How my son starting school is helping me heal trauma

For the last more than three months now I’ve been through a whirlwind of a storm. I’ve never thought that my son staring school will bring so much up. More and more I realise how isolated I’ve been and how much I’ve lost contact with the outside world. More accurately, I’ve suspected that but the clash of reentering seems to be taking me much more effort and costing me much more energy than I’ve ever imagined.

I know there are many reasons for this – I am and always have been a very sensitive person and being away from work for 8 years now has put me in a very vulnerable position. Through those years I reduced my contacts and relationships immensely and as a result, I’ve lost a certain skill. Being immersed in my world has gained me an incredible insight about my self and my inner processes but it has detached me from the condition of people and society as a whole.

My son starting school forced me in a way to exit my safe space. Soon after the beginning of the school year, minor and not so minor issues started popping up related to his discipline and behaviour. So far I’ve had two official meetings with his two class teachers, two meetings with the school psychologist and the class teachers, one meeting and multiple telephone conversations with the school psychologist, numerous unofficial exchanges with numerous teachers in the school corridors, and one meeting with the parents of my son’s school mate. Also, we started seeing a second therapist for my son.

To summarise, I’ve had not a spare second to free up my mind and focus on something else rather than my son and his time at school.

Perhaps this has been long coming and to some extent, I’m glad all this is happening. It gives me an opportunity to address many things that have been overlooked throughout the years. It gives me a chance to heal my relationship with my son and our attachment. It allows me to offer the support he needs and to help him heal his trauma, which I now understand more clearly.

On another hand, I’m starting to understand the world again and the ways people are. I know this may sound quite absurd but I have been living in the bubble of my world. Now, the bubble being burst, I can see more clearly and adjust my views, expectations and ideas.

This doesn’t mean that it hasn’t been painful though and throughout the last few months I shed many tears, and many times I was grateful for my therapist. 

Right now I feel sobered up but also disappointed. I understand that my expectations have been unrealistic and that I have put my efforts into the wrong places. I’ve tried too hard to find support where I won’t ever find it but that helps me understand where I can find it. I know where to put my focus and energy and where I shouldn’t waste it. I’ve gained clarity about where my responsibilities lie and where the boundary is, how far I need to stretch myself and where to stop.

What I’ve learned in theory during the years of my self-discovery is now being put into practice. It feels empowering but incredibly hard at the same time.

Nevertheless, I’m grateful for all the lessons and opportunities. I feel like I’m finally maturing and becoming the person I’ve always been meant to be. I’m becoming myself, my own Self. I’m shedding layers of wounding, I’m releasing outgrown behaviour patterns, and I’m healing generations of trauma.