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Moving Forward Toward Health, Hope and Healing:
By Delinda McCann
Early in December eight members of the FAS FRI board met to discuss the topic of caregiver stress and proposed healing techniques and avenues. We started with the current research on the topic of how stress affects the body at the cellular level and proceeded to an overview of the mind/body research. From our discussions we were able to define several directions for future action and advocacy.
First and foremost is the topic of caregiver stress. The stress of raising a child with FASD can be a killer. Jocie and I noted that our Post Traumatic Stress seems to be more related to events of living that everyone can face. The unique thing about FASD caregiver stress is that we often need to be vigilant 24/7 with responsibility for unpredictable, irrational children, on top of the normal life stresses. We can never fully sleep. Meals are disrupted. We live waiting on high alert for “the other shoe to drop.” In addition, with FASD, the stressful events we endure are often outrageously bizarre.
As life’s lessons go, we experienced a graphic real life demonstration of just how constant and strange the stress of living with someone with FASD really is. One mom needed to have her son with FASD with her at the retreat. She had recently faced some heavy duty legal issues and was about to take him to live with some of his birth family. While these big issues were obviously causing stress, it was his constant little FASD behaviors that were driving his mom to tears. Those of us who still had children at home did not seem to notice anything unusual going on with this young man. Those of us who have not lived with our kids for several years got a great reminder of how many children with FASD seek to be the center of attention all the time. The vigilance needed to keep this nearly adult child marginally socially appropriate and fully clothed was exhausting. It is this constant, grinding vigilance that prevents the body from resting and recouping, thus compromising its ability to cope with stress.
The goal of the retreat was to move beyond acknowledging the stress to looking at alternatives for managing it or treating it. We are a cynical lot, evidently. It took us mere moments to dismiss western medicine as a solution. Those of us who have faced life threatening health issues this year are well aware that relying on western medicine, particularly as practiced in the US, is not going to keep us alive and certainly not healthy. As we talked about what does help, our vision of seeking alternatives was validated.
It was at the point of looking at healing alternatives to help the caregivers return to health and wholeness that our discussions came full circle to the point where we all began when we made the commitment to raise a child with FASD. In looking at alternative or complimentary ways for us caregivers to return to health and wholeness, we explored the possibility that some of the techniques might be helpful for our disabled children as well. As Ann Waller was talking about Theta Healing I realized, that we were on to a plan that would help my daughter overcome some of the traumas in her life that we have been unable to address before because of the limits of her disabilities. (She has more than “just” FASD.)
It seems obvious when we stand back and talk about the issue of health, that we need to address the body mind and spirit as a whole in order for us to become more healthy. The reality of making a holistic approach happen in our lives is challenging in several ways. For me personally, I am constantly coming up against the barrier of my own childhood learning as I try to address the issue of controlling my hypertension. I have learned that my old thought patterns ie “If I just try harder, I can make this work.” and “good” values ie “Good girls don’t get angry.” lead directly to dangerously high blood pressure and stroke. Practicing different thought patterns such as knowing it is okay to give up or say no and throwing out much of what a “good girl” should or should not do, like stomping my foot when angry is lowering my blood pressure to that of a physically fit adolescent.
The FAS*FRI team plans to continue to explore this topic with the goals of keeping ourselves and others in the FASD community alive, improving our health and wholeness and finding new pathways to health and wholeness for our affected children.
April 20th, 2009 at 8:04 am Thanks for the second to last paragraph. Because my 17- year old has made so much behaviorial progress in his ED school these last two years, I neglected to attend ALANON meetings prior to his home visit this last week. The Alanon meetings are one of the non Western medicine tools I use for self care from the stress of living with my child. They remind me that his problems are his problems. “I didnt cause it, I can’t control it and I can’t cure it” My son’s default mood is the negative, irritable, irrational state of a drunk without a drink — which he very physically is. I have only myself to blame this week for all my failed efforts to “fix it”. Alanon meetings as a support system, yoga, bike riding, walking meditation and pausing for a silent prayer (”Bless him, Change Me) before speaking to him at times of agitation, are some of my tools for stress management that might be helpful to someone reading this today. Also, I have had to go one step further in self care during menopause and have eliminated white flour and sugar from my diet to mitigate my own mood swings because my own capacity for rage exacerbates everything.
April 21st, 2009 at 9:55 pm Delinda, I was reviewing the Blog posting on PTSD and was very interested in the comment under your post regarding, “the people who can effectively and efficiently postpone the breakdown are the ones who survive until they have enough leisure and resources to lie around coping with that tiger attack they survived forty years ago. Very efficient survival tool” she really captured PTSD in a nutshell. Good logic - that girl. : )