Day 338 - Spare the Snuggles, Spank With the Rod

You probably won't watch the videos the first time you read through,

but trust me, the videos are worth watching. Please, for your own

healing and freedom, take the time to watch them.

My firstborn has type I diabetes. He was diagnosed at five years old.

The doctors all say that no one really knows what causes diabetes...

...because it's not always related to family genetics.

Sometimes diabetes is similar to an autoimmune disease

and the body attacks its own pancreas.

But I know.

I traumatized my son.

I know, I know...the instinct is there to rush in 

and say "it's not your fault," or "these things just happen."

Well...yes,...and NO.

I was a young mother acting out of my own trauma.

I was pregnant without being married,

weighed down by the shame and judgment of my own beliefs.

I was raised to work HARD!...to be TOUGH!...

to know right from wrong and

to be touched more frequently by a spanking than a snuggle.

I was taught to believe that I deserved hell

and that God was worth any cost.

Religion reinforced over and over and over and over again

that my feelings were nothing and that "the facts" were everything.

So, when I became a mother THE WRONG WAY,

my body flooded with the chemicals of intense shame and regret and anxiety.

I cried almost the entire first trimester.

And I chose to marry the father in a rush to make these feelings go away.

I was in survival mode.

I put myself there without even realizing it.

I didn't even know that that has always been my primary means of existence:

SURVIVAL.

And my developing baby was helpless to protect himself 

against the flood of those emotions.

If drugs and alcohol can so negatively impact a fetus, 

why can't cortisol and adrenaline?

My daughter was born only 15 months after my son.

My body wasn't ready for another baby.

And neither was our marriage or our family.

Of course, I don't regret either of my babies,

but I do regret how carelessly we charged into life with so little regard for how it affected our babies or ourselves.

It was trauma simply because 

it was too much too fast.

This is my own definition, but...

CHANGE IS TRAUMA... 

when the change occurs at such a rapid rate 

to form a negative experience 

that induces helplessness.

Not only that, but I spanked.

We spanked...too much and too much.

I don't know where we came up with it, 

but somehow we decided to spank the bottoms of their feet...

with a paint stick or belt. 

The Bible says 

"spare the rod, spoil the child..."

Sure, I had very outwardly obedient children,

but inside they were scared and scarred.

Worse than that, I yelled and screamed and shook their little bodies...a lot.

Flecks of spit in their frozen faces.

I was so overwhelmed and tired and I felt helpless in my own traumas

that I reacted with a violent, verbal anger 

and I passed on that trauma to my babies.

My son is 9 years old now and he not only has type I diabetes, 

but he struggles with bullying, peer pressure, shame, and guilt.

He is aggressive and sometimes unfeeling and sometimes overwhelmed with feelings.

I love him and I regret the trauma that I caused.

And it's not like I didn't know what I was doing.

I just felt utterly powerless to stop it...

in spite of the praying and the pleading and the tears

and the horrible, horrible confessions...

just like this one.

The Bible says that 

my "heart is deceitful above all things 

and desperately wicked!"

I really believed that I was powerless to truly change.

And I begged God to change me, create in me a clean heart.

For the first few years, I breathed prayers of gratitude that "they wouldn't remember this."

But their brains do. And so do their bodies.

They do remember, even if they don't understand the memories.

Finally I reached the end of tolerating my own shame 

...and swallowing my horrible anger and sadness

...and waiting on a mythical being to heal my hurt.

When my son was 6 and my daughter was 5, I decided to 

STOP THE PATTERN OF TRAUMA.

It was not easy and it still felt a lot like trauma,

because the effect of trauma is like a runaway freight train.

...but I divorced myself from a partner who 

only made me feel more ashamed and helpless

...and I divorced myself from a belief system that said 

that it was good and right for me to feel that way.

I did not move houses.

I did not change schools.

I did not run away.

I started to slow down my responses.

I started to create safe places for myself and my children.

I began to build my own boundaries of protection.

I found more loving consequences for my children other than spanking.

And I learned how important it is to be kind to myself and love myself.

I still make lots and lots of mistakes.

But I am learning to not react out of my own trauma triggers.

 I am working to heal the trauma of religion and neglect and change in my own childhood.

And I will do my best to give my children new patterns of hope and love and trust in themselves.

Yes, trauma lasts a long, long, long time...

I know this because I have heard some of the religious spanking horrors 

that were experienced by my parents and their siblings and my cousins.

Stories that would make you shudder.

I know this because of how rampant disease and depression and chronic pain is in our families.

My son will always have diabetes 

and I may not be able to heal all the hurts 

that I caused when they were babies...

I won't even be able to always, always protect them from trauma in life.

But I can change my choices and I can change the way I heal and the way I love.

I will not be their trauma mama.