Parenting & Family Solutions, LLC

Brace For Impact

by 13 Comments


I should have just set this all on fire!

My family and I just completed an interstate move. It’s a great move for us. Puts us closer to family and resources. 

There’s nothing like boxing up all your worldly possessions and leaving behind all the connections you’ve made in an area. 

Leaving behind your routines and everything familiar to head into the unknown. 

Let’s face it. It sucks. Moving sucks. The actual act of the logistical nightmare. Even in the future when we’re using SS Enterprise Movers, Inc. to just beam everything to a new location, it’ll still suck.  

The reality is that our minds crave order. And your brain doesn’t know what to do with the final 7 boxes where you stopped caring and just threw everything in together because you just wanted it to be over. Or the jumble of possessions in your new place as you try to figure out the new normal. 

It would’ve been so much easier to just burn everything, show up to our house and get all new stuff. Expensive. Wasteful. But infinitely easier. 

It’s interesting how even a positive event can have some negative emotions associated with it. Things like moving, graduating, having kids. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past 4 years spent in VA, it’s that as a society we are horribly unaware and uneducated about the impact of our experiences. 

We don’t understand or respect trauma!

Now I’m not saying the move was a traumatic experience. It was tough and uncomfortable. It was hardest on our 4 yr old who regressed a fair amount and will take a while to adjust. 

But that’s the point! Things don’t have to be traumatic in order to experience grief. 

And I saw this time and again in the families I’ve worked with over the years. They didn’t know how to recognize grief or trauma, particularly in their children. The families would go through a divorce, multiple moves, experience the death of a loved one or a family member being incarcerated and think nothing of it. They would have no understanding that this could impact them or their children years down the road. 

I’d hear things like, “but that was when she was 2!” or “that was almost 10 years ago”. And these were in reference to sexual abuse or the death of a mother.  

And sadly, they had little to no tolerance for negative emotions, particularly sadness. The mindset was always, “I had worse growing up” and “suck it up buttercup”. 

I am by no means God’s gift to parenting. I lose my cool way more than I should. I have definitely used, “suck it up” myself. There’s a time and place for, “you’re ok”. I get that sadness and grief are inconvenient. Hell, emotions as a whole are inconvenient. But good luck trying not to have them. 

Our brains have to process what we experience. Sometimes that takes seconds. Sometimes that takes years. But if you don’t take time to process grief or trauma, it’ll take forever. Period

Edit – This post was created prior to Hurricane Irma bearing down on Florida. Obviously, major catastrophes will cause a lot of damage, trauma and grief.  However, the way you deal with a traumatic event right when it occurs is different than dealing with it well after the fact.  See my next post on Psychological First Aid for more.
Next post will be on Psychological First Aid followed by a post on tips for dealing with grief in children.
A good resource for better understanding the full impact of trauma is The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk.  I’ll add a link to that later on
Disclaimer – the author of this post is not engaged in a therapeutic relationship with the reader and cannot give counseling advice without a confidential appointment. Readers should be sure to consult with a licensed therapist in their area or seek emergency medical attention if they are experiencing difficulty.
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Comments

  1. glimmersofsilver says

    What I’ve found is that for far to many people trauma is the norm, not the exception. If it’s your norm, it becomes very hard to recognize it as “trauma” and not as “a Tuesday”. And because, as you also mention, the brain loves patterns and is pattern seeking – when trauma and chaos become the norm, there’s a tendency to continue that pattern as well. Generational trauma is a real thing. I really enjoyed this post and your candor about your personal experiences as a human.

    Reply

    • InkedShrink says

      Thanks so much! You hit the nail on the head. Bessel talks about Complex PTSD or Developmental Trauma Disorder (not actual diagnoses yet) in his book. You see the trauma and drama addiction a lot; particularly, in domestic violence, addictions, PTSD, Borderline Personality Disorder and Bipolar Disorder. And yes, generational curses are definitely real!

      Reply

  2. ellenbest24 says

    I have recently moved and am on the receiving end of a newly diagnosed genetic disorder. The suck it up came in the form of Mother demanding I take it back! ‘Have you made it up, some crap to get attention’ … stunned as I was I wasn’t ready for a not effected sisters response. ‘Stop the drama it’s no biggie. Now my eldest sister in Pooler Georgia has been told to evacuate. Me oh my, what a strange but revealing two months.

    Reply

  3. jesisamess says

    Excellent read. I have been relearning how to walk through pain (of various types) and and to actually allow myself to feel it all and trying to teach my children the same. Thanks for sharing your life (and training :))!

    Reply

  4. Sprockett says

    My move from Birmingham to Huntington, WV and back to Birmingham caused grief for both my son and husband, not to mention my son’s grandfather died while living away to whom he was close to. Until recent he just started speaking up on how he misses his grandfather and hate he wasn’t in Birmingham to say goodbye. Tore me up, and made me realize I too has done what my parents did to me by uprooting me to another state to miss family.

    Reply

  5. th3mov3r says

    From someone who is married to a counselor and has moved 44 times in her life, this is so true.
    Love the bit about burning everything- LOL- we opted to sell and give away a lot. (Hence we’ve had probably 6 different beds and 6-7 different couches. 😂

    Reply

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