Parenting through the shadows

When I became a parent I didn’t really think too much about it. The pregnancy was planned and I was excited to become a mum. I never had any thoughts about what that would actually entail or look like. I assumed that the bulk of the work would be in meeting my child’s physical needs and as for the emotional side of things, well I’d just tell them I loved them and treat them with kindness.

I always planned to have a fairly mainstream parenting experience, my child went to nursery full time at 8 months old while I studied full time at college and then they stayed in nursery while i transitioned from being a full time student to having a full time job and studying part time.

I was solo parenting, having fled my relationship when my child was 4 months old, but this seemed fairly standard practice to me as a child of divorce and having friends who were also solo parenting.

I was young and enjoyed an active social life outside of work. The flats that we lived in were full of young families and I made close friends there, on the whole life felt ok, it was manageable. There was always something running in the background, just outside of my conscious awareness, a discomfort, an emptiness and a chaos but I was able to distract myself from it through drinking and staying busy with work, studying and parenting.

Then slowly things started to crumble. All of a sudden my child wasn’t doing ok, at the time I had no idea what was going on and sought help and advice. I was met with the narrative that it was my fault, as a young single mum I was to blame. There was also the undertone that my child was merely reenacting the abuse he had witnessed from my previous relationship.

Things continued to escalate, despite working with a behavioral consultant, a speech and language therapist and an occupational therapist. My child was permanently excluded from nursery and I was seriously doubting my ability as a parent. I remember one time feeling so much despair and believing my child would likely be better off in care than remaining with me, as I was so clearly doing such an awful job of raising him.

I gave up my degree so I could focus more on trying to make things better, instead they snowballed.

The start of school saw things go from bad to worse and eventually I was forced to give up my job, my social life and be faced with a situation I was not cut out to manage. I had to completely reinvent myself. There was no more hiding behind the superficial life I had created, one that served so well to keep me from my emotional wounds. I was forced to be with myself in ways I had never been before. I had someone who was depending on me to sort myself out so I could meet their needs. Not their physical ones, their emotional ones. Needs that I hadn’t even really known existed.

A lot of parents have children who will never require such a deep dive, a lot of children do just fine with parents who are somewhat preoccupied with life, parents who occasionally lose their temper, who use methods such as time out and screen time bans to keep things steady. A lot of children find enough safety in the world to be a part of it.

For the children who have so much sensitivity in their nervous systems the world feels anything but safe, for those who are neurodivergent, or who have trauma histories they require so much more than the average parent will ever need to provide, they require so much more than the average parent is equipped to give.

For the parents of these children they are forced into a world they never imagined being a part of. A world of exclusion and judgement, an alternative world in which school isn’t an option, childcare isn’t an option, having a career and a social life isn’t an option. A world that leaves you feeling as though you are drowning on most days and barely keeping your head above the water on others.

In this world parents have no choice but to face their own demons, there is no option but to clear the space being taken up by past traumas, to wipe the slate clean so that they can be what their child needs them to be-a safe container.

As I sit here now, on the other side of it all. Having been able to come through some of the darkest times of my life I feel so much gratitude. I am so grateful that I was forced to face myself if I hadn’t, if parenting had gone how i had anticipated it would I would never of jumped headfirst into my shadows, they would remain, ever present but just outside of conscious awareness.

I am not grateful for all that my child had to endure, I am deeply saddened that my child had to be parented by that younger version of me who hit rock bottom and smashed into a thousand pieces.

Two things can be true at the same time- there is so much to be grateful for and so much to be heartbroken for.