long as I was.) In the early years–pre-FASD diagnoses–I didn’t have a clue what was going on, much less what to do about it. As a result, being the “highly responsible” person I am, I became obsessed with thinking backwards, trying to relive the past—asking all those questions about what “went wrong” and the coulda/shoulda/woulda ideas that just might have changed the outcomes…or not. Even after the kids were diagnosed in their mid-teens, I was still taking on responsibility for what they did, feeling like a total failure, meanwhile racking up more and more PTSD triggers.*
When things deteriorated to the point I experienced painful bouts of rheumatoid arthritis, pulsing adrenalin rushes several times a day, irritating and limiting multiple allergies, chronic back pain, recurring yeast infections, suicidal thoughts, etc., etc., I decided that even the “natural” dietary supplement routine was obviously not working. The good news is that now, after 7 ½ years of pursuing complimentary routes to healing and wholeness, a drastic shift is taking place. Now I rarely, if ever, dwell in the past, analyzing and rehashing what I could have done differently and strategizing how I must be prepared at any moment for the unexpected. Most of my previous physical conditions are either drastically improved or gone. I am learning to live in the present and even look forward to the future, instead of dreading it!
This is a huge indicator of how much healing has taken place within me. I’m not stuck in the past now–automatically reacting to the PTSD triggers. The more I am healed, the more triggers are cleared, thus freeing me to deliberately respond only to the current situation (instead of reacting to the accumulation of all of them) and I look forward to the future…Yes, I actually have one! I’m currently a ministerial student studying for ordination and sometime after that’s completed, I plan to pursue a PhD in Health Psychology. I want to help others become more healthy and whole in mind, body and spirit. You know it’s all connected, right?
I will confess it really helps that we don’t still have our adult children living under the same roof with us, nor do we have responsibility for raising our grandchildren, as some do. But my hope is that the more we experienced trailblazers share our wisdom and the effective healing techniques we’ve found, the better off the next generations will be. They won’t have to flounder as long and let as much PTSD accumulate as we did before discovering what can really help avoid it or clear it.
This brings me to the type of “healing directions” I have found to be the most effective to promote healing and wholeness–those that can identify the root causes of the problems then release them and the emotions and beliefs attached to them at the subconscious level and/or within the body’s energy systems. Since my faith is very important to me, all of the techniques and approaches that I chose to use with myself and with others are either faith-based (sometimes with my own adaptations) or they are spiritually neutral. Of course, it is always important to choose a practitioner who you can trust and with whom you feel safe. Here is my Top 10 List (non-ranked) with website links for more info and to locate qualified practitioners:
• BioEnergetic Synchronization Technique (B.E.S.T.) www.morter.com/what_is_best.php
• Nambudripad’s Allergy Elimination Techniques (NAET®) www.naet.com/subscribers/what.html
• Neurofeedback: www.eegspectrum.com/IntroToNeuro/
• Emotional Freedom Technique: www.emofree.com/newcomer.htm
• Transformational Healing Method of Hypnotherapy: www.hypnotherapycenter.com/faqs_main.html
• Total Biology (not a technique as much as an understanding of how/why we get ill): totalbiology.ca/main/claude_sabbah_e.htm
• The Journey: www.thejourneyusa.com/
• The Work: www.thework.com/thework.asp
• Reiki: www.reiki.org/FAQ/WhatIsReiki.html
• ThetaHealing: www.thetahealing.com/about-ThetaHealing.html
Best Wishes for health and wholeness of your mind, body and spirit!
Ann
www.healingdirections.org
*PTSD triggers can be defined as anything our subconscious associates with an unhealed trauma or unresolved conflict. Until the original incident or issue is healed, resolved and/or cleared, these triggers can evoke the same subconscious response as you had in the original situation—panic, fear, worry, pain, etc. This automatic response can sometimes be so strong that you can actually be re-traumatized by it.
Rip Van Winkle Revisited
A Two-Part Story
Jocie DeVries
Part 1: Asleep in Seattle
You know how I can get lost in the concept of a children’s story–well this time it’s Rip Van Winkle. Did you ever wonder how Rip Van Winkle felt when he woke up from his 20-year nap? Did he sleep the whole time or did he wake up a few times, just long enough to make him aware of his depression and promptly roll over and go back to sleep?
The last time we talked here on the Family Preservation Blog, we were discussing PTSD and how disruptive past traumas can be to our psyche. We brought the subject up, we all agreed that it was a very serious problem and then we all went back into our private little spaces like Rip Van Winkle did. Even the Blog went to sleep.
After 42 years of caring for children with special needs and twenty years of advocacy for those with cognitive disabilities, I’ve come to the conclusion that the human condition itself leaves all of us with some measure of PTSD by the time we reach adulthood. We have a tendency to think we can compare traumas to see who has suffered enough to really “deserve” to have PTSD and who hasn’t. But it doesn’t work that way. PTSD is about trauma to an individual’s heart and soul, about something that hurts deep inside. And there is no way to compare or measure who hurts the worst.
I am speaking as an optimist, believe it or not. At least that’s what I’ve been all of my life. While I’ve been Sleeping in Seattle, I’ve come to discover that my own PTSD didn’t begin with cancer; it began the day I cried too much, when I was 21 years old. The life event that originally triggered my PTSD was finding out that my sister had an aggressive brain tumor and it was malignant…That would have been bad enough, but the fact was that I had previously lost a younger sister with an aggressive form of leukemia. The initiating conflict that set my PSTD in motion was the natural clash of my optimistic temperament and the impending death of a second younger sister within five years of the first death.
All of my life I was taught, and I totally believed, what the Bible says–that all things work together for good to them that love the Lord. However, an optimistic temperament and an otherwise idyllic childhood, along with this belief system did not insulate me from tragedy. Believing that things will work together for good in the long run is different from believing that only good things will happen to me. It took a long for me to figure this out and understand the different concepts.
Stay tuned for Part II. In the meantime, What have you experienced that might set you up for PTSD—what “clashed” and caused trauma to you while raising children with FASD?
About two weeks ago I got an e-mail from Jocie asking why the blog had been so quiet. I confessed that I had been hiding under my covers and having flashbacks. We discussed my symptoms and decided to work on this thread related to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
How did I turn into such a blubbering stressed out mess? The answer to most parents of a child with FASD is easy. Can we say sleep deprivation from 24/7 surveillance? It is not just the children themselves that stress us out. It is the professionals who just don’t get it. We can point to meetings with the school, law enforcement, social workers, and doctors. At FAS FRI we call these the intervention touch points. Maybe it is time to rename them the PTSD stress points. But why am I so stressed now? Jamie has been living in her own apartment for several years and I have not spoken to the police for 30 months - In A Row.
“Why now?” has to do with getting sick seven months ago. I knew that if I was going to live I would have to do some serious life work but had no idea what that might be. My healing journey started with my rheumatologist. Instead of telling me that my symptoms were aggravated by stress and sending me home, he gave me some referrals. So far I’ve seen a stress management doctor for biofeedback, an energy management doctor, and a back pain specialist.
It is the stress and energy management doctors who have turned my life inside out. Before them and their silly little exercises I was doing quite well at suppressing my memories, thank you. Of course this was taking every ounce of energy I possessed but by holding all my muscles cramped tight I did not have to deal with what has been imprinted on every cell of my body. It is time to let go.
The exercises should have been easy. They were not. They sounded like so much mumbo jumbo especially the one where I was supposed to stop what I was doing five times a day and repeat “I am wonderful, I am super, I am fantastic. and I love myself.” This may be an easy thing for some people to do and if it is easy for you that is great. It was not easy for me. It was almost impossible to force myself to do this simple little exercise. My experience as a mom told me that if something that sounded so easy was that hard for me to do then I probably needed to do it. UGH!
It was the few simple exercises especially the self affirmations that set me free to remember, feel, and process what I have been living through. Of course I am more than a mom with a child (now and adult) with FASD. I have had family traumas that come bubbling to the surface and make me angry or make me cry and which had nothing to do with my FASD child. Some of my work in the church rivals anything we encounter as parents of kids with FASD, but, come to think of it, I am convinced that FASD was a factor in the rapes, murders and suicides happening in our church community thirty years ago. Those memories have come flooding back and I am emotionally up and down and generally unstable.
Fortunately, I have had the stress management doc to help me deal with all of this. He keeps assuring me that I am not crazy. These things really have happened and the emotions that I did not express at the time are going to come out. It is best that they be expressed as tears, anxiety or anger rather than another stroke.
I know that I am still in the middle of this stress muddle and may have much more work to do before I am well. However,the peculiar thing about all of the depression and anxiety is that with all the appropriate support I’ve had, they are getting boring. I am just not into self pity. My exercises are self affirming not pitiful. I am ready to be done with this garbage and live.
Sometime in the past few hours the very tough lady who maintained her poise while dealing with all that hell had to throw at her, has come back, taken a look around and said, “Yup, that is what happened. I’d do it all over again. I handled nearly impossible situations better than many if not most people would. I am proud of myself. If I need to cry now, I am tough enough to do that. If anxiety wakes me up in the middle of the night I am tough enough to be anxious or afraid. I have worked for it. I have earned the right to grieve or be anxious. I will do what I need to do. I can and will survive.”
Delinda McCann
Riding the Wave of FAS Awareness
By Delinda McCann
Last weekend my family went to the ocean. On the only sunny afternoon we sat on the beach and watched the surfers. I noticed they rode in front of the crest of the wave. As I watched I thought about my life and realized that much of my angst has come from surfing the wave of FAS.
I was raising my daughter before there were parent support groups. She was 15 before Ann Streisguth invited parents to a conference about FAS for the first time. She is a settled adult now with issues that most of the parents I know are not yet facing. The side of this coin that I keep forgetting is that I am a wee bit older than most of my friends who are raising kids and young adults with FAS. I am surfing the wave of knowledge about parents my age with middle aged kids with FAS. (Hint: If you thought FAS with puberty was bad…FAS with menopause is coming.)
This age thing is one of the reasons I love Linda LaFever who is a couple years older than me and Jocie DeVries who is some months older. . It was at Jocie’s “no more chemo” party that the shock of surfing that wave hit me. Linda mentioned something about her stay in the hospital when she stopped breathing. This was Jocie’s party so I was really really downplaying the fact that this was my first trip away from home after having a stroke.
Hey! We are not that old! We sound like a group of octogenarians. We are not ready to retire yet. It will be years before I am eligible for Social Security.* What is going on here?
I found part of my answer to what is happening to me in the office of my stress management doc. The first step in my stress management program was a lesson in biofeedback. For those unfamiliar with biofeedback, the machinery is similar to a complicated computerized polygraph. I was supposed to try to lower the little green lines on the computer monitor by relaxing. I was actually pretty good at this exercise. I kept working at relaxing and the lines went lower.
The doc asked me about my gardens and the lines went lower. I talked about my dogs, poodles, and the lines went lower. The doc asked about my daughters and the lines made a little blip then went lower as I talked about my birth daughters. Then the horrible rat of a meany doctor asked me about my foster daughter. He fully deserved what happened next. The little green lines shot straight up to the top of his monitor and his whole system crashed. Ha!
Can we say I have a huge load of stress from years of 24/7 supervision of my foster daughter with FAS? Yes, I am learning to consciously relax and my blood pressure is not nearly so volatile but it is taking huge sums of money for doctors and a challenging level of self awareness for me to gain a fragile level of health.
Looking at my experience and that of those who were raising kids the same age as mine, the topic of “Family Preservation” takes on a very fundamental meaning. Like Jocie’s and Linda’s families mine came very very close to loosing their mother.
Will the earlier support available to families today help alleviate some of the stress? I am not sure. Support is good but parents are still working 24/7. It is the constant pounding stress of thinking you have solved a problem only to find a new bigger uglier problem take its place. It is the grieving over and over for who the child could have been. It is the battering of our hopes that are raised with one success only to have them dashed again and again by this disability and the wall of ignorance and discrimination our kids face.
My question is whether or not we can intervene at this fundamental level of family preservation so that parents raising children with FAS can live out their full lives with some level of health. What will this intervention involve? Perhaps some research to document that what I am seeing is real. It will involve the collective family experience in finding interventions that work to relieve stress while keeping your eyes on your teenager. Ugh.
It will involve documenting realistic expectations so we do not have our hopes destroyed over and over. It will take community education and awareness to eliminate the barriers of ignorance and prejudice. I think together we can preserve our families at this most basic level. I at least am willing to take on the challenge as long as I can take breaks for my breathing expercises.
*Okay maybe I exagerated a bit on how long it is before I’m eligible for Social Security,