Ti’s the season… to be really honest about the phases of parenting that can look really dark and despairing sometimes, especially for neruospicy folk. It might be the new year and all that in the Gregorian calendar, but here in the northern hemisphere, the earth is still deep in her slumber, the days are dark, and as mammals, we should be curled up in the warmth in community, not isolated and out in the cold at all hours of the day.
The last few weeks of festivities and house move have been a real rollercoaster for me parenting wise, and now, I’m taking the time to record and reflect on them. I had been having a really tough time with K, with major meltdowns night terrors multiple time a week. Night terrors are especially scary because at least in my experience, my child isn’t really there at all, they look like themselves but actually have no resemblance to the sweet or fun personality of the kid I know. I’m grateful he’s my 3rd child, because I am aware this happened with both my older children and that this stage doesn’t last forever. That said, when you’re in it, in that moment, it feels like forever, especially when 20 minutes can cause so much damage. The screaming and rage is scary and hard, trying to keep them safe, from each other and themselves, trying to hold on to the knowledge that this is their primal brain, and that they are not consciously or willingly trying to hurt you … but then comes the after, and the pain I feel when the little sobs haven’t quietened yet and I’m stroking their face wondering what I can do to help. It is one of the hardest, darkest parts of parenting I have ever faced. It is one of the loneliest too, because who talks about how their kids tore the room apart or screamed that they wanted to destroy everything in the depths of feelings… nobody I know does.
I do sometimes to be fair, and when I have done so, the looks of horror or surprise, or then relief (depending on who I’m talking to) are always so visible. It’s hard though, and when people don’t understand, it’s easier to make small talk.
I’m really fucking bad at small talk though.
So I share … and recently I share more. The hardest bits, like when A told me she didn’t want to exist anymore because she was so sad in the middle of the night. Or when we played a game at the park, she didn’t fully understand it and thought she’d lost, and screamed and scratched for 45 minutes once we’d made it home, telling me we should have never started that game and she wanted to cut her jacket to pieces. I looked at her and saw that in this game and her reaction, she had created the perfect storm to play out her feelings of not getting what she wanted. She was bubbling over and trying to process her lack of control, and because children speak and heal through play, this was her doing the work of healing.
Thankfully, we have the resources to see that, to resource them, and to repair when ruptures are made. That night, as she sobbed in bed, and said she didn’t know why she’d found it so hard, I held her and said seriously “there is literally nothing you could ever do to make us stop loving you. You cannot hurt us, and we will keep everyone safe as much as we can, but your feelings are always allowed.”
I read the other day about how resources for emotional regulation and tools for a safe nervous system are a form of generational wealth and honestly I love that. These are tools that yes feel foreign to me at times, but are going to be (hopefully) passed down for generations to benefit from. Teaching them and learning with them is healing, for all of us.
I think this literal dark season of winter correlates with some of the darker hours of motherhood, and I am grateful to find moments to reflect, breathe, practice on my mat or go to the woods and let the trees and river hold me in my processing. The depths these kids feel… it scares me. And it’s a mirror. They are highly sensitive and notice everything, but so do I. As a kid, I didn’t understand it. In fact, even into my 20s I didn’t… and I still struggle now. As a neurospicy house, we all feel deeply, H too, though he says less words, and P in his own way tells us through his games or stories or sensory seeking comforts. We are all looking forward to the light.
Lighter days and lighter loads. It isn’t forever, and as the seasons cycle, we do too. Every year, these months around Christmas and cold are, in their own ways, a challenge. Every year, in the midst of it all, I wonder if it will last forever. And every year, we grow, we hold each other, we cry and we laugh, and we get really honest about much we miss the sun.
This year, the lightness feels closer, as we settle into a new space, and we ride the waves of all that comes with big transitions, we exit the festive period and move into new beginnings, not in the Gregorian calendar sense, but in a whole family, new home, new spaces, new learnings and new resources kind of way. I am learning that the more honest I am about the darker seasons of parenting, the lighter they end up becoming.
This might not be the end of all the hard moments this season, and I guarantee there will be more rollercoaster days to come, but right now, sitting with it I am beyond grateful for the cracks shining through these dark hours, and for the darkness – because it is in these hours that I really see just how imperfectly human we all are. I’m sharing it in the hope that someone like me will find it, and feel a little less crazy, a little less lonely and a little more hopeful about their own magick darkness – not to romanticize it or glorify the chaos, but because when I’ve dug deeper, survived those minutes and hours, and loved on my little ones even harder than before, I am reminded that allowing them to feel this means it doesn’t get stuck in their little bodies. Allowing them to feel it means that maybe one day, they’ll be holding space for their own babies, and find it easier than I do … and that is important work.
Until next time, with love and ramblings,
Rohana xox
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