Managing Stress: Impact of Complex PTSD on Parenting

Parents struggling with stress often perpetuate unhealthy patterns, impacting their children's emotional development.

### Understanding Complex PTSD and Low Stress Tolerance in Parents
* 🧠 Parents with complex trauma often struggle to manage stress and emotions, passing on these difficulties to their children.
* 👨 Children of emotionally unstable parents may experience **gaslighting, blame-shifting, and unrealistic expectations**.
* 🛠 The "**REST**" technique (Relax, Evaluate, Set Intentions, Take Action) can help break unhealthy coping patterns.
* 📝 The technique involves **pausing, evaluating the situation, setting an intention, and taking mindful action**.
* 🧘 Slowing down, being intentional, and separating feelings from actions are **key components** of this approach.
* 🧒 Over time, practicing these skills can help individuals **break the cycle of unhealthy stress responses** learned from their parents.
* 💪 Building this emotional resilience can lead to **increased self-esteem and confidence** in handling challenging situations.
* 📚 Additional resources, such as "**The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook**," can provide **practical tools for managing stress and emotions**.

one of the biggest issues in childhood with parents who struggle is often about their difficulty and inability to tolerate and manage their own stress. Oftentimes, they are using skills or a lack of skills that they inherited in their family system. But whatever it is, or their own mental health is limited in some way, or they're functioning or their maturity. And we know that parents who have relayed complex trauma to us usually have this collection of difficulties around managing and tolerating stress and difficult emotions. And so I thought we'd talk about complex PTSD and how the low stress tolerance in our family systems can affect us so much. So why does this happen really quickly for parents who are emotionally unstable or unsafe in some way? They basically are using their own unhealthy coping mechanisms. They've always done it that way. They keep doing it that way. They might try to do new things, but at the end of the day, they often don't have the emotional capacity or support for whatever reason. So they kind of have these unhealthy

patterns number two. They actually might when they are having a period of stress or you are deny it in themselves or you invalidate it. Oh, you don't feel that way or oh, I'm just fine, and they're not doing it necessarily intentionally to be wounding. It's just it's about their own lack of resources, and so they might Gaslight you, let's say if they're more narcissistic or themselves, whatever it is. There's a real denying of reality, of how they're really handling things and what's really going on, and potentially how it's impacting the entire family system. They often can't own their mistakes, so when we have poor stress tolerance, we don't have the, like I'm saying, the resources to say, Oh, you know what? I don't like how I handled that. I'm sorry. Let me kind of change and adjust my patterns. They might blame you when they get stressed or distressed, you know, Oh, it's your fault, or they might blow up at you, let's say you're a kid.

and you drop something, and they lose it on you, you know. And a lot of it often is maybe they were yelled at as kids too for making mistakes, but their nervous systems are often very elevated. They might be in a very fight or flight pattern themselves, or conversely, a very shut down, and so they don't even have the ability to manage the feelings or identify them. They might overreact and lose it, right? And so a little stressor happens, and they blow, they, you know, they are often the classic kind of eggshell parents too, where they're kind of fun, and they're really not fine, you know. It's like high highs and low lows. So what happens is they can often also teach you to be hyper-vigilant because you're watching them not manage things and rotate around everything at such a highly stressed level that you start to learn that I have to be always be on guard and pay attention to everything because they're going to get upset or they're going to come home with a difficult day at work, and they're going

to unload on me or the dog or whatever, or Dad or Mom or partner or their siblings. So, they're having a hard time tolerating and regulating their own emotions, and they might expect you to manage them. So, an example of emotionally mature parents who can't really tolerate distress would be to blame and shame others, to expect you to be their best friend or therapist. I've talked a lot about that. I expect you to just get over it. So, when they don't handle stress well, they blow on you and say and do harmful things, but then they're like, Oh, I had a bad day. No, let it go. Why are you still upset about that? And oftentimes, you become highly sensitive, and you are highly sensitive for different reasons, because you've learned to pay so much attention to them that it can become one of those things where there's a blaming you, Oh, you're just so sensitive. Like, I didn't yell that much. What's wrong with you? Get over it. Things like that. So, their difficulty in managing stress is

the key. So, let's say now you've internalized that difficulty managing stress. It's hard for you to tolerate distressing emotions. So, I'm going to start making more videos, ideally with many of the techniques from this book and others. I really think this is an excellent book, The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook. There are a lot of applicable hands-on things to do, and in the very beginning of this book, they talk about the technique called REST (R-E-S-T). So, R stands for Relax, E stands for Evaluate, S stands for Set Intentions, and T is Take Action. So, the idea is identifying, let's say first of all, before you can do all these things, you want to look at having this kind of like pattern and technique in place, this REST technique. And then you're going to look at things like identifying your triggers, learning how to repair, learning how to maybe write down and use this strategy for all the things that you know can happen to your day that might require you like to get ahead of it so that you kind of have

something in your toolkit to go, Okay, I feel really disregulated, and I don't want to handle stress or not handle distress the way my parents did, so what can I do? So, the first thing is to relax, and this really is about, I talk about pausing, is to try to just slow down your body through breathing, through mindfulness, through exercise, to try not to be in that reactive state. Because what often happens when we are distressed and we don't have the tools and skills, is we want to quickly offload by blowing, by blaming, by whatever, and that doesn't serve us. So, we want to slow down, stop, and rest. Maybe you journal, maybe you like I'm saying count to 50. I'm going to go into more things you can do in the next, hopefully, a few videos, or not the few, but the next several videos, when you try to add skills along with other topics. So, you rest, you slow down, you pause, don't be impulsive here, you want to try to stop yourself. Number two, evaluate, asking yourself, What is

happening right now. What are the facts? I don't have to have all the answers, but I need to kind of like get clear on what just happened, right? So, there's a situation where, let's say you're trying to... The book gives an example of a woman trying to return something, and she always could make returns, and then she gets some new salesperson, and they're pushing back, and she wants to blow... And historically, she'd lose it, but she pauses and rests. She removes herself. She thinks about it, and then she evaluates, Okay, this is actually when I slow down. I realize this person has a name tag that says they're a trainee, and maybe I should ask for a manager. And once they get to know what the situation is, they will help me. That's what happened, right? So, but you can't do that if you just go straight into, like, screaming at the trainee. The next thing is to set an intention. What am I... What would I like to do? What do I need to do, right?

now the idea is that there needs to be something that usually is a target or goal that you want to move towards. So I want to slow down, I want to breathe, I want to try to return this. I'm going to look for a manager, and the last thing is to look at, excuse me, taking action. What can you do? The idea here is to slow down but to mindfully and intentionally take steps to solve the problem. So I need some water. In the example, the woman got the manager. She tried to stay calm. She explained the situation, and they let her return the things. So there were all of these steps that had she just lost it or left the store or whatever and couldn't tolerate those feelings, that would have taken her out of the game and solving the problem. So as I said, I'll talk more about these strategies, but if you want to add some more in the comments, please feel free to do that and know that most of us aren't, most of us are not taught great coping skills, especially when we have certain

childhoods, and a lot of it is about slowing down, becoming mindful and intentional, and trying to separate the feeling, the thoughts, the triggers, the impulses from what you're doing, right? To see them as a part of you, but not necessarily a part you have to act out to resolve. And then, over time, it becomes like the yoga practice, right? Like exercise, you get better at it, and you build that muscle, and it can help really reduce a lot of stressful situations. Not always, but especially because every time you handle something in a way that wasn't like your childhood, you don't scream at your kids this time like your parents screamed at you. It builds these little moments of self-esteem and self-love and confidence inside that you can handle whatever comes next. So, thanks for being here. Please stay safe and well, and take good care of yourselves, and I'll see you tomorrow. Bye. [Music] Thank you.

CPTSD & EMOTIONALLY IMMATURE PARENTS:  HOW TO TOLERATE DISTRESS

Dr. Kim Sage, Licensed Psychologist 

The Impact of Low Stress Tolerance in Parents

Parents who struggle with stress often pass on their difficulties to their children, using inherited unhealthy coping mechanisms.

Their emotional instability can lead to denial, invalidation, and gaslighting, creating a toxic family dynamic.

Poor stress tolerance also prevents them from owning their mistakes and can result in blaming or exploding at their children during stressful times.

The Impact of Emotionally Immature Parents

Emotionally immature parents often have elevated nervous systems and struggle to manage their own feelings, leading to overreactions and a chaotic home environment.

Their behavior can create a sense of hyper-vigilance in children, who learn to be on guard and manage the parent's emotions.

These parents may blame and shame others, expect their children to be their therapists, and dismiss their children's feelings, ultimately fostering sensitivity and emotional turmoil in their kids.

The REST technique (Relax, Evaluate, Set Intentions, Take Action) is a key strategy for managing distressing emotions.

Relaxation involves slowing down through breathing, mindfulness, and exercise to avoid reactive behaviors.

The evaluation step encourages self-reflection and identifying triggers, helping to prepare for challenging situations.

Managing Conflict and Emotions Effectively

A woman faces pushback while trying to make a return, but instead of losing her temper, she pauses and evaluates the situation.

She sets an intention to slow down, breathe, and look for a manager to help her.

By mindfully taking action and staying calm, she successfully resolves the issue and makes the return.

The Importance of Mindfulness in Parenting

Mindfulness and intentionality are key to separating feelings and triggers from actions.

Practicing this approach over time can reduce stress and build self-esteem and confidence.

Handling situations differently than in childhood creates moments of self-love and empowerment.