|
|
 |
Next
FOMO Is A Thing?
Leave a reply
Tag Archives: Complex Developmental Trauma
This One Is For YOU
|
|
|
Next
Stop and Notice
Sometimes we parents are seriously Type A toward our attachment challenged children. We are forever working our kids to be better, be focused, be kinder, be organized, be mature, be motivated, be normal. Wha? Our kids by definition are working as hard as they can figuring out how to feel safe in their own skins, in their own families. This thing called family life is complex and filled with emotional landmines.
From where your child began, stop and notice how far s/he has come. Give yourselves a little break from bettering every moment. Slow down.
Celebrate now.
Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT
Lift your head up from the grindstone. It’s nice up here.
Next Trust-based Parent Course is planned for March 14th and March 15th, 10am to 3pm each day, in a new back-to-back, two-day format. Save the dates.Next Hold Me Tight Couples workshop by Robin Blair, LMFT at The Attach Place is planned for April 17th, 18th and 19th.
The Attach Place supports The Wounded Warrior Project by providing free neurofeedback to veterans. Feel free to send a soldier our way for an assessment.
Feel free to send this link to friends or family members who you would like to sign-up for Daily YOU Time: Wisdom for Adoptive Parents.
Do-Si-Do Around We Go
Oh man, I am tired of the do-si-do emotions that go on inside myself when I am trying to hold a loving stance without ensnaring my son with my own emotional hooks. I can feel myself emotionally tilt forward with hooks out, then catch myself and pull back to neutral. Then I tilt forward again–hooks out–only to catch myself and pull back to neutral again. Back and forth, back and forth. I am an emotional square dancer, perpetually do-si-do-ing in order to maintain my calm, maintain my love, and maintain my neutrality in the face of shenanigans with giant meat hooks.
I desperately wish for my son and myself a moment of being an introverted and relaxed wallflower. Thanks for the invite, but I’ll sit this one out.
Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT
Do-si-do and around we go.
Next Trust-based Parent Course is planned for March 14th and March 15th, 10am to 3pm each day, in a new back-to-back, two-day format. Save the dates.Next Hold Me Tight Couples workshop by Robin Blair, LMFT at The Attach Place is planned for April 17th, 18th and 19th.
The Attach Place supports The Wounded Warrior Project by providing free neurofeedback to veterans. Feel free to send a soldier our way for an assessment.
Feel free to send this link to friends or family members who you would like to sign-up for Daily YOU Time: Wisdom for Adoptive Parents.
Trauma Brain Sandwich
Some kids who have Complex Developmental Trauma are white knuckling day and night. Their need to manage every single little thing to keep themselves feeling safe takes the life, the joy, the play, the spontaneity right out of them. Their need for the safety that control brings to them takes the life, the joy, the play, the spontaneity right out of YOU, too.
Upshot: Be super sure you are getting plenty of adult respite time to play, laugh, love, and be untethered so you are not having a steady Trauma Brain Sandwich diet. YOU will starve to death otherwise.
Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT
Trauma Brain Sandwiches are all carb, no protein.
The Attach Place Center for Strengthening Relationships
Next Trust-based Parent Course is planned for March 28th and April 4th. Save the date.
Next Hold Me Tight Couples workshop by Robin Blair, LMFT at The Attach Place is planned for April 17th, 18th and 19th.
The Attach Place supports The Wounded Warrior Project by providing free neurofeedback to veterans. Feel free to send a soldier our way for an assessment.
Feel free to send this link to friends or family members who you would like to sign-up for Daily YOU Time: Wisdom for Adoptive Parents.
Who Needs the Therapy?
Parents often call my office looking for therapy for their attachment challenged child(ren). When I share our comprehensive family approach, many are accepting and excited. Some however are white-knuckling every day, worn out to the core, and reluctant to put in even an ounce more energy. These parents are desperate to get help for their child and they focus on that.
He never does what I tell him to do.
She only cares about herself.
Something is wrong with him.
She sneaks around all the time.
He steals things from everyone.
She doesn’t have a conscience.
He lies about everything.
She is grieving about her past.
He is negative all the time.
She doesn’t care about anything.
He hurts his brother.
She hates me and her life.
He is self-centered and disrespectful.
S/He needs therapy.
I have no doubt.
Here is what I see in the room with me:
YOU are hurt.
YOU are triggered.
YOU are reactive.
YOU are adversarial.
YOU are resentful.
YOU are grieving.
YOU are angry.
YOU are depressed.
YOU are dysregulated.
YOU are exhausted.
YOU feel hopeless.
YOU need therapy.
Your whole family needs help, because YOU are the healer for your own child. Therapy isn’t effective without YOU.
The Attach Place
Center for Strengthening Relationships
When YOU have trouble finding yourself,
YOU need help.
Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT
Next Trust-based Parent Course is planned for March 28th and April 4th. Save the date.
Next Hold Me Tight Couples Workshop by Robin Blair, LMFT at The Attach Place is planned for April 17th, 18th and 19th.
The Attach Place supports The Wounded Warrior Project by providing free neurofeedback to veterans. Feel free to send a soldier our way for an assessment.
Feel free to send this link to friends or family members who you would like to sign-up for Daily YOU Time: Wisdom for Adoptive Parents.
YOU Are Scary
Ever wonder why your children from hard places are more shenanigan prone with YOU than with any other person? Doesn’t it seem sometimes like your mere presence in a room invites behavior that your mother-in-law swears didn’t happen all day until YOU showed up? Doesn’t it feel like all of these shenanigans are your fault or directed at YOU? After all they are mostly happening when you are there.
Okay, I give you credit for knowing the ins and outs of this. I know you know it is because they come from difficult beginnings and have been hurt and abandoned by the beloved. Just to drive it home–truth be told–the real reason is simple: YOU are scary. Yep it is YOU. YOU, the current attachment object.
Attachment is scary. Have you ever had the feeling that you might be falling in love and really needing someone before you know for sure they feel the same way? Ever been hurt by someone you trusted wholeheartedly and then felt guarded and apprehensive about the next relationship? Ever act completely a fool in the presence of someone you gave yourself to, but the relationship deal has not been struck yet? Ever found yourself doing shenanigans that you are not proud of out of insecurity or fear of loss? See, attachment is scary; and, you are an adult.
You and your child from difficult beginnings are in the scary dance of attachment. It takes a long time for any human to give their heart vulnerably and securely to another. If you come from your own difficult beginnings you can multiply that vulnerability by 10 or so. Our kids are right there.
It is NOT your fault. It is your gift to them to hold steady, keep dancing, and be the safety, the love they don’t yet trust exists in the world.
Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT
Love the way you want to be loved–wholeheartedly.
Next Trust-based Parent Course is planned for March 28th and April 4th. Save the date.Next Hold Me Tight Couples workshop by Robin Blair, LMFT at The Attach Place is planned for April 17th, 18th and 19th.
The Attach Place supports The Wounded Warrior Project by providing free neurofeedback to veterans. Feel free to send a soldier our way for an assessment.
Teach Respect
|
|
2014 In Review–Wisdom For Adoptive Parents Blog
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,500 times in 2014. If it were a cable car, it would take about 42 trips to carry that many people.
Big Bad Scary World View
Without a “felt sense” of safety, our children with complex developmental trauma (abandonment + abuse) default to a big, bad, scary world view. Translated, that means very high anxiety, through the roof cortisol spikes, and super huge walls of defensiveness. Frankly, they are often reactive, verbally and physically defensive, rejecting, fearful of change and new things, rigid, and controlling.
Fear is powerful poison in the well of a child’s psyche. It changes children from roly-poly bundles of silly delight and giggles into hypervigilant, self-focused and sometimes maniacal survivalists.
Therapeutic parenting is all about creating a patient, playful environment where chronic poor choices are seen as mistakes to learn from, rather than calculated misdeeds that need to be punished. “Felt safety” cannot grow in an angry, punishing family.
Therapeutic parenting tip number 1,000852: Start every day anew. And to quote Taylor Swift, “Shake it off. Shake it off.”
Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT
Love Matters Scholarship Fund can use your contributions. Click here for more information.
The next Trust-based Parent Training Course in Sacramento, CA is scheduled for January 24th and January 31st. Register here.
Please share freely. Your community of support can sign-up for their own Daily YOU Time email by clicking here.
Wisdom For Adoptive Parents 