[Trauma's & Triggers] I recognize myself acting out of fear of interference by CPS

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Traumatic events

When someone or something traumatizes you, as long as you are not healed completely I guess there will always be triggers that remind you of that occasion that left you the trauma. I know this is not the same for everyone, it is not even the same for me with every traumatic experience I've been through. One trauma was put away for years, until I got flashbacks and re-lived that moment, another one was instantly triggered. There may be an explanation for the different ways of dealing with triggers and flashbacks in case those two events I referred to above.

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Let's analyze my first example a bit further

When the first one occurred, I was absolutely not aware of what was happening to me yet, I was still in "sleep" mode if you can call it that way. Years and years I thought I dealt with everything happening just fine, laughed it away. That was my way of coping with it, making it look not that bad, while by now I know how deep the scars are and how that period of my life affected me all these years. It was not until a few years ago that I "accidently" was caught by surprise when a certain person I met was obviously the trigger that caused to unlock my deep hidden trauma's.

Not long after I met this person, the flashbacks started. Those had a deep impact on my life back then, and at first I did not understand what was happening sometimes. I could have them at many different occasions and sometimes I froze (most of the times I guess) and other times I would feel deeply sad/depressed/angry. Which emotion didn't matter, but I know when it happened, I was REALLY sad/depressed or angry, not just a bit.

The most scary thing to me was, that I did not understand or remembered everything that came back in my flashbacks. I realised then that there may be so much more that has not been put to the surface yet, and that freaked me out thinking about it.
This is the time that I started awakening, I started to analyse my own behavior more and more. I started to learn why I was acting the way I was at several moments (there was a pattern) and I started to be more aware of when this happened, so I could think for a moment to change the behavior. Of course this takes time, but being aware it is a good start to change these patterns in behavior caused by traumatic events in the past.
The first example was about trauma's from the past in a relationship (not the father of my two oldest children.

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Now let's have a look at my second example

The second example of traumatic experiences I've been through and the trigger reaction on that, is totally different. Because by the time this second example of experiences occurred, I was "awake" and very alert on the games being played. I had done much research in the year before it happened, and I was well aware of many psychological tactics being used to trick people responding a certain way. The second example I am talking about is not on in a personal relationship, but about the traumatizing effect of how Child Protective Services is tearing apart loving families for financial reasons.

They way that they have played games before the moment I saw through their game-plan to get my children placed, I was only angry at them for not listening, and frustrated for them ignoring hard facts and evidence presented at them. I kept trying to let them listen to me, trying to open their eyes. Because I was still in "sleep" mode, with this I mean that I still believed in them doing the right thing for the children, and judges seeing through games played by people that have bad intentions if you are up against them in court. I wasted all this time on focussing them to listen and see what was happening, and proving them wrong in believing the abuser/dangerous person I was up against in court. That I had always handled in the children's best interest, and that the other person absolutely did not.

And then my eyes slowly opened, I understood this was the wrong approach all along, and actually I understood at the same time, I had "lost" paying the highest price possible. I could not turn this around at that moment, I could only try to cope and make plans for the future and then fight back when they don't expect it anymore. This was hard! Really hard, but I had learned to listen to my gut feeling/inner voice and so I did. The traumatic events (filled with disbelieve, lost faith in humanity by them!) did cause instant reactions while being triggered.

This time the triggers were in front of me, and they were clear to me, I know what they are, and I know how my fear takes over and how I respond instantly. While I am fully aware of the triggers and my respond on them, I still can't push them away, as there will always be that fear inside me that they may interfere again, but now with our little two year old daughter.

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Now how do these triggers from the past affect my presence behavior

Our youngest is one that doesn't give up easily, and with that I mean she really ain't no quitter lol. I thought I knew every trick in the book about handling tantrums and correcting bad behavior with my oldest daughter, as she is a champ in not quitting too. But this will get her far in life, so it's a big plus nowadays, I am sure of that. She did not already skip 2 classes by the age of 7 for no reason. So I hope my youngest will be determined to get somewhere in life too, like her big sister. But she is now in her terrible twos and while she can be the cutest little being alive, she can also be hard to handle while having a tantrum. I tried every little trick and they just won't help getting her out of that tantrum. So usually the best thing (after trying the tricks) is too let it pass.

But here comes my first fear, we live in a apartment, where we have no things on the wall yet. Simply because we have to be careful with our money, and I am filling up a gap from the salary already with Steemit-earnings. So nice wall decoration, sorry it isn't going to be here in the next months for sure. While we speak a bit loud, or laughing hard, it echoes. And by that I mean : it echoes a lot! Add a two-year old's tantrum to that, and one hell of a load voice, it stresses me out. I fear the neighbors thinking we are doing her harm, but we aren't. I fear them of thinking we can't handle a child, while I have already tried every trick in the book (which they don't know of course) and the best way (to make it pass as quickly as possible) is to let her be, and wait until the turning point. New attempts while her already beginning to calm down, usually will not succeed and make it last longer. I am not stupid, and I am certainly not harming her, I am just as annoyed as the neighbors maybe (I don't know if and how badly they here it) about it when it happens. And on top of that I am ashamed of people hearing it. I think they might judge me, while I am doing my absolute best.

I caught myself on getting angry at my boyfriend while he corrects her and she starts screaming, nog because he harms her, but because she gets a tantrum again. I tell him: "Don't do that, let her be, what if the neighbors call CPS. They will take her from us too, she's all I got left." Now this is absolute nonsense to tell him, I know this. But I can't help it. I fear for them, and in this new country I fear the unknown.
What I also do is, think ahead of what may happen, when I tell her to do something (or not to do something) and adapt my behavior so that an outsider will not think that I am harming her (while on the street).
Another example is when she fell of bed in Spain, and needed to see a doctor, they put a staple in the wound to let it heal. I know we did absolutely nothing wrong, but while something like that happens, my hearts start racing and thought go through my head with: "What if the doctor thinks we did something wrong and calls CPS?" What if's are very common to me when it comes to my youngest, I know she will fall down many more times, I can't always prevent her from getting hurt, this is part of growing up. But what if's can't seem to get out of my head because of former events caused by CPS.

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Strangers and familymembers make calls to CPS or report you when not agreeing

Last week there was this post about that woman being filmed by a stranger when her toddler was having a tantrum, and he called authorities. This is exactly what I fear. The world is gone insane with calling these agencies, not knowing anything of the consequences, and how big the impact can be on a family when they come to interfere. People make fake calls just to bully others, because they think it's funny or they want to get back at someone.

I can put many more examples her, like @snowpea her story, and on the #familyprotection trending page you find even more. People interfere because they don't agree on your way of parenting. But why can't we just let each other be? Why report a loving mother when children are perfectly happy? Only because you don't agree on her way of parenting? It sickens me that people do this.

I have dealt with fake phone calls myself, done by my ex and his "friends". No way to proof it, but that doesn't matter either, because all of these things will remain in the file anyway. Because there may be something wrong. And this is exactly what he planned to do, if it's in there somewhere, it will always keep popping up, and with anonymous calls you will not be able to get rid of these "assumptions". And when there is actual proof, they just say that they aren't there to investigate the truth. But they do act upon the assumptions.
People still not seeing what is actually going on globally with CPS and other agencies involved, are really still in sleep mode.

I hope that sharing my parts of my story will help someone in the future from making the same mistakes as I did. Trust your gut feeling, and don't just give in because you fear them from doing something. Know your rights, I didn't back then.

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Thanks to familyprotection I gained so much more knowledge about my rights and I am very thankful for all the stories shared, and the support from @familyprotection @canadian-coconut @markwhittam together with the support of the whole community!

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