My Daughter's Birth Trauma and Helping her Let Go
Hi! Boy have I learned quite a lot about my daughter and her raging and refusal to cry until I held her down. I am soo grateful for the Aware Parenting specialist I got into contact with.
She explained to me that my daughter may have indeed been acting out from the birth trauma of forceps and vacuum suction, and she was being triggered every time I held her down because it made her feel out-of-control and like she was treated in her beginning. So her screeching when I held her close could be because she is in sympathetic arousal, and it is remaining in a dis-regulated state. Her looking away could be a form of disassociating, and her jumpiness and being all over the place could indicate her stored stress in her body from trauma. The reason she may not be ready to cry on her own is because she just needs guidance and comfort to allow it to happen, such as walking her in a sling a lot, and contact with me. With feeling that she has autonomy in her experience, she may slowly feel safe and empowered to understand what it means to separate from me. With my support, she will also show me her experience with trauma on her body, as in where it is held. She may point to it, or have me hold that area when she is big enough. Yes, she has been touching her head and scratching her ears a lot since birth. I should just let her show me what she is feelings, and the waiting and pausing is important when she is integrating her states. Her nervous system is overwhelmed, and may not yet have the capacity to cry naturally. Her trauma is already there, it does not need to be recreated, and she needs to feel safe enough to open up to it more. The forcing her to open up may overwhelm her, because she may not be ready for a certain amount of connection due to her early intrusion of boundaries and separation from womb.
I feel so much more confident now in knowing what is going on. I am no longer trying to force her to see her emotions, I know she can heal them on her own with my help.
She told me that the hyper-arousal is her indication that she constantly orienting towards safety, but the overwhelm makes it hard for her, so her nervous system is stuck on go!
I read somewhere that a mother sometimes has the hardest time with the frustration of her baby needing her, and her love of how much her baby needs her. I am so glad that I now know what she needs from me, because I can integrate how much of it I can help her with and when it overwhelms me.
So I was being overwhelming and overbearing, and I feel soo bad. But now that I know the problem, I can work on fixing it. I find this similar to how I see adoption trauma, once a person knows what their symptoms come from, they can drop the hypertension about hiding it and fear of it, and really work on healing it slowly at their pace. Sometimes I cannot cry because my body is stuck with the trauma held in for so long, and I need to show myself compassion and that I'm here for myself for when I am ready to move forward.
An Enlightened Adoptee
She explained to me that my daughter may have indeed been acting out from the birth trauma of forceps and vacuum suction, and she was being triggered every time I held her down because it made her feel out-of-control and like she was treated in her beginning. So her screeching when I held her close could be because she is in sympathetic arousal, and it is remaining in a dis-regulated state. Her looking away could be a form of disassociating, and her jumpiness and being all over the place could indicate her stored stress in her body from trauma. The reason she may not be ready to cry on her own is because she just needs guidance and comfort to allow it to happen, such as walking her in a sling a lot, and contact with me. With feeling that she has autonomy in her experience, she may slowly feel safe and empowered to understand what it means to separate from me. With my support, she will also show me her experience with trauma on her body, as in where it is held. She may point to it, or have me hold that area when she is big enough. Yes, she has been touching her head and scratching her ears a lot since birth. I should just let her show me what she is feelings, and the waiting and pausing is important when she is integrating her states. Her nervous system is overwhelmed, and may not yet have the capacity to cry naturally. Her trauma is already there, it does not need to be recreated, and she needs to feel safe enough to open up to it more. The forcing her to open up may overwhelm her, because she may not be ready for a certain amount of connection due to her early intrusion of boundaries and separation from womb.
I feel so much more confident now in knowing what is going on. I am no longer trying to force her to see her emotions, I know she can heal them on her own with my help.
She told me that the hyper-arousal is her indication that she constantly orienting towards safety, but the overwhelm makes it hard for her, so her nervous system is stuck on go!
I read somewhere that a mother sometimes has the hardest time with the frustration of her baby needing her, and her love of how much her baby needs her. I am so glad that I now know what she needs from me, because I can integrate how much of it I can help her with and when it overwhelms me.
So I was being overwhelming and overbearing, and I feel soo bad. But now that I know the problem, I can work on fixing it. I find this similar to how I see adoption trauma, once a person knows what their symptoms come from, they can drop the hypertension about hiding it and fear of it, and really work on healing it slowly at their pace. Sometimes I cannot cry because my body is stuck with the trauma held in for so long, and I need to show myself compassion and that I'm here for myself for when I am ready to move forward.
An Enlightened Adoptee
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