Healing Trauma Through Parenthood

The Rebuild- Week 3

Time

My son is now 8.5 months old. The exact amount of time it took for him to arrive after I found out my partner was pregnant.

Time is fucking bizarre. It felt like my partner was pregnant forever. Even though we were flat out with moving house/cities, work, and everything else during the pregnancy, it felt like she was pregnant forever.

Sadly, I can’t even say that time was dragging because I was so excited to be a dad, because that’s not the truth. I was fucking shitting myself. It’s just the way that I am. I catastrophise everything. I think it stems from a significant lack of self-esteem. I don’t believe I am capable of it because I don’t believe I am any good. Or maybe it just comes back to that fear of failure thing. If I don’t believe I am capable of something, I am less disappointed in myself when I fail at them because that’s what I expected from myself anyway.

It’s bizarre because failing at something is failing at something. It’s the same result whether you believe you can achieve it or not. But for some reason, if we go into it thinking that we do not have much hope of being successful, it hurts less when we fail. On the flip side, if we go into something thinking we are going to fail, are we not halfway to failure already? And if so, what’s the point of trying if you go into it with a defeatist attitude?

Anyway, since The Big Unit has arrived, time has flown by and I actually quite like the little prick. I’d even say I’m glad we had him. Ok, I’m being silly. He is the greatest thing to ever happen to me by the length of the straight. He’s been crawling for a month already. He pulls himself up onto his feet any opportunity he gets and scooches sideways on his feet, usually assisted by the lounge.

This last week we experienced our first-ever cold. I felt so helpless looking at his sad little face staring up at us as if to say, “What the fuck have you pricks done to me?”. I wondered to myself, given he’s never been sick before, will he think this is just what life is like now? Was he worried he was going to have a head filled with snot for the rest of his life? Like, was this just part of his next development? Anyway, it sucked, I just wanted to help, but there was so little I could do other than make him as comfortable as possible and try to distract him from how he was feeling until it passed.

It’s cliche, but it genuinely feels like yesterday we bought him home wrapped up in a little cacoon of blankets. When I just wanted to do everything I could for him but wound up standing around like Pablo Escobar in the Narco’s meme, standing around doing nothing because all he did was sleep.

What’s bizarre to me is how two periods of time that are the exact same length of time, back to back, can feel so completely different in terms of how slowly or quickly they pass by. The way we interpret certain things is truly strange.

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Soothing Myself Through My Son

I did a million head miles in the 8.5 months of my partners’ pregnancy. I thought I had every single basis covered twice. Being a parent, though, is one of those things you can never adequately prepare for. No amount of books, documentaries, courses or programs will prepare you in full for your child because your child isn’t going to be a textbook baby.

We had plans for who would get up at what time to feed our son throughout the night. We basically had a roster set out. My partner would wake up at midnight to feed him, and then I’d give him a bottle at 3 am. He’s slept through the night his whole life…

The thing I was least prepared for, though, was the way parenting him would both agitate and inflame past traumas of my own while also soothing them at the same time.

There is this weirdly beautiful process that I have noticed since becoming a father whereby giving my son the things I longed for helps me to heal from the things that left me with trauma.

It’s difficult to do at times because you have to revisit things that are uncomfortable, and often you don’t have any control over what they are or when they arise.

These days there are experts everywhere online. There are thousands of Instagram pages that give you amazing snippets of advice. As excited new parents, we found a few we liked and followed them. Sometimes my partner will find something she likes and forward it to me. They are almost always great pieces of advice and very helpful things to remember. But it can be triggering when one suggests doing something for my son that I craved as a kid or feel I missed out on.

I have spoken at length in previous blogs about my childhood. This is in no way about bashing my parents. I love them dearly and maintain they did an amazing job. They both grew up with very little material things, so they worked their arses off to ensure we didn’t grow up the same way they did. We didn’t have everything, but we had everything we needed and more, and I’ll forever be grateful for that. They did an amazing job with the resources they had. Back then, they didn’t have access to the amount of information we are so lucky to keep in our pockets these days.

But here are the facts. I grew up with undiagnosed ADHD. It’s no one’s fault. I didn’t show any of what was believed to be the traditional signs of ADHD back then. On top of that, I can’t be sure that my life would have been better had I been diagnosed at a younger age, so what’s the point in giving it any mental energy anyway. But you only know what you know and don’t know what you don’t know. My parents couldn’t have adjusted how they cared for me because they didn’t know that my circumstances were different to my siblings. We were all raised equally, and I’m fine with that. I never have, and still don’t want or expect special treatment.

Around nine months of age, a baby’s brain will start to have a growth spurt. This is to support the cognitive development that is currently or about to take place. It’s around this time that a baby will develop separation anxiety. This is because the baby has only just learned that they are a separate being from their mother. They’ve just been smashed by a harsh dose of reality that they are on their own in the world.

Babies will feel most comfortable when their parents are around during this stage. They will feel stressed or anxious whenever their parents aren’t around. They will do a lot of double takes, looking back at you to make sure that you’re still there. It takes time for the baby to understand that you are always going to come back.

Although this is a significant stage of development for a baby, this can appear to some as a regression. “Oh, they’re so fucking clingy right now. They never used to be like this”. Yeah, no shit, because until now, they couldn’t even comprehend that their parents had the autonomy to get up and walk away from them. It’s a massive development, and for a baby, it’s fuckin’ terrifying.

Anyway, here’s one recent example of the point I’m trying to make in the long-fuckin’-winded blog.

My mum was visiting us at the weekend, which she often does. We started to speak about this stage that our son is at. Talking about how he’s just discovered that the world is way bigger than he had initially thought, and things can actually be pretty scary. We discussed how this would result in some extra clinginess until we’d done enough repetitions for his little brain to understand and trust that we would always be close by and/or always come back for him.

That’s when Mum said, “Yeah, that’s why I always went back to work at nine months. I didn’t want the kids getting too attached or clingy to me”. At first, I was a little dumbfounded. I didn’t know what to say. I did not want to cause any offence or bring up unnecessary things from the past, so I just said, “yeah…”.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t triggered. By working with my psychologist, we’ve established that I didn’t get all of my emotional needs met as a child. My parents were working so hard to provide us with a better life than they had, and they had no idea that I had a condition where I would seek extra attention or care. They didn’t have access to the information I’ve just shared with you. In their heart of hearts, Mum and Dad thought sending us off to daycare at nine months old so as not to get too attached to them was the best thing for us. So how can I be upset at them for doing what they believed was in my best interest? I can’t. It just is what it is.

So now I’m presented with an opportunity. Ironically, in the exact same way, my parents were. I am now in a position to provide my son with something I didn’t get. Of course, I don’t remember being nine months old. I don’t remember being sad at the time, but according to my psychologist, as an adult, I show all the traits of someone who didn’t have all of their emotional needs met as a child.

This is where the self-soothing aspect of it all comes in. There is something about providing your child with something that you craved but didn’t get, or get enough of, that helps me make peace with the past. I don’t know why or how. But for me, maybe it’s reestablishing that connection with someone you love more than anything who isn’t your partner.

When talking about trauma, psychologists talk a lot about talking to your inner child. Speak to yourself as though you are speaking to yourself at five or six years old. It’s something that I have been working on but need to keep working on because I still talk to myself like shit at times. I would never speak to a six-year-old about how I talk to myself when annoyed at myself.

So maybe it’s subconscious. Maybe by protecting my son from the things that have been the cause of so much of my struggle, I’m inadvertently preparing my own wounds. Perhaps understanding these things and then using that knowledge to benefit others I care about is helping me too. Whatever the science behind it, I know that it works, and I’m glad it does. I can’t believe I was so scared for him to arrive. So bloody glad he did.

I’d love to know other people’s theories.

Cheers wankers.

X.

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Bogues Tonnes Up

Each week I will chuck a bit about my journey to my first 100k run at the Sri Chinmoy Canberra Trail 100k for anyone who gives a shit.

My son got his first-ever cold this week and was kind enough to share it with me. I had a pretty good week of running last week after a solid 30k with 550m of HELLevationlast Sunday. I came down with a cold on Sunday this week, so I didn’t get a long run in.

The pleasing thing for me is that I’m not doing my head in about not running… yet. In the past, I would have done something stupid by now, like going out for a run in the wind and cold and made things even worse. Maybe it’s maturity or the work I’ve been doing on becoming less of a mental maniac, but I’m really happy with how at peace I am with not running while I’m sick, allowing my body the time it needs to recover and not stressing about going a few days without running. In the past, I would be the kind of guy to think all my plans and goals have been jeopardised because I missed a couple of runs. So there’s a slight positive!

I’ve wanted to do a 100k for a while now, but I also want to raise as much money as possible for Beyond Blue. A fantastic charity that does brilliant work in the mental health space.

If you want to help out and help keep me accountable for this fucking ridiculous goal, CLICK HERE to make a 100% tax-deductible donation.

Every cent counts, and you’ll be comfortable knowing it’s going to a reputable organisation who do fantastic work.

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