PTSD in Parents of Ill Children

I just read this article:  For Parents of Ill Children, a Growing Recognition of PTSD and while this doesn’t surprise me, it isn’t something I had really thought about before.

I am so incredibly fortunate that the children in my life (children of friends and family,) do not have any extremely serious fatal illnesses, this got me thinking about all the parents in my life.  So many parents, including my friends and family, have children that have health issues that may not be considered as serious/fatal, but many of my friends and family have to deal with health issues with their children - food allergies, diabetes, asthma, and so many more.  While these may be manageable, I was thinking that this still places an incredible amount of stress on the parents. The article describes one mother - “one challenge, she says, is constant hypervigilance keeps the child she loves safe.”  So many of the parents in my life must have that constant hypervigilance, which has to be incredibly stressful and exhausting.

While I am not perfect, I try to be aware of the illnesses/health issues that the children in my life are dealing with, trying to better educate myself on the illness/health issue and to just be aware of them when interacting with the kids (eg food allergies - ensuring the food available is safe for the children.)  I realized though when thinking about this article that I need to better support the parents of these children. I need to be better about not only how the children are doing, but how the parents are handling things. I don’t really know how to better support the parents in my life dealing with this, so I think the best place to start is to just ask the parents what they need from me, what I can do to help them and better support them.  While I know I need to (and plan to) do this individually when speaking with the parents in my life I want to call out - if there is something that any of you want/need from me, please feel free to just tell me. (And please know, I don’t think it is your responsibility to tell me, it is my responsibility to ask. . .I just want to call out that I am open to you telling me what to do if you choose to do so.)

All you parents out there amaze me.  The love and support that you have for your families and all that you take on for your families (a ton of stress!)  I don’t know how you do it - you are awesome!

Admitting When Wrong

The other day I was listening to a Pod Save America podcast and they were speaking with the former Mayor of New Orleans, Mitch Landrieu, who has been responsible for the removal of the statues of Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and P. G. T. Beauregard as well as Confederate President Jefferson Davis.  This was/is something that some are very much against, but I was thinking about the many terrible things that are a part of our history. We can’t change what happened in the past, but we absolutely can change how we act/what we do today. I think that while it doesn’t excuse bad things being done, I think that learning from and changing after doing wrong, is the best way to try to make amends.  I really just wish that individuals and companies, organizations, countries, etc would be much better at admitting fault and learning from it.

While different and much less serious, this got me thinking about John and I.  We just bought a house and are in the process of trying to sell our condo, which has been really stressful, especially for John.  (He has really taken on a lot more than I with this whole buying/selling.) Being so stressed we’ve both been stressed and had bad attitudes at times.  We’re not a couple that fights, we don’t even give each other attitude very often. One thing though that I was recently thinking about though is that I am grateful that we are both really good about admitting when we were/are wrong.  If I am stressed and snippy with him, I will say, “I’m sorry for my attitude today, I’m just stressed” and John will do the same - “sorry I’m just so stressed/pissed off with this condo stuff.” I realize that this may not be the case for everyone, but for me, him just saying sorry and acknowledging his attitude enables me to just move past it.  I know that admitting fault is much harder for some than others, but ultimately it is something very simple and easy that we can do to try to right a wrong (or at least make someone wronged feel a bit better, etc.)