Elephants and Tea - September 2019 - 5

Understandably, far too many families
wear their protective armor from treatment
for far too long. This act can unknowingly
become an obstacle to the opportunity for
vulnerability, self-awareness and healing.
These same protective measures, unfortunately, can sometimes become the catalyst
for adding another level of sickness to the
family after diagnosis through the ongoing
internalization and manifestation of stress
and trauma.
Based on the results of a recent study
between Momcology, a network of primary
caregivers and parents of children diagnosed
with cancer, and the Yale School of Nursing,
Joan Kearney PhD APRN, Associate Professor at the Yale School of Nursing and Yale
Child Study Center coins and defines Cataclysmic Attachment Trauma as, "occurring
within the attachment and caregiving relationship as the parental caregiving system
experiences the ultimate threat-the possible
death of a child."
How does one function, process and make
decisions while living with the possibility of
the death of a child?
As much as we, as parents, try to stuff
that thought down, it is always there, just
below the surface, and easily accessed during
times of stress. There have been thousands of
books, movies and television shows around
this gut-wrenching topic with the purpose of
igniting an intense sense of tension, fear and
anguish to the viewer. When the reality of
the threat is in front of you, and is not from
an outsider, but rather the sneaky villain that
lives within your child's own body, it leaves
little to no control for parental protection
from the impending intruder. Without a
doubt, the diagnosis of cancer in a child is a
life changing, life-defining, irreversible and
traumatic event (Kearney, 2019) for a parent.
The collaborative study results between
Momcology and Yale research shows that
not only is there a severe rate of parental
post-traumatic stress symptoms, but also
acute physiological and psychological manifestations of stress developing into ongoing
physical health symptoms requiring all levels of care up to and including surgery and
ongoing treatment. In fact, from the sample of caregivers interviewed for the study,
they mapped on average 9-10 diagnosable
symptoms per caregiver post diagnosis and
up to 10 years following end of treatment
(Kearney, 2019).

Kim and her son
Matthew on his
19th birthday

Through qualitative interviews with nine
mothers of childhood cancer survivors, participants reported an extremely high number
of ongoing symptoms across psychological,
physical and other symptom categories.
Examples of reported systems included;
anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress,
panic, cognitive impairments, mood, sleep
disorders, cardiac events, gastrointestinal
and endocrine disorders just to name a few.
These astonishing results should be considered a call-to-action on the need for greater
caregiver interventions not only during
treatment, but specifically and perhaps more
importantly after treatment ends. Caregiver
well-being can have a direct impact on the
well-being of the entire family ecosystem.
With more children thankfully entering
into survivorship care, we must now consider
caregiver health an important piece in overall
and long-term supportive care.

PARENTING THROUGH CATACLYSMIC ATTACHMENT TRAUMA
Having been in the cancer world for over a
decade, and in the front-lines with families
spanning that entire timeframe, I have had the
opportunity to directly witness both personally and through association, the ongoing
impacts of cataclysmic attachment.
Signs can often include a hyper-arousal by
the parent at any child's symptom that could
resemble an out-of-ordinary event sending
the caregiver's emotional well-being and stability into rapid decline. Even as caregivers
manage to get through each of these hurdles
with another notch of wisdom and experience
in our belts, it seems to momentarily and
immediately disintegrate when once again
presented with a new symptom of a potentially life-altering event post treatment. It
seems that cataclysmic attachment can provide the space to be overwhelmed with fear
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Elephants and Tea - September 2019

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