Thoughts about Level 1, lying and the "heart" of a child

In the days and weeks following our second version of “Level 1” I fluctuated between awe, worry, and panic. Parenting a traumatized child is a rollercoaster. Parenting a "normal" child is a rollercoaster—one fraught with all of the same feelings but in my experience of Nichole, Josh, and Daniel it’s a quick zooooooop into the bottom of the loop and then quickly back up. Up and down, round and round the track, it’s mostly fun with moments of terror quickly replaced by giggles.

The rollercoaster that I ride with Loreli spends days, weeks, and sometimes months in the depths. Sadness, anger, and so much fear swirling around our lives, sometimes I wonder how we will make it through.

I realized just this morning that part of the reason I get upset when Loreli is in the depths and cheats or lies is because, unlike a "normal" child, it’s not a once in a while thing. It’s a symptom of her biggest fear, abandonment, and it’s not going to stop on it’s own. One lie quickly turns into ten, turns into a lifestyle, turns into feeling so completely, overwhelmingly unsafe that meltdowns and rages are a daily occurrence. She goes back to hurting dogs, hurting Daniel, all behaviors designed to show me how scared she is. 

I'm learning to recognize a child's heart in things. A lie can be "normal" and it can be "reactive attachment disorder". The difference is the liar's heart. When I say, in a wheedling tone, "Now, come on, that sounds like a story...tell me the truth." and the child says with a grin and a flash of giggling eyes, "Okay, what really happened is________," this is what "typical" children exhibit more often than not. A "RAD" lie is something else. When I say, in a wheedling tone, "Now, come on, that sounds like a story...tell me the truth..." a RAD lie sounds and looks like this: "NO! IT'S TRUE!" with angry flashing eyes and maybe a flat, non-expressive face. They are so afraid and that fear feels like a clenched fist in my heart. 

I can only imagine how it feels to be a child from a trauma background. How terrible to feel that your parent is going to abandon you because of a lie. How terrible to feel that your parent is going to abandon you because they love you (Loreli feels that if I love her then I will abandon her--exactly how her birth mother did). How do we, as parents, find our way into the hearts of children who are stuck between the rock of our love and the hard place of their past trauma?

On being an empath

I’ve known, since my late teens, that I pick up on other people’s emotions. It’s called several things: Empathy, Clairsentience, or Clairempathy. The first time I remember it was when I was about 18 and I walked into a friend of the family’s apartment and was flooded with a wave of depression. It was so very different from what I had been feeling that I knew without a shadow of a doubt that it wasn’t mine. I wanted to run from the apartment but couldn’t, so I just sat with it, wide-eyed and weirded out.

Fast forward to yesterday: I went to pick up the kids from school—Daniel was bubbly and Loreli was quiet but within five minutes she was bubbly too so I put her quietness behind me. They were home for about a half an hour when a sudden “fullness” in my chest hit me. Kind of scary! Soon after I had a tightness in my throat. Yikes. I checked the internet for heart attack signs for women. What in the world?

Took the kids outside to play with friends while the moms talked. The feeling lessened a bit. Came back inside to make dinner and the feelings increased and a headache was forming. After about 30 minutes I also added a feeling of panic and then I suddenly wanted to cry.

A lightbulb went off. Wait, wait! I know what this might be!

I asked Loreli to come upstairs with me and we curled up in my bed. “Just wondering how things are going in school…” She said they were okay but then stopped and said, “No, they’re not. Today was bad.” She’s been dealing with a couple of little girls who are bullying her and a bunch of other kids in class. Ugh.

I said, “Before you start telling me about it, can you find the feeling in your body?” Loreli said it was in her chest and her forehead.

No wonder my heart was feeling so icky and I was working on a headache!

She continued to tell me about the “mean girls” at school and what they were saying to her. She so desperately wanted to say something back to them but felt like she shouldn’t for fear of retaliation. I asked her where she felt that in her body…can you guess where? Yep, her throat felt tight.

As she was talking, the physical feelings I had been having slowly lessened their grip on me.

It was only 2.5 hours from the onset of my “symptoms” to figuring it out. The time frame is getting shorter! YAY!

I recently had a bout of “symptoms” (panic, fear, lots of crying) that lasted four days—I was so freaked out! I cried to Brad during that time, “I don’t know what’s going on! I can’t figure out why I feel so terrified and panicky!” It took two days of antidepressants before I could figure out what was going on and, again, it had to do with what was going on with Loreli. I’ve never taken antidepressants and now that all of this empath stuff is making itself clearer, I’m so very happy with the crazy side effects that I felt during those two days. Without the side effects I might have spent more time on antidepressants, stuffing the empathy down, instead of using it!

Now, to figure out how to hone it to a sharp edge but also not slice myself to smithereens. It’s useful if I can help the person, but if not, I don’t need it!

This all makes me wonder, how many people are in the world, suffering from depression, anxiety, etc who are actually untrained empaths just sucking in other people’s feelings?

I’ve been struggling with this for my entire life. It took Loreli’s pain, what felt to me like a near breakdown, and 45 years to start to figure it out.

When I can remember to do it, I ask myself, “Self, what were you feeling 5 minutes ago when you were alone?” I usually realize that I was feeling fine and dandy 5 minutes ago. And then either someone I love or a random stranger at the grocery store came into emotional contact with me and poof! I’m suddenly feeling THEIR feelings and not my own anymore.

Is that weird or what?

It is quite the experience to unravel my feelings and someone else’s. It can be really useful too. With Daniel I often know what is going on with him before he can verbalize it. That’s been going on since he came home at 7 months. I have had a few times that I have consciously been aware that my physical symptoms were actually Daniel’s but they have been “quieter” things like stomach aches or headaches. With Loreli I’m guessing that the reason they arrive in me so acutely is because they are triggering a similar feeling in me.

With Brad…well, Brad can get frustrated easily and I will be frustrated right back at him—the whole time feeling completely confused.

It’s just been in the past few weeks that I’m fully recognizing this. The Completely Confused part is key and the piece that I need to watch for. Completely Confused is a big clue. If I’m feeling Completely Confused and a negative emotion, the alarm bells need to start ringing—LOUDLY! Completely Confused is a sign for, “This emotion is NOT YOURS!”

I was writing in my journal a few days ago:

When something brings it front and center and I pay attention, I recognize it for a few days. But life often gets in the way, I forget, and just go back to what is “normal”. I’m beginning to see that this is a huge mistake! How will I ever be able to use it as the gift it is if I don’t practice on a daily basis?

I also noted that I had been seeing bald eagles nearly every day. I decided to look up what the eagle might be telling me and wrote in my journal:

Visually, everything about the eagle's appearance is sharp. Streamlined, sleek, chiseled. This prompts our deeper minds to hone our thoughts and skills. The eagle commands us to tailor our intelligence and talents in a form that best suits our needs. We all have inner abilities, but when the eagle shows up - it's a clear sign it's time to use these abilities in a laser-like fashion to bring about focused change in our lives.

Well then.

It’s time to stop pushing this aside. Time to figure out how to use it! And if my own experiences weren’t enough to want to make the changes, I’ve also seen some empath signs in Daniel—I refuse to let him wander through life without knowing how to work with it. As I learn, I’ll teach him too.

So, not only do I wonder how many adults are out there, stuffing this “gift” but also, how many children are coming into our world learning to stuff the gift from their parents? I think it’s very possible that we are all born with this gift but are never taught how to use it.

Have you ever thought to ask a child, “Do you think that this feeling you are having belongs to you or someone else?” I sure haven’t, until now…