Deep Disturbing Internal Lives

Dear Parent,

Our attachment challenged kids often have deeply disturbing internal lives.  They are not all sweetness and light inside. Sometimes we forget that, because we so badly want to believe that they are going to snap out of it one day and become normal. Sometimes our children are living in pain with no real words to talk about it and no real understanding to hang their sense of self upon.

Traumatized, attachment challenged children with persistent negative patterns of behavior have some things in common. Often they:

•  feel like they are bad and broken
• feel isolated while demanding to be the center of attention at the same time
• feel extreme levels of anxiety for no obvious reason
• feel desperate, despairing, destructive and driven by things outside their awareness or control
• feel intense shame and worthlessness
• feel revolving rage over small slights, perceived threats, and unidentifiable pressures
• need and resist relationships

If we parents could remember the feelings that lie beneath the charming, cunning, destructive, manipulative, blaming, badgering behavior, we might better understand the bizarre and illogical shenanigans we are living with and empathize with the pain inside the soul.

It is nearly impossible to parent our children without heightened empathy for the inside of the child.  Hang in there.  They will grow up and amaze you.

Love matters,

Ce

P.S. Check out the Love Matters Parenting Society membership for more support.