I Was So Far From Being The Mum I Wanted To Be

When we first connected, I had just gone through a period of near total meltdown. The pressure of keeping everything going was just building and building, and something snapped and I couldn't do it anymore.

Sadly, this manifested itself in being almost completely unable to regulate my emotions around the children - my tolerance levels and patience went through the floor and I was scaring myself with how extreme my behaviour was becoming - lots of yelling, and a constant fighting of the urge to use physical force.

This in turn was then making me depressed, as I became more and more convinced that I was a terrible mother who was fucking up her children, who would, in time, would resent me for it. I was so far from being the mum I wanted to be and it was breaking my heart.

I felt skeptical that I could go from such a dark place to one I was completely happy with in such a limited amount of time but I was keen to give something ago that had a very defined objective, as I felt that time was of the essence in repairing my relationship with my children.

I found the first session really hard - I was really inarticulate and felt a little bit fraudulent when it came to talking about childhood trauma, as I felt like my childhood was perfectly privileged with kind, well-meaning parents. Sure, I had had a very turbulent relationship with my mum, but I felt like it was more relevant that I was bullied from the age of seven, and couldn't really connect to my feelings further back than that.

It took 2-3 sessions before I was able to identify what I'd experienced as validly 'traumatic’, and once I did, that really unlocked the door to healing from it.

I had done some values and boundaries work in the past, but this work really empowered me to stop placing myself in the victim role - a habit that had formed out of a desperate desire for sympathy and to be looked after. Once I realised that a) no one was going to do that for me, and b) that I was more than capable of doing it for myself, it was quite the revelation.

My husband did not react well at first, no doubt because this was an internal process and all that he saw was me being more "difficult" (aka less appeasing/more willing to stand up for myself). But unlike before, it didn't shake me that he had a negative reaction to the way I was being. I simply saw this as something he would have to deal with.

Things are now much better than they were before, as I don't feel like I am constantly being hard done by without being able to give voice to that.

My biggest learning was that any unmet need in childhood is experienced by the child as a trauma, and it's valid to think of it as such.

I would like to thank Lavinia for the warmth, compassion and lack of judgement that she demonstrated at all times. It felt quite scary admitting that such mundane things in my childhood had contributed to such massive problems, but she patiently got me to see that it doesn't have to be capitalised Trauma in order to have a significant effect.

There is no price on better mental health, and I can categorically say that the coaching delivered that, which I'm delighted about. I have been branded 'too sensitive' my whole life, which made me feel like the problem was me, and recognising that it was more a case of my needs not being properly met was a massive lightbulb moment.

~ Catherine Harlowe, managing director & mama, UK