Reparenting and Healing Childhood Trauma as a Parent

My co-parent's son is in town to visit, and since he's been here, I have been tickled pink watching him and his sister, my daughter, follow their dad around everywhere he goes, even just to join their dad as he grabbed something out of the garage. Immediately after witnessing the first heartwarming interaction, however, I felt a pain in my chest and had to step away from them - a painful memory resurfaced that I had long since forgotten.

I too used to jovially follow my own father around everywhere he went. I remember that small period of time, about a month, where I not only finally found safety, but was also able, for just a brief period of time, to experience what it feels like to just be a child - to have no worries, no concerns, no responsibilities, to simply exist in my father's seemingly safe shadow. After over a decade of unimaginable trauma, with my earliest memories being tainted by abuse, I hadn't known what that felt like, until my father had gotten custody of me at sixteen. What I thought would be my permanent reality, however, was extremely short-lived. While I have worked very hard to heal from it all, having a child has unlocked memories and reopened wounds that were never fully healed, and it all boils down to a shift in perspective.

As a fully grown woman watching my child and other children grow, I understand my own trauma on a deeper, more heartbreaking level. It is now clear to me, crystal in fact, that my naivety and innocence were weaponized against me so that the people who abused me could unleash their rage and/or perversity on to my sheer inability to protect myself. Due to the fact that I had never experienced the beautiful oblivion that a childhood is supposed to be, even as a small child I never saw myself as a kid. It has taken birthing and watching my own biological child grow for me to understand that I was in fact a child - a powerless, helpless, battered and broken child and teen - and that is precisely what made me the perfect victim to the people who were supposed to protect me. It is a gut-wrenching, sickening realization.

The wounds of my childhood began haunting me the day I found out I was pregnant and only increased as she grew in my belly. Prior to getting pregnant I had compartmentalized all the horrific things I had experienced and did my best to either simply forget, or I would actively ignore it when flat out forgetting would not cut it. It worked, but compartmentalizing, ignoring and forgetting are not healing mechanisms. It helped me cope but did not help me grow. The reality of all that I had endured almost debilitated me from the moment I held my daughter in my arms, and only further consumed me as she grew. I thank God I had people around me to gently urge me into therapy. With help from a professional, this is what I learned:

1) Self-awareness - when something unpleasant surfaces I have to identify the emotion, the trigger, and the root. For example, " I felt panicked, sickened, and then sad seeing the kids follow their dad around". then I have to probe - why did I feel that way? Sometimes the answer is simple, in this case, I knew immediately what caused my trigger. Other times, I have to do a little digging to get the root. After the emotion, the trigger and the root are identified, I remind myself that I am safe, the trauma is old, it no longer belongs to me, and that I have permission to move with my day. And do.

2) Being in the present - I remind myself as often as needed that my child's reality is not the reality I had as a child or teen or young adult. She does not have the parents I had. She is loved, adored, protected, and safe.

3) Owning my thoughts - I can and should replace harmful memories with beautiful ones that are healthy and not marked by trauma. For example, the time I see children, mine or otherwise, following their parents around, even if the painful memory resurfaces, I will replace it with the pleasant memory I now have of seeing my daughter and bonus son follow their dad around.

At this point in recovery, triggering moments like the one I had a few days ago are now far and few in between, but it is still an on-going, most likely life-long process. I have wonderful friends turned family that I can talk to and of course, therapy is the gift that keeps on giving. The onus to continue to heal and grow is on me though. It is not fair to anyone to put on them the responsibility of managing what happened to me. So, I also want to encourage you to take ownership of you. What happened to us is not our fault, but how we choose to navigate it is 100% our responsibility. The cost of not healing is more trauma, and your children will have to pay the price. They deserve better. You deserve better. We get better by breaking the cycle through healthy recovery.

Cheers to healing, love, and blessing our children with childhoods we did not get.

-Coco