Homeschooling with Trauma: My Story

Homeschooling with Trauma: My Story ~
Written by Jamie C. Martin of Simple Homeschool

Five years ago my inner world began to collapse, and it felt like my outer world might too. It started so innocently. During COVID, when all of our worlds were toppling, my husband decided to start therapy.

When he told me this, it was as much of a surprise as if he had said, “I’ve decided to get plastic surgery.”

In other words, a wildly out-of-the-blue move for my British “Keep calm and carry on” husband. I had never done therapy either, but after six months of observing his process, I decided to try it too.

“Maybe therapy will help me navigate the stress of homeschooling and raising three teens?” I thought.

I had no idea it would first shatter, then painfully rebuild, my entire life and worldview.

Looking back, I can almost laugh at my naivety. Almost, but not quite.

Early on my therapist asked me to share one of my earliest memories. I shared what, to me, had always been a typical and slightly humorous story.

After listening she said, “This is curious and unusual. It’s not the way a typical preschooler would think or behave. It points to something deeper that you may want to explore with a trauma specialist.”

Homeschooling with Trauma: My Story

During the same season in my Introverted Moms book club community, I’d chosen The Powerful Purpose of Introverts by Holley Gerth for us to read and discuss. She had a section in one chapter about “high functioning depression,” a term I’d never heard before.

When I read the characteristics, it floored me to resonate with the majority.

But I couldn’t be depressed! I got out of bed every morning, I homeschooled three kids (two with special needs), I wrote books and blogs and led an online community of women! Sure, sometimes I experienced deep lows in which my entire body ached, I couldn’t sleep, I felt unworthy of existence and like death on the inside, but I held my sh** together!

God, in grace and kindness, brought a truth to the surface that refused to remain buried any longer.

The past five years have been a grief-filled arc of death and resurrection. Of course when you’re in the midst of death, you never know if resurrection awaits.

All the inner parts of myself that had protected me for so long deserved to have their voices and pain finally heard. I thought this phase would never end. It’s impossible to honor those years in a few sentences.

And through it all, I continued my final years of homeschooling, continued writing and leading a team of contributors here at Simple Homeschool and sharing heartfelt content with my online community of introverted moms. But it came at a cost.

At the end of one year I told a friend, “It feels like everything I’ve created this year has wounded me.”

One of my most painful steps of obedience included pausing a book idea. I sobbed through the Zoom call with my agent (ugly cry, ya’ll.) It felt like everything important to me, all I thought I knew, was falling to pieces. Because it was.

I’ve built my online platform around emotional authenticity, so a part of me deeply wanted to share in more detail. But I had no idea how to start.

“Hi I’m Jamie. I may be having a nervous breakdown?”

I had plenty of words; I never would have survived if it hadn’t been for my journals. Yet for the first time in a long time those words were just for me.

I had to rewrite my life story – the most important story I’ve ever written, even if only I ever read it.

When I thought I couldn’t take any more, I glimpsed the tiniest sliver of light underneath a closed and locked door. Very, very slowly, the door began to open.

As I finally processed and cleared away repressed negative emotions, I began to know myself anew. My transformation started on the inside and spread all the way out; I often hear how different I look from those who have known me a long time.

I shine and sparkle with an inner confidence that I thought only others could feel.

To be clear, my pain hasn’t completely vanished. But now I know what it is and why I carry it. I know it isn’t my fault, isn’t anyone’s fault. I know that I am finally safe.

I can feel sad without being swallowed by sadness – can teach my kids how to deal with big emotions because I’ve learned how myself. They aren’t a terrifying threat anymore.

Five years after resonating with Holley Gerth’s characteristics of high functioning depression, I returned to her checklist to discover that I now resonate with zero of them. Zero!

On the eve of my 50th birthday, I wanted to mark my transformation in a concrete way. So I did:

It’s still a challenge to put all this into words. But I had to start somewhere, and it couldn’t be with a post called “5 ways to survive homeschooling with trauma.” No bite-sized bullet points can sum up this process!

This is my story to tell, and I’ve waited to tell it. I want to honor it, and it’s finally time to share.

May it offer a glimmer of hope to those of you in the midst of dark inner or outer circumstances that also feel impossible for words.

Those in the grief and death phase, without any promise of life or resurrection yet.

You’re out there, showing up, attempting to make it through another day. Homeschooling with trauma in the midst of it all.

The only thing you feel sure of is that you’re constantly coming up short.

But when treading water is all you can do, it isn’t failure. It’s courage. It’s survival.

I see you, and I know how much strength it takes just to stay afloat. xo

What’s Your Homeschool Mom Personality? Take Jamie’s quiz now and receive a free personality report to help you organize your homeschool based on what your personality type needs most!