By Rebecca Glover
If someone had asked me two years ago whether I had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), I’d have held my head high and shook my head in disagreement muttering no!
Well, guess what, today I am actually proud of myself that I have come to realise just the degree of trauma I have experienced and how in fact it affects my daily life. This isn’t just a sudden anxiety attack, sweaty palms and a full breakdown. This is the daily, dragging my feet out of bed, with a positive face painted on, to get on with all my duties, to ensure my children, particularly my more fragile Ruby, has her needs met.
Meals are prepared, feeding tubes ready, suction close by, medication on the ready, equipment adjusted, cushions wedged in and around her as I try to ensure her vulnerable body is cocooned snug and safe. Appointments have been scheduled and stored in my busy brain somewhere, support carers arranged, all ready to go out the door. Look out, here comes that seizure activity, or ‘moments’ as I like to call them, and all stands still.
This is where my world pauses. With so much noise on the external, I freeze. Although I keep moving, with the positive face everyone is used to, and perhaps put trust in, I am sinking internally.
This is my trauma response. This is where I weep deep inside, frantically, silently, preparing and planning the next few minutes, hours, days and months. In my head I am packing a bag, organising my other children, checking the house is in order, washing taken care of, bed made, warm socks and jumper packed for me, work bits and pieces safely in my bag and chargers at the ready. I have the conversations already circling my mind as to what I’m going to be asked, what defence mechanism I am going to use to combat the millions of questions thrown at me. I am mentally preparing for the battle I am about to go into when I step through those large, cold and clinical doors.
‘Why haven’t you read the notes on my daughter?, ‘why are you giving her that medication when she reacts to it, as per previous admissions?, ‘why are you asking her to squeeze your hands when you know she has no voluntary movement- if you read her medical history?!, ‘I am not going to explain, yet again, why real foods are better for her body than the tins of formula which create constipation and pain’.
I am ready for the chilly atmosphere which I am about to step into, where you feel the need to wrap a blanket around you like a vulnerable little child, and ensure you have warm socks to keep yourself warm and remain in some form of comfort. Feeling like an expert, I am also mentally preparing for the bright lights, especially at times of needing to rest. I silently am preparing for how creative I can be with covering flashing lights up, all to provide my daughter with the deep rest she so requires to help her through this. My head is seething at the thought of the extortionate parking fee I’ll get after days locked away in that building, and who knows what food outlets will be open and provide the nutrition I so desire when sat by a bed in worry all day long.
In addition to the mental preparation for the physical aspects of this potential hospital stay, I am also feeling angry, hostile and incredibly sad. Angry that this is happening yet again to my daughter who does not deserve this, not one little bit. Hostile toward all who try speaking to me about it- how would they know what I am experiencing and how every second of my being I am only ever trying to save my daughter. I am sad. I am so deeply sad and exhausted.
How can one go from taking a few steps forward with looking after my own family, making a safe and happy home, making a difference in the world, improving the lives of others, offering opportunities and possibilities to hundreds of other children and families, giving absolutely everything I have in my tank to others- and then here I am. Here I am, in one moment I am suddenly brought back to this moment, to my feelings, my body and as I realise- my trauma.
What often or not occurs is that when Ruby is having ‘a moment’, it happens, and it is resolved.
All that planning, worrying, organisation, internal conversations, anger, hostility and sadness are my trauma responses. I go in for the fight, I then flee, silently, before I just freeze and appease.
I have now come to realise that I do in fact live with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and I have come to a state of acceptance. This realisation has now allowed me the opportunity to notice, acknowledge and come to peace with these motions I go through and slowly but surely search for ways to dissolve such intense and debilitating feelings.
This will certainly not be resolved or fixed overnight. For as long as I am here on earth, I will love, care for, support, empathise and fight for all I value and believe in. This also means I must learn to do the same for myself. Only through this will I truly find the inner peace and guidance I require to handle these moments with more ease and grace.
“Trauma creates change you don’t choose. Healing is about creating change you do choose”. Michelle Rosenthal
Rebecca Glover is the Founder of Ruby & Ollie’s All Abilities Childcare. A place to help support parents and caregivers by offering quality and empathetic care and education services to their children.
https://www.rubyandollies.com.au/
