By Roy Smith

          Few people would say that parenthood is easy. However, it is even more difficult when you are a parent with PTSD.  I know firsthand just how difficult being a parent with PTSD is and have my angry daughters to prove it.  Though the reasons for their anger differs, the fact remains that my inadequacies as a parent have left each of them with a lot of resentment. I screwed it up for a number of reasons and I now know it was because of my military career and deployments. 

          My last article highlighted a few lessons I learned as a parent coping with PTSD.  First, you have to learn that as a parent when you are suffering you are not only punishing yourself, but you are punishing your children as well. You are denying them a good moment, a good memory, or an emotionally safe home. Children feed off our emotions and when are angry or happy they pick up on that.

With my children, if I was feeling particularly depressed that day, which happened all too often, they have told me that they felt like they were unable to enjoy themselves.  They said it just didn’t seem fair or right to have fun when I couldn’t. 

          Now I have to admit, I did not know what an emotional safe zone was before I met my wife Jordan. She became a gift to our family. Jordon showed me that your children cannot engage with you if they are afraid of setting you off or ruining your good mood. She taught me that I was causing all of these bad days for myself and my children.

          Thankfully, most of the bad days are over. Years of therapy, psychology, and psychiatry appointments as well as medication has enabled me to function and regain my self control.  Though my anger will probably never go away, nor will my guilt over memories from the war,  I do believe the worst days are behind me. I owe a great deal of thanks to my wife Jordan and my family for that.

          My children have watched me take this journey and they have all told me just how proud they are of me.  Well, two of my three children have at least.  The two youngest ones are very forgiving and accept that I am not the same person as I used to be.  More importantly, I have convinced them that I am not the same father.  The oldest of my daughters is another story.  Her memory is longer.

          Though I have made great strides with my two youngest daughters my oldest refuses to talk to me.  I do not blame her for being mad and I hope she will eventually give me the chance to prove to her that I am a better man and more importantly that I am a better father.  Time will tell if I am successful in breaking through all the walls she has erected between me and her.

          It is a very interesting perspective when you can be outside of your own problems and engaged with your children. I listened to my fourteen year old daughter, Elizabeth, talk for three straight days, morning till night about nothing. On the fourth morning she got up and said, “Dad I have decided that I can no longer decide how I am going to feel about myself based on what other people feel or think about me. Other people are constantly not even listening to how I really feel or what I am thinking. Sometimes the things that the majority thinks make me feel bad and they are not even true. So, now that I am going into high school next year I am going to take your approach. I cannot control what they think or how they feel about me, but I can control how it makes me feel. I want to enjoy school and if that means I have two friends instead of twenty well at least I will be happy with my two.”

          I sat there startled and stunned cause I had sat with her for three days listening to her talk about puppies and friends and bugs and boys and everything else under the sun.  I did this because Jordan had convinced me that only good could come out of it.  So, there I was, groping for a way to figure out how, by me just talking to her for three days, I helped her to come to that conclusion.  It surprised me to say the least and I was both baffled and flattered. Jordan later pointed out “those are moments as a parent that you live for. For those sheer moments of watching your children grow up right in front of you.”

          Will Elizabeth’s decision stay with her for her entire life? Probably not but I hope so.  The point was that my presence and example led her to find a good and solid answer. That is enough to get her through quite a bit and me as well.

          So, instead of ruining the moment I just listened. She informed me that it made her feel better “right here” and she pointed to her heart. I found my own chest get a little tighter because I had not experienced a lot of those moments as a parent and it felt good.

          That is when I realized it, as a parent you can’t just be “right now” you have to be “right here.” You have to change where you are mentally and emotionally in order to be there for them. When you are angry and locked within the world of PTSD you cannot be “right here.” It’s worth letting go of small triggers that make me angry so that I can be “right here” for my children. I never thought I would be able to have that back. But after going through a lot of pain and acceptance I am learning that it is possible. That it is part of the sacrifice you make by being a parent.

          Just remember, we as parents rarely give our children enough credit for being able to see what is really going on around them and within their own families.  They always look like they are more interested in who texted them then listening to you tell them they have to study hard and be a good person.  But, trust me, they see what is going on and are probably simply waiting to see what you, the parent, are going to do.  After all, that is what we have taught them to do from a very early age.  Just don’t take their apparent lack of interest as ignorance.  They know what is going on so try talking to them.  It worked for me.