that makes me scared for D6 and D3.... they have issues that i always told myself they'd have if they were older and "knew" more of what was going on... my 6 yr old has the worries of a 50 yr old and is jumpy and if i didn't know better i'd think had ptsd symptoms...
I'm sorry, I really didn't mean to make you feel worse.
Two of mine have been diagnosed with PTSD. I would say both of them (one in therapy every 2 weeks, the other is refusing therapy) have made tremendous strides over the past two years. And like Akrasia says -- I think the main thing is that they
feel safe when they're with me, that they
know they can reach me 24/7, and that they have a very well laid-out, rational action plan for different scenarios.
I
do think it gets easier as they get older. I haven't had to tell them a darn thing about their father --
they started asking questions like "why should we go to Dad's house when all he does is watch football and drink beer with his friends?" and "he never does anything with us, so why does he want us there?"
And the worry and anxiety, we're working on in therapy. What's helped my kids a lot is understanding what their bodies and brains are doing when they get anxious and worried -- pure biology -- and that they need to use their rational minds to assess whether there
is an immediate danger (if so, take action) or whether there
isn't (in which case they go to their "happy place" and do yoga breathing until it passes).
They WILL get through this and they WILL be functional, happy people
because they have you.