I am NOT Superwoman: The importance of self-care

This post is also available at my new website Trauma Mama Drama.  If you enjoy reading my blog, remember to update your feeds, emails and bookmarks with the new link, because eventually I will only post updates on the new site's blog.

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I learned the importance of self-care the same day my wedding dress came in the mail.

         

 

Husband and I engaging in self-care together!

Things started to go wrong, however, the moment I opened the box... and they only got worse as the night wore on.

I ran into some disappointment when I realized I couldn't try the dress on because I couldn't zip it up on my own, and no one who lives here could help me... Oldest's fine motor skills are lagging due to her non-specified genetic disorder, and I didn't want her to snag the fabric. I was too nervous to ask Middle and Little for help because they are only five and seven, and I didn't know if helping me with such an exciting and intimate task would trigger their early-childhood-trauma issues. And asking Husband for help was out of the question, because tradition and bad luck and all that jazz.

I pushed my slightly-sad feelings aside when my kids came home from school.  Why do I feel like I have to try the dress on immediately anyway? I asked myself. Quit being so whiny, Self!

Unfortunately, Middle and Little were having a "bad day," which meant an evening full of arguing, screaming, crying, and general weirdness, and it all came to a head at dinnertime when both of my step-children refused their dinner. They suffer from encopresis (holding their bowel movements). I have lots of experience with this because Oldest also has problems with her bowels. Oldest's problems stem from a lack of muscle movement in her bowels and can't be helped. Middle and Little's problems likely relate to traumatic toilet-training experiences during their early childhood, before we got custody of them. We don't know everything that happened, but we do know that when they were two and three years old, Middle and Little were expected to change their own diapers and were given consequences for having accidents. 

So, when they only took a few nibbles before pushing their plates away dramatically, I looked at their stomachs. They were quite distended.

"So... When was the last time you guys pooped?"  

Cue three hours of hysteria on and off the toilet, capped by taking Little to the hospital when he started screaming and shaking (We were worried he had impacted bowels, but he was fine. The next day we kept both of them home from their summer behavior program and emptied them out, courtesy of Fleet, and we started keeping better track of when they did (and didn't) go to the bathroom after this).

Anyway... While Husband and Little were at the hospital, I got on Skype with my mom to show off my dress. My mom oohed and ahhhed and did all the mom things that moms do when their daughter prepares to walk down the aisle, and then we switched gears to talk about the trip Husband, the kids and I had been planning. We'd been working on an 18-hour drive to visit her my mom in Kansas so she could see everyone and meet Middle and Little, and then to Arkansas to visit Husband's grandpa, mom and brother. My mom asked to talk to Husband, and I broke down telling her about the poop drama we'd gone through that evening.

In tears, I whimpered, "I just wish they would let us take care of them!"

In front of my mom, you guys!

I try to keep a happy face in front of others, especially those who worry about me when hard times befall me, and especially especially in front of my mom. She's too far away to help out like I know she wants to, and I try not to weigh her down with our family issues, which can be incredibly intense at times. But I couldn't keep it together that night. The jig was up.

"You and Husband are doing a good job taking care of the kids," my mom said. "But what are you doing to take care of yourself?"

Man, I hated that question, and my mom wasn't the first person to ask me about self-care that month. I'd been asked that dozens of times... Friends had asked me, our family therapist had asked me, the case worker at Little's behavior program had asked me, and now my mom was asking me this very simple question. And I gave my standard answer.

"Nothing. How can I take care of myself when there's so much to do for everyone else?!"

"Maybe instead of everyone coming, you and Oldest should come by yourselves."

This, of course, just made me cry harder. Why can't we just have a normal family vacation like normal people?! I wanted to scream. Instead, I let loose a muffled, "Mnghuaghlstguh."

Somehow, that did nothing to soothe my mom's worried face. "I really, really think you need a break," she said. "So, think about it. I can meet Little and Middle when I come in for your wedding ceremony."

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I didn't plan on taking her advice, but a few days later, Little decided to slap me across the face hard enough to knock my new glasses off. He then snapped the earpiece in half. Later that week, he started throwing a fit in the car and when Husband pulled over to calm Little, he punched Husband in the face. His violent behavior kept increasing, and it got to where I couldn't even look at Little without getting angry. I was so mad and so frustrated with his actions and his lack of remorse for those actions that I was overreacting to every little thing he did. I was not in a healthy place, and the case worker at Little's program gave me a week off from attending the program with Little and Husband. "You must take a break," she said.

"But how can I take a break? I can't take care of myself when everyone else needs me to take care of them!"

"I hear you, but... How can you take care of anyone else when you're kind of a mess?"

(I'm sure she said it more professionally and more eloquently than that, but that's what I took away from our conversation!)

I decided to take my mom's advice. Oldest and I were gone for twelve days. Part of me was despondent that only 2/5 of our family went on our "family vacation," but part of me was so relieved at getting some time away from the traumatizing behavior of my traumatized kids.

Before I left, I made little gifts for the kids... ten pages of questions and activities for Middle ("What did you do today?  Draw me a picture!") and a little booklet for Little that used his name as an acronym for awesome things ("D is for daring, darling..." etc.). While I was gone, I called home daily. But I didn't do any research on RAD or trauma... The closest I came to that was chatting with other trauma mamas and papas on my favorite online support group (read this: If you are raising a kiddo with trauma issues, you need to find an online support group that offers you a safe space to rant and ask advice! Look into that pronto!)

While I was gone, I focused on me and Oldest, my mom, and my friends.

And when I came back, I was a whole new trauma mama! I could interact with Middle and Little in loving, caring ways because I took a break from the onslaught of difficult behavior they'd been tossing my way for weeks and weeks on end (summer is difficult for them because most of the MAJOR singular traumatic events they experienced happened in June and July).

I've been back for over a month now, and guess what? I haven't even YELLED once since my return!

That doesn't mean I'm not struggling. Not at all. In fact, earlier this week I had to fight the urge to throw things and scream and cry. But that little break... That short little bit of ME time... Has put me back into a place where I can parent my kids with extra demands successfully (er... somewhat successfully).

Bottom line: Self-care is JUST AS important as taking care of your children, and it is especially necessary when you care for children with special needs, be they physical, developmental, or mental. We know that raising kids with special needs is demanding, and we need to be at our optimum levels of awesome to meet the needs of our children. Make time for self-care! Get away every once in a while if you can... And if you can't, find something that allows you a little mental escape when you are feeling overwhelmed.