Helping our Kids Through Trauma Can Trigger Our Own Abuse Part 3

Speaker 1: 0:08

This is part three of helping our own kids can trigger our own trauma and our own abuse. What a great conversation this has been. It's been very deep and it's not necessarily about generational trauma. It is about our own reactions to what we see with our kids when they're being triggered, when things are happening to them. We could label it abusive or bullying, whatever it could be that actually we have a reaction to within our core from something that happened to us as we grew up. Thank you so much for listening to part three and the other two parts, I hope, If not, go back and listen to them. On Real Talk with Tina and Ann, we try to keep it real. One of the things that we try to do is talk about some topics that other people are not necessarily talking about. Sometimes it can be really hard to discuss these things or even to listen to them. Go to Real Talk with Tina and Ann at realtalktinaanncom. You can get all of our episodes. This is episode 51, by the way, and we're very blessed and thankful that each and every one of you is listening and we're having more and more feedback on our Facebook page, Real Talk with Tina and Ann. You can join us there as well, join the conversation. I want to apologize a little bit because you can hear my kids in the background a little bit in this one. While we were taping this three-part series, my kids were home for the holidays and they were in the basement playing and I was upstairs but without me realizing it, it was bleeding through and it reached all the way to my microphone. If you do hear something, it's just some kids playing, so I apologize for that. One more thing I discussed something about my son that's hitting me in the core of who I am, in a way that it just wants me to protect my child. I talk about that a little bit during the podcast, but stay tuned to the end because I'm going to give you an update. Thank you for joining us this week. Here is part three.

Speaker 2: 2:22

I think a lot of us feel guilt because we have these worries about being a parent. I think that there is a lot of guilt behind not knowing how to parent, not knowing what we're doing, and until you understand that it was okay that you had these things, it's okay that you felt this way and it's okay for your reactions, as long as you catch them.

Speaker 1: 2:45

The protectiveness is something that I craved and I really always wanted to feel protected. I want my kids to feel protected. That's probably the biggest thing that I am about right now with my kids, especially with them being so young. I have a 28-year-old that still comes to me and wants mama See.

Speaker 2: 3:06

You know you're doing something right.

Speaker 1: 3:08

My 28-year-old and I have just the closest relationship and she still lays on me and she wants her mom. She is an artist and a makeup special effects person Wrote in her handwriting. Because we have this little phrase with the two of us Now I do it with my other three we just say morest. It's because we said I love you more and most, we combined more and most and we made it morest. We just say morest to each other. She had written on her love you morest in her handwriting. And then she has the moon and the sun put together I love you to the moon and back and you are my sunshine. Where our two things. She drew all that together. She wanted to do that for her 18th birthday. We had our own, each other's handwriting tattooed on ourselves. That was really. You want to talk about a gift? That was a really big gift. I know that I'm doing something right when it comes to my protectiveness for my kids. That hits me in the core of who I am as an abused child. That is where I live. If it hits me anywhere else, it's there. I'll tell you my seven-year-old right now this is really hitting us in the gut right now, and my protectiveness over my son takes me all the way back to me being a child and I wanted to know that I was being heard and I wasn't. I wasn't being heard, but I can separate what's happening with him and what happened with me back then. I'm not being an irrational parent. I'm not saying I never have. I'm just saying in this situation, you're a parent, I'm just a parent. He's having a very difficult time getting back in school after he had an incident with his teacher and it was a really. You know, I don't understand it, and every other educator that I've talked to outside of the school district doesn't understand it either. In fact, I just went to dinner with a friend of mine who was an educator and when I told her what happened, she couldn't close her mouth for like two minutes. She just was an absolute shock. So he earned all these dollars. You know you get all these dollars for doing really great things in first grade in his class and he earned $33 and it was just an amazing thing for him. He was so proud of himself and they had a lockdown drill. It was like in October and he was goofing around with another kid through a little hole in the desk. You know they were looking at each other through the hole, laughing, giggling. It's a lockdown drill. Yeah, okay, you got to be quiet. Yeah, and he was quietly laughing, giggling under their breaths. Yeah, still shouldn't have happened. So he was warned. He was warned. So the teacher comes over and tells him to empty his wallet of his $33 that he earned In front of the other kids, shamed him. His IEP states you know, when he has difficulties he shuts down, being an autistic kid. He shut down. She kept calling it refusal, refused, refused to go out and play. My kid doesn't refuse to go out and play. Yeah, they made him go out anyway. Came back in, refused to do his work. Of course he's still on shutdown. Yeah, you're calling it refusal. Then turned it into the next day. You're not going to go to recess if you don't. I mean it just kept. You know more and more.

Speaker 2: 7:06

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 7:07

You know we've had the resource officer at my house, we've had the. You know other people from the district try to work with him. Now they're bribing him with ice cream and you know we're doing everything that we can to get my child to get to school. He just says no, my teacher doesn't like me. We've had meetings and meetings and he went to the meeting and sat with her at the table and can feel the disconnect. She is not being intentional and purposeful in trying to reach my child Bottom line. She and another person very much in education said to me you know what your child is? An autistic individual has a superpower he can smell out of fake and that's the way it is. And I love our district, I love our teachers, I support them 100%. But my child is being mistreated. Yeah, and my radars are going off and letting me know something's not right and I need to protect my child. And then there's that fine line between letting your child know this was wrong but also not feeding that your teacher was wrong, kind of thing at the same time. Yeah, because I want him to still respect her and know that he was wrong. Yeah, there should have been a consequence, but yeah, that was extreme.

Speaker 2: 8:34

Yeah, consequences should have fit it Right.

Speaker 1: 8:36

And it didn't. But trying to let him still like her and trying to get her, him to like her and not talk about her negatively, but yet she still did something wrong and it's kind of trying to find that balance. Anyway, long story short was longer than I expected it to be, but I said that because I think that when you and I or anybody has been abused, you know we're really all we want for our kids, who are beyond us and we're trying to raise them and we see the hurt and the pain and we see somebody being mistreating them too, is that we don't want them to feel the same things that we felt. And when they do, we want them to know that it is wrong and you can advocate for yourself. And when you sit at the table with the teacher or whoever it is, you have the right to say you hurt me, yeah. And all she needs to do and I've requested this is for her to just say I know that you feel that I've hurt you. She doesn't even have to own it. I know you feel that I've hurt you and I'm sorry, yes. Do you know how far that would?

Speaker 2: 9:55

go yeah.

Speaker 1: 9:56

Yeah, you know how far it would go if some of the people and some of the abuse that you and I endured you doesn't go away with it. I'm sorry, yeah, but some things do. Some things really do get better just by somebody saying I'm sorry or owning it. When I sat across from these people at the church, when I went and I told them that I was being mistreated by somebody in their leadership and that I had been abused by them, that they actually groomed me, got me to the point where they did, when I was at my most vulnerable, and then they hurt me in the worst way. And then, when this person was questioned and I was questioned, you know and I said, look, this really did happen. I am telling you that it happened. They told me, after speaking with this other person, that I wanted it and I was like you know what I didn't and how dare you? Yeah, and that's what I want my kids to be able to come to the table and people not blame them for the things that they're doing. If it really is a legit thing, they need to be heard.

Speaker 2: 11:13

Yeah, no, that's true. That's true, something that I didn't mention earlier, but I do want to say this because I think that there are a lot of people like me out there and I wish somebody would say this to me when you were talking about your close miss with your daughter, and she'll still lay on you and feel that and I wish I had that. And I say that obviously because I wish I had that. But to I have a very difficult time with physicalness, with my daughter, my, my, my son's, autistic. He doesn't like a lot of touch. When they were babies I had no problem. I would love on them and hug on them. I mean I love them, but the physical part, I would be all over them when they were younger. But as in, they grew older, more so my daughter because again, my, my son doesn't like to my daughter craves hugs and craves things, and I have the hardest time doing that I get. So I'm comfortable with that and you want to show them what you wanted, but you didn't get freaking uncomfortable for me and I and I think that that's okay again, I had to forgive myself for feeling that way, because it's not my fault and we want to be better than what we had. She understands a little bit more. Like when she hugs me, you know she'll put her her face into my neck and I freak out and I'm like no, you know, I don't like touching my neck because my mom used to kiss me and I freak out like freak.

Speaker 1: 12:39

Yeah, let my mom touch me. I, my mom, and I did not. I was forced yeah, yeah, I am. My daughter, I would say, is the only person over the age of twenty who actually touched me. And you know, I really don't. I'm the same way. I don't like being touched at all. I keep everybody at a distance. Nobody touches me, honestly, except for my kids. It's crazy. I understand what you're saying. Yeah, it's not necessarily something normal or natural for us because we have been touched in the wrong ways right, right.

Speaker 2: 13:21

And it's funny because I love hugs now and this is what I struggle with. So my counselor, my case worker from the group home I was in when I was fourteen, I love her hugs so much like I wish I lived close enough. She was the first person to hug me that I felt safe with. Yeah he was the person who taught me how to hug and I had gone to her when I said I'm struggling with the. You know my daughter. I know my daughter say I just want hugs, I want you to love on me and like it's hard, like that when you hear that you hurt because you want to, so bad, but that that fear in you not of them, but but you're just, it's like and I hate this like it's, it's your mentality goes back to the abuser and it's very hard sometimes for you to separate like. I love her with all of my heart. She knows that. She absolutely knows that and I have work on physically hugging. I have worked on it where I'm on it yeah, my where I should be? no, not at all. But she'll now tell me I need this and I'm you know, I'm like, okay, and I'm like, and she knows I'm trying. It still doesn't make you know, it's still hard to accept that and stuff. But that I wanted to say that because I don't know that I've had anybody that I've heard who's gone through the trauma that we have Struggle with that, and I say that where we have a good home, we have a good foundation. We don't have the same back. Like you know, they're not growing up like I was. So I feel like I'm Well now, I feel like I'm a good mom, but I struggle with that and I want whoever is listening if they have the same struggle, they're not alone and it is okay. The only thing we can do is try baby steps and I love hugs like I do. I like I love by certain people, like I have my, my individuals, that I'm comfortable with. But it's, it's okay, it's okay, and I think that that is one of the toughest things that I have had to deal with. And it just made me think about that, as you were talking about your daughter, and I'm like that I want that and yet like why can't I do that? You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1: 15:44

Yeah, well, my, my daughter, who is, like I said, twenty eight, she's just, she just is so loving. Yeah, you know that she just has it naturally in her. Now, I'm not that way, I Don't. It's, it's not in eight me To love all over people. Yeah, but she is, she's just she. I don't mind when she lays on me, but I'll tell you, my daughter, that I have now, who's you know, eight. It's hard for me to, and I love her with all of my heart, like you said, and I do Try to be intentional and purposeful with her, but it's not as natural and the reason is, I really believe, because of how hurtful she can be to me. And you know, I am such the kind of person where, like my son, who I just talked about with his teacher, it's about Relationship yeah about connection and Me being I don't know if it's my autism or what it is is. You don't treat somebody mean and then want to hug them Mm-hmm, and that's what she does. Yeah, and I? I can't do that.

Speaker 2: 17:20

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 17:20

I'm like burn it off. I you need, we need to have that relationship where we love each other and we're good for each other and we support each other. Mm-hmm, and that's the way I am with my 28 year old, but my eight year old she will say the meanest things to me and then, like ten minutes later, when I hug and it's like yeah, I Can't. And then she gets upset with me because I don't Mm-hmm or I, you know, and I'm just like I need time. So I mean, that's a whole nother episode Probably. I'm not sure. But I mean, and it's also teaching our kids. You know, you can't treat somebody like crap and then just turn around and say, oh, it's over. Why, why are you upset with me? Why can't I just hug you and why can't we just have this connection? What's wrong?

Speaker 2: 18:13

That's happened. Yeah, you grew up with that, like, yeah, you know they'll do something to you, and they push it under the rug as if nothing ever happened.

Speaker 1: 18:21

Yes, and I want her to know that you can't treat people like this. Mm-hmm and just sweep it under and just expect them to love you right away. So, I mean, that's a whole another side to all of this is teaching them those kind of things. But I would like to end with some quotes. I found quite a few, actually, and, and so I wrote them down and I'm I only kept, I think, four of the ones that I found. Okay, the first one was let us reach out to the children, let us do whatever we can to support their fights, to rise above their pain and suffering, and that was Nelson Mandela Did you, yeah, I, this one is.

Speaker 2: 19:05

We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet we forget that he is someone today, and that's Stacia Usher. She's a dancer and artist. No, that is.

Speaker 1: 19:18

So important? Yeah, because kids are people too, and I think and back when I was being raised not so much now kids are heard today. Mm-hmm is our heard today. Yeah, yeah, but back when I was raised, we weren't.

Speaker 2: 19:34

Right.

Speaker 1: 19:35

And we were the quiet ones in the room and I think that abuse was more tolerated. The resources were not there that are there today, right? So you know? But I think that we need to make sure and I do this with my kids today and I think it has a lot to do with how I was treated, was you know? I want my kids to know that they're important today at their age. I don't care if you're three or if you're seven. You have a right to not be treated badly and to have a voice.

Speaker 2: 20:10

So Yep the voice.

Speaker 1: 20:12

The next one is it is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men, Frederick Douglass. I mean, it is Self-explanatory. It is so important to build strong children because then it's so much harder to repair them later.

Speaker 2: 20:32

Yeah, it's. Yeah, I mean, you don't want to be in our position where we're trying to repair something that wasn't given the opportunity, you know, to grow and to learn. Yeah, the last one is children need models rather than critics, Joseph Jirbe. But it is true, and that's why I say about those teachers they saw something in me that I didn't and no one else saw, Whereas, you know, my family had no problem telling me all the things that were wrong, all the things I'll never be, all the things that you know, instead of showing me the possibilities of who I can be and who I could become.

Speaker 1: 21:13

Right, right. Well, I think that that's so important, that and I think that there's something about you and me and a lot of other people that have been through things that we grab on or we gravitate towards people who have our good role models and I know that it can go either way Right, and I know that that's the direction that we went. But I know a lot of people who went through really difficult times and they went, made some bad choices, yeah, and not necessarily because of who they are as a person, but because that's just how they ended up seeking love Right. Or they ended up finding themselves in absolute worst situations and it just snowballed from there. Right, and I've talked about this before the jail system is full of people who did not have good father figures, who did not have some good moms, and you and I were examples of that. Yeah, and I have a really good friend of mine who has ended up in the jails and making some really bad choices because of some bad choices that were made to her, and I don't fault people either way for the decisions that they have made to try to make it, but it's just really important, going back to that quote that you said, it's easier for us to try to build people up in the right way from the very get go than it is to try to repair people in the jail system or in the hospitals and our mental health and everything is just so rampant right now and I think that we need to start getting it at the base, at the core of who our kids are today, and I hope and I pray that and I am doing it with my kids and I know that you have done it with yours if we talked about on this podcast, but I mean, that's just what we want is for us to be able to help guide our kids so they have a different life than we did and for us to model that for them instead of criticize. like we just said in the last one, I wanna be that model for my kids, that they look up to me and say you know, that's what my mom taught me.

Speaker 2: 23:44

Yeah, you know yeah, and then they could come to us, because I want that open communication so that she knows you got a question, come to me.

Speaker 1: 23:53

No matter what it is.

Speaker 2: 23:54

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 23:55

No matter what it could be the worst thing Like my seven year old gets in the car after school and he'll say you don't wanna know, I go no really I don't wanna know. And then eventually he does come out and he tells me and I appreciate that and I want him to have the freedom to need the space, but I also want him to have the freedom to come to me when he's ready, and we need to create that so well. We covered a lot in this podcast. So, I really appreciate you joining today, Denise. This has been a really good one, I think.

Speaker 2: 24:30

I think so too. I think people need to hear this and know you know they're not alone.

Speaker 1: 24:34

Well, thank you so much for joining us. I'm Real Talk with Tina and Anne. We'll see you next time. Bye. I promised you an update on my son and it's taken some twists and turns since I even spoke on this podcast and we did come to the table with the district. But at this point, stepping away from that meeting, I've realized that there's no more words that we can say. The district is wonderful and my kid is wonderful, and I have found myself in a very tough situation, a place of confusion. But in some regards my child is speaking loudly to me and when he came to the table, hood up, head down. Whenever school is mentioned at home, he starts to cry. He actually hit me for the first time when I mentioned him going to school and realized that I'm part of the problem and that he is legit in fight or flight. Now this is a kid that was the happiest kid to go to school. This is also a kid that was drug addicted at birth and was failure to thrive and we worked hard to bring him back to the living and I feel like that's what we're doing again. Whatever happened with the teacher, it hit him in the core of where he got hurt at birth, it's triggered him, it's done whatever to him to make him stop believing in himself and make him not believe in the teacher anymore, and that's where there's no more words. She could have come to the table with him. You know, if I was a teacher who hurt my child so much so that they can't even return to the classroom, I would have done everything under my power to reach out to them, but that just didn't happen. She needed to step outside of herself and really anything after this just doesn't seem authentic. So that's where we are. And if you're a parent that has a child who speaks in nonverbals and most kids, especially at seven and he's an autistic child who's very sensitive, who doesn't really understand everything that's going on in the room and I know that to be a fact, and even when I'm helping him learn now on the computer that I've realized he wants me to slow down, he's having a hard time processing everything that he's hearing and I didn't realize that until now. But we need to speak their language and we need to listen to theirs. Sometimes they speak in pieces, parts and a head down, hood up crying. We need to listen to that and I've always supported the school and I've always supported my kids. So I have to figure out which one is speaking louder to me and my core, in the gut of me as a parent, and that protectiveness of my child is telling me what I need to do, what we need to do. And between the district and myself now it's come down to pettiness, and pettiness happens when the bigger things are addressed and I've made a list of the bigger things and then we only end up addressing the petty things. Honestly, I don't want to hear the teacher say she didn't mean it. It's what happened after. When you get down to pettiness and it's just a, he said. She said when one is seven years old, by the way, and he's screaming at me with his nonverbal language, which I was, that child in the classroom or at home that spoke in nonverbals, and that's what he's doing. I've watched a child that was happy, social, never wanted to miss school, to head down, hood up, crying, not wanting to go. He was wronged. Whether we feel that he was or not, whether the teacher feels she did anything or not, he was, in his core, hurt. When he no longer believes in her and he feels like his teacher no longer believes in him it's over. There's just no more words. So if you are a parent that is going through this with any of your kids, with the district or even in another situation, and your gut is telling you that you need to stand up for your child exhaustively and believe in what he's saying, regardless of what the adults in the room are saying and I'm not trying to say that she meant it. I'm not trying to say that she heard him on purpose, because I don't think she's that kind of person, because we've had her before. I just know what happened in his soul and who he is today, and that's what I have to pay attention to. I have to listen to my son and let him know that I am listening to him and that I am protecting him, because in the end of the day, that's really all that is going to matter. So we move on from here. He has shown interest in looking at another elementary school within the district and so, because that's where he gets a little bit excited, that's the direction I think that we need to go at this point, and if that doesn't work, we will go from there, because the bottom line is helping my child wake up again, helping him child feel happy again. Helping my child want to thrive in school again, that's all that matters to me. All right, thank you for listening and see you next time.