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