Seleste | CPTSDfoundation.org

A Guide to Living With Your Emotions

Seleste — Wed, 01 Sep 2021 10:20:59 +0000

Humans feel a wide range of emotions: sad, happy, mad, excited, scared, lonely, frustrated, bored, angry, and more. Children’s behavior (and misbehavior) is guided by their emotions and their brain states. Even for adults, these emotions can be overwhelming and can leave us muddled and confused about how we feel. For a child, this is even more confusing. Kids feel emotions very intensely, their brains are developing rapidly and the surges of emotions can be really hard for them to handle sometimes.

Emotions don’t come out of anywhere. They happen for a reason, and they help guide us through situations. Loneliness is telling us that we need to connect. Fear is telling us that we need to get back to safety. Frustration is telling us that we don’t know how to do something.

The child who refuses to turn off the TV might be feeling lonely and desperate for connection. The child who runs away and hides might be feeling scared and trying to keep themselves safe from the unknown. And the child who throws their toys across the room might be feeling frustrated because the pieces didn’t fit together.

These behaviors might be frustrating to deal with, but if we can understand why they are happening, and what the behavior is trying to tell us, we can navigate the situation in a healthy and productive manner.

Brain States and Emotions Dictate Behavior

All of the emotions we feel are powerful and guide us through every situation. It is easier for children to handle their emotions if they know what is happening and why. Knowledge is power, and for a child, the knowledge that what they are feeling has a name and a reason gives them the power to figure out how to handle it.

When we understand how our brain works, and where misbehavior stems from, we can identify why they are acting a certain way. With this information, we can and navigate the situation quickly and effectively.

The Color Spectrum of Emotions describes how our 3 brain states relate to how we experience emotions. In summary, green is the rational state, yellow is the emotional state, and red is the survival state.

Misbehavior only happens when a child is in red or yellow.

We can only learn while we are using the rational part of our (green) brains. When a child is in their emotional or survival state of yellow or red they can’t learn or communicate clearly.

This means that if a child is misbehaving, we must bring them back into green so we can teach them what to do instead of misbehaving.

By using this knowledge and the 4 Steps, you can turn a tense and stressful situation with your child into a learning opportunity. The child who throws a puzzle piece across the room needs to learn how to deal with feelings of frustration so they can overcome the challenge and solve the puzzle, instead of giving up and throwing pieces.

The 4 Steps

Step 1: Identify

The first step is to identify the emotion they are feeling and the brain state they are in. This step gives you a starting point for how to handle the situation. If a child is angry, you would handle the situation differently than if they were lonely. Give your child the name of the emotion they are feeling.

“You look like you’re feeling frustrated.”

Follow their lead, if they seem frustrated, but really they are sad, they will tell you. It takes a bit of guessing sometimes, but once you hit the nail on the head, they will let you know.

Identifying the emotion brings a child from red to yellow.

Step 2: Validate

Once you’ve identified the emotion, let them know that they are feeling it for a reason. They aren’t crazy, their emotions are valid. To validate, all you have to do is name the emotion, and explain to your child the reason they are feeling that way.

“You felt frustrated because the piece didn’t fit in the puzzle, so you got mad and threw it across the room.”

It feels really good to be validated. Have you ever had an annoying co-worker, and you vented to a friend and they agreed with you? Then they shared their experience and you bonded over that moment? The validation you get from a trusted friend or parent is a huge weight off your shoulders and helps you think more clearly. You don’t feel crazy anymore, you have the clarity to a situation and now you can figure out how to navigate.

The same thing happens for a child when you validate that they are feeling frustrated because a circle doesn’t fit into a square. It is frustrating when the world doesn’t work the way you want it to. For a kid, they don’t know how the world works yet, so their moments of frustration are going to happen more often and are going to be really intense sometimes.

Validating brings a child from yellow back down to green.

Step 3: Breathe

Your child needs to get oxygen to their brain and be reminded that they are loved and safe. No matter what they are feeling or how they express those big feelings, they must be reminded that they are unconditionally loved. They need to know this and feel it each time they get into red, so they can strengthen the connection between their brain states. This allows them to come back to green easier each time.

If a child is safe to feel their big emotions when they are little, then they won’t need to figure it out when they are adults, when their actions could cause real damage.

Breathe with your child during these moments. Sometimes if a child is still in yellow or red, they have a hard time breathing. Especially if a child is having a temper tantrum and is on the floor screaming. During these stressful moments, it helps them calm down if you take some deep breaths. Their mirror neurons will help them take a breath and they will feed off of your calm energy. You will feel a shift. It might take a minute, all you do is sit with them calmly, take deep breaths, and let your child’s emotions do their thing.

They need to get through the surge of hormones that are rushing through their body when they get into the red, and you are there to provide safety once the hormones have run their course.

The 2 prior steps (identify and validate) prepare a child to be able to breathe, and this deep breathing step ensures they are safe and secured in green. This step is important to get them fully back in green, to turn on their rational brain, and put the emotional and survival states to bed. Those other brain states aren’t needed anymore. They’ve done their job. Now it’s time to problem solve and figure out how to handle the situation and learn something new.

– Deep breathing secures your child in green.

Step 4: Problem Solve

This brings us to the 4th and final step, Problem-solving. Problem-solving means how do you want to handle the situation so that it can be resolved.

How do you want to resolve the upset? Do you want to teach a new skill? End the activity? Get your child to cooperate or listen? What do you want your child to do, now that they are able to learn? You can work together with your child to figure out solutions to problems.

If you don’t know what would be helpful, always ask your kid what would help them. They know themselves better than anyone and can answer this for you if you give them the space to have a voice.

“What is stopping you from putting your shoes on?”

“Do you need help with the puzzle?”

“What do you think needs to happen so you can succeed?”

“You were frustrated so you threw the puzzle piece. Next time, you can ask for help, or take a break and get a snack, but you may not throw the puzzle piece”

“Did something happen that made you feel mad?”

If you want to solve the issue, make sure your intentions are coming from a place of love. Be consistent and stick to your word. If you need to implement consequences, explain to them why there are consequences so they understand and can learn, instead of just being put in time out and feeling bad. Natural consequences are more effective in helping a child learn instead of implementing consequences that don’t make sense.

Instead of “Go sit in time out for hitting your brother.” You could say something like:

“I told you to stop hitting your brother, or I would ask you to go to your room to keep you and your brother safe. You felt angry and you chose to hit him again. Now, you must go to your room so you can have some space to calm down so you can keep each other safe. Would you like to go alone, or do you want me to come with you to help you calm down?”

Shift Your Focus

Using this method requires a shift in your intention and your own thoughts about your child’s misbehavior.

Shift your thoughts from “my child is going to be in trouble if they keep messing around” to “my child doesn’t know how to calm their body down, I need to teach them how”.

Shift your focus from “my child is so annoying” to “my child loves me and wants my attention”.

Focus on what your child is trying to communicate to you through their behavior. Their behavior is a window directly into their brain state. Notice their brains states, instead of judging their behaviors.

The 4 Steps are not going to work perfectly every single time because life is messy and often things work a bit differently in real life than they do on paper.

The 4 Steps give you a framework for how to handle situations, and once you understand the framework, you can adapt the steps as necessary.

If you are feeling elevated when your child starts misbehaving, then you won’t be able to use these steps effectively. Self-awareness is the key, and you must remain in green as you do these steps. Just as a flight attendant tells you to put on your oxygen mask first before helping your child, you must be calm and composed in order to help your child learn how to get back to green. And that is honestly the hardest and most demanding part of this whole process.

Read more at www.traumauntied.com

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Seleste

The 4 Steps to Emotional Regulation

Seleste — Wed, 14 Jul 2021 10:00:04 +0000

We all feel a wide range of emotions; sad, happy, mad, excited, scared, lonely, frustrated, bored, anger, the list goes on. Children’s behavior (and misbehavior) is guided by their emotions and their brain states. Even for adults, these emotions can be overwhelming and can leave us muddled and confused about how we feel. For a child, this is even more confusing. Kids feel emotions very intensely, their brains are developing rapidly and the surges of emotions can be really hard for them to handle sometimes.

But, emotions don’t just come out of nowhere, they happen for a reason, and they help guide us through situations. Loneliness is telling us that we need to connect. Fear is telling us that we need to get back to safety. Frustration is telling us that we don’t know how to do something.

The child who refuses to turn off the TV might be feeling lonely and desperate for connection. The child who runs away and hides might be feeling scared and is trying to keep themselves safe from the unknown. And the child who throws their toys across the room might be feeling frustrated because the pieces didn’t fit together.

These behaviors might be frustrating to deal with, but if we can understand why they are happening, and what the behavior is trying to tell us, we can navigate the situation in a healthy and productive manner.

Brain States and Emotions Dictate Behavior

All of the emotions we feel are powerful and guide us through every situation. It is easier for children to handle their emotions if they know what is happening and why. Knowledge is power, and for a child, the knowledge that what they are feeling has a name and a reason gives them the power to figure out how to handle it.

When we understand how our brain works, and where misbehavior stems from, we can identify why they are acting a certain way. With this information, we can and navigate the situation quickly and effectively.

The Color Spectrum of Emotions describes how our 3 brain states relate to how we experience emotions. In summary, green is the rational state, yellow is the emotional state, and red is the survival state.

Misbehavior only happens when a child is in red or yellow.

We can only learn while we are using the rational part of our brains (green). If a child is in their emotional or survival state (yellow or red), they can’t learn or communicate clearly.

This means that if a child is misbehaving, we must bring them back into green so we can teach them what to do instead of misbehaving.

By using this knowledge and the 4 Steps, you can turn a tense and stressful situation with your child into a learning opportunity. The child who throws a puzzle piece across the room needs to learn how to deal with feelings of frustration so they can overcome the challenge and solve the puzzle, instead of giving up and throwing pieces.

The 4 steps to de-escalating any situation and resolving conflict with your child are:

1 Identify what emotion (or group of emotions) they are feeling

2 Validate the reason they are feeling that way and allow them the space to feel their emotions

3 Deep Breathe and re-center

4 Problem Solve

Read more at

Seleste

What is Healing Through Parenting?

Seleste — Wed, 12 May 2021 10:00:35 +0000

Healing Through Parenting is a trauma-informed approach to parenting that helps reduce misbehavior and increase cooperation using just 4 simple steps. Healing Through Parenting focuses on addressing the underlying emotions that drive behavior in children, as well as identifying if certain behaviors are triggers for the adult based on past trauma. We all have a choice to heal our trauma, or hide from the pain and pass it along to our children. Being abusive is a choice, and if you have made the choice to heal from an abusive past, there is no turning back.

By understanding how our brains work, how triggers send us into survival mode, we can teach children how to behave without the use of punishments or rewards. Instead of punishing and rewarding behavior, this technique focuses on what happens in the child’s brain that drives behavior and uses that information to teach emotional regulation and self-control. Emotions drive behavior, and by teaching children emotional literacy they can understand how to regulate their emotions and in turn develop self-control. Learning emotional regulation in childhood creates a strong foundation that helps all people succeed and thrive throughout their lives.

Emotions Drive Behavior

Children communicate through their emotions, and Healing Through Parenting is all about teaching you how to decipher the emotional language that drives all human behavior. If you understand what a child’s emotions are telling you, you will create a safe space between you and your child so you don’t have to keep resorting to old parenting techniques that aim to control and manipulate. If there is a behavior that your child does that triggers an emotional response, and you find yourself yelling, lashing out, or resorting to punishments to control their behavior, your feelings are a signal that your inner child is begging to be reparented. You have the chance to heal yourself using this method, and in doing so, create the safe and loving relationship with your child that you may not have gotten in your childhood.

As a parent, your main focus is to keep your child safe and healthy, this means they need to cooperate and listen. They need to eat their veggies, do their homework, take a bath, put their shoes on, and cooperate with diaper changes. You might feel frustrated that the tools you have at your disposal aren’t working, and if you are reading this, you are likely looking for a new tool to try. Instead of chasing, fighting, punishing, or rewarding, you have the option to use the situation to heal your own childhood trauma, instead of passing it along to your children.

Healing Through Parenting helps reduce conflict and tension in your relationship with your children. There is no need for timeout, sticker charts, taking away privileges, or using bribes to control behavior. This might seem impossible, however, all it requires is a shift in your mindset and learning a new way to function in your relationship with your children. This does not work overnight, it takes time and practice to implement lasting changes. You will notice some differences right away as you and your child learn new ways to communicate and interact with each other.

There are three major concepts within Healing Through Parenting that all work together to create more moments of joy, and fewer moments of frustration.

The Color Spectrum of Emotions explains how our brains and emotions dictate and influence our behavior.

The 4 Steps to Emotional Regulation takes that information and puts it into a simple process for how to handle your child’s misbehavior in any situation.

And the 3Cs, Connection, Composure, and Consistency, are the glue that holds the whole process together.

In addition, several tools such as Visual Schedules, Visual Timers, Love Links, The Safe Spot, Deep Breathing, and the “You Can Handle It!” Series, work together to create safety and connection within the relationship. This safety and connection is the foundation that allows this process to work so you can heal your inner child while you raise your children.

Read more at

Seleste

Relentless Flashbacks

Seleste — Thu, 25 Mar 2021 10:00:21 +0000

Trauma recovery is a painful struggle to find your sanity, your voice, and happiness. My experience with dissociation, amnesia, flashbacks, nightmares, insomnia, panic attacks, anxiety, depression, and emotional numbing makes it hard to stay fully present. At any moment, I’m hit with a flashback of emotional, physical, or sexual abuse. So, when I get hit with a memory of being molested by my mother, or by the string of pedophiles she threw at me, I just check out. I leave, I dissociate, I over medicate with cannabis, hoping that it can help me numb or process the pain. Hoping that my inner child stops hurting long enough so I can be fully present.

Nothing can reconcile the pain or explain how a mother could violate her child. How could a mother actively instill fear in her children so they can be used as weapons against their father? How could a mother force her children to be violated by strangers? How could a mother have sex with her own children? There isn’t enough mindfulness in the world to stop the flashbacks from sweeping me under and drowning me every time I start remembering.

And I know I’m not the only one. So many of us have experienced the same thing. Child prostitution, sex trafficking, rape, and forced incest. We need to talk about it. No one wants to talk about how it feels to dissociate from your body. No one wants to talk about their childhood trauma. It’s in the past. But for survivors like us, it’s not in the past. Those moments stick with us and beg to be healed. No one wants to keep remembering what it feels like to be held down and raped. No one wants to lose control and yell at their child, knowing what it felt like to be in their position.

So I become hyper-vigilant, overly controlling, and paranoid. Maybe if I can control everything and everyone around me then no one will hurt me. But I know the damage that causes, so I stop talking, and try to listen. I really try to listen.

So what the hell do you do when you know that the fear in your head is not your own voice? What do you do when you freeze for no reason, or when your body and brain fill and flood with rage? What the hell do you do when you were traumatized so much that everything reminds you of how you were abused and you can’t seem to find more than a few fleeting moments of peace in your head before the flood rages again?

How do safe enough people communicate with each other? The only way I’ve found to cope is to just try to figure out what my malignant narcissistic mother did to me. Ride out the painful waves of memories, and allow them to be heard and released. Allow them to be released by imagining a superhero coming through and smashing down on your abuser, or imagining you getting superpowers in your flashback and now you can overpower your abuser. Write it out, draw a picture, whatever you need to do to get the memory out of your head and onto the paper.

Or, if you have your own kids, pretend they are you and be the parent you wish you had.

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www.traumauntied.com

Seleste

Parental Alienation and Narcissistic Abuse

Seleste — Wed, 17 Feb 2021 11:00:23 +0000

I’ve never felt like I’ve belonged anywhere. No friends, a strained relationship, feeling crazy all the time, unable to reach out to family or friends, job-hopping, feeling totally alone and isolated, and totally unaware that the way I exist from day to day is ‘abnormal’.

After failing at every job I’ve ever had, desperate for a change, my partner, D, and I moved from Florida to New Hampshire to start a new life. Neither of us had jobs or income. We were idiots and thought it would be a good idea to live off the money from selling my house and ‘figure it out’ as we go. We needed to get the hell out of Florida, away from my mom and away from the heat.

We lived in a hotel for an entire month while we were trying to find an apartment to live in. It sucked to not have any of our stuff, dealing with a broken fridge, and a bed made of rocks, but we made it work. While we were hanging around in the hotel one afternoon, we randomly started watching a show. A woman started talking about her foundation for Parental Alienation Syndrome, and as I listened to what she said, something started clicking.

Parental Alienation. What is that? I started doing research on my phone on the crappy hotel WiFi, and finally, I started to put a name to the experience I had when I was growing up. Parental Alienation Syndrome. (I wouldn’t have the name for Malignant Narcissistic Abuse, Maternal Incest, Forced Sibling Incest, or Child Sex Trafficking until 5 years later). This was the moment I started thinking and putting the pieces together. It took several long years until I finally understood that the woman who gave birth to me, raised me, and discarded me once I made it clear I was done, was a psychopath.

My mother spent her time during my childhood brainwashing me to be afraid of my father (on top of all the other things a malignant narcissist spends their time doing). She convinced me that my father was evil, that the only way he could express love is through money (a lie), that he got kicked out of the navy because he was color blind (a lie), that the way he chewed food was disgusting, that the way he said certain words was horrible, that fishing is for old men with nothing better to do, that the stock market is for losers, that he molested me and my sister (a lie), that he was going to molest me again at any moment (a lie), and that he never tried hard enough to be my father (also a lie).

The truth was that she never let him be there. He did his best to take care of me despite how malicious and horrible she was to him. She did her best to make sure I was afraid of anyone who could have been safe, including my dad. There was no bottom to what she told me or did to me to make sure I could be used as a weapon against him. The things she made me say and do to him still fill me with guilt and horror. The financial abuse, emotional manipulation, and gaslighting made me feel like a ghost, unable to speak up, defend myself, or keep myself safe.

The twisting and the manipulation that does to a child sticks with them forever. It warps your perception of yourself, makes you hate yourself for not being good enough, makes you take the blame for not being able to reach out to ask your family for help, makes you feel like you don’t even deserve to exist, you are the burden to your family, and that you are unlovable and unable to love. The truth is that he wanted to see me all the time, but couldn’t get through her maze of lies and manipulation so he could see me

She made me believe that he was a monster, all while I was growing up in what can only be described as a disgusting, disturbing, twisted, nightmare. Caked up and dried cat litter matted into the carpets, inches of dust on all the surfaces (you could literally pull it off like dryer lint), holes punched into the walls from the bouts of rage I experienced when the mental abuse got too much to handle, doors broken and busted, mold and mildew taking over the shower. The air was always so thick with dust, no wonder I was hospitalized every year when my throat would close.

All while brainwashing me to make me believe that my dad’s clean and safe condo was a dangerous and unsafe place, and he was a horrible man who didn’t know how to be a father. The vision I have of my dad is tainted by her poison. Everything got tainted, nothing was immune.

Just another aspect to the abuse I guess, but one of the hardest ones to overcome. When the abuse makes you afraid of your own family and makes you distrust people who genuinely care for you, it feels nearly impossible to get help. Every time you try to reach out, you cave in on yourself as soon as the feelings of terror set in. You don’t know what is safe or dangerous, you trust the things that are dangerous, you distrust people who just want to know how you’re doing. It’s a vicious and twisted cycle that takes a whole lot of anger to break.

I was lucky that she happened to choose a man to abuse who was gentle, caring, empathetic, loving, responsible, and invested in his children. The unfortunate reality for me is that now, as a 32-year-old woman with a 2-year-old daughter, I still can’t seem to build up the courage to have any sort of conversation with my Dad. Not a phone call on Thanksgiving, not a phone call on the weekend to see how things are going. When I think about reaching out and calling to chat, I’m flooded with panic and anxiety, and immediately shut down as my mom’s voice runs rampant in my head.

And my partner is unfortunately not immune to the damage. I find myself stopping mid-sentence when I realize I’m getting in the way of my daughter’s relationship with him. I find myself trying to fight back against the toxic sludge of poison in my head that keeps telling me that my partner is horrible, unsafe, and the cause of my unhappiness (literally what my mother tried to convince me of). I find myself trying to shift the beam of hatred and anger that fills my head away from the people I love and onto the woman who deserves my anger and wrath. She is so damn slippery though, and as society tells us, you should never hate your mother. “She’s your mother,” they tell me, “You can’t stay mad at your mother”.

Well, I was her daughter, and I deserved to be unconditionally loved. And so does my daughter, which is why I am so determined to destroy that toxic sludge that seeps into my thoughts every single day.

Recommended Reading:
“Adult Children of Parental Alienation Syndrome, Breaking the Ties that Bind” by Amy J.L Baker

I’m Seleste, a survivor of child abuse and neglect, including parental alienation, malignant narcissistic abuse, maternal incest, and child sex trafficking. I have devoted my life to ending the cycle of abuse by teaching children emotional literacy and helping others who are struggling with the lifelong effects of child abuse and neglect.

Visit me at www.traumauntied.com

Seleste