Being a father to a teenage girl brings its challenges at the best of times but being that parent who also has cPTSD adds to those challenges. Navigating parenthood and all the emotions that followed can feel overwhelming. I have strived to support her while managing my own triggers and anxieties, and I have found open communication to be essential, allowing us to connect and understand each other better amidst the complications that have popped up over the years.

I’ve been lucky with my daughter. I can’t say I went through the “terrible twos” stage with her. Of course she had her moments like any child does, but she wasn’t a bad kid, and so far, she hasn’t been a terrible teenager. It’s still early days, but for the most part she has been no problem.

However, I have come to realize that some of the choices I made as a parent were the direct result of what I experienced as a child. I was probably too protective of my daughter, especially from the ages of 5 to 9 years old, which were the years that my abuse occurred. I did struggle more during this time because I could see how little she was and I had many flashbacks and triggers occur for me. I simply could never understand how anybody could harm a child so young, and I wanted to protect her from all the bad in the world.

No matter what though, you still have to hold it together enough to parent. I remember a number of occasions when my daughter was small, I had to make sure she was safe and then remove myself from the situation for a while so I could break down and have my moment of dysregulated emotions. I have always done my best to remain child-focused though and make sure she was and is my number one priority.

There is no such thing as a perfect parent

I struggled with the idea that in order for me to be a good parent, I had to be perfect and get everything right, which was always impossible to do because what parent ever gets everything right? I now know that as long as we are able to raise our children in a happy home, they will likely turn out to be well-adapted kids. What matters is that we continue to provide love and support and not strive for an unattainable ideal. Embracing our imperfections allows us to create a nurturing environment where our children can thrive, learn, and grow into their own unique selves.

Coming from a loving Irish family, I took the values I was raised on and implemented them into my parenting. I kind of fell into instinctively doing gentle parenting, having clear expectations and boundaries, and enforcing them. As the years passed and I got into a good rhythm with therapy and my own healing, I was able to give her the freedom to grow into becoming who she is, and I have let her make mistakes she has needed to make.

One thing I’ve always stressed to my daughter is that I am always here for her. I support her and will love her no matter what, and I try not to place demands on her that she feels pressured by, as I’m far more interested in her growing up kind and happy. I have also been fortunate to have had a solid support network who I could go to whenever I felt things were too much or I simply needed advice, which, in the early years, was more times than I cared to count. But, as the saying goes, “it takes a village to raise a child,” and I am grateful for my village.

Taking accountability as a parent is essential

It has also been extremely important for me to apologize for any mistakes I made. I don’t mean the little things, but if I really messed up, which we all do. It’s not because I was a bad parent; I simply would get things wrong. Raising kids is hard anyway without adding CPTSD into the mix-up, and we cannot expect our kids to be accountable for their actions if we are not accountable for our own.

I really wanted to be the parent I never had growing up. I witnessed so much from my own father who never took accountability, that I was adamant I would never do the same. No matter how old our children may be, communication and apologizing goes a long way.

The most valuable lesson I would say I have learned since I was diagnosed with cPTSD was that I couldn’t outrun my trauma, no matter how hard I tried. Instead, I had to confront it, acknowledging the pain and understanding that healing takes time. The best decision I made as a parent was to seek help and start therapy. Facing my trauma was the most important thing I could do for my daughter, and in doing so, it has allowed us both to have a father-daughter relationship that I cherish.

Now my daughter is 15 and we have begun to have more in-depth conversations where I am discussing trauma with her without going into detail about what happened to me. It’s been important for me to help her understand why I am the way I am. I have also read up and tried to be as self-knowledgeable as I can along with therapy, learning about things such as attachment parenting and cultivating emotional maturity. In addition to navigating my own cPTSD, I think it has helped me become a pretty trauma-informed parent, as the learning never ends while we enter new stages of life.

I will continue to raise my daughter with my own self-awareness, which in turn helps her adapt to all life’s struggles that she will face. At the end of the day, I am doing the best I can, and I can only hope I am the father for her that I never had, and that I will continue to make her proud.