I wrote this three weeks ago, but couldn’t bring myself to publish it at the time. Then, the day after I wrote it, things got better. Not great, but better, and all that changed was me. Sometimes, asking for help is enough to receive it, even when we ask an empty room.
I have never deliberately hit my child.
I start with this, hold it out as an emotional talisman, to ward off the evil I from what I say below.
I have never purposefully hit my child, but I have hurt him, caused him physical pain through deliberate action as surely as though I had raised my hand to him.
My hand — this hand, gripping his as he struggles to pull away, as he screams “Stop! You’re hurting me! Let go of me!” I feel his ischemic skin under me still, can recall the grating of his bones as they attempt to twist away under mine. There were extenuating circumstances, to be sure, but aren’t there always? They feel like excuses, the same as any other abuser: I had to, he made me, it was for his own good. Did I grip tighter than necessary, in anger, squeeze more cruelly in my rage? I cannot say no and not know it a lie.
I feel still his flesh under mine, and the urge to hurt my hand in restitution (not revenge; its agony is too well earned) is a physical force, like gravity, pulling me to hit, to cut, to bruise and bloody and break until the feel of him pulling from me fades, until the blood pounding in ears is drained, until I cannot hear him pleading me to stop hurting him, mama, stop hurting me, let go!
***
This body of mine doesn’t deserve to feel good, to be pain-free, when it contains the tactile memory of harming my child, when it contains the potential to do so again. A part of me knows the uselessness of this limited thinking — pain begets more pain, healing begets healing — but I cannot convince the core of me it does not deserve to suffer for what it has done.
***
He won’t get in his car seat. So often, it comes down to that ridiculously mundane thing. I want to loathe the contraption, to curse the laws of state and physics that demand its use, but rationally I know it is little more than a symbol for both of us. If it were not the seat, likely it would be something else, some other point that would act as fulcrum and wedge between us, would be come the trophy in our struggle: his control, my freedom; his freedom, my confinement.
So often we don’t go out, not because he wouldn’t go — he’s happy to strap in when the bookstore or preschool is on the other end — but because the return is so agonizing. I have a choice, always, between the sedentary depression of staying home, or the awful antagonism of trying to return.
My impulse, so often, is to go out — when I am manic, to go and run and do, when I am depressed, to go and get away and be anywhere but here, when I am relatively well, to go and get things done. To be confined, trapped, at home or in a place not my choosing, unable to leave at all at my will, is not mere inconvenience: it is sickening. It is, perhaps, not unbearable per se, but sometimes it is more than I can bear, and often more than I am able to bear if I am to also, ever, have the ability to do anything but survive it.
At some point, the human body breaks down under stress.
I think I can be stable on my own, have learned through trial and so many errors how to manage my moods to minimize instabilities, when my time is my own. But when it’s not — when my every movement must account for the dictates of a capricious creature, not deliberately but casually cruel, uncaring of my needs and the demands of my moods — and it always is so — I don’t know how to not lose it, except through a grip so tight it twists arms and damages tissue. It hurts.
***
When I can, I wait for him. I give him time and space to choose. I give him control over as many parts of the experience as I can: arms under, pull out the bottom buckle (for it inevitably ends up underneath him), clip the top, guide the clasp to the buckle, your hand on mine as I click it in place. Before then, even: how many more times would you like to go down the slide? Yes, you may open the door yourself, climb in yourself, close the door in my face and make me knock and open it again from the inside yourself, fine. Whatever. Rituals are developmentally appropriate, if damned annoying, so knock yourself out making me knock, kid. Just get in the damned car seat.
Sometimes this works. Other times it does not. Today was an other time. Today was an abundant heads-ups, lots-of-options, still-didn’t-want-to-leave, carried-him-out-kicking-and-screaming day. Today was half an hour playing in the car and finally an agreement to leave and we’re scraping the bottom of my well of patience, dragging up brackish tones that are as close as I can get to the calming voice I know would help, but it has to be enough, and it will be enough because he’s getting in his seat — except wait, now he wants to get out and have me knock on the other doors, and maybe that would have been the magic step but after so many prior misdirections, I cannot try, there is not one last chance left and I lose it and I force him in the seat, and the straps are scraping his skin and his tears are falling on my sleeve and his body crumples under my “superior” strength, as I prove to him, viscerally teach, that might makes right, and I am glad we got rid of the car with the clutch because I can drive away left-handed, my right reaching back and stopping his from undoing his upper buckle — his arms twist in my hand — as he screams and curses and cries and some stranger in a truck stopped at the light next to us stares through the window and wonders if he should call the cops and I swear to god I’m not sure he shouldn’t.
That was today.
***
Some of you are thinking I give too many choices to a child, would chide me that it’s my own fault, I need to put my foot down. To you I say, fuck off. Not only are you wrong because it is wrong to treat another so, I’ve already tried that anyway: all upping the pressure does is quicken the explosion, and we are both that much more miserable that sooner.
Some of you are thinking I am asking too much, not giving enough, not patient enough, not creative enough in my solutions, too insistent that we ever leave the house or the park or the preschool, and to you too I say fuck off, because sometimes there is no more to give, no more daylight to stay out, no more blood sugar to wait another half hour, no more options when the appointment is across town, no creativity left to be had when it’s taking my all to just not hurt myself or him. If you want to move me to the mythical land of everything I could want in walking distance and a dozen alloparents when I need to tag out, then we’ll talk. Until then, take your shoulds and shove ‘em.
Some of you, too, are thinking it’s all normal, and this too shall pass, and I’ll laugh at this some day and to you too I say, no matter how well meaning your platitudes — and I know they mostly are — fuck off. This is not a way anyone should have to live, this is not ok, this is not merely the moanings of a bad-day mother. Everyone has bad days; not everyone is trapped at home in terror of a tiny tyrant and their own responses to such. Not everyone has to chose between going crazy at home and going crazy out, when crazy is not an overused hyperbole but a terrifying, dangerous reality.
(Some of you are thinking this is nothing, and you are carrying secrets far worse, and wondering if I feel this bad about this, how should you feel? And to you I say: I’m sorry. I offer you all the compassion and love and forgiveness I cannot draw forth for myself. I hope for you the solace and strength and healing, for yourself and your children, that I despair of finding for myself.)
I do not claim to be unique. I would not presume to declare myself worse off than everyone, or anyone, else. But before you shove me into the slot you lined up for me — monster, martyr, mundane mother –, before you wag your finger or pat my head or dial CPS, hear me.
Do not judge me and so dismiss me, whether as over-permissive, overbearing, or ordinary: see me, know me. Help me.
I want to help. I need help too.
I am catching up on reading…. I know you’re not really looking for suggestions (or maybe you are?) but maybe you could try going some where constantly so that getting in and out of the car and departing places becomes more normal for your son, and more everyday, like washing hands after going to the bathroom. Since I work, my kids get buckled in and out of the car twice a day since they are 12 weeks old so it’s just routine… sometimes my 2 year old will balk at getting buckled in but I just wait her out or bribe her if I’m in a hurry and running late.
Mentally, I have been there when the kids are not cooperating and it just seems so easy to grab them and wrestle them into their diaper / shoes / clothes / car seat. But I don’t like doing that and always feel regretful afterward. Then I vow to myself to leave more time instead of waiting to the last minute.
My parents were rough on me growing up with spanking and grabbing my arm and pulling me around so I know how it feels to my kids yet sometimes I do grab them and try to wrestle them (quickly) but physically overpowering the child is not right. Sigh. Well, there is always room for improvement!
My first impulse is to hug and my second is to provide platitudes. I’m not sure I know you well enough to offer virtual hugs (in fact, I’m pretty sure I don’t), and the platitudes are useless. But I hope you will accept the sentiment of fellow-feeling, aching-sympathy, and caring that underlies those impulses, at least.
I hear you. I hear and I care, and if there’s nothing else I can do but say so…at least I can do that.
I’m glad you posted it, anyway. The feeling trapped part… I haven’t been there in a while, but I remember. Oh, I remember…
We have good days, we have bad days.
Maybe, yes, you failed today. Get up tomorrow and try again. All we can do is our best. That’s what my mom says to me on the days you just described. The journey counts, not the destination. Focusing on the destination (the result/the impatience) is ego. Give up the ego and keep trying. I will too.
Oh wow. That is one big, heavy, nitty gritty and raw post about parenting.
First, hugs. Huge huge hugs from a fellow mom who has also felt the shame of causing her child physical pain despite holding parenting values that run so opposite.
I hope that things continue to get better. I hope that you are able to more easily meet both your needs and Boychick’s needs. I hope that this remains *that* parenting day and that the journey from here is better. Boychick is truly fortunate to have a parent who gives so much of herself into her parenting.
One more hug to you!
This is not the first time, it won’t be the last, that you – so different than me, night and day in some ways, yet ridiculously similar in others – write a post that I wish I had written. That I could have written. Except yours has prettier words.
I can offer no help. I need help, too. Going out is my savior, it is home that is our trouble spot. So I go out. Sometimes, though, I worry that be being out so much I am disconnecting from him and from our home. Maybe. It’s better than losing it, than raging, screaming. (Than pinching him and hoping he doesn’t know that it was me.) (It hasn’t happened often, but it has happened. He’s only 2. He always knows.)
I wish I could help all of us.
(I decided it was better to make this anonymous and be completely honest than be open and tell half-truths. I hope that’s OK.)
This is uncomfortably familiar. Even frighteningly familiar. I’m glad I’m not alone.
Oh, Arwyn. I hear you, I see you. I have no words of wisdom, or consolation, or condemnation, or judgment, or dismissal, to offer you. Just – You are heard, and you are not alone.
Arwyn, I only have platitudes and wishes and forgiveness and empathy. My wish is that society was set up in a way that we all had support when we feel ww can not do ‘x’ for ONE second longer. If it’s any help, and it may not be, I (and many others) do not think less of you, if anything we think more of you for sharing your battle and and showing others they are not alone – platitudes all…
Thank you
I hear you: your pain, your struggles, your story, your truth.
I feel very deeply for you, as I have also let things go too far, had the best intentions, with terribly unintended actions. I myself did not understand how I had let things escalate with my child to the point where I was forcing her into her car seat. I remember the feeling of being pushed past my limit and exploding and wanting to take everything back but not knowing how else to handle the situation. I know you are not looking for advice here and you may say “fuck off” to me, and if you do, I’ll understand. But in case you do want to hear it, I’ll share what has been the one method that allows me to put my child into her car seat peacefully. Time out. Maybe you don’t believe in the philosophy of time out, but isn’t it better than the alternative? I don’t shame her, I don’t put a metaphorical dunce cap on her, I don’t sit her in one designated “naughty spot.” But I do ask her to sit down and I do deprive her of my attention for about a minute. I don’t know if this would work for you and your family but it was the only thing that kept me from losing my patience and acting in anger and frustration. And it actually worked – I have only had to give a few (maybe one or two) well-timed time outs, and since then she has not fought me getting into her car seat.
You are human, you do wrong, you do right, you do the best you can with what you have, and you move on. It’s all any of us can do. Being a mom is hard, very very hard. All we can do is the best we can at any one moment, and when your patience is gone, it’s gone. I understand, I’m there all too often myself.
Forgive yourself. You are as G-d made you, imperfect, but trying. As are we all.
Your words are full of the stress that I too experienced with my now 9 year old son. I remember well the car seat days and having to fold my son’s rigid body in two to get him into his “torture seat”. That’s what we used to call it at our house because after all, it did caused all of us pain. Those that have never experienced it have no idea how stressful it can be. Thank you for sharing the realities of mothering a strong willed child. I know there are probably annoying mothers everywhere saying “my child never did that”. And to them I say f-off too!
I almost always wince at your posts because I see myself in them more often than not–bipolar, alone, parent, young, female, writer–but this is the first screed I’ve ever read that I had to click away, read something else, check up on my friends and how much pain they are not in.
This hit too close to home. I am sick for your hurting, and oh, so sorry.
Nothing works all the time (and that time-out thing? Glad it worked for you, but punishment strategies all just escalated for us. Plus, you cannot calmly take attention away from my child in a parking lot; the shrieks attract bystanders.)
Bribery was my best tactic. When you are buckled in, there will be exciting things of your choice to listen to! And this excellent cup of water! And this fascinating toy! Perhaps some cheerios…
A certain amount of keeping her as calm as possible pre-insertion also helped. If she was likely to be very hungry or thirsty I would provide food or drink before the whole thing started. Sometimes just the distraction worked.
It’s no secret among friends and family members that I espouse an approach to discipline that doesn’t involve spanking or other corporal punishment. But what I don’t often mention is that, while my logicbrain takes this tack because it is supported by empirical child development research, and my heartbrain can’t bear the thought of causing my children pain (when idealistically visualizing them, far removed from any immediate stressors, of course!) … something deep inside of me is keenly aware that I could never spank with measured restraint. I would spank to hurt.
Like others, your story was a painfully familiar one for me. Thank you for sharing it.
I feel compelled to comment, but I don’t have the words to say what is jumbling in my head. So. (((Hugs))). Thank you for being so honest.
thank you so much for your honesty. theses little people we bring into the world. they are a blessing and a curse because they bring us up against our most raw selves. they strip us down further and further and then we have to look at all the details, all the stuff we would rather not see. their absolute beauty and their stubborn resistance to anything less than our best version of our selves makes us come face to face with our absolute worst sometimes.
I wish I could help you. I’m afraid I don’t know the answer myself.
It sucks, for as long as it lasts. And it always seems to happen when we’re least equipped to cope. Which sucks even more.
I’m glad things are better. I hope they continue to improve.
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I was in the military. Then I was a mother. I’m not sure which tested my limits more.
Hugs.
Oh Arwyn. I do not have the words. But thank you. I ache, reading this. I cry. I feel some small relief that I am not alone. Mostly, though, I just wish I had a fucking answer, for all of us. Love to you.
I’m not going to say this is “normal,” but it is certainly relatable. Something about pregnancy, then quitting smoking and immediately getting pregnant again, has changed me. I used to be incredibly patient and rarely irritable, and now I’m the complete opposite. I often times feel like a slave to my anger and as shitty as this probably sounds, the kids are the easiest targets because they can’t defend themselves.
I find myself screaming about the most mundane, who-gives-a-shit minor irritants, and the moment the words leave my mouth, I immediately regret it. My daughter Gracie has a knack for immediately bursting into tears – huge, ginormous, swallow you whole crocodile tears and they way they pool up into her big blue eyes when I know I’ve been too harsh is heartbreaking.
I am trying to get my anger under wraps. I don’t want to emotionally scar my children and I don’t want them to fear me the way I feared my mother.
Thank you for posting this. No, it’s not normal, but at least you recognize that and know what you need to work on. Most don’t.
*hugs*
Monday I found myself screaming in L’s face. I caught myself after the first word, and apologized for about 5 minutes.. but I can’t undo that word.
You are not alone.
My lowest moment as a parent is the one time I hit my child.
My daughter and I were laying in bed. She was on top of me with my shirt pushed up around my neck while she nursed (I’m thinking she was 18 or 20 months at this point) and the cat was laying on my stomach next to her (cat was smaller and young then).
Everything was peaceful til she decided to grab the cat or squeeze the cat’s head…I never figured out what exactly because I couldn’t see. I heard hissing and am being bitten, she won’t let go of whatever she has grabbed, and starts LAUGHING. I snapped. I am yelling and she keeps laughing. I’m stuck on my back under this andfyear for the cat’s safety if she really has grabbed her small head.
I smacked my child in the head….and as awful as I felt about it, and still feel about it, my daughter never even noticed.
I guess I didn’t scar her after all…but I did scar myself. I still feel sick about it and never want to admit that I did it….cat-torture is still my #1 downfall as a parent…..it makes me ANGRY beyond belief and turns me into something I don’t want to be.
And then there are the days I miss my medication…or have met my limit. I hate it, it’s ugly, but it happens.
I see you. I hear you. I have been there too.
Hello! I’ve only recently found this blog, and just wanted to chime in. I think sometimes it happens, especially for parents who are home with our kids, that we allow the children to become bigger in our minds than they are or something? As you put it, a tiny tyrant. I have been there. For me sometimes these little encounters used to bring out a whole host of emotional things, things from my past, memories of my mom, all of it. At some point, maybe when offspring number two came and I realized I was outnumbered and better pull myself together, and that I can’t spend my whole days acting like this, I started to slowly make some changes. For one, I retrieved the memory of how as a I child I cried and thought “this isn’t fair!” when my mom would do crazy shit to me for no reason, then turn around and be sweet and repentant the next minute. I often try to pull that memory before I react to a situation. Anyway, I think no parent is perfect, we’re all trying, we’re all struggling. Your post was very honest.
Seen, and acknowledged, and unrejected. I was going to comment when I read it yesterday, but I had nothing to say that didn’t sound trite, so I said nothing.
Do I ever know what you are talking about. I struggle with my inner tyrant and I struggle with my tiny tyrant… and they struggle with each other. The tiny tyrant breaks me down emotionally, until there is no more me to deal with… and then the inner tyrant can come out and of course she wins.
ANd it hurts us both. And I feel dirty and a failure and sick.
I never hit my child.
But I have grabbed her a little too firmly sometimes too. I have grueled about my abuse of power. ANd it keeps happening.
I don’t know how to stop it… sometimes there are no tools left. Sometimes I’m done too
I feel like I am in a downward spiral lately. I am more crazy than I have been in years. I am constantly triggered. I constantly feel like one of us, either me or my two year old-almost three year old, is not going to get out of this alive. I fear for my ability to continue to restrain myself. I am very confident that I have not, at this point, stepped over the line into being abusive but I am frequently not very nice. :( I didn’t know it would be possible to hate myself more than I used to but seeing how I treat my child on my very worst days has added a level of scorn and self hatred that surpassed any piddling thing I managed before.
This is the only thing I wanted. And I am too awful to even enjoy it.
Hugs through my tears, because I’ve been there, done that.
As a child and sibling of women with bipolar, and who scared me when I was young: it’s going to be okay.
I know it’s scary, and you fear for hurting your kids just like my mom was afraid of hurting me. And yes, there are still some things my mother did that leave me in an emotional sore spot from time to time. But I know she was trying her best all the time. And I know she loves me. And I know how hard it is for her, and was when she couldn’t afford medicine.
All you can do is try as hard as you can. And when you fail, you can pick yourself up and the love that you give will help heal.
I’m rooting for you.
Oh. I remember these days. My phrase – I am being held hostage in this house by my child. (Insert helplessness/hopelessness here. I did not even have the energy for tears, then.)
I am not a hostage any more. My child has learned and evolved, and so have I. But I have NOT forgotten. I hear you…
I can’t think of what to say except to share my own horror, and I’m not sure that’s what you need to hear, either. I’ve been there when I’ve heard my thoughts and realized they were the thoughts of any abuser, and it frightens me to hear those excuses go through my head. Sometimes there’s nothing left to give, and I become what I don’t want to be, and it sickens and frightens me.
I wish us both peace as we figure out ways of coping. Hugs to you.
Heard, understood, and going home to hug my wife and set her free for the evening from our “terrible twos” who push both of us to the extreme sometimes. I am so opposed to hurting my children that I refused to smack their butts when born and even couldn’t bring myself to cut the cord out of not wanting to start their lives with me hurting them. Thank goodness for living in an area where I can go outside for a walk and scream frustration at the stars and my wife can go to friends and get a breath of fresh air. But even moreso, thank goodness for her coming home from her friends, and for being able to come home from my walk, and know that the little ones will grow into bigger ones and outgrow this stage, and know that if we can balance the frustration with love, the next generation may just be a kinder one than ours. Hang in there, you are loved.
Holy shit, I’m not alone. That is all.
I just found your site, and this post. You are not alone. The only help I can offer is that you are not alone. You have summarized my past 2 weeks very well. I want to give my son choices, I want to let him have a say and yet he also has to get into the damn car and sometimes there is no option to wait (I work outside the home and have to get places by certain times). My son will be two this month and I know he is just as frustrated that he cannot communicate with me in the way that he wishes he could. I can only hope that we are better parents because we want so badly to allow our little ones to be independent tiny adults even if it makes us insane. Keep truckin’ mama.
the car seat battle sent me back to my doctor for meds three weeks ago – thank god.
We ended up in the front seat of my car, bawling hysterically for half an hour before he stopped and said ‘why you crying mommy’ – crawled in his car seat and asked for the freaking Wiggles.
You are honest and awesome for posting that…and so many of us have been there.
I have written a post inspired by the comment I made here. It will be on Friday 18th
This is the first time I’ve commented on your blog, and it’s definitely a late post, but..
No platitudes, no recrimination, just understanding of a sort.
I have BPD. No longer medicated, usually a non-issue. Usually. On top of the BPD, I had the misfortune of being raised by a highly abusive adoptive ‘mother’ who was also a disgustingly convincing liar. I spent a considerable amount of my teenage life (3 periods between 15 and 17) in ‘hospitals’, always being admitted after epic beatdowns between us. You see, after the umpteenth time of being beaten with a mouse cable, I started fighting back. She always called the cops. Noone belives the teen goth cutter with school problems when she says she had to defend herself against her wonderful adoptive single mother. Being thrown into your snowy front yard in lace boyshorts and tank top? Bull. Being kicked in the gut, dragged around by your hair? The wierd kid must be lying. Being thrown out, then called in as a runaway, with mom refusing to allow the school to pick the kid up elsewhere, so she ends up not finishing school? Yea, right!
I have a history of ending up with violent and/or unstable and usually controlling men. My fiance is the opposite of those things. But when we fight? We speak to hurt. Soren is 16 months old, but he’s heard mama and dada fight. It makes me ill. But sometimes, usually, the words are out before I can truly process them. It’s at those times, when I yell at dada, letting all my frustrations about life, finances, living with his parents, him not going to work with his dad, my not driving, never leaving the house except for store trips (it seems so endless), pour out, I want to run. I want to leave Soren. The love of my existence, with his daddy. No more nursies, no more cuddles with mama. No more watching my beautiful son sleep between us while I battle my insomnia. And all because I am terrified. I don’t believe in corporal punishment, and with damn good reason. But WHAT IF? What if, one day, I just snap? What if I strike or yank him, before I have time to process what’s going on? What if, one of those nights when he wants to nurse every 5 minutes, from right when I can finally fall asleep until kingdom come, one of those nights where all I can think is ”I can’t take all of this TOUCH anymore!”, I snap, and shove him away from his comforting place at my breast? Unthinkingly, but unforgiveably (in my critical and unrelenting self-turned eyes)?
Most days, I don’t think that will happen, know it can and will NOT happen. But.. Every once in a thrice damned moon, I wonder. I doubt. And I am afraid.
So, in my own way, I understand. And that’s all I can say. Even though you have no clue who I am, if you need to chat.. If you need to just plain scream.. Feel free to contact me. I’ll leave my e-mail, but if you want my FB, it’s ‘yours’.
Jynxx
@Crunchtastrophe
[email redacted for privacy]
I hear you, I see you, far too often, I am you, at least the snippet you shared here. Thank you for sharing this. I’ve been breaking lately and I think hearing I’m not alone may be an important piece to help start putting me back together. I hope that knowing you’re not alone helps you get put back together too.
You’re not alone. I’m at the end of my rope most days. What I want to convey is that it is not supposed to be this way. Parents are not supposed to be left alone with toddlers day in and day out and told to just deal with the tyranny. I have three kids under 7 that I am homeschooling and the demons come out a lot. It is my choice though I am beginning to see, whether to react or not. It’s usually when I’m losing control that I react most strongly. Then I remember how much I hated being controlled as a kid and what I wished my parents had understood when they “controlled” me. It is also when my needs aren’t being met that I go insane. How to get those needs met? Ask for help, which you did. But in unexpected places. Maybe your neighbor will take your kid for an hour. Or you have a friend just as desperate as you who will trade off. Or… just ask. You would be surprised who comes out of the woodwork when you say you need help to those around you. We as a society need to be less damning when it comes to parents and more supportive, and there should never be shame in asking for help. My 2cents.
i’m so sorry. and thank you.
i am so grateful for this post. right now i’m too numb to really feel it but at least my brain just went “ahh, somebody finally said it.” when my son was four months old, late at night, i googled “i hit my baby” and there was NOTHING like this to be found. not even “resources”, just one yahoo answers thread where another mama got shamed for asking for help. i would be lying if i said “i have never hit my child, but have been rough with him.” i’ve hit him, many times, starting at 4 months. i’ve thrown him across the bed (into pillows, but hard) to get him away from me. pinched him retributively, just to get the meanness out of me. & in all honesty it felt good, which is the most dangerous part. because it was an expression, instead of a stuffing, of the anger below the numbness i carry, that so many generations of women in my family have handed down in their clenched jaws and absent eyes. via four years of trauma therapy, the dragon is waking up, & it is every bit as scary as it has threatened to be. and i am STILL a better mother – active, engaged, empathic –hell, simply able to touch and nurse my son– than my own numbed out workaholic german mother. stress / trauma is a spectrum that at its most intense is dissociation/abandonment, however well dressed. agitation, excitement, fight/flight and the attendant violence are actually the middle, with the ultimate healthy goal of full resilience and relaxed engagement at the far end.
one of the craziest things of our insane culture is its criminalization of physical violence over emotional abandonment. (& hmm, which of these cultural tendencies do we associate with upper class white people & which with other demographics?) both are awful. i am not trying to uphold the kind of midnight slaps my not-yet-two year old son has endured at the end of my rope, a rope i am well aware that i ultimately control the lengthening and shortening of through the choices i make, or fail to make, for self-care and trauma recovery. but i am writing this to shine light on the secret glory of your post, beyond the fact that it solidified how not-alone we are. i am writing to point out to you, and to me, the FUCK YEAH that we are NOT DEAD. & we are raising our sons from vibrant, stressed, but ultimately less fragmented nervous systems than the prussian glory values of our frozen dead culture. mama might hit you, but guess what? mama can also hold you & nurse you & she can stand the contact. & mama can dance. & she can fight to the death to defend you. & these things, these things? they are related.
& yes, i will take a free ride to the land of not-being-an-isolated-single-mother, the quickest fix for this. i’ve even considered moving to namibia. i spent the first year of his life searching for community, & having failed to find it, am now aiming to spend the rest of my life building it. the most critical (de)construction zone is the making & unmaking of myself.
the task, then, is to keep on healing. & to tell the goddamn ugly labyrinthine story of it so that nothing, not one shred of this unraveling & re-weaving is hidden or shameful or without it’s due. may we one day shiver through the rest of it and come out beaming and relaxed. until that day i would rather hit my son from time to time than have him raised by strangers and plastic to keep my dragons peacefully asleep. a toast to the process of re-homing the dragons, and to the dream of a body empty of their rage. until they move on, i’d rather we both walk through the fire.
[name anonymized by author request]
Oh, [Anonymous]… you made me cry… because there is a lot of yes there… These things, they *are* related.
7 years ago, before he was two, my nephew hurled a milk bottle that was heavy with ice, and hit me squarely in the sternum. I shoved him away until he sat down and then I went away to cry, more from the “he wanted to hurt me” feeling than the actual pain of the hit. There is confusion within me about much that happened during my childhood, and in that moment the 34 year old me was a child of six or so again… What can we do other than talk about it, to tell the truth? To explore what these reactions are, where they come from, and what is the nature of Hurt? What is the nature of Harm? Is it okay to Hurt in order to prevent Harm? Is it never okay to Hurt? Can we not understand that sometimes, unintentionally, we may Hurt or even Harm children in our care, and not find it out for decades, or never at all? What of the fact that they may Hurt or Harm us, with even less malicious intention? (those who would say children do not Hurt or Harm have never seen children in full tantrum and *determined* intention to hurt, to inflict their inner pain outward on a handy target…)
What makes us grown ups is we can recognize what we do and we can discover what our motivations may be, unsnarl them somewhat, and eliminate the worst motivations, and the worst actions… but I don’t believe we can ever find them and tidily arrange them ALL. So we Keep Doing the Work, yes? The world will be better if we Keep Doing the Work we need to do on ourselves, our history/past/damage/healing, and keep what courage we have to Think Rightly, Speak Rightly, Act Rightly, as much as ever we can.
Love and the Gods’ Patience to us all.
[name redacted by Anonymous's request]