Let the Past be the Past!

Ya’ll, I am a lifetime miniseries waiting to happen!  I have lived through traumas that I may never be able to discuss, even with my therapist.  I’m actually convinced that I am the reason that my therapist sees a therapist!  As all survivors know, trauma has a way of forming who we are and how we approach things.  Recently, my son told me “I do not think it’s fair that I am punished for something someone else did.”  Wow!  Just slap me in the face!  In my eyes, I wasn’t punishing, I was protecting.  But when does that go too far?  When are we applying our trauma to someone who is innocent and had no part in our hurt.

The hurt and fear in this case is probably one of my most protected losses.  In 2004, my brother committed suicide.  He was a firefighter and was traumatized after not being able to save an unknown man in a burning car out of his juris diction.  He had been the designated driver for his friends and just randomly came upon a burning car on his way home.  He called it in but had no gear to get the guy out of the car.  Watching someone burn to death was something he struggled with.  At the young age of 24, his life ended.

He is a very big part of why I am such an advocate for mental health awareness.  He was a member of a volunteer fire department in a very small southern town.  There wasn’t anything in place to help him through the mental anguish I know he must have been experiencing.  Would it have changed his mind?  Maybe…maybe not.  There are things on this side of heaven that we are not meant to know. 

Now here is where my son feels like I punish him.  Guns.  I know.  There are a lot of opinions and thoughts on guns, and I feel you.  But we’re southern so it’s genetic for boys to be interested in guns.  Recently, my brother-in-law started taking my son to a gun club with him.  They teach gun safety and how to learn and respect weapons in a controlled environment.  Caveat, I am very particular about how we store and lock up the weapons in our house.  Rules are tight. 

For his 14th birthday, after much discussion, we bought him a 22 handgun.  Enter shiver and panic attack here.  You see this is the real “punishment” part.  My brother shot himself.  That was probably easy to figure out.  But what most people don’t know is I bought him the weapon, for his 24th birthday.  This was just a month before he took his life.  See why I’m struggling? 

Wow!  Never thought I’d share that part of my story.  I’ve protected my brother, even in death.  Small towns like to gossip and boy did ours.  There were so many rumors about why and how.  Well, there you have it.  But now I must navigate trusting my child but also protecting my traumatized heart.

Ya’ll this mom thing is hard work.  Adulting sucks.  I don’t want to be a rational and grown-up person all the time.  I want to be the one who stomps my feet and cries.  But that’s not an option.  Booooo!!

First things first; I must trust my child for the person he is and not let fear take over.  So far, he has followed all my rules.  The weapons in my house are locked and the ammo is locked and stored separately.  We do a double safety check to ensure the weapons are empty.  We are safe.  He has been taught to be safe.

Next, I must not place my brother’s choices on him.  I do not have the fear that my child is going to hurt himself on purpose.  I know that most people, who know me, think I’m crazy, but I trust he isn’t going to walk down that path.  Giving a 14-year-old, who is on the high functioning end of the spectrum, is a big leap of faith.  But I’m real with him.  I’ve talked to him about my fears and why I worry the way I do.  He gets it and I trust him when he says he will not hurt me that way.  Again, mental health is a topic we discuss often in my house.  We call each other out when someone goes dark, and we work together to make sure no one goes to a place they can’t come back from.

Also, there is the safety aspect.  I can’t watch him shoot.  I want to, but I can’t.  This is a hard thing for him to understand and I am working through it.  I am so thankful for my brother-in-law.  He is a fantastic uncle and I love him so much for the way he loves my children.  The club that they go to has been so good for my son.  He has not only learned how to clean and fire the weapons, but also what it feels like to fire them.  The curiosity is gone.  That helps to pull me out of the fear of his curiosity getting the better of him and an accident happening.  And he is learning all this in a controlled environment with people who know what they are doing.

Finally, and probably most importantly, I have to listen to him when my fear and overprotective ways get the better of me.  I have to step back and rethink my approach when he feels like I am putting someone else’s actions on him.  He is his own person, and I must see that…of course all while still being mom and protecting him appropriately.

How do I plan to get to this point of non-trauma driven fear?  Prayer.  I talk to God…a lot.  And He is the only thing that gets me through the tough days.  And there are a lot of them.  I like to think that all things really do happen for a reason.  I truly identify with Joseph.  That dude got knocked down and got up again over and over. 

Imagine being your dad’s favorite and having a dream that your brothers would bow down to you.  Then, when you tell them, they throw you in a pit.  But wait, that wasn’t the end, they sell you into slavery instead.  When things looked up and you feel like you are finding some peace, you get accused of messing around with a woman who’s advances you turned down.   You land straight in prison.  People show up and you interpret their dreams, and they promise they’ll remember you.  Yeah, they remembered, but it took what seemed like forever.  Finally, you a set free to see the Pharoah and he puts you in charge as his right-hand man. 

Wow!  Just wow!  So here you are, saving grain and saving lives.  Your brothers show up.  Remember them, they threw you in a pit and then sold you?  Here is your chance to get revenge.  But you don’t.  You use the place you are to save your family and reunite with the father who was told you were dead.   Well, isn’t that nice.  If only all stories had happy endings, right?

Unfortunately, we don’t all get the chance to see the good that comes from our suffering.  Our traumas hit us and hit us and hit us again and we have no idea why we end up where we are.  And we most definitely do not understand why we had to go through the things we do. 

I will never know why my brother had to die the way he did.  So young and so full of life.  But I have accepted that I don’t need to know why.  What I do know is that God’s plan is so much bigger than I am.  Again, there are some questions I will not get answered on this side of heaven.  Yet every day I push forward trusting God will never leave or forsake me in any trauma I am experiencing.  The walk may be hard, but I will never walk alone.