Parents with PTSD from ACEs sharing what's hard about parenting while post-traumatically stressed:
- "Managing the terror around the possibility of everyone being a perp."
- "How to talk to children about why they won't meet X relative."
- “There was a point when I would feel completely overwhelmed by something as simple as having to make breakfast and school lunches at the same time.”
- "I didn't understand that not all parents reacted or were triggered the way I was."
- "was stone set on not repeating the trauma I had growing up. "
- "I felt so guilty for struggling"
- "sleeping."
- "I wish that as a parent with PTSD, that there were any kind of help on a local, social media, or otherwise-- level."
- "Feeling like I matter was hard."
- "I wish that it was discussed in the child's therapy session how the parents are dealing"
- "I just want to bubble wrap him and I into a safe haven where no one can harm us."
- "for most of my life when I tried to talk to people about what happened to me I felt very othered."
- "I am having to develop emotionally and socially alongside our children."
Even though we all know how important parents and parenting is to shaping the lives of children, the very voices and experiences of struggling parents are often missing, misunderstood, or misrepresented.
The above quotes are from comments and emails I got from survivor parents one week. It's not a formal survey or at all representative of all parents who are parenting with PTSD & ACEs.
One of the reasons I wanted to host a chat on this topic is to open up the conversation to a wider group of parents, professionals and community builders.
Parent experiences are crucial and foundational and needed in order to shape programs, policies and change.
One of my all-time favorite quotes is by Rebekah Couch who is a parent and a professional. In a piece of Simple Solutions to Real Barriers, she wrote:
Solution: Professionals who have not healed from personal adversity will be ineffective working with traumatized clients. Anyone working directly with high-risk or traumatized persons should complete a 12-step process, attend several sex-traffic victim group meetings, spend a couple of days using only public transportation, present yourself professionally or publicly without bathing for two to three days, have an eight-year-old fill out a mock Cal Works application and get a feel for how difficult it is to do paperwork (or navigate online) with an elementary school education, sit through a four-hour class or presentation with flu-like symptoms, visit a VA hospital and understand how PTSD presents, go through an entire month using only $339 for expenses and $196 for food. FIND A WAY TO RELATE TO YOUR CLIENT! (Over-achievers should do all of the above at the same time!)
To me, her writing is wise. It shows how conversations, concerns, strategies and solutions are shaped quite differently depending on who is leading, shaping, and framing an issue. She has insights as a parent and as a professional.
I learned from her.
We can all learn from one another.
In today's Parenting with ACEs chat we'll have some time to discuss what parents with PTSD from ACEs want, need, and struggle with as well as what helps, heals, supports, and improves our parenting and experiences as parents.
Professionals who work with parents and families with PTSD & ACE-related issues can participate and ask questions, share stories and resources.
We need places outside of clinical settings to collaborate and connect as peers interested in personal, family, community and social change. This is one of them.
Our guests on this chat are Dawn Daum and Joyelle Brandt who have a community of survivor parents with over 2500 people and who have edited an anthology for, by and about survivor parents. Learn more about them here.
I can't wait to chat with them and you if you are able to join.
All are welcome!
How to Join the Chat?
If Already a Member of ACEs Connection & Parenting with ACEs:
- Go to Parenting with ACEs Group on Chat Date & Live Chat is at Top.
If Not Yet a Member of ACES Connection.
- Go to ACEsConnection and see “Join ACEs Connection” on the right sidebar.
- Go to Groups, All Groups, find Parenting with ACEs Group, Join This Group.
- Please do these steps BEFORE chat event, if possible.
- Go to Parenting with ACEs Group on Chat Date & Live Chat is at Top
If Not Yet a Member of the Parenting with ACEs Group:
- Go to Groups, All Groups, find Parenting with ACEs Group, Join This Group.
- Please do these steps BEFORE chat event, if possible.
- Go to Parenting with ACEs Group on Chat Date & Live Chat is at Top
Note: Chat transcripts are archived and saved online so you can check back later if you can't make the live event by going to the Chat section in the Parenting with ACEs Group and looking up past Chat Events.
Email Christine Cissy White at cwhite@acesconnection.com with questions.
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