Welcome to the Fife ACEs Hub second blog post.
Our blog will be another tool to start conversations about Adverse Childhood Experiences.
All perspectives welcome.
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Our second post is another anonymous submission....
‘My Way of Coping was to Pretend That it Wasn’t Happening’
I had a reasonably happy early childhood but when I was a teenager, my father lost his job, we became homeless and his drinking got out of control. In the space of a few years home became a deeply unhappy place for all of us.
My father became violent and he systematically tried to destroy the people in our family, he was also physically abusive towards my mother and myself.
My way of coping was to pretend that it wasn’t happening; I’d get up and go to school every day despite only getting a few hours of sleep as my father stayed up all night drinking and doing all he could to upset the rest of us. I didn’t tell anyone how awful life had become but a few close friends knew that there was something wrong. I often slept on friend’s bedroom floors to get away.
I really don’t know how I got through that, passing 4 Highers and getting a place at university, I guess I just hid away in studying as a means of escape, although I was always aware of education being my only hope of a “way out”. I left home as soon as I finished school and moved in with my boyfriend. While I managed to keep up the façade and go to Uni every day, the layers started to fall away, and I struggled.
I was hugely into the dance music scene and loved going out to see DJ’s and dancing with friends, but I started to suffer from anxiety attacks which got so bad I couldn’t go out for the best part of 3 years. I was young and should have been enjoying life, but I wasn’t.
By some stroke of fate / luck or whatever, my boyfriend (now husband) was surprisingly left money in a will so we decided to use the money to go away travelling.
I felt like it was finally a chance for me to completely escape. But I remember crying the day we left because here I was, unable to go out with my friends yet was now about to get on a plane to live in another country for a year. I was terrified.
That year away completely transformed things for me; I did voluntary work which was very rewarding and boosted my confidence.
I also attended a yoga course in a nearby ashram with a teacher who could see my anxiety from the very first class, he just knew something was wrong but thankfully he never asked for the story. Through those classes I learned how to look after myself, to recognise the feelings of anxiety and more importantly how to manage them. I didn’t notice at the time, but the anxiety attacks started to reduce and eventually I was able to control them completely.
Finally, I was able to start moving forward. Now I am through the other side my life is good and is calm and has been for several years. Now I am working hard to bring up children of my own, ensuring they are happy despite happiness being absent from my own childhood.
It’s a tough gig being a parent, but I think even more so when you are so aware of what it’s like to suffer trauma. There are a number of key challenges I am trying to overcome:
My father became violent and he systematically tried to destroy the people in our family, he was also physically abusive towards my mother and myself.
My way of coping was to pretend that it wasn’t happening; I’d get up and go to school every day despite only getting a few hours of sleep as my father stayed up all night drinking and doing all he could to upset the rest of us. I didn’t tell anyone how awful life had become but a few close friends knew that there was something wrong. I often slept on friend’s bedroom floors to get away.
I really don’t know how I got through that, passing 4 Highers and getting a place at university, I guess I just hid away in studying as a means of escape, although I was always aware of education being my only hope of a “way out”. I left home as soon as I finished school and moved in with my boyfriend. While I managed to keep up the façade and go to Uni every day, the layers started to fall away, and I struggled.
I was hugely into the dance music scene and loved going out to see DJ’s and dancing with friends, but I started to suffer from anxiety attacks which got so bad I couldn’t go out for the best part of 3 years. I was young and should have been enjoying life, but I wasn’t.
By some stroke of fate / luck or whatever, my boyfriend (now husband) was surprisingly left money in a will so we decided to use the money to go away travelling.
I felt like it was finally a chance for me to completely escape. But I remember crying the day we left because here I was, unable to go out with my friends yet was now about to get on a plane to live in another country for a year. I was terrified.
That year away completely transformed things for me; I did voluntary work which was very rewarding and boosted my confidence.
I also attended a yoga course in a nearby ashram with a teacher who could see my anxiety from the very first class, he just knew something was wrong but thankfully he never asked for the story. Through those classes I learned how to look after myself, to recognise the feelings of anxiety and more importantly how to manage them. I didn’t notice at the time, but the anxiety attacks started to reduce and eventually I was able to control them completely.
Finally, I was able to start moving forward. Now I am through the other side my life is good and is calm and has been for several years. Now I am working hard to bring up children of my own, ensuring they are happy despite happiness being absent from my own childhood.
It’s a tough gig being a parent, but I think even more so when you are so aware of what it’s like to suffer trauma. There are a number of key challenges I am trying to overcome:
Reality v Expectation
When I knew I was going to have my first baby I was delighted. I had always wanted to create the happy family that I had craved when I was a kid. So, all I had to do was learn from my own parents and I decided to just “be completely different from them” and that would be easy wouldn’t it? Very quickly that philosophy tripped me up – I made a LOT of mistakes while adjusting to life with a Colicky new born; I beat myself up about that chronically and really struggled to keep myself going as I failed to meet my own (unrealistic) expectations. My son needed me 24 hours a day and I found that incredibly difficult to manage, I was breast feeding and he was pretty much attached to me day and night. I felt I had to give him my whole self all the time as not doing so felt like I was failing him. Thankfully my husband is brilliant, and he convinced me that it was Ok to take a break, he tried hard to sort everything, so I could have some time out to have a bath or get out the house. The more I did it, the more I realised how important it was to take time for myself and that it wasn’t a bad thing for the baby either.
Saying the “right” things
As a parent I am always very conscious of my interactions with my children – I know it’s important to try to say the right things and to give them the safe and nurturing home. I give them all the cuddles they need, help with homework, I’m there to see their gymnastics show and talk with them over dinner every night. There are times though, when I absolutely don’t say the right thing and as soon as I’ve said it I immediately regret it and there’s a real ache in my heart as I stew it over, concerned that I have caused them sadness. It’s so hard to get the balance right, again a reality check is hard to do when my own experiences are so skewed.
Not Making Comparisons
I spent so much time crying as a kid, living in absolute fear that my father would come home drunk and angry and we lived on a knife edge for a long time. The terrors we were subjected to were emotionally draining and I remember being utterly exhausted by the actual act of crying. I find it very hard to see my own children get upset over small things, when compared to what I experienced, they have nothing to cry about, surely? I always feel very guilty about that and I am consciously trying hard to acknowledge their ups and downs without being dismissive. I have realised that they can be upset or sad for their own reasons and that sometimes that might be because I gave them a blue cup instead of red...
Dealing with Difficult Questions
I decided a long time ago that I could no longer be in touch with my Dad (and later my Mum) after many years of trying to reconcile. As everyone knows, children like to ask difficult questions and I have tried to be open when they ask about my parents. But it’s very hard (and painful) for me to even answer a simple question like “what’s your Dad’s name, Mummy” but I try to answer what I can, and they seem to accept things as I tell them. I guess that may change as they get older and I must prepare for that. Children need to know where they come from and while I don’t feel like my parents are people who should be in my children’s lives, I know the kids need to have these questions answered to make sense of who they are.
Mistakes are OK
As the years go on I am trying to get my head around the fact that I can’t be the perfect mother who never gets it wrong, and that when I do make mistakes, I’m not going to cause my children to suffer a lifetime of trauma (if only we could see into the future!) This is a huge task and I am not completely there with that yet, not sure if I ever will be. I have to say that having a good friendship network of other mums has been helpful; they don’t need to know my personal story but sharing the good and bad with them has helped me understand what “normal” family life is like. My hope for my children is that they can be free to enjoy their childhood with a sense of security and love and that their overriding memories are happy ones.
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