Tagged With "parenting with ptsd"
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Introducing NEW Becoming Trauma-Informed & Beyond Community
Earlier this year @Dawn Daum wrote to us when she was ready to share ACEs science with people in the organization she works in to make a case for moving towards more trauma-informed care for the benefit of the staff and those they serve. She was frustrated because almost all the training and resources she found were geared towards schools, clinical staff or to organizations working with children and families rather than ACE-impacted adults in the workplace and who are...
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Introducing the Full Potential Parenting Podcast!
I'm excited to announce that The Full Potential Parenting Podcast is here! This podcast features short (6-12 min.) segments with stress release techniques that work, offers book reviews of books that have been transformational, informative, or inspiring, introduces concepts critical to any parent of a child who is experiencing big (and confusing) emotions and behaviors, and provides insights about non-pharma approaches to healing. The first few episodes are now available on iTunes here:...
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Is it PPD or PTSD? (www.parentingwithptsd.wordpress.com)
Essay written by Joyelle Brandt. I stood in front of a room of strangers with kind eyes, and announced: “I have been struggling with postpartum depression.” Somehow it was easier to admit this to strangers than to my husband and friends, yet there it was. Since early in my pregnancy with my second child, I had struggled with my mental health. But it would take me years to realize that what I had was not postpartum depression, but a particularly acute flair up of the undiagnosed post...
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When Will the Internet Be Safe for Women (Atlantic.com)
*Note: I'm posting this to the Parenting with ACEs site because so many of us have daughters who face this and the responses, often, by authorities are so poor. While some of us may not want or need to be on social media in our personal or professional lives, many choose to be and/or need to be and should be able to exercise the right with safety. This is another cyber safety issue but not one addressed early or often enough. At minimum this can help better educate all of us so we can better...
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When Your Child Is Your PTSD Trigger
One-third of children experience childhood abuse, and yet the question is never asked: what happens when those children grow up and have families of their own?
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When Your Child is Your PTSD Trigger (www.theestablishment.com)
This is one necessary and important contribution written by Dawn Daum. It's honest. There are few resources available to parents with PTSD, especially new parents dealing with the physical and emotional demands of early parenting. When I became a new mother, I was prepared for a lot—but nobody told me that parenting when you have experienced childhood abuse can feel like walking back into a war zone as a soldier with PTSD. Before becoming a mother, I could physically re-shift focus away from...
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Who Decides if ACEs Science is Shared? We Do!
Hi Parenting with ACEs Community: There's always a lot of discussion about if, how, when and where the ACEs survey should be shared with people and it's an important topic. I get that it's sensitive. How medical providers share, is of course, an important discussion for medical providers to have (and ideally WITH patients, staff and medical providers guiding each other about what works best and is trauma-informed for all). IF medical providers share about the ACEs study and research, on the...
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Why Aren’t Trauma Survivors Warned That Parenthood May Be a PTSD Trigger? (themighty.com)
For many survivors of childhood abuse, symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may re-occur, or never arise, until they become a parent. A significant number of parenting survivors do not recognize the increased depression , anxiety or onset of flashbacks as symptoms of PTSD, weaving in and out their journey to raise a family. Instead, many will internalize debilitating shame and question their ability, and even their right to parent. According to the National Center for Victims of...
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Why Do Family Estrangements Happen?
Family estrangement is a very grief-ridden and personal experience that family members face when someone leaves or driven away from their family of origin. It occurs in families of all different demographic situations, including all races, religions, and cultures. But why do family estrangements happen? In this article, we shall focus on some of the most common reasons why family estrangements occur including: Abuse Neglect Mismatched expectations about family roles and relationships Clash...
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Why Icelandic Dads Take Parental Leave and Japanese Dads Don't [theatlantic.com]
By Joe Pinsker, The Atlantic, January 23, 2020 Earlier this month, the 38-year-old Japanese environment minister, Shinjiro Koizumi, did something that would not make national, or even local, news in many industrialized countries: A couple of days before the birth of his and his wife’s first child, he said he planned to take time off from work to care for the baby. Koizumi’s planned leave is meager—he expects to take about two weeks off over the course of three months, and might still work...
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Why Kids With ACEs Shouldn't Get a Pass on Chores
Don't worry that chores are too stressful for kids with ACEs, says trauma researcher Bob Sege, MD. “You don’t want to coddle them,” Sege said, “because the message they will get is that they are damaged goods. They need to know that the adversity they suffered is only one part of them; it’s not all of them.”
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Wrestling Ghost Director Talks Live to the Parenting with PTSD Community Today
Today, at 1p.m. EST (10a.m. PST) @Joyelle Brandt will have a live conversation with the Wrestling Ghosts filmmaker, @ana joanes. I expect there will be A LOT of talk about parenting with ACEs, since that is central to this movie. This conversation will take place, live, on the Parenting with PTSD Facebook page . I expect this will be a fantastic conversation. Joyelle @Dawn Daum joined us last year during the Parenting with ACEs chat series...
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Wrestling Our Ghosts Podcast: Parenting with PTSD
A summary of what to expect during the Wrestling Our Ghosts podcast where @ana joanes (director and podcast host) interviews @Joyelle Brandt (activist, artist, author, and guest) from the Wrestling Ghosts website:
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Writing to Heal, Yoga to Feel & Survivor-Led Resources Online
I love yoga and writing. I need yoga and writing. Both are relatively affordable and can be done alone and at home or in community. Both have been central to my survival, recovery and growth which I write about below. I also love sharing and supporting survivor-led resources created for survivors and others. Here are two links to those if you want to get to those right away. There are more details about each following the essay: Write Your Story, Heal Your Life Summit: Alaura O'Dell...
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Young Parents Speak Out: Barriers, Bias, and Broken Systems [aecf.org]
By National Crittenton and Katcher Consulting, Annie E. Casey Foundation, March 2020 Founded in 1883 as a social justice advocacy organization, National Crittenton has been dedicated to the needs and potential of girls, young women and women facing violence, poverty and injustice across the country for more than a century. Additionally, National Crittenton convenes the 26 Yet, systems have turned a blind eye to the ways in which the “safety net” designed for adults is a “trap” for young...
Ask the Community
ACES/Resilience Surveys w/Parents
Hello all, I work at an Early Learning Center and we will be presenting on ACES and Resilience to the parents of preschoolers. One of the aspects we have debated is when to offer them the ACES and Resilience surveys. However, after reading https://www.acesconnection.com/blog/putting-resilience-and-resilience-surveys-under-the-microscope I am wondering what purpose it would ultimately serve (and what unintended consequences it may have) to give parents the surveys. It would be optional, and...
Ask the Community
Being present was the most exhausting part of parenting
I used to sneak away for a hot bath as often as possible when my daughter was in the need-me-every-minute years. I'd soak long past when the water went cold and I felt guilty at times but sometimes I needed to be alone. To read poetry. To have some physical space. To exhale. I didn't always know where or how to pamper or self-care myself. There were few adults I trusted. I believed in attachment-style parenting and wanted to be there all of the time. And that even made me feel guilty when I...
Ask the Community
Books to Support Parenting with ACEs?
Let's create a list of resources useful for parenting ourselves and children. These can be books about child development or self-help books or a work of fiction that had important wisdom. If there's a title that's helped you or someone you know, love or work with as it relates to parenting, please share. For me, my absolute favorite is this: There's Nothing Wrong with You: Going Beyond Self-Hate , Cheri Huber This book is not about parenting. It's not about how-to parent I should say but it...
Ask the Community
Can Trauma-Informed Mermaids Help Children & Families? (New Kids Book Series)
Dear Parenting with ACEs Community, We just launched a new trauma-informed children's book series called Venus and Her Fly Trip . The series has been developed in collaboration with therapists, educators, parents and healers and is designed to promote mental/social/emotional health, body positivity and imaginative play in kids 4-10 , with the ultimate goal of preventing self-hatred. I would greatly value hearing the feedback of the ACEs community on this endeavor, and welcome your ideas for...
Ask the Community
Help our public radio station with our reporting: How did separation from your parents as a child impact you?
KQED is the NPR-affiliate public radio station based in San Francisco, CA. We’d like to hear from adults (18+) who were separated from their parents when they were children. Perhaps the separation was due to economic reasons, war and conflict, incarceration, foster care, or something else. How did that period of separation impact you in the long-run? How did it impact you as a parent? We’re interested in this topic due to recent news of parents and children being separated at the U.S.-Mexico...
Ask the Community
If You Provide Parent-Education/Counseling Services, I Want to Hear From You!!
I would like to talk to and hear from parent educators. If you teach parenting classes, incorporate parenting skills as part of the service you provide, or work to improve the lives of parenting survivors of childhood abuse in other ways, I need to hear from you. I'm hoping to find a provider interesting in writing an essay to be included in the soon to be released second edition of the Trigger Points Anthology , which will include the title change to Parenting with PTSD. I'm looking to gain...
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New Member offering resources and training to parents of ACEs kids
Hi everyone! So glad to have found you all. (I'm still learning my way around so apologies if I've posted this in a few places.) I'm Alison Morris, single adoptive mother to a child with early developmental trauma whose ACEs score is sadly quite high. Even more sad is that I think my own parenting may have added a check or two since I had no idea what was going on for quite a while, and even when I did I found it SO hard to parent in a trauma-informed (connection- and relationship-based)...
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New Resource - Pre-Father Care: Prenatal Care for Fathers
Hello! I am writing to share a wonderful new resource from the Vital Village Network’s friend and partner, Charles C. Daniels, Jr. Charles is the Founder and CEO of Fathers’ Uplift, which works to assist fathers in overcoming barriers (financial barriers, addiction barriers, oppressive barriers, emotional barriers and traumatic barriers) that prevent them from remaining engaged in their children’s lives. Charles’s book “Pre-Father Care: Prenatal Care for Fathers” is now available for...
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New TRANSFORMING TRAUMA Podcast!
The NARM Training Institute is thrilled to announce our new podcast: Transforming Trauma . The Transforming Trauma podcast is designed to highlight individuals and communities thriving after Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and Complex Trauma (C-PTSD). Interviews with NARM Therapists, and other prominent trauma specialists, will highlight how the NeuroAffective Relational Model (NARM) fills a missing gap in the current trauma-informed efforts to address the legacy of developmental,...
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New Video: This is What It Feels Like When Your Brain is Dysegulated from CPTSD
Everyone’s brain and emotions get dysregulated sometimes, and almost everyone is able to eventually re-regulate. But if you grew up with abuse, neglect or other trauma during childhood, you may get more dysregulated more often, and have a harder time bouncing back, leaving you with a lack of focus and coordination, overblown (or deadened) emotions, and difficulty connecting and communicating appropriately with others. In this video I talk about what dysregulation feels like — if you know...
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Nurturing Children During Times of Stress: A Guide to Help Children Bloom by Yolo CAPC and YCCA
The Yolo County Child Abuse Prevention Council (CAPC) and Yolo County Children’s Alliance (YCCA) are excited to share Nurturing Children During Times of Stress: A Guide to Help Children Bloom. This guide for parents and caregivers, which we are launching during Child Abuse Prevention Month, contains tips and resources that parents and caregivers can use to promote resilience in their children and themselves. Nurturing Children During Times of Stress explains the effects of intense stress or...
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Opioid Addiction: Advice for Parents
Given the way the media portray opioid addiction, it's natural to react with panic or moral outrage when you discover your child struggling with the problem. It's not natural to calm down and try to view your child as someone who is using opioids to cope with serious problems, though that is likely the case, according to research.
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Parent with ACEs: Is it Time to Change Your Parenting Playbook [sfbayview.com]
By Diana Hembree, San Francisco Bay View, February 1, 2020 If you experienced severe hardship as a child, are you more likely to have children with behavior or mental health problems? The short answer is yes. A recent UCLA study shows that the children of parents with four or more Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), such as abuse or neglect, are twice as likely to develop ADHD, which makes it more likely children will become hyperactive and unable to pay attention or control their...
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Parental Depression Forecasts Kids' Later Physical Health [news.uga.edu]
By Allyson Mann, University of Georgia Today, October 24, 2019 When parents suffer from depression, kids may be at risk for physical health problems in young adulthood, according to a study from researchers including the University of Georgia’s Katherine Ehrlich. The results revealed an association between parental depression and youth metabolic syndrome—a condition that forecasts substantially increased risk for cardiovascular disease and diabetes. “The good news is that while parental...
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Parentification: Growing Up Too Soon
“ We cannot tell what may happen to us in the strange medley of life. But we can decide what happens in us - how we can take it, what we do with it - and that is what really counts in the end. How to take the raw stuff of life and make it a thing of worth and beauty - that is the test of living.” Joseph Fort Newton This week in the childhood trauma education series, I will tackle parentification . I discovered so much while researching this topic that explains a lot for me. Have you heard...
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Parentification: Growing Up Too Soon
“ We cannot tell what may happen to us in the strange medley of life. But we can decide what happens in us - how we can take it, what we do with it - and that is what really counts in the end. How to take the raw stuff of life and make it a thing of worth and beauty - that is the test of living.” Joseph Fort Newton This week in the childhood trauma education series, I will tackle parentification . I discovered so much while researching this topic that explains a lot for me. Have you heard...
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Parenting as a Survivor Keynote to Follow Free Resilience Screening
I share my story of having an ACE score of 9 and how that has effected me as a mother, because I can make sense of it now. I want other parenting survivors, and those that provide education and support services to them to be able to do the same.
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Parenting as an Abuse Survivor (www.ElephantJournal.com) PTSD
My cultural pride is shame. My cultural pride is shame. My native tongue is a memory I try to scrape clean so mud doesn’t cake out of my mouth. My greatest gift of maternal love is to insist she get no heirloom. My gift is to break the cycle. And what I give her is something I didn’t own as a child. Safety. Comfort. Responsiveness. Love. Attachment. I am not a child-girl-victim. I’m a mother-woman-adult. OK, I am, and will always be, both. (This is an except from “ Little Girl Riding Shotgun...
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Parenting, COVID and Teens: The Hassle
It all started for me about two weeks ago. Even though I heard about Coronavirus here and there, it was just a distant conversation happening on the background for me. Until one day, I got home from work, and my husband said we had to start stocking up for the crisis . "Crisis? Which crisis?", I asked. "The outbreak! It is serious. My company is preparing us to work from home for at least four weeks". "Get out of here," I thought. He is known for being anxious and controlling, so I scratched...
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PARENTING GUIDES: Please share to support parents
During this challenging time, parents need more resources than ever. Please let parents know about the following guides from the Yolo County Children's Alliance and the Yolo Child Abuse Prevention Council. All guides are available at www.yolokids.org/forfamilies , and I have attached a summary of the guides if you would prefer to share that. Please note that we will be releasing our positive discipline guide on 4/1/20 ( Handling Your Child's Challenging Behaviors at Every Age ). The guides...
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Parenting in a Pandemic [medium.com]
By Damon Korb, Medium, March 16, 2020 It is a well-known fact that children thrive when there are routines. This time of year most children wake up, get dressed, eat their breakfast, head off to school where they move from class to class, come home and have a snack, do some homework, have some free time or participate in an afterschool activity, eat dinner, and then get ready for bed. The daily life for most children is pretty mapped out and organized. But, as children suddenly need to stay...
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Parenting Matters: Supporting Parents of Children Ages 0-8 (The National Academies Press 2016)
A study published by The National Academies of Sciences in 2016 resulting in 10 Recommendations to build support for parents... "Over the past several decades, researchers have identified parenting- related knowledge, attitudes, and practices that are associated with improved developmental outcomes for children and around which parenting- related programs, policies, and messaging initiatives can be designed. However, consensus is lacking on the elements of parenting that are most important...
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Parenting, Menopause & ACEs After-the-Chat Summary: Carey Sipp
Have you talked with friends, siblings or co-workers about Parenting with ACEs while going through the change? Do you have any fascinating facts to share about how your OBGYN prepared or supported you when thrown by midlife, hormonal shifts and emotional residue from traumatic stress? Me either. And it's a shame. A lot of people parent, go through menopause, and have survived a bunch of ACEs. Conversations and information shouldn't be so hard to find. But they are. T hat's the reason we...
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Parenting, PTSD & ACES / Live Chat Event from Parenting with ACEs Series
Our next online chat event is fast approaching. All are welcome. Date: Tuesday, June 13th, 2017 (10 AM PST / 1 PM EST) Topic: Parenting, PTSD & ACEs. Guests: Dawn Daum & Joyelle Brandt are parents, writers, advocates and trauma survivors. Together, they edited the forthcoming Parenting with PTSD anthology and created an online community for parents recovering from childhood abuse. They educate mental health, human service and other professionals about the challenges and lived...
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Parenting’s Troubled History
As we learned from the CDC-Kaiser Permanente ACE Study , negative childhood experiences are often kept secret, downplayed, or repressed because of our powerful desire to put such things behind us. Unfortunately, our minds and our brains don’t work that way. Patterns can play out automatically, no matter how hard we try to be original and create our own realities. Just as it is important to know family medical history (e.g., diabetes or tuberculosis) it is equally important to know about our...
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Parenting Weekend Intensive
Our Ten Week Curriculum in Two Days!! Echo encourages all parents to come and be part of our community at the Saturday parenting classes in Echo Park. For those who live too far away or have other barriers to attending the 10-week series, we are offering our trauma-informed, nonviolent parenting class series over one weekend. In the 12-hour intensive you’ll experience an approach to raising children that is based on the latest research about brain and child development, as well as the...
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Parenting with ACEs Chat Event Schedule & How To
Hi Everyone: Tomorrow is the first in our live chat series the second Tuesday of every month. The guest is Beth O'Malley . We'll be chatting about how to talk about tough topics with kids . All are welcome to join. Here's the when, where and how-to join in. Hope Feel free to share this post or attached flyer. Cissy Parenting with ACEs / Monthly Chat Series When: 2nd Tuesday of the Month @ 10AM PST / 1PM EST Where : Online / Parenting with ACEs Group, ACEs Connection How: See below. If You’re...
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Parenting With ACEs: How You Can Support Your Toddler [sfbayview.com]
By Diana Hembree, San Francisco Bay View, November 11, 2019 “My 2-year-old keeps falling down when he tries to walk.” “My son is almost 24 months old, but all he can say is ‘mama’ and dada.’” “She just turned 2, and she still can’t follow the simplest instructions.” When your toddler misses a developmental milestone, like taking her first steps by age 2, it’s natural to fret. After all, in very rare cases, such delays may be a sign of an underlying condition. But a recent study suggests that...
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Parenting with ACEs Resources: Power Sharing & Sharing Powerfully
Sharing as a trauma survivor, parent (via adoption), writer, and advocate, I'm going to detail what I find crucial in any program or perspective geared towards those currently parenting with ACEs. Most important, is that any program be survivor and peer-led (or co-led). If that's the only change done, it's a good one. Who shares content, and how, is as important as the content being shared. So often, programs to parents are patronizing, punitive, and can come across as "edupuking" all over...
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Parenting with PTSD & ACEs Chats Highlights & How to Find Chat Transcripts
Here are some answers to questions I've had about chats as well as a summary of the highlights from last week's chat . Chat Format The chats are done via typed messaging (no audio or visual). Chats are an hour-long and allow for discussion as well as Q&A. All are welcome to Parenting with ACEs chats. You don't have to have kids or ACEs to attend - though it's fine if you one or both :) You can post questions to a chat ahead of time and review a chat transcript after it has ended.
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Parenting with PTSD Book Cover
I can't wait to read this book. The cover is beautiful and tender. This parenting (with ACEs, with PTSD) is sacred, hard and important work. We need all the resources and support we can get. This book has more than a new cover. While the Trigger Points Anthology had honest essays from those of us parenting after abuse, this one has that plus new chapters and expanded and in-depth resources. There's lots more about ACEs, as well, and s Some of the new chapters are written by our own ACN...
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Parenting with PTSD: Breaking the Cycle Without Falling Apart - Event
I'm thrilled to offer a workshop at Riverside Trauma Center in Massachusetts in Dec. I'll be speaking as a parent-writer-trauma survivor perspective about ACEs and parenting with post-traumatic stress. The talk, geared mostly to clinicians and social workers and I'm eager to talk about parenting with ACEs (this group and in general). More about Riverside Trauma Center and the workshop, below. Riverside Trauma Center . a service of Riverside Community Care, helps people in Massachusetts...
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Parenting with PTSD One Liners & Parenting with ACEs Chat Reminder
Parents with PTSD from ACEs sharing what's hard about parenting while post-traumatically stressed: "Managing the terror around the possibility of everyone being a perp." "How to talk to children about why they won't meet X relative." “There was a point when I would feel completely overwhelmed by something as simple as having to make breakfast and school lunches at the same time.” "I didn't understand that not all parents reacted or were triggered the way I was." "was stone set on not...
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Parenting with PTSD Workshop: Getting to the Source of the Cycle
It took aging in to a very restless soul before I went looking for and found others like me ; women convinced they were “over” or “through” the ripple effects of childhood abuse, only to be blindsided by flashbacks, panic attacks and dangerous levels of hopelessness after becoming mothers. What I discovered and now aim to help others understand is how absolutely normal it is for a parenting survivor of childhood trauma to be triggered by her own child, and by doing basic acts of parenting...