스트레스 관리하기: 복잡한 PTSD가 육아에 미치는 영향

### 부모의 복잡한 PTSD와 낮은 스트레스 내성 이해하기
* 🧠 복합적인 트라우마를 가진 부모는 종종 **스트레스와 감정 관리에 어려움**을 겪으며 이러한 어려움을 자녀에게 대물림합니다.
* 👨 정서적으로 불안정한 부모의 자녀는 **가스라이팅, 책임 전가, 비현실적인 기대**를 경험할 수 있습니다.
* 🛠 'REST' 기법(휴식, 평가, 의도 설정, 행동 취하기)은 **건강하지 않은 대처 패턴을 깨는 데 도움이** 될 수 있습니다.
* 📝 이 기법에는 **잠시 멈추고, 상황을 평가하고, 의도를 설정하고, 마음챙김 행동을 취하는 것**이 포함됩니다.
* 🧘 속도를 늦추고, 의도적으로 행동하며, **감정과 행동을 분리하는 것**이 이 접근법의 핵심 요소입니다.
* 🧒 시간이 지남에 따라 이러한 기술을 연습하면 **부모로부터 배운 건강에 해로운 스트레스 반응의 악순환을 끊는 데 도움이 될 수 있습니다.**
* 💪 이러한 정서적 회복력을 키우면 어려운 상황에 대처하는 데 있어 **자존감과 자신감이 높아질 수 있습니다.**
* 📚 '변증법적 행동 치료 기술 워크북'과 같은 추가 자료는 **스트레스와 감정을 관리하기 위한 실용적인 도구**를 제공할 수 있습니다.

스트레스에 시달리는 부모는 종종 건강에 좋지 않은 패턴을 지속하여 자녀의 정서 발달에 영향을 미칩니다.

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 

부모의 낮은 스트레스 내성이 미치는 영향

스트레스로 힘들어하는 부모는 대물림된 건강하지 못한 대처 방식을 사용하여 자녀에게 어려움을 전가하는 경우가 많습니다.

이러한 정서적 불안정은 부정, 무효화, 가스라이팅으로 이어져 해로운 가족 역학 관계를 형성할 수 있습니다.

또한 스트레스에 대한 내성이 약하면 자신의 실수를 인정하지 못하고 스트레스를 받을 때 자녀를 비난하거나 폭발할 수 있습니다.

정서적으로 미성숙한 부모의 영향

정서적으로 미성숙한 부모는 신경계가 예민하고 자신의 감정을 관리하는 데 어려움을 겪기 때문에 과잉 반응과 혼란스러운 가정 환경이 조성되는 경우가 많습니다.

이러한 부모의 행동은 자녀에게 과잉 경계심을 불러일으키고, 자녀는 부모의 감정을 경계하고 관리하는 방법을 배우게 됩니다.

이러한 부모는 다른 사람을 비난하고 수치심을 느끼며 자녀가 자신의 치료사가 되기를 기대하며 자녀의 감정을 무시하여 궁극적으로 자녀의 민감성과 정서적 혼란을 조장할 수 있습니다.

REST 기법으로 스트레스 관리하기

REST 기법(이완, 평가, 의도 설정, 행동 취하기)은 괴로운 감정을 관리하기 위한 핵심 전략입니다.

이완 단계에서는 호흡, 마음챙김, 운동을 통해 속도를 늦추고 반응적인 행동을 피하는 것이 포함됩니다.

평가 단계에서는 자기 성찰과 유발 요인을 파악하여 어려운 상황에 대비할 수 있도록 돕습니다.

갈등과 감정을 효과적으로 관리하기

한 여성이 복귀를 시도하던 중 반발에 직면하지만 화를 내는 대신 잠시 멈추고 상황을 평가합니다.

그녀는 속도를 늦추고 숨을 고르며 자신을 도와줄 관리자를 찾기로 결심합니다.

신중하게 행동하고 침착함을 유지함으로써 그녀는 문제를 성공적으로 해결하고 복귀에 성공합니다.

마음챙김과 의도성은 감정과 유발 요인을 행동에서 분리하는 데 핵심적인 요소입니다.

시간이 지남에 따라 이 접근법을 연습하면 스트레스를 줄이고 자존감과 자신감을 키울 수 있습니다.

어린 시절과는 다른 방식으로 상황을 처리하면 자기 사랑과 권한 부여의 순간이 만들어집니다.