PTSD, Anxiety Disorder being a parent. When children are your biggest trigger

[Miller]

I have PTSD from child hood trauma. I live with an anxiety disorder every day. I love my kids and they know it. My kids are at an age where they are aware , I remind them my trauma is not about them and that they are loved. (wish I didn’t have to)
I work really hard to minimalism the impact of my PTSD and anxiety on my kids .
My question is. How do you cope when stuff like

1st days of school, birthdays, Christmas, excursions, the tooth fairy, making friends all the things kids get excited about.

Is a huge trigger for you based on your own childhood trauma? What more can I do to minimalist the emotional and mental effect this has on my children?

currently beyond triggered! have a reliable support network. But feeling raw.

I’m after tips or advice about how people cope with this.

Usual methods not working can only count backwards from 9thousand so many times.

Even if you think I’ve probably heard it before, or it seems obvious......sometimes we just need reminders to find our coping mechanisms. Sorry rambling lol

desperately seeking advice.

Regards Miller

[romantic_thi3f]

Hi Miller,

Thanks for your post. While I'm not a parent, I do know what it's like to have triggers all over the place - even in ones that you love, and situations that you can't avoid. Hopefully you'll have some parents jump into this thread too.

Can I ask if you've got a therapist or have seen one in the past? I think that we can count down from even 1 million but nothing is going to replace the skills that can be learned in therapy.

I think a big part of therapy can also be looking at some of the patterns in triggers- like what is it about these events that bring up your own trauma? How can you reframe things so that they can be different - especially in advance? While I don't know what this trigger is for you (or why), it could be about having some different self-talk and reminding yourself that you are safe and things are different, or focusing on your breathing, or even creating new traditions entirely so you can see that things aren't the way that they were before.

I think this might be a bit of a vague answer although I think it's all I can say at the moment because trauma is so different in everyone. If you want to say more I can try and help more.

rt