Stepparenting a stepkid with childhood trauma
My stepdaughter found a couple dogs starving by the side of the road out in the middle of nowhere and brought them to our house. Dan & I didn't intend on keeping the dogs ourselves, but we volunteered to foster them until the local shelter found them a new home.
They were sweet yet distrustful, scared and sad and desperate. The more time we spent with them, the more deeply traumatized we realized they were. Like the time we tried to take them on a walk and they froze and shook at the first touch of the leashes. Or another time, when I offered them treats: one looked terrified while the other ran in the opposite direction.
We “fostered” them for less than a week before Dan (in response to both dogs laying their chins on his lap and gazing at him adoringly with slow-wagging tails) said, "Ugh, all RIGHT. You dogs. I guess we'll just keep you."
Once we committed to keeping the doggos, we began training them in earnest. Or at least we tried. They were smart and eager to please so we thought training would be a cinch. But they were also scared of everything, including coming into the house. They flinched when we raised our hands to pet them. Saying NO in a serious tone caused them to freeze, shake, collapse, or all of the above. And the more we tried to train them, the more skittish they got.
"How can we train them when everything is a PTSD trigger??" I asked, exasperated. All our dogs have been rescue dogs but none of them have acted like this.
"Yeah I've been thinking about that," said Dan. "I'm going to look into special training for dogs with PTSD."
He found an amazing website that talked about exactly this problem: training traumatized dogs. Traumatized dogs don’t respond like normal dogs, the site explained, so you can't train them like you'd train a regular dog. For other dogs, treats are an exciting reward. For traumatized dogs, treats are just one more way humans trick you, then trap you, then beat the shit outta you.
So we changed our approach. We ramped up our offered reassurance to absurd levels (I've never said "good boy" more in my LIFE). We worked with them slowly and gently and in stages. So for example, when it's morning treat time and everyone is supposed to sit but one dog thinks it's wayyyy too risky to sit, I give him a treat anyway just for showing up to let him know that showing up counts, that it’s safe to show up, safe to accept the treat. Only after he’s comfortable showing up will we work on sitting.
As soon as we made these adjustments, our new dogs calmed down practically overnight.
I really wish it'd only taken me 3 weeks to figure out that my stepdaughter was traumatized and adjusted my training accordingly. Because how many years did I blame myself for being unable to connect meaningfully with my stepdaughter, not recognizing that my stepdaughter was a child so deeply damaged by childhood abuse she couldn't relate to any of us in an emotionally normative way?
I said this to Dan, half-joking, as I scratched one of our slowly-settling-in dogs behind the ears.
"Yeah," he sighed. "I wish it hadn't taken me years to realize I was traumatized." And I felt that familiar guilty heartbreak stab just like every time I think about how many times I raged at Dan for doing nothing, saying nothing, not protecting our relationship or our family. His inaction hurt me again and again, wounding me deeply enough that I frequently questioned whether we had a future at all.
That was back before I learned that "fight or flight" comes along with a third option: freeze. Before I put together that every angry phone call or email from Dan's ex triggered his own PTSD from his emotionally abusive marriage; he literally could not act. He was frozen.
We didn't know. We just didn't know.
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Childhood trauma in blended families
Trauma, PTSD, emotional abuse — we've all heard of them. We all understand that they affect their victims in certain ways, that the damage lingers. We just don't necessarily connect these concepts to our own partners or stepkids. We might not connect our troubled stepkids' behavior with the effects of childhood abuse. We also don’t realize we can develop PTSD as stepparents ourselves if the conflict between houses gets bad enough and we’re caught in the crossfire.
Just like Dan & I had to adjust our approach toward our traumatized dogs, stepparents can't expect to enter into relationships with emotionally damaged stepkids the same way we'd hang out with regular kids. And an abusive childhood means even basic interpretations of love, belonging, or family might have very different connotations for our stepkids than we’d ever guess.
For example, as the child of an emotionally manipulative and verbally abusive mother, my stepdaughter associates being controlled with being loved. So maybe the reason my stepdaughter constantly attempted to control and manipulate my husband was because she was showing him how much she loved him. And if she thought that I was going to try to "love" her the same way her mom did, through fear and screaming, that’s a lot of insight into why she pushed me away.
When I gave my stepdaughter free will, when I told her she could order whatever she wanted at restaurants, when I didn't guide her on whether she should use pink or green in an area of a painting and instead told her to choose whichever color she liked best, I thought I was encouraging her to be herself. But because of her background of emotional abuse, maybe my stepdaughter interpreted my lack of controlling her as me not giving a shit about her.
The dynamics are so fucked up, you guys. But in hindsight, they make such painful, obvious sense. Why didn't I SEE all of that??
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Stepparenting is hard, folks. Put your own oxygen mask on first.
I couldn’t help my husband or my stepdaughter navigate their abusive trauma (even if I would’ve had the slightest idea that’s what we were up against, which I definitely didn’t) because I was way too busy drowning as a new stepmom. There was no way I could lift my head long enough to see that everyone around me was drowning too. When you're in survival mode, you're not thinking about how to help others survive. You're just trying to keep breathing.
This is why I hammer so hard on disengaging — only by stepping back can you give yourself the space YOU need to get YOURSELF back on solid ground... and then you can extend a helping hand to others in your blended family.
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Parenting children of abuse
We need to approach stepparenting differently when our stepkids come from an abusive background. The only way to understand what correct approach we should take is to research like the entire future of your stepfamily depends on it. (Because it kinda does. #nopressure)
If your stepchild is living with childhood abuse, educate yourself on the impact of childhood abuse. If your partner’s ex is high conflict, learn how to deal effectively with high conflict. If your partner’s ex is poisoning your stepkid against you, read up on parental alienation in stepfamilies.
And remember that if our stepkids have suffered emotional abuse at the hands of their parent, chances are pretty damn good our partners weren’t in the healthiest relationship with that other parent either. Our partners too might be experiencing PTSD after an abusive marriage, or lost deep in trauma numbness following whatever hell their ex put them through. They too might need counseling, healing, and a different approach.
So find out as much as you can about all this godawful shit, and if any of the signs or symptoms or dynamics hit close to home, take a step back and rethink how you're approaching blending your family. Abused stepkids do not respond emotionally like non-abused stepkids. Alienated stepkids do not respond emotionally like non-alienated stepkids. So we cannot parent or stepparent abused and/or alienated kids and stepkids the way our instincts tell us we should.
Once you find the approach that does work, though, your relationship can turn toward healthy and whole: slowly, gently, and in stages. Ramp your reassurance up to absurd levels. Let your stepkids know that showing up counts, and showing up is safe.
The rest can wait until they’re comfortable in their new pack.
