MOTHERHOOD: Guest Post

By: Danielle Dickshinski, L.Ac., RMT

I remember as my 3-year-old is throwing their usual temper tantrum because their banana broke into two pieces. They are screaming and demanding for a new banana: whole, perfect, blemish-free; and I am trying to put my foot down to not cave into the little terrorist’s demands. The voice in my head keeps reminding me that it is my job to teach this little human healthy boundaries and how to regulate their emotions, no matter how loud they scream, how much they kick on the floor, or maybe even throw the banana on the newly cleaned carpets. I try to calm the inner critic of my parenting skills, while standing my ground with the toddler. All the while I am trying to quiet my own inner toddler screaming.

Having Complex PTSD or C-PTSD feels like living in-between worlds.  One world is the here-and-now; while the other is filled with cyclic flashbacks of horror. Both worlds overlap one another.  The present reality stands firm in the background, while the flashback creates a thin haze within the foreground.  My senses are warped into fragmented pieces each revealing themselves when triggered.  The accumulation of traumas within a certain time-frame produces this more complex version of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. 

The flashbacks do not always come in at full-force, but often in isolated sensations: the physical pain of having been raped, the sensation of someone grabbing my shoulder, the internal pressure of anxiety, terror, shock, and rage snowballing into the pit of my stomach, the creeping sense of numbness overtaking the freezing aspect of myself because my mind has shut down certain parts to protect me from my living reality. Sometimes the flashbacks come back in full-force with the revelation of new memories. For some of us, we hold the reality of remembering our trauma later in life as certain life-events open fresh, gaping wounds.

I constantly ask myself: how can I teach my child how to handle their “big” emotions when no one taught me how to regulate my own.  How can I effectively show my toddler how to express their anger, frustration, sadness, disappointment, and the other spectrum of emotions most people do not want to talk about?  How can I understand the benefit of anger through transformation when it is an essential trigger?  How can I teach my toddler how to emotionally regulate themselves, when I have a difficult time regulating my own anger, sadness, frustration and disappointment? 

Thanks to C-PTSD, I learned the art of survival through dissociation. The ability to numb out and float somewhere else beside the present moment can be a literal life-saver in life-threatening situations but can be destructive when it no longer serves me. When my toddler screams and cries out of frustration, I hear my own screaming of terror as I was being brutally raped for the first time at around the age of 4.

How can I teach my toddler healthy boundaries, when I was trained not to have boundaries?  How can I calm down my self-imposed perfectionism and realize I am enough for this little human?  How can I be present with my child when my child is one of my triggers?  For those of us with C-PTSD, shame and guilt are built into our nervous systems as they were the tools our abusers used to keep us quiet.    

Sometimes I do yell. Sometimes I bring my voice down to a whisper. Sometimes I put myself in time-out to decompress, while leaving my little one safely in their room. I have learned the art of self-care. I must be self-full and not self-less. I must learn how to love and care for myself, so I have the reserve to give to my child. One thing my little one has shown me is the gift of the present moment. Their innate curiosity to the beauty of life and the ability to fully express their full range of emotions without inhibition has shown me the freedom of expression. Something I have not been allowed for a long time. One of the biggest misconceptions stemming from C-PTSD is the idea of feeling alone and isolated. 

The truth is there are millions of us who are survivors from C-PTSD trying to learn how to thrive. Many of us must work extra hard raising little ones, while learning the art of self-love and compassion. The more I talk and share my voice, the more the silence breaks. The mom guilt, the shame, frustration, and grief from PTSD, the anxiety of the unknown triggers, being triggered by your child at the exact ages you were abused are more common than we tell ourselves. The reign of abuse thrived on secrets, silence, and isolation. The echo of the shared voices empowers. My little one has triggered the depths of my courage to carry on my own healing, so they get to experience life with the mommy they deserve to have: the mommy that I have been, the mommy that I am, and the mommy that I choose to become.

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Danielle Dickshinski, L.Ac., RMT, is a Licensed Acupuncturist, who specializes in Women’s Medicine and Trauma Support in Arizona. Most importantly, she is a survivor transforming her C-PTSD experience into thriving. She balances her passion for helping others with self-care, so she can be her best for herself, her family, and her community. She loves to paint, hike, kayak, write poetry, have “adventures with her family”, and loves to travel and teach.