Battle-weary Warrior Mama

I gave myself and some dear friends of mine the title “Warrior Mama” back during the years of struggling against all odds to bring our children home from Guatemala after the Hague-instigated international adoption shut-down in 2008. Those years were some of the most difficult and painful of my life — For nearly four years, I was deeply engaged in a daily battle against government bureaucracy and paperwork insanity as well as the battle against my own motherly fears of what could happen to my child in the orphanage and just a constant sad longing for my him to be home with me. I recently learned that there were some terrible things he experienced during those years of waiting. Some of my worst fears actually did happen.  So now I am battling the internal dragon of anger and resentment against those who were charged with keeping him safe in the orphanage where he was living at the time. Since the day he finally came home in 2010, this Warrior Mama has battled daily with the lasting dragon of trauma and mental illness that were a result of those terrible things as well as the trauma of growing up without access to language and without the loving care of a family. My precious child was wounded – deeply.   He continues to have so many of his own internal dragons to fight, and those dragons come out and affect our life as a family every day.   So we are in the battle together, learning ways to cope with and reduce the damage that trauma has wrought. There are days that I do a pretty good job of being a Warrior Mama – I am strong, capable, and ready to do whatever it takes to win the battle for her heart and mind.   Then there are other days that I am simply battle-weary and in need of rest from the fight. Yesterday was one of those days. He has been especially irritable in the past week or so because of some problems at school, and now also another ear infection (UGH!  I thought the surgery was supposed to take care of those for good!).    He also has seasonal allergies in the spring.   Not good for a kid who already has to work extra hard to keep it together emotionally. I am also dealing with an infection of my own and taking a third round of antibiotics to resolve the issue.  So my patience is in very short supply, too. This combo of sick kid/sick parent is not a good situation for a Warrior Mama without any backup.  I am a single mom with no friends/family willing to help on a regular basis – they are only available in extreme emergencies.    This is an unspoken criteria, of course, but I finally got the hint that most people are not interested in doing anything practical other than “praying for us” and they have their own lives and families to deal with.  Fair enough.   Just kind of disappointing — and very lonely at times like yesterday. So to make a long story short — yesterday was one battle after another.   From a lost iPod charger (the end of the world to any 14-year-old) to a rush in traffic to get to an ENT specialist on time, to a child who is hungry all the time yet also unhappy with any food he is offered, to a full-blown raging meltdown (throwing things on the floor in the kitchen), to a prescription for a special kind of medication not available at the pharmacy because it’s not the generic kind, to his flat-out refusal to take the other medicine that he needed… It felt like every single moment of the day was just a battle that I had to fight through. I tried not to lose it, but I did have a moment when the pharmacist told me the insurance wouldn’t cover one of the medications.    I told her that the reason we need that special kind is that my child refuses to take pills, can’t stand the taste of liquids, so this was a special dissolvable kind that we thought might be taken if crushed in ice-cream.   I explained that it’s really almost impossible to get him to take medicine because of his trauma history.  I burst into tears at that point. The pharmacist was so sweet – she even gave me a bouquet of roses as I left the store! I ended up in tears again at home and told my son that the entire day had been spent trying to resolve his ear pain, so it makes no sense for him not to take the medicine that I got to resolve said ear pain. Then I went up to my bedroom and spent some time alone to reflect. It’s not his fault that he has trauma.   It’s not my fault that I can’t get him to take medicine (or get him to do ANYTHING, for that matter). Trauma is a beast.  Sometimes you win the battle, sometimes you lose. All I can do is continue to demonstrate to her that I am FOR him, not against him, no matter what happens. To my surprise, at about 9:30 last night he came in the kitchen and simply said, “I’m ready.” I blinked and looked at him incredulously for a minute – not exactly sure what she meant. “You mean – to take the medicine?” “Yes.” There was no angel chorus descending from the heavens as he took the antibiotic, but it felt like a victory. It shouldn’t be this hard to take care of my child.  But when he let’s me take care of him, I know we are winning more battles than we are losing.    I am in this for the long haul, and every day that I stick with him and support him, he is learning to trust me more. Today is another day.   New day, new battle.   We can do this, step by step.  Still a little drowsy because he woke me up at 4:00 a.m. crying out for a glass of water… but feeling like today’s battle, whatever it may be, might be just a little easier to cope with than yesterday’s. On my way to a school meeting about anxiety and bullying issues.  Deep breath -check. Emotional/spiritual armor on – check.   Love and unconditional commitment for my son stronger than anything else I might face today – check. And another tiny victory to keep me going… while I was typing this blog post, the nurse from the ENT called to tell me that she battled the insurance company for me and managed to convince them to pay for the special crushable medicine.  She told me that she is also the mom of a child with special needs, so she gets it. YAY!  We are an army of Warrior Mamas! Sending BIG hugs of understanding and solidarity to you from the battlefield – whatever dragons come your way today! ———————– Want information on how to become a Trauma-Informed Specialist, Educational Trainer, or Parent Coach?  Check out our Trauma-Informed Specialist Certification Program.