Hi Tee

Sorry this is a bit of a long one. Please feel free to take your time and skip parts that you need to. 🩵

I understand, funnily enough I credit me being ready to be a parent to my health issues. Without it, I don’t think I would have been mature enough. It is strange the way that life teaches us these lessons.

You might not feel confident in your resilience yet, but I definitely see it in you! I hope that doesn’t feel too strange? 🩵

Yes, there is definitely an element of have to with chronic health issues. I’m glad to hear that your back pain has subsided over time. 🩵

My understanding is that when there is an actual injury muscles contract around the area to protect it. It is fascinating to learn that this happens at times when no injury is present and only perceived too. I didn’t know that!

There is nothing wrong with having a good cry. 😊

I feel like it might be normal to be afraid of chronic health issues when we start having them. It is a big change that takes a lot of adjustment and it is especially not easy to lose mobility and deal with huge amounts of pain.

But over time you learn to manage them and figure out coping mechanisms.
Which is exactly what you did. Yes, there will be new challenges, but you have the skills to cope with them now because you worked hard on developing them. 🩵

Thank you sharing, as well as for the resources! I subscribed and I’m going to have enjoy learning all about the techniques you mentioned. 🩵

I’m glad that you learned about the difficulties that occur with your childhood trauma and got help for it. Despite it not being recognised at the time. It is a difficult position to be in with the damaging effects of constant verbal abuse are only recently being acknowledged and previously constantly dismissed. Gaslighting, to the extreme. No one deserves to suffer alone. I’m glad that you fought for yourself to get through it all. At the same time it is a shame because it should not be that way. 🩵 🩵

Yes, it is just the early infancy phase that is really tough. Toddlers are much easier for me. I find the positive communication style that children need really helpful mentally too. I think being around so much negativity growing up taught me to be quite negative. It is nice developing a strong positive voice. 🩵

I got some news. It seems like my son is going to be starting nursery in spring instead of January. It looks like he’ll be accepted for the nursery that was picked, but they don’t have any space until then. I guess it gives me some time to process the idea of him going to nursery. It is also a really good nursery, so worth the wait. More time to potty train him as well.

I feel like in some ways, I have been exploring understanding my mother’s difficulties because I recognise that a part of her lives on in me. I’m trying to come to terms with that part of myself.

I’m not going to pretend that I got help for a good reason. When I was a child I just hated my mother and recognised that I was becoming like her. I didn’t want to become like her. She told me that I was just like her. I tried my best to change as much as I could.

I feel like my mother may not have got help for positive reasons either. She was suicidal, so she got help.

*trigger warning*

She finally stopped hitting and the sa when we were old enough to fight back. And it really was a fight. It was too little, too late.

I know that she lied about the things she did. Both to me and authorities. I know that she remembers what she did because she discussed things I did to try and put her off from the SA with her friend. You don’t remember one without the other. They were very much linked. The friend asked me about it.

She was willing to apologise to me, for whatever she did that she doesn’t remember doing. That was not enough for me. You can’t gloss over that kind of abuse. I only asked for her to acknowledge what she had done and apologise to me personally. I would have forgiven her and stayed in contact if she was genuine. I told her that if she couldn’t acknowledge what she had done, I would cut contact. She cared more about her own feelings.

There are a bunch of reasons that explain what happened. She was very young, mentally ill and alone. Her father sexually abused her. If things had been different for her, perhaps things would have been different for me. The world shapes us. But it doesn’t take away from what happened and the pain I experienced at her hands.

Life is complicated and sometimes bad things happen. Good people can make mistakes. Bad people can sometimes do good things, particularly when they benefit from it.

It is not a satisfying conclusion. But this is life. Thank you for your kindness, as well as for being there whilst I was exploring it. 🩵 🩵 🩵

Hi Tee

I know you’ll get through it, you’re a very resilient and resourceful woman. I hope it gets easier for you soon. 🩵

Yes, you are right catastrophsing would only make things worse. 🩵

What are your favourite techniques for emotionally regulating? I was curious about your mention of somatic techniques earlier. I’m always keen to try new things. 🩵

That is a shame it doesn’t copy and paste. It must be because I’m on a mobile.

Thank you for your kindness Tee and for not judging me! It means more than you know. You’re an angel 😇 🩵

I’ll try and keep it short and sweet, because I read that you’re stepping back from tb a bit and working on a project. Please take as much time as you need to reply. No rush. 🩵

I’m actually a quiet person with a soft voice. It is a challenge for me to sound more serious. 😊

Fortunately, it never got to the stage of needing to prevent myself from acting on them. 🩵

Yes, it was all very frightening. I guess they need to do these things because they have to rule out psychosis which could lead to a baby being harmed.

Therapy for post partum depression is not really recommended. They tend to rely on medication, but I was breastfeeding couldn’t take medication until I stopped.

I had a short course of therapy for the intrusive thoughts because I started having panic attacks. Now, I have a good albeit expensive therapist who specialises in postpartum, neurodivergence and trauma. All is well that ends well. 😊

Yes, she did blame us and didn’t want to admit her mistakes. I think admitting mistakes is important because it is not healthy to gloss over abuse. The gaslighting is so harmful of course. In a way, I was lucky that my abuse was so cut and dry. The attempts at gaslighting were rather transparent.

With the blaming and gaslighting along with the physical needs being taken care of, as well as the abuse. I imagine it would be rather confusing for a child and hard to understand clearly what is going on. 🩵

She tried to get help by the time I was in my tweens. She was taking medication for a while before, but the doctor she had was not helpful and just brushed her off as depressed. She needed a lot more than antidepressants.

It wasn’t until we moved to a bigger town and her doctor changed that she started getting more help and she was taken more seriously. We got a social worker who was terrible. We did family therapy briefly which was useless. Then she let me go to therapy on my own. Eventually she started seeing her own psychologist or psychiatrist and was institutionalised.

Yes, I agree. When I was in school we didn’t have psychologists at all. Schools here do have them now though, I hear, which is an upgrade.

That is a shame your school psychologist didn’t bother with other kids only the troublesome ones. I agree, all children should be supported to the fullest extent. You deserved help and care as much as any other child. 🩵

It is a shame that your school’s psychologist was viewed as problematic by children. That must have discouraged children from actively seeking help?

I feel like teachers are in the best position to pick up on difficulties that children have, since they spend the most time with them. It would be great if they had some trauma informed training to spot signs of difficulties and I agree with you about mental health support. It is such a shame that they are so overworked. 🩵

Thinking of you, take care 🩵