Self care…look after yourself!

You can watch Sky TV in every room in our house.

We have The Full Package, including all the kids stuff, Sky Atlantic, Cinema and Sport.

I think we found a way of hiding ‘the grown up channels’, and have Sky Shield to help protect us from any more of that sort of mischief. 

But apart from that, there’s nothing we can’t watch.

We have BT sports, for the Champions League, Bundesliga and some sort of erotic tickling that happens in a cage.

I think it’s called UFC or MMA.

We have Amazon Prime, Netflix, and Disney+.

My iPad and phone has the Sky Sports Go App and the BT Sports App.

I also use my devices to watch the cricket when it’s on Channel 4.

We briefly had what is known locally as a ‘Jaarg Box’, a small device that ‘legitimately’ allowed us to access every TV network in the world.

We decided that whilst not technically illegal, this couldn’t possibly be right so we ditched it.

The picture quality was generally crap too.

All this means, that for just several hundred pounds per month, I can go anywhere I want, and still watch sport.

All sport, and any sport.

To some people, particularly if you’re Middle Class and weren’t allowed to watch Grange Hill as a kid, this will seem extravagantly indulgent and reflect some sort of moral failing on our part.

In Fostering and Adoption, it’s called ‘self care’, and the quicker you find out what works for you the better.

My wife likes reading Maeve Binchy books.

Hiding in the toilet to watch 10 minutes of Test Cricket, or even the IPL, can mean the difference between ‘keeping it together’ and walking away.

Be under absolutely no illusion that caring for traumatised children is easy. You will be tested and challenged and provoked. You will meet what appears to be the most illogical of behaviours as a child destroys their possessions, hurts them self or hurts you. This destruction may be verbal or physical, but is almost certainly inevitable.

You have to find a way of looking after yourself .

If you do not, you will at best give up, or at worst retaliate.

Whether it’s TV, reading, making and drinking a cup of tea or eating a large piece of chocolate cake, you need to find what calms you down, restores your soul, and refills your tank. Other metaphors are available. I’d avoid alcohol or anything else deemed ‘recreational’.

And rather like a super fast charger, you need to find something that works quickly. Trauma does not work 9-5, Monday to Friday with 20 days of annual leave.

You have to learn to grab minutes or seconds of ‘self care’ whenever they present themselves.

I have learnt to regulate my heart rate when my adrenaline is sky high. In my imagination, I visit historical battlefields and reenact The Battle of a Waterloo. Imagining a violent battle has become a displacement activity for the violence we have occasionally experienced in our home.

This might not work for you, but please find something that does.

I also try to remember that I didn’t cause the trauma.

Secondary Trauma, PTSD and generally exhaustion are real.

Writing these blogs helps me.

If they help you, that’s just an added bonus.