Trauma & Parenting Part I: Codependency

I didn’t know much about motherhood, nothing actually. All I knew was that I desperately wanted something for my son that I hadn’t had. I wanted what I imagine most mothers want for their kids, whether they can conceptualize it or not. I wanted to always be with his dad. I wanted to be available to him in every way, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically. I wanted him to feel heard, supported. I wanted him to have all the room to become. Turns out you can’t always get what you want, but you can kill yourself trying and do actual damage by overcompensating for your own trauma, even long after you have done the hard work of healing.

You must first understand, my son cooked in cortisol. My whole pregnancy was fraught with the trauma that comes along with being totally mentally unstable and marrying a stranger who is equally mentally unstable. I was a wreck the whole way through, and he came out one screaming, anxious little bean. I remember being in undergrad for psychology and taking a child development class where they explained how instrumental the pregnant woman’s well being is in the well being of the child, not just in the obvious ways, but in the “you may be cooking your baby in cortisol,” ways too. My son was in his late teens at this time, and suddenly it was like the pieces came together and I began to really understand how much of a deficit he started from just by way of my own trauma.

Nothing about my stability, or that of my marriage, got better quickly. Part of my overwhelming desire to make my marriage work for the sake of my son meant enduring more trauma. It took a solid four years and six-month long separation for my husband and I to get to a place that even began to look healthy. My already anxious son required a lot of attention, and I lost my own self giving him all of what he needed and then more, in attempt to soothe the damage I knew was being done by way of his dad and I being a nightmare. In attempt to make myself feel better.