Parenting from a place of unresolved trauma

What do you think of when you think of an injury to the brain? Do you attribute blame to the person who is injured? Or judge them for changes to physical or emotional behaviour? Most of us would be quick to acknowledge that the recipient of the injury was suffering, wishing them a speedy recovery and hoping the impact was short-term.

I ask because, sadly, in my line of work, I witness people carrying around intense feelings of shame attached to the effect of trauma on their loved ones - often spending a large chunk of time in therapy working through the shame they feel because of the impact of unresolved trauma; indeed, the effect on children can be particularly cruel for parents to process.

As a society, we often fail to understand and offer support to everyone tangled in the wider net of a traumatic event.

Suffering from trauma is not a choice, it is the body's natural response to the risk of serious injury or death - and I would like to see a change in the way society responds to those who are impacted.

Imagine you are a parent with young children who place intense practical demands on your daily life, or you are grappling with the emotional needs of a teenager – constantly pushing boundaries, trying furiously to make sense of their own expanding social circles and the responsibilities of life. You are tired (you are a parent after all!), and you have good days and bad days but, generally, overall, you are handling the demands of parenting.  

And then bam.

You are the victim of an event so terrifying that your entire brain goes into survival mode. You begin to experience the intense physical effects of PTSD; perhaps you suffer from flashbacks, become hyper-vigilant and are no longer able to regulate your emotions. Hyperarousal (often referred to as fight or flight) gives rise to recklessness, compulsion, anger and rage. Or hyporarousal (sometimes known as the freeze response) leads to dissociation and detachment.  These actions might set in as your brain finds any way it can to deal with the trauma. In short, your behaviour changes.

You change.

And that is terrifying. Not just for you but for everyone around you who loves you. Suddenly you are unable to manage the loving responses needed to soothe and calm your children. You have no patience; you seem distracted and distant. You have little tolerance for others and quick automatic responses to behaviour are often out of character, no longer measured and often delivered without positive emotion. They are undeniably frightening to those who witness them.

Sadly, these normal responses to unresolved trauma give rise to an influx of shame and that powerful emotion repeatedly arises in the therapy rooms of practitioners up and down the country.

Shame arises because people often don’t understand that their brain has suffered a significant injury. They just witness the tears, tantrums, and unforgiving narrative delivered by angry, confused loved ones who observe changes that they simply cannot even begin to comprehend. These changes breed fear, so a vicious cycle begins to form – trauma response creates judgement, deep ruptures in relationships and devastating misunderstandings in a situation that requires exactly the opposite.

So many people are left trying to process the deep shame of being unable to attend to their loved ones needs at a time when they are only barely able to place one foot in front of the other. It makes me constantly question the lack of understanding we currently have in our society to trauma responses.

If we use the analogy of someone who had been in a serious accident and broken their leg in 5 places, we expect that person to have been hospitalised for several months. They would have had ongoing medical care, rehabilitation such as physio and access to external services to help their family. Friends and neighbours would have rallied around, helping where they could, knowing that this person was going to recover but needed time and support.

And that person would not have experienced shame. Because people around them would have understood that a broken bone is a normal human response to trauma force. They would have had compassion, sympathy, and an unwavering belief that this person needed support right now but, that with the right care and treatment, they would recover.

Sadly, the reality is that people suffering from trauma are ostracised by neighbours, cut off from friends and family and blocked from social interactions with others.  The devastating vitriol of “you’ve changed” becomes the standard response.

I believe that society needs to understand the importance of responding to emotional trauma in the same way we would any more recognisable physical injury. Individuals have a responsibility to provide care, and compassion, and to refer to a professional for the right type of treatment. This responsibility isn’t just in the hands of the doctors we go to in desperation because our thinking is so chaotic we are unable to recognise ourselves – it’s a collective responsibility that we should all feel as humans. Educating ourselves about the impact of trauma and offering kindness and support when we see someone struggling to cope.

As a practitioner, I also know that trauma is not always a response to a one-off event. Some parents have historical trauma injuries, and these can be exacerbated by the demands of parenting – re-traumatising or triggering events and circumstances can lead to a steady increase in coping mechanisms. We need to understand and be aware of unresolved trauma responses among parents and loved ones, instead of reacting to behaviour that we don’t understand with exasperation and contempt.

Research and psychological theory tell us that children are highly susceptible to the emotional states of their parents. Children mirror their parents and internalise their behaviours to form part of their personalities. How important then that parents who are displaying symptoms such as dysregulation are aware of what is happening and the potential impact, so that the right intervention can lead to better treatment - stopping a child from becoming traumatised themselves as a response to witnessing their parent in acute distress.

I write this blog with a sense of hope as always. Hope that we can remove the shame attached to the suffering caused by trauma; and hope that we can elicit change so that loved ones can reach out to those around them and receive greater understanding, not misplaced judgement.

Yes, there is a need for more understanding and collective recognition of unresolved trauma symptoms, but if we can educate and explain, we can intervene earlier – providing vital support not just to individuals but to those around them who are impacted too.