Lately, I requested my son to take his evening meds, and his nervous system incapacity activated his fight-or-flight response. He pushed me, I fell, after which he hit and scratched, leaving pink marks on my arms and chest.
Later that evening, he texted to start out the restore course of, however I wasn’t prepared. The injuries had been too contemporary, each on my physique and in my coronary heart.
The assault got here from somebody I like and belief to not damage me. That’s what makes it so exhausting to course of. I inform myself what I do know is true: he has coronary heart, he’s having a tough time, he has a incapacity, he’s a toddler. He’s attempting to make it proper.
Nevertheless it nonetheless will get tousled with my previous.
I’ve been damage earlier than by individuals who had been supposed to guard me. So when my son lashes out, my physique doesn’t all the time acknowledge the distinction. The worry feels acquainted. My muscle groups tense, my coronary heart races, and outdated reminiscences stir.
In remedy, I’ve been studying to separate these experiences. After I look down at a bruise from a flailing fist or a scratch left on my arm throughout a meltdown, the ache is actual, however it’s not the identical ache.
Up to now, the individuals who damage me had been supposed to maintain me secure. Their job was to take care of me and make area for my emotions. Their failure to do this grew to become its personal sort of wound.
My son’s function is totally different. He’s not my emotional anchor or my healer. His solely job is to develop into his fullest, most genuine self. That fact doesn’t erase the sting of his aggression, however it creates an essential distinction. My physique’s intuition to tug again and shield itself isn’t egocentric; it’s survival. It’s my nervous system doing what it was constructed to do.
And the emotional weight of this second is mine to hold, not his. It belongs to me and to the adults who assist me—my companion, my mates, my therapist. My son deserves accountability, however not the burden of my ache. That distinction retains me from complicated the current with the previous and from collapsing into the outdated story that love and hurt are intertwined.
After I can maintain on to that fact, I begin to really feel steadier. I can take care of him and love him, even whereas I’m not able to restore.
A number of days later, he sends me a textual content, his most popular strategy to talk when emotions are too huge: “Hey mother… I need to let you understand that I’m sorry for hurting you… and I promise I gained’t ever do it once more… I do know it was SO unsuitable so unsuitable. Love all the time, xxxx.”
I write again: “Expensive xxxx, You’re such an incredible particular person. You’re loving, form, humorous, good, and so many different issues. I do know you actually don’t need to damage me. I like you greater than something, and I imagine we are able to work via this collectively. You’re one in all my most favourite folks in the entire world. Love all the time, Mother.”
He replies, “Okay mother thanks! Which means the world to me. Would you like a present for being such a pleasant fantastic caring supportive mother?”
I smile via tears and kind again, “Oh honey, the one present I would like is you. And also you being prepared to speak to me so I will help you. I really need you to be comfortable and impartial and understanding how a lot you’re beloved.”
“Okay… thanks mother,” he writes.
It’s such a small trade, however it feels monumental. It jogs my memory that restore is feasible. That when his pondering mind comes again on-line, love does too.
Parenting a neurodivergent youngster whereas carrying my very own trauma means residing in fixed rigidity between tenderness and worry, love, and self-protection. However every time we discover our method again to one another, I’m reminded that therapeutic doesn’t imply by no means getting damage once more. It means studying, repeatedly, to inform the distinction between the ache of the previous and the love that’s proper right here within the current.
