Mental Illness and Parenting - Unpopular Opinions Here!

Mental Illness and parenting, in a perfect world, wouldn’t have to coexist. In the reality of this world, if you suffer from mental illness or have symptoms of mental illness (often without even realizing that there is an issue!), most people tend to victim-blame, shame or otherwise judge those who struggle with simply existing and living, while trying to be a healthy parent and role model for their children.  

Many times, we repeat the cycles which are ingrained within us from very young ages. Our childhood traumas and insecurities play out in various ways with our own children and relationships with them. If someone isn’t aware of their own trauma, it becomes automatic to repeat cycles of family dysfunction or they simply know something isn’t “right” and believe it to be a failure in themselves as a human being, as an individual, as a parent. 

Unhealed trauma can destroy someone’s self-esteem and psyche. It’s impossible to undo the damage that is caused by perpetuating cycles of abuse or dysfunction. This spills over onto our children and how we raise them. 

If one is aware of themselves or aware of the cycles, it becomes easier to avoid them… to a point. In other instances, simple awareness that there was a problem or disconnect in one’s own childhood isn’t enough to stop cycles from repeating themselves. If one doesn’t know what exactly to change or has not been shown how to make other choices and do better - damage is done, regardless of how unintentionally. 

So let’s talk about parenting with mental illness or unhealthy family cycles.

 It’s not enough to know there is an issue. 

One must also have the support and encouragement, as well as the tools, to be able to navigate their trauma or ingrained beliefs carefully and in a healthy way. If those tools aren’t there and there is a toxic “support system” in place, no one will get any better and the cycles continue.

 Those who are suffering mental illness need support and understanding, not judgment. Often those who need help don’t get it or are afraid to ask for it, for fear of being judged or of getting their children taken away. This needs to change. 

Local resources, lists of local resources and networks for help, without judgment or threats of taking children from parents for having mental health issues can be a great start to making our mental healthcare and child welfare systems less strained while actually making a difference. 

Having a mental illness doesn’t make a parent an unfit, helping provide access to resources for parents and kids can help avoid children in the foster care, social service adoptions and help prevent abortions.

Break the cycles of trauma and mental illness to change the world for our kids.

Healing from Trauma: Know Your Triggers

Whenever you've been through trauma, healing can be a very delicate process. You're often feeling as though you're dancing on the edge of a cliff with no way to catch yourself if you fall over the edge and into certain disaster. There is no absolute timeline in regards to healing, there is no perfect way to go about it and you will find that even when you are taking "baby steps" and slowly moving forward, there will still be times when you are triggered.

For the intents and purposes of this blog post, the term "trigger" refers to a common phenomenon that is recognized in the mental health industry as a form of "reliving" your trauma, feeling the urge to do something destructive or self-destructive, feeling as you did during the moments of your trauma, etc. To be triggered means that you are not fully in this moment, where you are now... you are back in old patterns, feelings, situations, etc - that are harmful to you in some form or another.

When going through the process of healing from trauma, it's important to recognize that you have triggers, you will BE triggered, and to know what those triggers are, to the best of your abilities. If you are aware that something is likely to trigger you, you will find it much easier to find ways to cope with that trigger if you are aware of it ahead of time and have an action plan in place to help you cope with your trigger.

For example, two certain men's colognes will trigger my anxiety attacks due to having PTSD from an extremely abusive ex-boyfriend. I might be at the bank, at the grocery store, at a business meeting, etc - and if I smell either of those scents, it "triggers" me. For a few seconds, a few moments, sometimes longer - I am taken back to the years when I was with my ex-boyfriend, all of the abuse I endured by him. I will panic, freeze-up, my heart beats too fast, I get dizzy, etc.

Because I have been aware of this trigger for a long time, I've had years to get to a point of being able to cope with it effectively whenever it happens. I used to turn into an uncontrolled, shaking, messy, crying puddle of mush. Now, I can usually breathe through it and cautiously continue on my way, going about my business with minimal damage. But this wasn't always the case.

I found a couple of "grounding" techniques to keep myself in the present moment that have really helped...

1. Focus on something in your present environment besides whatever is triggering you. An object, a sound, etc. Remind yourself of where you are, then pay attention to the details.

Last time I was triggered by a man's cologne, I was at Wal-Mart in the checkout line. Immediately, I started shaking. I focused intently on a bag of chips in front of me... it was a bag of Cheddar and Sour Cream Ruffles. I focused on the shape of the bag, the colors on the bag, the outline of the words. Do this until you can breathe easier. Handle the object if you need to, sing along or hum with the music or sound. Keep yourself grounded in the moment.

2. Counting or reciting something.
This might sound like something a "crazy" person would do... it's not. It's simply a technique to help shift your brain into another mode. When you have to recall something else, you aren't as focused on the trigger.

For example, I memorized some poems of Dorothy Parker when I was a teenager. This has come in handy as an adult. I have recited it (either very quietly to myself or just in my own head) when feeling triggered. I end up focusing on what I am reciting and then when I am done, however many times it takes, I find that I have breathed through the large part of my anxiety and tension and all the other negative emotions that came with my trigger.

There's no perfect technique for dealing with your triggers, but what's important that you know them. If something new comes up, make a note of it and try to decide how you will handle it positively in the future.

The more you can work through your triggers, the less triggering they become. Until eventually, you won't mind that someone wears their hair the same way as your abuser, you won't care about the cologne someone else is wearing, you won't notice other things that used to be triggering you. You'll find that your anxiety in new situations or similar dynamics no longer scare you, that you will be able to calmly remove yourself from harmful people or situations.

All a trigger really is, is our mind's way of attempting to protect us from something that has already been known to harm us. It is a self-protective mechanism, a survival instinct. Just keep moving and working through it, while being aware that what is triggering you isn't the situation, it's in your past.

As always, if you are frequently triggered and it is disrupting your quality of life, or if you feel like harming yourself or others, please seek the help of a professional immediately.

Healing from Trauma: Don't Minimize Your Trauma

One of the biggest mistakes we make whenever dealing with past trauma is to minimize our feelings about what happened to us or to attempt to shrug off what has happened. All as if we have "over-reacted" or we are "making a big deal out of nothing."

 Nothing could be farther from the truth. If it affected you, still affects you, if it caused you pain or is still causing you pain - anything that has made an impact on and who you are today is, indeed, "something." Don't minimize it.

By minimizing our trauma, we are not allowing ourselves to actually work through the emotions surrounding the trauma or the trauma itself. What this does is invalidate us as a person, as an individual. This has a devastating effect on our mental and emotional health, on our self-esteem. When we minimize our trauma and how it has affected us, we are actually minimizing ourselves.

In a misguided attempt to not allow our trauma to define us, we actually allow it to control us and take away our power. Leading to a never-ending and vicious cycle of minimizing ourselves and our feelings, which, in all reality, leads to further traumas and repeating of negative and abusive cycles.
Yes, by minimizing our trauma, we're allowing ourselves to stay stuck in old patterns and repeat history, over and over again.

While it isn't healthy to dwell in your past or stay overly focused on trauma that we've gone through, it is very much necessary to validate our feelings and what has happened to us. To truly heal from trauma of any kind, you have to acknowledge it, you have to allow yourself to feel the emotions regarding the trauma. You also have to acknowledge that you have EVERY RIGHT to feel the way you do about what has happened to you.

This isn't weakness or selfishness on our part. It is simply a part of the healing process. Minimizing this trauma, the emotions around it, just keep us stuck in a cycle of invalidating ourselves and our feelings. It can lead to questioning whether or not we are crazy, self-doubt, etc. Nothing could be more detrimental to our emotional health and well-being or our emotional growth.

Acknowledge your emotions, acknowledge your trauma and how it has affected you and is still affecting you. Don't minimize. You are a human being and you deserve to be healthy and whole. A huge part of this is the human desire to be loved and accepted, but you don't need to minimize yourself or your experiences to be loved and accepted. The right people will love and accept you even when you are not minimizing. More importantly, you will love yourself more.

Healing From Trauma: Allowing the Anger

With any type of trauma or abuse, it's quite normal for the person who has been abused or gone through another type of trauma to feel a broad range of emotions. This is almost always the case. Rarely is the victim of abuse or another type of trauma going to only feel one specific emotion regarding what has happened to them. Our brains process trauma in many different ways, even when we are not actively processing the trauma - there are still underlying emotions or motivations that trace back directly to the previous trauma we have gone through.

As I talked about in my previous post in this series, with any type of trauma, there is a large amount of pain. This is entirely normal and a part of the healing process. Our bodies and minds feel pain as a way of helping to protect us from further pain in the future. But there's another emotion which is almost always present when dealing with any type of trauma. That emotion is anger.

Now, what you absolutely must understand whenever you start dealing with the trauma... every single emotion you are feeling is absolutely valid and normal. Especially anger. We get angry for a large variety of reasons when it comes to trauma - it can be simply because something happened to us, it can be because we couldn't control it or protect ourselves, it can be because someone we trusted hurt us - the list goes on.

Whatever anger you feel about your trauma is valid. It is a  valid emotion and is also part of your mind and body's defense mechanism.

Whenever we are angry, it typically means we have been hurt, disrespected, disregarded, discarded, etc. It can mean that we've been made to feel as though our emotions are invalid, that WE do not matter. If we are angry, we need to allow ourselves to feel that emotion and work through it. It's not healthy to carry around anger, even if it IS a defense mechanism that is created due to trauma. Only when we can begin to heal the pain and anger can we work through our traumas.

If you are angry because you've gone through a trauma - you might be angry at the source or cause of your trauma, your abuser, the natural disaster you went through, etc... that is perfectly normal and perfectly okay. And if you can acknowledge your anger and why you are angry, that helps smooth the path for you in your healing process.

I don't typically suggest that you confront an abuser or attacker, you can't confront a natural disaster or accident... but you can write a letter, you can take your aggression out on an inanimate object or using physical activity as a positive outlet. You need to be able to express your anger, acknowledge that you are angry and why you are angry, so that you can move past it and continue to the next stage of healing from trauma.

If you find yourself angry and you can't cope with those emotions or don't feel like you are making progress, please seek the advice of a licensed professional counselor or therapist. You don't have to heal on your own and sometimes, we all need some help learning to cope and learning to heal. It's okay to be angry, you have the right to be angry and it's a perfectly normal response to trauma. Feel it, work through it, and continue healing.

By staying in your pain or anger, you allow your trauma to control you and hold onto you. I can assure you, from personal experience, this isn't where you want to stay "stuck." Let yourself feel your emotions and then let go, the continue to work on healing from your trauma.

Healing From Trauma: Acknowledging the Pain

This is my second post in my series about Healing from Trauma. I would like to take a moment to invite you to check out my other posts in this series... Due to time constraints, I will not be linking each post to the others while doing this series. They can all be found on this blog, Inside a Glass Heart.

The thing that most people don't understand about surviving any type of abuse or trauma, is that there is a lifetime of pain surrounding whatever abuse or trauma you have gone through. It becomes easier after a time to simply ignore the resulting pain that has been caused by childhood abuse, sexual abuse, domestic violence or other trauma. This is because we tend to want to avoid thinking about whatever hurt us, so we try to ignore what happened and ignore the resulting pain.

Our subconscious usually does a good job of helping us "forget" the pain, which in turn leads us to be able to avoid thinking about that which hurt us. This leads to a lifetime of underlying pain, decisions that usually come as a result of that pain - either which lead to us continually being hurt or to try to avoid being hurt again. This perpetuates an extremely unhealthy cycle of abuse or trauma, as well as helps to keep us from working through the trauma to avoid feeling the pain that the trauma caused. Many times, it keeps us from even acknowledging that we are in pain.

PTSD is many times a result of not just the trauma that we have been through, but a result of not working through our unresolved feelings concerning our trauma. This results in a "bottling up" of our emotions concerning the trauma, the denial that there is anything wrong, even the convincing ourselves that everything is "okay." That we are "just fine." Nothing could be farther from the truth and this is a very dangerous way to handle your emotions and trauma.

One of the first steps to beginning to heal from trauma is to acknowledge your pain. Admit that you are hurt, that you have every right to be hurt. It's okay to be hurt, it's okay to feel that hurt. You can feel the pain and still come through it. You might be a bit "bruised and battered" by the time you come out of the other side of your pain, but that's perfectly normal and perfectly okay.

For many years, I attempted to keep my emotions in check and refused to acknowledge that which was hurting me. I refused to acknowledge that I was in pain or that I had been hurt. I attempted to avoid thinking about the things and people that had hurt me, even felt guilty for acknowledging that someone I'd loved and trusted had hurt me. In an attempt to spare other's feelings and protect my own, I didn't allow myself to feel that hurt or acknowledge it. I self-medicated, was angry and volatile, bitter and even paranoid - as I attempted to protect myself from further hurt and attempted to avoid that which was hurting me.

All I did was hurt myself worse.

If you truly want to heal from trauma, you have to work through your emotions surrounding the trauma. An integral part of this is acknowledging and accepting the pain for what it is. I'm not suggesting that you feel your pain and just simply stay stuck in it or wallow in it, but to simply acknowledge and feel that pain. Cry as many tears as you need to, write your heart out in a journal or letter to what or whomever hurt you (burning it if necessary), embrace yourself and give yourself gentle hugs and loving self-care. Take care of yourself and work through your pain.

Beware of those who will tell you to "get over it," "stop being a baby" or any other negative, minimizing statements. Being in touch with your emotions and handling them appropriately is a very important part of your emotional and mental health and growth. Acknowledge those emotions, feel them, work through them and release them. If you cannot do this on your own, I strongly suggest seeking the help of a licensed counselor or trauma therapist to help guide you through this process.

Acknowledging pain is difficult, but it's an important first step in the process of healing from trauma.

The Beauty of Fire

The beauty of a fire and the destructive capabilities always leave me in awe. It's a reminder to me, that we need to burn bright with our passions and remain true to ourselves... Or we can be lost in the flames and destroy ourselves and every thing around us.
#fire #bonfire #beauty #flame #self #truth #honesty #healing #faith #hope #love #passion #beyourself #nevergiveup #destruction

Living With PTSD

I have Complex PTSD due to multiple traumas throughout my life. This can be a real complication to everyday life and can make things very difficult for me to manage on a daily basis. I am not my diagnosis, but I do have to live with the symptoms.

Living with PTSD is very much like walking in a tightrope, over a landmine, while wearing heels and carrying a gigantic bag of bricks. One wrong step and you fall. I'm never sure when and where I will be triggered or what is going to trigger me.

I never know if I'm going to be able to calmly manage being triggered or if I will somehow end up acting "crazy." God knows, I don't mean anything negative by using the term "crazy." It's just that Complex PTSD will definitely make one FEEL crazy, as if they're losing their mind.

With PTSD, I can never tell for sure if I'm overreacting or underreacting to things. It can go either way. Many people, as supportive as they might try to be, do not understand the complexity of PTSD or the symptoms and triggers that go along with it. They often don't understand why we can't just "snap out of it" or "get over it."

The problem with PTSD is that whenever you're triggered, you feel like you're back in whatever situation(s) caused the trauma and it can be difficult to calmly and rationally navigate through it.

Many people with PTSD don't even realize they have it. Those of us that do, and recognize the issues it is causing, may not know how to drag themselves out of it or pull themselves through it.

Life with Complex PTSD is difficult and can be chaotic, which means that those of us with PTSD can come across as "difficult" or chaotic. Trust me, we know how we appear to outsiders. But we're taking it one step at a time, one day at a time.

If someone you know has PTSD, the best way to be supportive or help... Is to be there. Simply be there. If they want to talk, listen and give feedback by acknowledging their emotions or the trauma they have gone through. Don't make judgements on them or how they are handling it.

Encourage them to find positive ways to cope and heal. Don't tell them how to heal, your journey is different than theirs... Even if you also have PTSD. Encourage them to seek professional help and help them find resources, if necessary.

But again, the most important thing when dealing with PTSD or someone who has PTSD is to remember to be patient and that the path to healing is truly one step at a time.