Bearing the Unbearable

Bearing the Unbearable

I read with horror about the 9 year old who shot her instructor with a submachine gun at a shooting range as her parents videotaped this horrendous accident.  And this morning I read a piece by Gregory Orr in the NYT titled When a Child Kills. The first line of his piece is “When I was 12 years old, I killed a younger brother in a hunting accident near our home in upstate New York.” 

This piece is not about politicizing the use of guns. It is about how to help children when tragedy hits, and the unpredictability of accidents. We like to think we are in control. But sometimes we are not. He says, and I am paraphrasing, that when tragedy happens, we seem to be more willing to take on guilt and self blaming than to face something scarier: accidents happen. We live in a world that is random and unpredictable. “Self-blame and shame isolate the human spirit”, he says. Isolation is devastating and counters healing. Speaking of the unspeakable, the tragedy, the accident is difficult. But the alternative, silence, is worse and leaves deep scars and wounds.

This is so much of what therapy offers: a place and a compassionate person where one can be with unbearable feelings; where one can rail at the randomness of accidents, cancer, early childhood abuse, having a child with Special Needs.

Nope. Life is not fair. Somehow we have the illusion that it should be? Really? I, for one, want to help speak the truth about what is real.

How do we find the courage to walk through this pain? To quote an old  song, “I get by with a little help from my friends”.  My real friends who will be there with me and not try to put a band aid on things to cover it up.

I have a friend whose mother killed herself when he was 4 and everyone told him his mother had gone on vacation. No one spoke about her again. And a young teen client whose mother died a long agonizing death from cancer. No one talked with this girl about what her mother was going through week by week. They thought it would be too upsetting for her. And so she was left in isolation all by herself to wonder, hope, fear, and not know. How agonizing.  Within months every picture of her mother was removed from the house. And there was a 2 year old child whose 7 year old bother was killed in a bike accident. As this child grew up, everyone always asked him how his mother was doing. No one asked him how he was doing. He was alone in his suffering with a mother driven to a nervous breakdown. He was alone feeling guilty that he could not make his mother happy again.

So you get the picture.....tragedy happens. My only plea here is to find some way to talk to a child about his/her suffering and help him/her accept that when tragedy happens it happens and cannot be changed, prevented, or blamed on someone. Give the child unconditional love and permission to feel what they feel even though it may feel unbearable. Love, kindness, acceptance, talking it out makes the unbearable bearable.

Coping Skills

Coping

This week in our Mom’s group we explored what we had needed to cope with when we were 8 years old and what coping skills we used then. We looked at what of those coping skills we are still relying on that are no longer necessary; and what healthy coping skills we have now or want to develop.

Going back to our 8 year old life was difficult for most. There were dysfunctional families, parents who were alcoholics, parents who were suffering from mental illness, sexual abuse, parents who were so absorbed in their own turbulence that they didn’t notice the depression and anxiety that was plaguing their children.  It was painful to write about and revisit; but I think we felt seen and heard by each other, something we didn’t get when we were 8. Interestingly enough, as we looked around the room, we all had chosen people helping professions. Somehow surviving the traumas of childhood created a desire to help others and prevent or minister to those suffering now.

If you would like to do this exercise, draw with your non-dominant hand a picture of yourself at 8. Then write/list the qualities of your 8 year old self and write about what she had to cope with. Now write how she coped; what were her coping skills?

The coping skills we shared about were varied: reading, athletics, getting good grades in school, performing well to get attention, finding welcoming friends and their families to hang out with as much as possible, bullying, living in a fantasy world, taking care of younger siblings, praying, relying on Grandma and so on. Most of these are positive, but could become ones that are no longer needed, like living in a fantasy world, bullying, taking care of others to the detriment of self care, and a need to perform well to avoid self condemnation.

My 8 year old self was coping with an alcoholic mother and a physician father who worked a great deal. I was anxious and depressed and was made to feel bad about that by my mother. As most parents in the 50’s my mother wanted me to “snap out of it” and was not really capable of empathy. For me, God became a compassionate other, all knowing and all loving. I developed a fantasy about God helping me and I anxiously prayed constantly.

 I had a 5 year old sister and a 2 year old brother. I totally was in love with my brother and did a lot of care taking for him. Our next door neighbors had a baby girl, at that time, who I loved to push in the stroller before her naps. Eventually I babysat for them 5 nights a week. They owned the drive-in movie theater and needed someone to care for the baby almost every night. I went over and washed the dishes, cleaned the house a bit, and played with the baby. After she fell asleep, I fell asleep until the parents came home. I think care taking was a coping skill and it made me feel loved and important. To this day, I am a care taker and mostly I love it, but I can do it to the point of depletion and exhaustion at times.

 At this time in my life I have finally developed some healthy coping skills.  Working in my garden, watching movies, getting guidance from my consultant and therapist, talking with my close friends, and going out dancing all help to relieve stress and tension.

So write about what coping skills you have, which ones you may not need anymore and which ones you want to develop. Mothers of children with Special Needs really need to develop healthy coping skills to keep doing what they are doing. It is a daunting job. Please know that what you do is awesome and draining and tiring and loving.

I’d love you to comment on my blog and let me know how you are coping.