Early trauma makes me a fearful mum
IT’S midterm break and we’re on a trip to the local shop to buy ice cream.
We pass a green with a makeshift swing.
The kids ask if we can play vampires so I chase them around the green.
But in a flash the afternoon turns from bliss to a nightmare.
My six- year-old is winded after I chase her. She falls flat on her chest with a thump.
Her eight-year-old friend, who’s as strong as an ox, falls on top of her. She screams: “I can’t breathe.”
I calmly pick her up off the grass and instruct her to breathe deeply.
To my horror she passes out in my arms. My calm demeanour turns to shock. I scream for help – the other kids are startled.
I’m in a complete frenzy running from house to house.
I do mouth-to-mouth in case she isn’t breathing, the first aid course I did six years ago long forgotten.
My brain no longer rational, I assume the worst. I think my angel is dead.
I remember there’s a chemist, a short walk from the green. Erin is probably out for seconds but it feels like hours.
The pharmacist assures me that she’s OK.
But I’m still spiralling into worst case scenario mode.
I bring her to the out of service doctor, we get a full check-up.
The doc assures me fainting, otherwise known as syncope, can happen with shock and after a growth spurt.
I want to hug this doctor, who in this moment is a god.
The next day my four-year-old breaks out in a rash, grizzly blisters engulfing her little body.
The churning in my stomach takes hold again.
I’m back at the doctor’s on Saturday to be told the rash is probably just bad eczema.
The solution is to douse the child in emollient cream.
I later discover she has hand, foot and mouth disease. It’s Sunday lunch at our nanny’s house and Erin starts crying, complaining of a headache. My heart skips a beat, her temperature is slightly high. My mind immediately thinks she might have delayed concussion from ‘faint gate’ or something wrong with her brain. That night I’m lying in bed crying, imagining horrific scenarios. I’m on Doctor Google like a possessed maniac. By chance my psychologist mate calls in the next day, another sign the universe is watching over us. As I explain my irrational thoughts, she asks if I ever suffered trauma myself as a kid. I recall how when I was five, I caught my foot in the spokes of my aunt’s bike, while riding on the backer.
I spent a month in hospital, separated from my family.
My foot had turned to gangrene and I nearly lost it.
Trauma, my friend explains, stays in our physical body.
So every time something happens to my kids I go back to my five-year-old freaked out alone and frightened self.
Armed with the knowledge, I now know to lean into the feeling, know it’s there and cut myself some slack.
A few days later and the girls are fine, bouncing around like nothing has happened.
Worrying doesn’t solve anything – the outcome is always the same.
I may be a melodramatic mess when the kids are not alright, but at least I know there’s a reason for my irrational fear.
Trauma, my friend explains, stays in our physical body