looking for understanding

      I haven't posted for a long time but here's a couple of things. Last night in a conversation of deep and heavy things with my wife we ended on this note. I have felt calm, confident, clear mindedness and even like i am gaining understanding. My wife has felt confused, hurt, unheard and like I am emotionless. She shared this video with me to help express how she was feeling. I love my wife, her honesty, openness, and frankness. She does not beat around the bush.

      I have watched this video several times today and really felt an awful pit in my stomach. I started feeling like what is wrong with me? What have I done wrong? What am I doing wrong? I started reaching out to another person but felt like I needed to do some more research first, so I watched the video again several more times and created this list:

My wife feels like what is happening here? When they don’t get the normal reaction then they respond with negative reactions – they turn away, they feel the stress of it, they may lose control of their posture, she screams(come on why aren’t we doing this?)

The good , bad and ugly

Good – normal stuff that we do that goes on with our kids

Bad – when something bad happens but the traumatized person can overcome it – when you stop the still face then things can be normal

Ugly – no chance( you don’t the child any chance to get back to the good)

Normal – clear, responsive. Emotionally content

      So after this video and taking these notes I wanted to see and learn more so I found this video(skip ahead to the 2 minute mark unless you want to watch the introductory part).

I then took these notes.

When things aren’t working then the child becomes emotionally agitated,

finally she just gives up, when they fail, they fail with a sense of helplessness and a loss of control.

1. The meaning of the event is the emotion that the person feels in relationship to this breaking of the connection in relationship to the other person. This is a fearful and frightening thing, the other person will feel like they do a lot to overcome it(because they often do everything that they can).

Other responses of older children to this disconnection

               The first child in the video does all that he can but when he fails he falls apart dramatically, just like the younger child

               The  second child(another type of reaction). Distraught, more and more insistent, and even physical( he hits her with plastic dinosaur to try and get her to snap out of it).

When reengagement happens then the connection is re-established. When this happened with the second child he went back to his normal self

Children are resilient and breaks in close connection happen all the time in everyday life.

What then usually takes place in GOOD relationships is this reconnection.

We know now that maybe only 20 – 30% of the time is this emotional relationship in perfect harmony. The rest of the time it is in sync, out of sync, getting back into sync

2. That is what I really think is the key process getting back into sync

Dr. Tronick thinks the process of disconnect and reconnect is not only normal, but positive.

When you reconnect one of the things that can happen, not always, but some of the time, is that you create something new.

3. If you create something new, you grow

      These videos have really helped me to better understand some of the things that my wife is going through. I'm striving to walk more in her shoes and see the things the way that she does. the number one for me above helps me to understand what my wife has gone through and is going through. numbers 2 and 3 are how i have seen things for our conversation. 

      I hope to better understand her pain, emotions, and trauma. I have much work to do still to improve but I continue to press forward, one day at a time.