Are we safe?

 After my EMDR session with Carol I found some ideas to help Joan "digest" her own memories of cutting her pinkie off. I sat down with her this week while Verity napped and Sophia was at school and asked what she remembered from the accident, and we went through the whole thing together. She smiled and spoke matter of factly through the whole thing. I said, "Lets draw what we want to remember about that hard time that we had." First she asked for a black, red and "skin color" crayon and I thought I was in for a bloody pic but then she stared at the paper for awhile and said, "Nahh I just want to watch you draw yours." Cracked me up. So here was mine. That is me hugging her inside of a heart and I told her I drew it that way because I wanted to remember that even during our hardest times we can feel safe if we reach out to each other and hold each other close.

 

And then per the "helping children's brain process traumatic memories" advice that I read, we took turns clapping our hand on each leg while we chanted in time to our left and right rhythm, "We are safe! We are safe!" She just loved the whole thing. Ate it up. Didn't grimace or avoid any of the talk about the paper cutter cutting her finger or blood everywhere or me yelling or doctors stitching her up or IV's with morphine. Nope she just rolled with it and then chanted, "We are safe!" with all her little heart.  I put the picture up on the fridge and we went on our way.  

When we sat down for dinner that night Sophia glanced over at the fridge and did a double take. "What? WHO wrote that!? Why did someone put that up there??", she demanded. And then she jumped off her chair and turned it over so we couldn't see it anymore. I was like, "Umm I did. I wrote it 'cause Joan and I were talking about when she cut her pinkie off and remembering that we can feel safe even during scary things if we reach out for each other...why?" And Sophia says, "Because it makes me think of monsters and robbers and...it DOES NOT make me feel safe, it reminds me that there are scary, bad things that make me feel NOT safe! I don't want it up there ever again."

It also made me think of these first eight minutes from this webinar starting at minute 3:00 and going to 11:48. http://carriecontey.com/intentionalparentingwebinar (p.s. up to the 38 minute mark is all incredibly helpful if you have time to listen to more!)

This science that she was trying to explain - that children come to us already who they are, but that the wiring process of their brains happens in relationship with their caregivers in childhood was so well explained by her. It made me think of a definition for what good parenting is that I heard once,

 "...the extent to which a parent responds to a child's signals appropriately and promptly, is positively involved during interactions with the child, and provides a secure base for the child's exploration of the environment."

That moment when Sophia freaked out about the "We are safe" picture just about summed up Sophia's temperament for me from day three of her life on. From her infancy that included screaming for hours, intense separation anxiety until three years old, the year of her toddlerhood that she had a regular bruise on her forehead from banging her head on the ground during near hour long tantrums, the rages she gets into now when she is confronted with loss or difficult emotions in herself.

I spent almost the entire last session with my therapist talking about Sophia. About how at every stage of life I have observed these kinds of descriptors about how secure she feels in the world: feels all emotions deeply, easily overwhelmed, hyper vigilant, sensitive, difficulty learning self-soothing, feels attacked or threatened by difficult emotions or circumstances, and underdeveloped nervous system. And I told Barbara I am done sitting around hoping her problems will just work themselves out. I liked how M. Scott Peck put it,

"...There is much that parents can do to assist their children in this maturation process. Opportunities present themselves thousands of times while children are growing up when parents can either confront them with their tendency to avoid or escape responsibility for their own actions or can reassure them that certain situation are not their fault. But to seize these opportunities, as I have said, requires of parents sensitivity to their children's needs and the willingness to take the time and make the often uncomfortable effort to meet these needs. And this in turn requires love and the willingness to assume appropriate responsibility for the enhancement of their children's growth."

And,

"Parents are executives, and despite the fact that they are usually ill-prepared for it, their task can be every bit as complex as directing a company or corporation. And like the army executives, most parents will perceive problems in their children or in their relationship with their children for months or years before they take any effective action, if they ever do. "We thought maybe he would grow out of it," the parents say as they come to the child psychiatrist with a problem of five years' duration. And with respect for the complexity of parenting, it must be said that parental decisions are difficult, and that children often do "grow out of it." But it almost never hurts to try to help them grow out of it or to look more closely at the problem. And while children often "grow out of it," often they do not; and as with so many problems, the longer children's problems are ignored, the larger they become and the more painful and difficult to solve.

 

So this is where I'm at. I am learning that problems thrive in shame and secrecy. I am committed to living out a life that seeks the opposite. On Thursday I took Sophia for an intake to get her a therapist. In the most truthful and developmentally appropriate way possible I want to help Sophia understand this about her difficulty with feeling safe in the world:

 

 

 

As I once heard someone in the helping profession say, "The truth is we have to teach people how to live with their anxiety. The truth is there is no security."

 

I want her to know that some people through no fault of their own feel more of that that anxiety and less of that security than others of us.

 

And that these truths are the other side of that coin when we face her genetic, biological constitution that she will carry with her the entirety of her life:

 

As was preached in last session of General Conference:

 

"Acknowledge and face your weaknesses, but don’t be immobilized by them, because some of them will be your companions until you depart this earth life. No matter what your current status, the very moment you voluntarily choose honest, joyful, daily repentance by striving to simply do and be your very best, the Savior’s Atonement envelops and follows you, as it were, wherever you go."

- Elder Jorg Klebingat

Said another way by a therapist friend:

 

"One of the fallacies we all tend to buy into is that we "are" a type of person. In reality we exist in a range of possibilities. We have the capability to be great and horrible within the spectrum of who we are."

 

Or, said in a way that made me print it out for my fridge:

"The sea can do craziness, it can do smooth, it can lie down like silk breathing, or toss havoc shoreward; it can give gifts or withhold all; it can rise, ebb, froth like an incoming frenzy of fountains, or it can sweet-talk entirely. As can I, too, and so, no doubt, can you, and you."

— Mary Oliver

 

This is what I can throw myself 100% behind. This is what I will never give up on. I will never give up believing in and seeking out hope, change, growth, love, and healing.  

 

Dear Sophia,

 

Life is often hard and scary. It is natural to feel like hiding in the face of injustice and undeserved pain. But watch the sea with me. If the sea never stops its waves of changes, then no doubt, I can and you can. All we have to do is never stop reaching out to each other.