When Lian was little, she had a purple, Winnie-the-Pooh diaper bag. She knew it belonged to her, and she knew that wherever the bag went, she went. It went with her to the babysitters, to Grammie’s house, to the store. The challenge was, I was the only one who could carry the bag. Due to her myriad of attachment issues, she panicked if someone was helping me by carrying the bag when I was carrying her. She knew she went where the bag went but didn’t want to be with anyone except me. So if we were walking into church and I was carrying her, and someone offered to help me by carrying the diaper bag, she would scream and cry until I was once again holding the bag.
Trauma-informed care. It’s a relatively new concept, but one that is critical in the world of mental health, or brain chemistry. It’s assuming that many people needing counseling may have experienced some sort of trauma. Very similar to the concept of universal precautions in a hospital. Staff wear gloves and masks for anyone they are treating, thereby eliminating the need to treat people with an infectious disease any differently than they would someone without one. Trauma is never in an event, but in the perception of that event. Two people can experience the exact same situation, and one of them is traumatized by the experience and the other one is not. The good news about that, is that we can change our perceptions. We all experience that on a regular basis. We think about an issue, event, person, class, etc, that it is going to be a certain way, then we experience it differently that we initially thought we would, and we change our perception. 'That was more fun than I thought it would be.' 'He really is a good guy after all!' We can do that with the difficult things we experience as well. We can re-train the brain to go back and change our perception; not the event, but the perception of it. That’s what trauma therapists do, but the clients have to be willing participants in the process ~ that's the key.
I’ve been thinking a lot about how the traumatized brain works in very young children and in people who have Alzheimer’s. I think the brain chemistry is similar. Different kinds of trauma, but trauma none-the-less. For both of those groups, we can’t cognitively go back and re-train their brain. The infant/toddler cannot verbalize or interpret trauma, and the person with Alzheimer’s does not have the capacity to re-process things they can’t remember even happening. So we are left with behaviors that are a result of trauma, without the ability to cognitively process that trauma in order to change the behavior. A very sad conclusion. When panic fires up the brain, rational thought goes out the window. The fight/flight/freeze response kicks in and shuts things down to prevent more trauma from happening. It’s self-preservation on an unconscious level. It’s why I had to always carry the diaper bag.
About a week before mom was going to my brothers’ home for the holidays, I began packing her things, and she had a melt-down. “Don’t touch my things!!” “I want that!!” I couldn’t help her understand that I wasn’t taking things, but merely packing them. After about 30 minutes, I gave up. She couldn’t remember that we’d talked about this trip for months. She couldn’t distinguish packing from stealing. It wasn’t fair to her for me to continue because of the anxiety it was causing her. I decided it would be best to pack everything up the night before she was leaving, for a greater chance that she could remember what was happening. So I took the one box that I packed and set it in the family room, because there was no room in her bedroom. For the next week, at least twice a day, she would look at the box and declare “that’s my stuff!” And I would reassure her that it was her stuff and that it would be going with her to my brothers’ house. It reminded me of Lian and her purple Winnie-the-Pooh diaper bag. Mom knew the box belonged to her, and that she was going where the box was going. Fortunately, we got everything packed up and loaded in the car the morning of the move to Maryland. PA is half way between my home and my brothers, so we always meet there to make the exchange.
These two pictures represent the fact that there is still good in the world! While mom and I were at Cracker Barrel restaurant, waiting for my brother and sister-in-law to arrive, a sweet lady eating at the table next to ours came over to chat. With tears in her eyes, she said she had just lost a parent to Alzheimer’s, and then presented us with a gift-card to pay for our meal. Such a kind gesture, and one that was so appreciated!
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