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A few months ago I was at a conference by Yvonne Newbold of The SEND VCB Project - Public Page on violent and challenging behaviour in SEND children. As part of her presentation she had a slide that said simply “this is not your fault”. At that moment something deeply broke within me. Not because this was in any way comforting, (although I hope it does bring comfort to many) but because at that moment I realised how much I blamed myself for everything that Linus has been through, and that I was no longer coping. That bottling things up inside of me, that I had been doing for years and years, was no longer working. I was at breaking point - and at that moment I broke.
It’s funny how you always break at the most unexpected times. On the surface of my life things seemed fairly good. L was back in education and thriving. I was working. I had some freedom on the weekends. God, I’d even managed to go on my first kid free holiday in 9 years to somewhere I had never been before. But on the inside things were very different - I was deeply traumatised and I wasn’t coping. I had no family around me. I had a few friends who could only offer limited support. I had an ex-husband who is really the only support system I have - and again this is very limited. I was existing completely in flight or fight mode.
Because as far as I was concerned everything that had happened was my fault. It was my fault that: On L’s first day of Reception, when he was so traumatised, I didn’t pull him out of school; That I allowed him to stay in that school for the next 18 months, and although there were some staff changes and some staff that got him, the damage was already done; That I listened to OT’s who told me “it was kinder to make him adjust to the world not being his way now than to let him continue to think it was”; That I gave him a sticker chart that sent him into a full meltdown; That he was in such distress that he punched and kicked me on multiple occasions; That I nearly lost him across a road several times when he spotted something he wanted and I was focused on my younger two children; That he had no sense of stranger danger and he would wander off; That I put his brother and sister into a mainstream school when I was undergoing a major operation so that they would be there while I recovered, but meant he would lose his siblings through the day and become so lonely at home; That I couldn’t be his mother, his teacher, his carer, his friend, his everything that he needed; That he is so distressed by this world that it’s easier for him to believe that he is a Wildebeest from another planet than a human; And that because of this he calls me Tania and no longer Mummy; And that deep down I feel like I don’t deserve to be called Mummy, because I totally and utterly failed him.
Pretty much exactly one year ago we were in crisis. L had taken out a kitchen knife and briefly pointed it at the babysitter (fortunately, nobody was hurt and he put it back quite quickly and this has never been repeated). It was a shocking incident and anything could have happened. This was the day I called social services and convinced myself they were going to take L away. In extreme distress I also called my ex-husband and asked him to come back to the family home from London where he works through the week. He said no as he had a work meeting the next day. I crumbled to the floor in front of my children and I cried and cried until I could cry no more.
It took several weeks for social services to get back to me and during that time I did what I always do - pulled myself up again and kept on going. In hindsight this is when I should have stopped. I should not have taken on employment. I should have spent the next month with Linus doing everything I could to reassure and calm his anxiety. I should have prioritised addressing the trauma. I should have referred myself for counselling. But I didn’t. It’s so much easier to keep going than to stop and admit that you need help. And I was fine, everything was fine, whenever anyone asked me if I was ok - the answer was always fine. It had to be - to answer anything else would be to crack… and I couldn’t allow that to happen. But the crack couldn’t hold forever and in February I broke.
Fortunately, a few weeks after I reached breaking point Coronavirus swept in and stopped everything. I’m going to have to see this as a blessing. My ex-husband is here and just having another adult for emergencies is such a weight off my shoulders. I will not allow myself to be put in a situation where I have so little a support system again. I have made the decision that until the children are much older I will not return to the workforce. I have asked for help and am getting some trauma processing counselling. Finally, I feel like I can breathe again.
And so now, during this time of lockdown, I make the following promises to myself: To make the choice to heal; To ask for help in doing so; To forgive myself for past mistakes and learn from them; To take time to read, create and exercise; To trust my intuition and make the decisions that are right for myself and my children; To not let fear override my hopeful heart.
They say your children are your biggest teachers. Understanding and accepting Linus for being exactly who he is has never been my problem, it’s doing the same for myself that has been. I really hope that if I am lucky enough to see another presentation by Yvonne and she uses the same slide that says “This is not your fault” I am going to believe it.
