061 - Invisible traumas or repeated failures

Welcome to Parenting the Intensity, where we'll talk all about how we can drop the general parenting advice that doesn't work with our emotionally intense kids anyway and let go of the unrealistic expectations society puts on us as parents. Together, we'll find solutions and ideas that work for you and your kids. Chances are, deep down, you know what they need. But you need a little encouragement to keep going and permission to do things differently and help you trust that you already are a wonderful parent to your exceptional but challenging kids. I'm Anouk, and I'll be navigating this with you.

Today, we will talk about something that's not necessarily a very, joyful topic. We will be talking about trauma. I'm probably entered to that topic and with guests too in a few different episodes, but I've never really dived into it and what we mean by trauma. Because often when we think about trauma, we think about big things. So, someone, like a car accident or someone who died, from a very, unexpectedly, or, of course, people who are, going into war.

So this is what we think when we think about trauma. Those are what we can call big t trauma. But there's also the little t trauma. Those are the everyday thing that alone won't cause much harm on anyone. But when we, lift them, when we have a lot of them in one day, in one week, and and it's, in our everyday all the time, then it's different.

Then combine all of them, like, on top of each other, and at some point, it has an impact. And, this it will eventually can come be considered complex trauma. And, of course, you can also have big complex trauma. You can have big trauma, that you can have a few of them, and then it becomes a complex trauma. And, especially when people are, soldiers going to war will have complex trauma due to, many events into when they're deployed, that will create some trauma.

It is different, of course. It's not the same experience. But the thing is that in some level, on some level, the the impact of the nervous system is similar. Because even if there's no death threat when we have, little trauma most of the time, we still our system doesn't really know that. It thinks it's, death, or, like, safety threats.

And there is also the difference of, for example, when you can name when the trauma happened, what happened, where it happened. And the little t trauma, because it's so many different things altogether, you cannot really pinpoint one thing. And most, therapies and ways to solve traumas were developed for soldiers come coming back from war. And so they are built for more, specific events. When you can know where the trauma is coming from and where when you're trying to work with the person, the the threat the real threat is not there anymore.

Of course, PTSD can make it so that the person feel like the threat is still there, and that feeling is very real. But objectively, the the the the the difficult event, the traumatic event is not there. The person is not, in danger anymore. There is no trauma happening on an ongoing basis anymore. And this is different.

I'm not saying something is worse. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying it's different, experience and that most things that, were built to help with the trauma were built for those things, for those context of trauma, not for the little, trauma that are, accumulating over time. And because of that, it's it's sometimes hard to to work with those trauma. And, also, because, it's not really recognized as such.

I will come back to that. And the other thing is that a trauma is a lived experience. It's not necessarily the objective, event that will cause the trauma. It's how we experience the trauma that will or re experience the event that will cause the trauma or not cause their trauma. And that's why some people in the same event, won't have the same impact on their, their life.

Some will have a very intense PTSD, and others will just continue to go through life as if nothing happened or almost. And so this explains the the fact that the objective situation is not necessarily what will explain a trauma. It's how we live that situation, how we experience it personally, the perception we have of it that will makes it so that it's experienced as a trauma or not. And when we have emotionally intense kids, on the everyday, they receive the message from everyone, everywhere, all the places, that they are wrong, that they are bad, that what they're doing is not okay, that what they are interested in is not okay. And those message, sometimes it's just very small and would have zero impact on its own.

But when it's constant message that you're wrong, that you're doing things wrong, that you're a bad person, that what you're doing and even if the the goal of the person that's not the goal. And, like, as parents, most of us will never say you're a bad person. We've been told to say what you're doing is bad, for example. But still, if what you they're doing is what they wanna do, it can definitely be integrated as what I'm doing is bad and I'm therefore a bad person. And I'm never ever saying it's your fault.

The last thing I wanna I wanna, like, make you feel is guilt. Okay? But it it it's a reality. It's what's happening. It's nobody is doing it on purpose.

Nobody wants that effect, but it's what is happening at some point. And it can be crippling to think, yes. I'm doing that because most of us, let's be honest, have that impact on our kids when we don't know and we're we're not able to act differently because we're too tired, too overwhelmed, too whatever. And so we will do it, not on purpose. Once again, I wanna stretch it out.

And we are doing our best, and feeling guilty of doing it will not serve anybody. Okay? And, yes, it's possible that in the in that moment, you're not able to do things differently even if you know better because you don't have the energy, the resources of any kind to do things differently. And that's that's okay, and that's real. But still the impact is there.

And so what we want is as much as we can to switch things up. And even if at home, we are doing everything we can not to have that not to send that message to our kids, Those kid out in the wild will will have that message, be it from school, from the health care system, from the therapist, from that person in the grocery store that will have a comment that is not the place or the time or their anyway, but still, they will receive that message. And and even just the general, like, what children are supposed to do. Even in TV show, they can get that message of, like, I'm supposed to do this, but I know that I'm not doing this. So I'm not a good person.

So that message is coming from everywhere all the time, and it never stops. And that's what's hard. It's because it's a lot of times a day, a lot of times every three week, a lot of and it you don't see an end to it. You don't see a moment where it will stop, and that makes it hard. And, also, there is that aspect of the perception of trauma is often related to, a lack of power in the situation, a lack of control.

And kids don't have lots of control over their life. Let's be honest. It's very hard for them because we don't let kids have a lot of control, and so they are more likely to have an the feeling to be to not have control and so to have that trauma effect. And the fact that that it's not it's it's also it's not recognized. Okay?

So the, the the trauma that we live in our everyday life is not recognized as such in our systems. It exists. It has been studied, but it is not on the ground yet most places. Of course, there's people who are knowledgeable about that. But in most, organized system, it's not something that's recognized.

And I'm especially talking about the school system and the health care system, especially public health care system in the private sector, people that are all out of the official systems, I would say, that work for themselves, for example, or some specific clinics that have been specializing in stuff, you will have a different experience for sure, and some people are more aware. But it's all the time that knowledge from research takes years before it gets spread very largely. And there is, of course, some resistance to that because when the system is the one that's created violence against the individuals, the system needs to question itself, and that's very, very hard for the system to do. And I wanna be clear that I'm not talking about individual people here. I'm really talking about how the system is built.

So in most of our school, it can be a space that for some kids, the experience is traumatizing. And be it for, of course, if kids are bullied, but not just that. If for some kids, it's just too overwhelming. As an example, one of my child like, we don't speak English as a first language. And so one of my child, she's pretty good in English, but she's not completely bilingual.

And I was trying to explain what overwhelm means because there is no literal translation in French. And I was just describing what it what it is. And at some point, she was like, oh, so that's school. So for her, the experience of school is is the definition of overwhelming. Like, ouch.

She's not in school anymore. We're homeschooling, and we we were all ready when she said that. But especially high school was very, very overwhelming for her for mostly sensory reason and peopling reasons. Too many people, too many noise, too many everything, much of everything. And so, this is just on in itself, it's traumatizing in the fact that it it impacts the nervous system.

It creates an hyper vigilance of the nervous system where that is always in its stress response and really in like, aggravated, if you want. And that makes it that the context is hard. And, also, in most school, we are still working with focusing on the behaviors and not what's under under the behavior. Yes. There is amazing individual that go against that.

There is some school here and there that will go against that. But most likely than not, most school are still focusing on behaviors and not the needs of the child that creates the behavior. And so this is also something that's traumatizing for kids because their behavior gets corrected without addressing the underlying needs, and so we're negating their experience. We're negating their needs, basically, which is an a traumatizing effect on the nervous system. And this can be lived in school.

It can also be lived in the health care system where, first, they won't recognize the school trauma. And for some of your kids, I'm sure you definitely know what I'm talking about. Kids who don't wanna go to school, that they have bellyache, headache, nausea. They can even vomit at the idea of going to school, and I'm talking literally. They are they can have, like, meltdowns at the idea of going to school.

You might have to shove them to a teacher in the morning and leave while leaving a child is crying and yelling at school. Or you might have a child who's more subdued and more, like, will just have passive opposition, if you want. I don't have that way of putting things, but it's like they are not they're always late. They're doing everything very slow because they don't wanna go. So they're doing everything, but they don't wanna be in conflict because that's not who they are.

And so they are, doing everything they can to, like, push that moment of going to school. So I'm sure some of you are living through that, and it is a very real thing. And it's very hard. And the pressure to push our kids to go to school no matter what at whatever price on the child and their family is very, very, very intense. And if you never lived that, I'm glad that you didn't.

But just know that the parents in this situation, they're struggling, and they've done everything because the pressure is very, very intense. And so then you get into health care system, mental health system, and you when you wanna share those experience is is most likely than not negate as an experience as if you were the parent who's not doing enough. You haven't done x y z, and that's why your child is not going to school, or your child is just a brat, and that's why they're not going to school. And so your experience, again, is negated. And that that effect of trauma, and in both places, again, like, it's not individual's fault.

It's the system that how it works. The like, the knowledge, the research goes in the right direction. But before it's widely spread on the ground, it takes a lot of time. So most people that you will encounter in health care the like, organized health care system, not talking about a specific individual, but most of the people are not up to date with those research because that's not what was taught in school when they when they were studying, and their structure doesn't allow for that either. And, also, like, the system needs to question itself.

It's very hard. And that effect is on the child, but also on their parent, as I was saying, because we're impacted, because we're questioned, because we're judged all all all the time. Like, that effect of we're bad parents is also on us. And because we're seeing our kids suffer, we're seeing our kids with their trauma, their reaction, That also creates a rebound trauma effect in some way. We are living their trauma by proxy, if you want.

And, this this all leads often to burnout, both for parental burnouts, but also kids burnout because the nervous system is all the time in eye alert, and it's not sustainable. It's not something that we can do long term, and so it often leads to burnout. And burnout can look very differently. We had to talk about that on the retreat, but it's often not exactly what we think. And the difference between a burnout related to work and parenting or just being a child, is that getting out of it is very hard.

You cannot stop being a parent. Like, in some situation, you'll need to get out and someone else will have to take care of your kids for a little while. But most likely than not, you'll need to heal that trauma, that burnout while being in still in the situation. And it's the same for kids. Most of them won't be taken out of of school, and you will still need to deal with all of that while still being in the environment that is traumatizing for their system.

I know that episode is not necessarily roses and rainbows, but I most mostly wanted to just validate your experience by this episode. Just putting words if you didn't add those you'd add those word yet. Sorry. And to say, like, it's valid. It's real.

You're not crazy. You're not imagining stuff. It's it's it's what it is. And it's not because it's not officially recognized by the most systems that it's not real. And just that.

And, also, want to link to the last episode about parental confidence, and how feeling confident can be a, protecting factor because we were saying the fact that we feel that we have no control, that we're powerless in situation, and increase the impact of trauma. So when we're confident, we have more control in the situation. We can make things like, put things into perspective and say, what that what the message I'm getting, I know it's not true. I can reject that message. When we're we don't have that confidence, it's very hard to reject those messages.

And it's the same for our kids. When we feel confident, we can build their confidence. We can validate their experience, and they can slowly build that protective, shield to say, okay. I'm getting that comment about what I'm doing or who I am, but I know that's not true. I know that's not who I am.

I know I'm doing my best even if it's not reaching that person's expectation. And with times, it's protecting them from the the effects of trauma. I hope that's helping a little bit. I didn't wanted to let you with just negative information today. There is solution.

There is a way out. It's not doom and gloom. So thank you for joining today for you and for your kids. If you think this episode could be useful for someone you know, please share it them. You'll help them, and you'll tell them I get it, which makes it all the difference.

That's kind of the point of this episode. Right? If you haven't already subscribed to the new private podcast, you're not failing to basically stop feeling, well, like you're doing the wrong thing and start building your parental confidence a little bit more. You can find it at familymoments.ca/ not failing in one word. You can find everywhere everything else on the website.

I'm here for you so you can be there for you. Have a nice day.