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my eldest foster child came to me at 6 years old with his emotions locked down tighter than a military base. both of his parents were killed in a car wreck a bit more than a month after he came to live here. he cried once when he got the news, but then shuffled his grief into that unsanctioned military base where he had stuffed the rest of his emotions. he is now 11 and has opened up some, but i do not believe he has opened up far enough to process his grief nor the trauma preceding his move to here.
around the time he received his 6th grade social studies assignment for dia de los muertos, he started experiencing a series of unexplained physical ailments, starting with digestive woes, to neck and shoulder pain to pains in his feet and legs, to jaw pain. never a fever. never a cause a medical doctor or dentist could identify, but there is not a doubt in my mothering brain that the pain was real.
somewhere over the weeks of this drama, i found myself babbling to him about, "radiant pain," specifically, pain that radiates from the heart. repressed emotions, grief, etc. i am not even certain where i got that term from, but it seems to be making sense to him and he seems to be making great progress in opening up about all those gory details, including a series of nightmares that sound ominously like repressed memories of violent arguments between his ever-so-romantic parents.
this morning i did a web check for "radiant pain" and found only, "radiating pain," with a few terse corrections of people like me who used the wrong conjugation of, "radiate." i found nothing more than "radiating pain happens" in the psychology context. i am still fact checking, but i believe i have mostly changed the name of the extensive psychotherapy i received for "psychosomatic pain."
reality checks solicited. am i making sense? thoughts? opines? experience? unsolicited advice?
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Hey All...I hope that you have a lovely, peaceful beginning of your weekI have a bunch of chores that need doing but may put them off til tomorrow and just hang out with my landlord/roomie todayWhat about you?...Anything special going on?Have a great day and take good care of you!!..Xo
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Once again I've had a fever today. I'm not going to the hospital because that's a huge waste of time but I did schedule a dr appointment for Wednesday afternoon.
the etymology of psychosomatic is greek. psyche = mind. somotikos = body. together, i take them to mean a study of how the mind affects the body. despite the best support available from my birth family, i see no shame in the study. call me what you wish, family dearest.
yes, grief is real, as are the pains attached. psychosomatically speaking, so are the aches and pains of every day stress. then we get to the residual effects of trauma. . . it will, indeed, express itself whichever way it can.
Me? I'm watching leaves turn color, breathing carefully, and exhaling the worries. Shoulders down from around my ears.
I hope your kiddo can weather this. And that you can, too. PUMA POWER support.
Animals are easier, aren't they? They just bite or claw.
And you're working through it together
If you hadn't recognized it nothing could change
Kudos to you for all that you're doing to help your grandchildren through so much trauma when you're going through it yourself
Leo I've had a lot of addiction in my family and people close to me as well
My first husband was an alcoholic and was beaten to death
I just found out about this maybe a year ago and felt awful
Life can sure get complicated at times
Sending hugs
no doubt about it. animals are easier. they can't tell a psyche from a psycho.
thank you, suncloud. every round is a guess.
turns out the assignment included a presentation of your ofrenda. yesterday morning was rough, with all the physical pains he has been experiencing attacking him, all at once. my admiration of how well he pushed himself through the get-ready routine to limp his way to the bus stop on time was well laced with worries of whether he was pushing himself too hard.
he was carrying his ofrenda when he got off the bus last night. i asked him how the presentation went and he chimed brightly, "good." not a limp in sight as he skipped ahead of me up the driveway to the house.
repressing my own urges to grill him for more detail, i quietly danced a jig to the tune of "nanny nanny boo boo."
we survived another one
we survived another one
yay us, yay us,
ain't we good! ! !
still monitoring, but methinks the pimple has popped. testing, 1, 2, 3. . .
Really nice
I was also wondering about using a placebo if you're working through something difficult
I've seen them work really well when I worked in the hospital in high anxiety situations
I'm not talking about chronic anxiety where a person is dealing with anxiety all of the time but occasionally something freaks a person out
They can often work really well because of belief that it will work
i am hoping that the relationship between big bro and i have the relationship to skip the deception and go straight to building his understanding of psychosomatics. at least, that's my prayer and i'm sticking to it. just praying.