Have I played it all wrong? The ripple effect of school refusal.
In our house, CPTSD has shifted over the years - almost as if when one of us reaches a plateau, or just plain exhaustion, someone else takes up the mantle.
In the beginning, it was sometimes both of them, but more often than not, when one has struggled, the other has seemed to calm. I have wondered over the years if this is subconscious on their part; they know I can’t handle both of them breaking at the same time, so they are kind to me and provide support.
And of course, I have had my fair share of tumultuous periods - the time when Malbec kept me going. Before the breakthrough EMDR, before I was able to choose life again. And I acknowledge that time with them; I acknowledge it must have been hard. I explain to my eldest that it is probably the same as when she self-harms - my self-harm was just the route I knew, in red wine.
But what this has resulted in is a cumulative eight years of managing complex emotions and trauma - all the time.
All of this, on top of normal life.
Job losses, financial stress and debt, house moves, relationship breakdowns and divorce - the everyday incredibly tough times managed with high-octane PTSD. Not a day has gone by - well, I can count on one hand the days it hasn’t seemingly had an impact - when it hasn’t touched us.
And long before my eldest refused to go to school, my youngest had years of it. Years when she would go to contact and develop such severe separation anxiety I would have to hand her over to the school office, get her changed in the office toilets and leave her crying, all because he had whispered to her, “I will come and see you by school,” or the like, and she was convinced he would kidnap her.
Covid broke me - trapping me in a house of trauma (with a narcissist to top it) - but it also gave some respite from school battles.
And now, as my eldest reaches Year 11 and I get into more debt to pay for tutors in the hope she can get some semblance of a pass in a handful of GCSEs, it strikes me - I have played it wrong.
I have fought the school for support, support they don’t want to give. I have fought for her to attend, exhausting myself and my mother to the point of burnout, and I have damaged my relationship with her.
She came back from therapy last week and opened up to me. She said she felt depressed and alone - lonely in part because she feels all I do is nag her about school and study. And it made me think. I have done that in recent months. I have been so worried about her GCSEs, so worried she will miss interactions with peers (she is incredibly social and, for someone who is rarely in school, has friends all over the county) - that is what I have focused on.
I believed that would be best for her, but maybe I am wrong?
I have focused on that - governors’ meetings, complaints, arguments - fighting for her rights and support in a school that is decidedly un–trauma-informed. A school which hasn’t heard her, hasn’t listened to her need for validation. But what if I had just focused on letting her be?
Would she have got out of the darkened room sooner?
And it’s not just her, my exhaustion, my battle weary fatigue has an impact on her sister. I am no longer the fun mum who would think nothing of a last minute camping trip, who would think of ways to have little connections - swimming, monopoly, a film by the fire - when I hit the end of my working week. For now my youngest is a people pleaser, who knows the strength I muster day in day out, who misses her sister (although the ‘eyelash’ war does ensue with a frequent ‘who’s got the glue’) and I am sure misses me.
