Below is a very angry rant. If you wish to proceed, please keep that in mind.
Why do people who didn’t grow up with C-PTSD feel the need to share their advice on it? In the context of “my child has PTSD and this is how you, as a loving parent, can help!”
It makes me so angry. So angry that I must be having an emotional flashback, so take this with a grain of salt, I guess. I guess. It feels wrong to say that, still. I don’t like feeling like I’m knee-capping my anger when I am angry about valid things. The world needs more freaking righteous anger, if you ask me.
I read a blog post on helping adopted kids with PTSD. And it made me so angry. Because it mentioned that kids with PTSD act out to bury their emotions because the emotions are too big to handle.
Oh my god.
No.
No living being on this earth is born wishing to bury their emotions. Babies cry unashamedly, and then are taught to suppress it. They learn more effective coping mechanisms, and in that sense they grow out of crying. But the most effective coping mechanism is communication. When you aren’t allowed to cry OR to communicate your hurt, what are you supposed to do?
Abused children want nothing more in the world than to be seen, to be heard, to be given space to feel everything without being shamed for it.
Why do you think research indicates that DID and PTSD tend to more easily form when a child does not feel safe with their guardians? Being unable to express our feelings, being treated with skepticism and disbelief, being criticized for having emotions – THAT is what makes trauma linger.
Children do not “act out” to suppress their emotions because they WANT to. They do it because it feels like their only option. I tried expressing my feelings, and when I was punished for being a human being, when the most sacred, beloved parts of my self and memories were openly mocked in front of me, THEN I learned to suppress my feelings. And, yes, I was violent, destructive, and loud about that suppression.
PTSD is NOT a child’s fault. Ineffective and destructive coping mechanisms are NOT their fault.
I get that I am going to have a strong negative reaction and that I am triggered to all hell. But can we please, please, PLEASE stop treating children like commodities? What in the everloving fuck gives you the right to post on the internet, for potential millions to see, the struggles that your child faces because of trauma? Did you get consent? Oh, wait, you can’t morally get consent for that from a dependent minor, can you? Not that the law or society are going to stand in your way.
This just reminds me of when my guardian OPENLY told me, “I hide your stuff from you, and when you don’t ask for it I assume you forgot/don’t want it and I throw it away.”
Only now do I understand the implications of that statement.
She assumed that I would forget forever. She assumed that my emotions would fade away. She assumed that I belonged to her, and that she could erase the past, and that one day I would become the person she always wanted. And then she could love me.
I am not that person.
I will NEVER be that person.
Your child’s trauma is not your story to tell. That honestly just makes me feel like you adopted him so you could blog about it and pat yourself on the back. Fuck you. If he wants to tell his own story when he grows up that’s fine. But if I found online posts written by my guardian about how my trauma so sadly affected her life…holy fuck. I cannot imagine hating her more than I already do. But if expanding the limits is possible, that would be the catalyst for it.
-Jennifer