Thursday’s Therapy - TRAUMA Therapy Toolbox - Dementia? Or, Child-Loss Grief and Trauma… ~ Respecting Your Child-Loss TRAUMA

Thursday’s Therapy

TRAUMA Therapy Toolbox

Dementia? Or, Child-Loss Grief and Trauma… Did I Mention Dementia?

~ Respecting Your Child-Loss TRAUMA

~Tommy and Angie Prince

All of us (most likely, without even realizing it) tend to walk around with the assumption that the world is predictable and we are in control. To some degree, these are fairly normal forms of "denial" to have so that we can maintain some degree of optimism to give us the courage to step outside and go to work with the hope and confidence that we will be okay, and life will probably be good for that day.

But for us Child-Loss grievers, the world that we thought was predictable and orderly is now chaotic, and we who thought we had some degree of control now feel fear and helplessness.

{We could not protect the child whose protection is a parent's main priority!}

And guess what?

"It turns out fear and helplessness are processed by the parts of the brain shown in human and animal studies, to be most affected by severe stress, and most vulnerable in terms of the likelihood of developing PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder)."

~Charles W. Hoge, Once a Warrior, Always a Warrior

It isn't until a crisis comes, that your assumptive beliefs (the world is predictable, and I am in control) and values (my child's safety is of utmost importance, so I will protect her) are exposed, and challenged, if not shattered or torpedoed.

Child-Loss presents the major crisis into which we have been thrown in which we then experience intense fear and a sense of total helplessness. We as Child-Loss parents need to have a better appreciation for being thrown into this fearful and helpless state: It is a very normal place to be, as our world-of-assumed-safety has been shattered, so the brain is preparing us to be ready and prepared for dealing with immediate DANGER. All sensory input is communicating that our world is now at risk, so the brain tries to prepare us to

• Run (flight) or
• Attack (fight) or
• Stop (freeze) to achieve the best protection from danger that we can.

In the process however, the brain also shuts down the neural pathways to other parts of the brain because in the middle of danger, those parts don't need to be accessible as they might interfere with the FIRST mode of action needed for our self-protection.

In OUR situation, however, we need to be able to advise the brain we are NOT in immediate danger; the danger has already occurred and now we must have ALL parts of our brains made available to us to learn to COPE with what that DANGER and CATASTROPHE have created for us, which for us is,

• the death of our child,
• the recognition of our complete inability to protect our child from such death,
• the loss into which we are now thrown, and
• the extreme vulnerability and helplessness that comes with such a severe loss.

BUT, we must also be aware that because of the severe nature of our loss and the accompanying emotions that go with such severity of loss, we now are also set up for very likely having another whole set of accompanying symptoms which will complicate our grief and loss further, and that is the POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER that many veterans of war also have to tangle with.

I read this week of a child-loss mother wondering if she was losing her mind or perhaps was prematurely aging with dementia, when what I immediately recognized was ~ NO! That symptomology going on in your brain is PAR FOR THE COURSE of walking through the TRAUMA of child-loss!

In other words, many times I feel like a freak of nature as I see symptoms going on in my body that I know are not normal for living an everyday life as I once knew it. So although my immediate reaction is "Oh my goodness, I am losing my mind!" the next thoughts need to be, "Wait a minute. I have LOST MY CHILD. My WORLD-AS-I-KNEW-IT has been shattered.

So naturally ALL SYSTEMS inside of me are REELING. They now are set to -

• WATCH OUT FOR FURTHER DANGER.
• FEEL SAFE ENOUGH TO BE ABLE TO GRIEVE MY SEVERE LOSS.
• HELP MYSELF BREATHE THROUGH THE NEXT MOMENT.
• DISCOVER ALL OVER AGAIN WHO I REALLY AM WITH ALL MY CORE VALUES AND BELIEFS BEING CHALLENGED AND SOMETIMES EVEN SHATTERED.

So when someone comes up to me and says something, and I find that I immediately forget it, or perhaps never even allowed it to register in my memory in the first place, I want to learn to respect that THAT IS COMPLETELY NORMAL because MY BRAIN is PREOCCUPIED

with helping me

• GET FROM ONE MOMENT TO THE NEXT in one piece if possible,
• FACE WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO SHATTER MY WORLD,
• GRIEVE WHAT HAS HAPPENED THAT THROWS ME INTO SEVERE LOSS, and
• DISCOVER WHO I AM NOW THAT MY FORMER WORLD HAS BEEN SHOT OUT FROM UNDER ME.

No wonder, I am not going to remember what someone said to me that doesn't even register as being important in comparison to the COPING DEMANDS into which I've now been called!

Picture from FotoSearch.com

~Charles W. Hoge, M.D., Colonel, U.S. Army (Ret.), Once a Warrior, Always a Warrior, p. 24