When your 11-year-old daughter is your hero

Most older people can tell you that it can take decades for things to come around full circle; that it takes an entire lifetime in some ways to truly assess the important things.

As human beings, we’re so apt at impatiently pre-judging situations and people and we burn our bridges before we’ve even halfway built them.  We are all guilty of this, because we all lack wisdom.

Take this encouraging example.

Recently I wrote about the suicidal brokenness I experienced in marital separation that devastated me.  Even though I had the support of my parents, co-workers, and a loving community around me on a daily basis, I inevitably found myself occasionally absolutely gutted in the presence of my children, and my eleven-year-old daughter at times bore the brunt of my anguish.

Do you know that these days—nearly twenty years on—I don’t have memories of many of these times impressed on my consciousness.  But for my daughter who was 11 at the time, and who is now nearly 29, it’s completely different.

As trauma is for all of us, it’s etched into her.

On one such occasion she ‘held space’ for me, perhaps for a relatively short period of ten minutes, but it seemed like two hours for her.

I’d have had no idea really other than she’s answered a prayer of mine and invested herself in facing the traumas of those times—everything that starts with family breakdown, and everything that keeps that journey of brokenness going.  And it is myriad trauma.  This is not something that people who vouch for divorce will openly admit.

My brokenness should not have been witnessed and experienced by my children.  That’s the truth of it.  But whenever these things happen, later we must deal with them in the hope they may be healed.

I’d prayed for over a decade that my daughters, and particularly my eldest (she was most affected by the separation), would seek to face any trauma they endured and imbibe the healing they could ultimately earn and enjoy.

The event I’m attempting to describe is vague in my memory, but through her own process my daughter has shared with me what it took from her, and I’m so glad there’s open dialogue—that it’s my turn to hold space.

We were in our car parked in a community car park with small shops in a precinct.  At the time, I was desperate to put my broken marriage back together—I did everything I could to turn my life around, but there was also someone else involved, so I had to admit I was up against it.  Yet, I couldn’t contemplate the marriage was over.  For nine months I held out hope and focused on being the model ex-husband.

As I imagine it, I was there completely broken, as the moments of despair would occasionally break over the bow of my listless ship, strewn and battered against the banks of a fearsome bay.  We possibly were there all together, myself and my three daughters (my other two daughters aged 8 and 5 at the time).

What do you do when you’re the oldest child and your parent has regressed emotionally?  You hold them—not physically, but emotionally.  My daughter was placed in a situation where she had to nullify herself to hold space for me.  She had to be a saviour.

It was too much to ask of an eleven-year-old.  She did everything she could at the time, and as I imagine it, she actually did a great job.  She got me through a very tough moment.  It wasn’t the only time.  There were multiple times and multiple ways, and even though I would have been aware of how inappropriate it was to lean on my child like this, the grieving I was enduring, and the times I’d be triggered did occasionally coincide with times I had my daughters.

My times with my daughters were lifesaving for me, having lost everything else about family and all I cared about.  Tuesday and Thursday afternoons and evening meals and every second weekend.  And one week each school holidays.  My whole life revolved around being as present as I could when I had my girls.  And for the most part, especially several months on, I was able to consistently achieve this.

Amid all the positive memories, however, there are times etched into my daughter’s psyche where I needed her too much.  And don’t get me wrong, she had a ton of support from my parents as I also did—my parents were often my counsellors, and they were that and so much more for my daughters also.

I don’t feel guilty for having placed my daughter in a burdensome position for a child to bear.  I don’t feel ashamed.  This is mainly because she has owned her journey and I couldn’t be prouder of that.  It’s also because she’s modelled a redemptive way of recovering this trauma—she’s been brave and has had the chat with me.  She lovingly gave me the opportunity of facing what is hard for a parent to face—my failure.

My 11-year-old daughter was my hero when she held space for me all those years ago—a hero back then even though I probably didn’t recognise it at the time.  She helped to keep me alive—by her presence and the fact of her and my other daughters’ being.  She’s a hero to me now, because she’s journeyed back to uncover those places of trauma and shame, and she’s living a life of facing hard truths.

For the fact that she’s actively doing her best of undoing the generational trauma she’s been subjected to—I’m proud of her and I know so many others are, too.

This article has been written with the knowledge and permission of my daughter.

The hour of hell’s visitation

I’ve never liked October 4.  Since 1989, that day per year has often been terrible.  But 1989 wasn’t a shade on 2003—the day I learned that my recently estranged wife was in a relationship with another man.  The moment I found out took me tenfold deeper into a mental and emotional spiral than I’d been in the past 13 days since she said she wanted a trial separation.

The pain of separation was devastating.  There were so many times I woke up from sleeping just wanted to be unconscious again.  But the very second I discovered that another man had taken my place in my wife’s heart, that another man was to become the step father to my daughters (aged 5, 8, 11 at the time), that I’d been replaced (it felt that way), it broke something inside of me, and the following four days was an overwhelming whirlwind of anguish.

I came so very close to ending my life the night of October 4, 2003.

I was twenty metres and ten minutes away from it.  I’d parked my car a few hundred metres away and had quietly entered the property, and, knowing what needed to be done, I was nearly there.

All thought of the trauma my brother endured in finding his best friend deceased when they were 18, all thought of a pact that we’d never do it, all that thought in this tenuous moment, vanished.  I was blinded from anything else than what I was there to do.

Suddenly a compellingly obvious vision entered my field of thought.  My daughters.

It was like God was reminding me that if there was one reason that made suicide impossible as an option it was that I couldn’t leave them, that they needed me.  I wasn’t looking for excuses.  I wanted to go through with it, the pain was so incredible.

Immediately I acknowledged that I just couldn’t do what I had come to do, I retreated, walked back to my vehicle, and drove to my parents.  I didn’t sleep for the following two nights.  And by October 8, a Wednesday, I was on a runaway train heading for a mental breakdown.  And it occurred.

On that day, I was fine about 11am and I could remember thinking, “I’m going okay here.”  Almost as soon as I had that realisation, the floor fell out of my composure.

Within the hour I regressed and by 12pm I was bordering on a sobbing catatonia.  It was pure sorrow and my mind had gone.  It was like a panic attack without the cognition, which was the scariest thing.  It must have been terrible for both my parents and children to witness.

I put the above event down to the prolonged exposure to life-changing trauma, the inability to sleep, and being absolutely beside myself with how to reconcile my life that had catastrophically imploded.

As I look back now, nearly 18 years later, Sarah and I having just had our 14th wedding anniversary, living a completely different life now, all my daughters grown, I recognise I got through those times when not wanting to be alive was so strong.  I got through and for the life I have now, it’s a hundred thousand times worth it.

Life never prepares us for the hellish moment that swoops down and smothers us in the toxin of despair.  All I know is there are compelling reasons to live, support gets us through the crisis, and, because crises are always in the mind, thinking is helped when we talk about things with those who will listen and care.

We do get through, we do recover, one day at a time.

If you’re in a hellish moment, look for reasons that make dire actions impossible options.

When you’re in that hellish moment, perhaps it’s a Judas Iscariot moment, believe for the miracle of recovery, for God is desperate for you to remain alive, and you will reap a harvest of healing if you keep going.

What I’d say to you when you’re not around anymore

Conversations are generally two-way, but there’s the kind of conversation that can only be one-way.  It’s usually the kind of conversation uttered to the ether in faith that those words would be heard.

I’ve a particular person in mind who I know won’t be around forever.  You know who they are: your father, your mother, your sick relative, or friend.  We cannot picture what it will be like to be without them.  We can’t plan that far ahead.

Like the baby born to a new home.  All plans are made, but the reality of that baby will shatter many of those plans, bringing home the truth of the proverb, “Plans belong to a human, but the answer comes from the mouth of the Lord.”

In terms of the reality of what we’ll think, say, or do when a loved one is no longer here likewise, we may not even ponder it.  We lose sight of the irrevocable reality.

So, what would I say to that dear one—anyone close who I would grieve bitterly—when I’d already lost them?

“I’m so sorry that I didn’t get to say................................ but let me say it anyway.”

“I’m so sorry we didn’t get to do........ together.  We would have loved doing this together.  But let me do this with you in my mind right now.”

“I wish I could look into your face just one more time, to feel you physically with me, but I’m thankful for your image in my mind, and I will preserve it.”

“To hold you or hold your hand or chat or just shoot the breeze... be with me now in spirit.”

“To just be silent with you... to experience you smiling... to know you’re smiling, though, brings me peace.”

“I miss your presence so much!”

“Oh, how glorious is it up there?  I imagine you saying, ‘More incredible than you can imagine’.  But still, I just miss you.”

“There are a thousand ways that life’s different because you’re no longer here.”

“I never realised how final the concept of ‘different’ is in the grief of loss—I hate it but there is a modicum of comfort for me knowing you’re at peace.”

“I wish we could see you enjoying us.  I wish we could see your pleasure...”

“... but by faith I must hold to the idea that you watch on more immensely content at what you can see now than ever.”

“We love you so much that experiencing the little and large moments in life without you breeds pain.”

“Would you be in my tears?  Thank you that you’re part of the healing of my soul, that the pain of grief will morph into the reality that life will always be different without you.”

“I know you want me to live all my life here, and be as present for everyone as I can, but there is consolation that I will see you again.”

“In this moment, when NOBODY knows just how much I want to break down and cry right now, I cannot bear that you’re not here.”

Maybe it’s just one step closer to making the inevitable easier—to loan a vision from the future to do the present differently so there are fewer regrets when life is different and will never be the same again.

Do now what cannot be done at a time that will arrive before you know it.

Photo by Ben Blennerhassett on Unsplash

The cycles of trauma and shame in abuse and addiction

Tragedy strikes a life for whom was written heroism, and heroism it was until trauma dug deep, the triggering started, and lamentable behaviour ensued, which then elicited that shame cycle, which further intensified the grief of trauma.

Trauma is one of the greatest undiagnosed maladies common within the sets of abuse and addiction today, and the saddest thing, trauma walked into a hero’s life unannounced, and it can threaten to stay indefinitely.

If a person is stuck in the cycle of addiction, truth is trauma probably started it.

There is so much shame attached to all these themes, and the saddest thing is shame only reinforces the vicious cycle.  If only you can get past the shame, recovery then is a distinct probability.

Abuse doesn’t always occur because a person intends to abuse.  They may hate themselves for abusing.  They may not feel entitled to abuse people at all.  They may despise the fact that they cannot help abusing substances or engage in practices that are an abuse.  So many people come to the end of their tether because they cannot get free of the bondage they’re stuck in.

Think of the nurses, the paramedics, the police, the firefighters, the veterinary surgeons and nurses, the doctors who have succumbed to work-related trauma—especially the health and other frontline workers throughout the pandemic—and, if you get close enough, you can see the social destruction trauma causes.

For getting in harm’s way for the cause of service to society.

How many upstanding citizens succumb to addictions to flee the fright of trauma as it fights to freeze the person?

How many of the people who are not affected by trauma would be if they were subjected to the same stimuli as those who have trauma?

How many of those who go on to abuse not only substances, but people go on to do so because they have unhealed trauma they couldn’t deal with?

If anything could be a legitimate scapegoat, it ought to be trauma, for it’s such an unforgiving nemesis as to stick to the walls of our bodies so we cannot escape it.

Normalising trauma is understanding how normal shame is—across the board—as the greatest protagonist of cycles of addiction, abuse, and trauma.  All these themes inherently feature much shame.

And yet, those we hail as heroes—and always ought to—come unstuck because of exposure to a hazard so immense they cannot rectify it without society’s empathy.  Yet, society is fickle—it needs its heroes, but it also cuts down the ‘villain’ with killing ferocity.

Too often the hero and the villain are the same person but for a little luck one way or misfortune the other.

The point is, let’s see the bigger picture.  Before we judge a person for glaringly poor behaviour, especially if they lament the fact, we could hold out to the possibility that there’s something that could explain it.  Judgement only makes trauma worse.  It doesn’t fix it at source.

More and more as trauma becomes increasingly attributable for maladies, we need to be a more compassionate society.  We need to be a bigger picture society that endeavours to identify causes and support people rather than not investigate the symptoms more so as to condemn and banish them.

I’m all for keeping people safe, and if trauma makes someone dangerous, then keep the targets of that aggression safe.  But it doesn’t mean we cast off the aggressor as the scapegoat banished to the wilderness.  Curiosity instead may lead us to ask them if they need help.

Those who take up the offer of help will often be helped.  We must ask and be prepared to offer it.

Addressing the problems of trauma is gathering all the symptomatic behaviours in a net, to get interested in them to the extent of doing what can be done to address the causes buried much deeper beneath.

Photo by Joshua Fuller on Unsplash

The Sacred Art of Holding Space

You see memes all about kindness costing nothing, and you wonder why more people aren’t kinder.  Well, it’s actually hard being consistently kind because it demands humility enough to shelve our righteous indignation when people tread on our toes.

Listening is the same.  There are all kinds of quotes that fly around on ‘Are you okay day?’ for instance.  It’s like society demands more people listen better, but it’s not that simple.  Listening is hard, especially when we might have something to say.

Better than listening is the practice all good counsellors use—holding space.

It’s the use of silence.  So that the person we’re with has plenty of space to think, talk a little (or much), cry, laugh, and most importantly, feel.  Of course, people who need comfort also need us to talk!  It’s discerning when, what, how long.

What people need when they want someone to listen to them is space enough to fill.  Few if any interjections, presence of curiosity and interest, the ability to focus enough to inquire into the depths and not just stay at the safer periphery.

I still ask myself why so few people hold space for others.  One of the obvious reasons is it feels so damn ineffective.  It feels like you’re doing nothing to ‘help’, but the irony is God’s Spirit helps most when there’s liminal space enough for a person to break open and pour their heart out.  Where time is no longer a dimension to interrupt the eternality of the moment.

Yes, a common reason we don’t hold space well, to be perfectly honest, is unconsciously we want some of the credit for helping the person, and yet we interrupt the precious therapy that silence and silent presence could do of its own if only we trusted the moment.

We may have faith that our words will be seasoned with just the right wisdom, but in the broken places there are no words, so the words inevitably fall short and fail.  We sell out the eternity in the moment for a pot of stew.

The Jews have this beautiful tradition of Shiva, which means ‘seven’, in that mourning would occur for seven days of sitting and stillness after the burial.  Imagine stopping life for seven whole days to mourn properly.  For many Westerners, that would be a bridge too far, too hard, too scary a prospect.

As far as holding space is concerned, adopting something of Shiva is about respecting the timelessness of grief, that lingering longer in the space means overcoming our anxiety to be in control of the moment. 

Yes, anxiety I’m reminded is a genuine interrupter.  Certainly as the liminal space in the silent moments produces discomfort and gnawing awkwardness, most of us are tempted to break that precious silence.

Sacred moments much of the time are cheapened by words and certainly too many of them or the wrong kind—advice and other things we think ‘might help’.

I think we might all be surprised just how words can interrupt healing and even traumatise people.

But doing the work of the Spirit is getting out of the way, respecting that God is already there amid the pain, doing what only God can do.

Photo by Felix Mittermeier on Unsplash

Grief explains much anxiety, depression, anger, panic attacks etc

Life is but a meandering through varying stages of loss, for we’re constantly losing, and if life is to teach us anything—about resilience I mean—it’s that we’re meant to learn how to face it, accept it, be at peace with the facts of our being that we cannot understand or change.

Whenever we face anxiety, there are components in our lives that we’d avoid.  Whether it’s a conscious known anxiety or something we just feel unknowingly anxious about, anxiety disarms confidence because we’ve either experienced a loss or we fear loss is about to occur.

Not sure what’s worse, the reality or the unshakable reality of fear.  Reality is tangible and like a living nightmare, but equally, foreboding, brooding anxiety is just as hellish.

The belief of learned helplessness in depression is the depth of grief, of loss at its unparalleled darkest. Yet, just as much, depression is instructive if we can eventually clamour our way out of those depths to new hope, and a grief-initiated depression heralds that kind of hope, ultimately.  When the pain of staying in the depression exceeds the pain needed to risk for new life, a season of rising out into the light emerges.

Patience affords us eventual success, and we add it to the wealth of our life experience.

Anger has its role in human life, yet safe expression is key.  Anger is a normal human emotion, predictive of the sadness and fear at fathoms deeper.  Add the dimension of loss and anger is explained by the injustice of grief.

There are times in grief when we have no energy, but frustratingly there’s always energy to run in fight or flight, by anger or denial.  Irritability is a worthy barometer of loss, and so is turning away from pain to the thrills of a million ways of lonely pleasure that lead to places worse than nowhere.

Panic is grief at its zenith of dread.  Seven panic attacks I had in one short season nearly eighteen years ago, and the experience of the shocking power in panic’s descent never leaves you.  Such dread is surely from the bowels of grief.  To know it, empathy is added to you.

Much of mental ill health that we face existentially is grief.  It’s the outworking of developmental trauma, resounding loss, calamitous disappointment, bewildering betrayal, shattered dreams, and every part of life that is unjust.

Yet, grief, when we see it for what it is, extends to us the invitation of facing to flourish.  Facing is resilience, and what we stand to learn is we can face our sorrow, our fear, the realities of life we find ourselves suddenly thrust into.

When we face the facets of our grief, we’re compensated through the acquisition of life experience that invigorates purpose.  None of the time wasted in grieving is a waste of time.  Every second ends up being relevant eventually.

Photo by Patrick Jansen on Unsplash