How To Cope When You Feel Triggered By Your Stepkids
Being a Stepmom can be a difficult role. Stepmom’s can struggle with feeling left out, unimportant, overlooked, and insignificant. It’s a normal human response to get upset or overwhelmed and everyone experiences these emotions to events that activate a state of hyperarousal. Being triggered might look like feeling overwhelmed, anxious, angry, irritable, sad, or having trouble relaxing. Stepmom life in particular can feel like navigating an emotional land mine, with Stepkids and ex-spouses and navigating this all with your partner so it’s important to know how to cope when these stressful situations arise.
First, we will look at what dysregulation looks like, why it comes up, how to cope, and end with some examples that might arise for Stepmoms.
Why do I feel triggered?
You might notice that you are dysregulated when you are feeling intense emotions, mood swings, overwhelm, or feelings upset. You also might notice that when you feel dysregulated you have experience intense emotional responses that become apparent in the things you do or say when you notice these intense feelings arise. Your body may respond to these stressors by going into a state of flight, fight, or freeze. This happens when our bodies perceive a threat in our environment that has our nervous system on high alert. It’s our bodies way of protecting us from danger however, sometimes this response happens when you aren’t truly in a life-threatening situation (like driving in the car with your Stepkids or at an event with the ex-spouse) but your body responds as if it’s getting chased by a bear.
First things first when you experience feeling triggered of emotional dysregulation is to focus on regulating your emotional state. It will take some time for your body and all the stress hormones running through it to feel grounded and centered, and this is where movement can be useful to help use some of the stress hormones your body produces before getting to a grounded place. Getting grounded in the here and now will help to regulate and center yourself from the feelings that leave you activated or in flight, fight, or freeze. Once you are regulated you are better able to respond rather than react. Reacting when you are dysregulated usually leads to saying things or doing things that you wouldn’t otherwise do in a more grounded state.
Practicing Emotional Regulation
Being able to regulate your emotions is a skill. We aren’t always taught or modeled the best emotional regulation or coping skills, especially in the face of challenging moments of Stepmotherhood.
These intense emotional responses might be a product of past traumas, stressors, mental health conditions, or brain chemistry.
Self-Regulating and Soothing Difficult Emotions
Having the skills and tools to regulate difficult emotions will help you to respond rather than react to things that your Stepkids do that upset or overwhelm you. Below are some tools and skills you can use to help self-regulate and self-soothe.
Tools to Use to Help you Cope
Grounding
Grounding helps to bring you back into the present moment. It can help you find your center to regain emotional balance. Grounding exercises can look like engaging your senses and noticing things you see, hear, feel, smell, and taste. A common grounding exercise to utilize is the 5-4-3-2-1 (5 things you see, 4 things you hear, 3 things you feel, 2 things your smell, 1 things you taste. You can engage your senses and practice this grounding exercise anywhere you are, as it can be done quietly.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness is the practice of noticing and non-judgemental awareness of sensations that you are experiencing in your body. It helps to bring awareness to the feelings that arise and practice acceptance and tolerance of your emotional experience. My favorite way to meditate is using the meditation app, Insight Timer.
Exercise
When you notice these big emotions it can feel like an energy, or heat coursing through your body. Exercise can help to manage these intense feelings that you notice, and act as an outlet to help regulate your nervous system again.
Now That You’ve Practiced Self-Regulation
It’s easier to be able to respond to the feelings that are arising rather than react. Self-reflection can help you look at where you would like to grow in your responses and how you might navigate a challenging Stepmom moment in the future.
Getting clear on why this particular event is triggering for your helps you to identify your emotions and your needs in this particular moment.
Some self-reflective questions to ask yourself are:
What are your Stepkids saying or doing that is bringing up uncomfortable or intense feelings for you?
What about this situation feels activating and contributes to you feeling uncomfortable, overwhelmed, sad or angry?
Now that your are calm, how would you like to respond in these situations instead?
“Being activated and in state fight, flight, freeze could point to old wounds or familiar feelings that are resurfacing.”
Where to Go From Here
Focus on Your Overall Well-being
Things like, diet, exercise, and sleep play a big role in our ability to regulate our emotions. If any of these things are out of balance, your emotions will be too. Emotional regulation starts before you notice your are feeling dysregulated and triggered. It’s an area you should be focusing on daily to be able to manage the intense emotions when they do arise.
Therapy can help you heal from past traumatic experiences and learn to regulate your emotional response from stressors in Stepmotherhood.
Support groups, including my Stepmom Support Group, can be helpful in managing big emotions by being able to share about your experiences, connect, learn valuable skills and tools to navigate Stepmotherhood, and have community with other women in similar situations. If this is something that interests you, you can contact me by clicking here.
Now, let’s take a look at some common experiences that might bring up intense emotions for Stepmoms.
There can be many scenarios a Stepmom encounters that leaves her feeling triggers or emotionally dysregulated. Here are just a few examples I hear often Coaching Stepmoms and running my Stepmom Support Group:
Maybe it’s the story your Stepkids were telling at the dinner table about what their Mom’s and Dad’s house used to be like before you came into the picture.
Maybe it’s how your Stepkids were talking or behaving in the car that reminded you of some not so great qualities of the other parent while you were driving, and you had nowhere to go.
Maybe it’s their embarrassing behaviors while you are in public.
Maybe it’s the way they complain, exaggerate, or get easily upset or shut you out.
Maybe it’s having to be around your Stepkids other parent, and the subtle fake niceties or the anticipated hostility and/or conflict that leaves you feeling activated.
And the multitude of other scenarios a Stepmother finds herself in that can feel triggering and activate her fight, flight, or freeze.
Why is this so triggering?
Usually these events are triggering because Stepmoms really do want what best for their partners, stepkids, and stepfamily. It brings up feelings of being out of control, feeling insignificant, feeling like she isn’t measuring up, being left out, being judged, wanting the best for her stepkids, feeling helpless, feeling stuck, feelings of grief, or not wanting to hear more intimate details about your husband’s past relationships to just scratch the surface of what a Stepmom may feel triggered by. Familiar feelings from childhood, past traumas, or the trouble coping with these feelings activate hyperarousal of fight, flight, and freeze.
Stepmom life is particularly challenging with all it’s complexities that come up with blended family relationships, finances, custody schedules, adjustment to changes, co-parenting, ex-spouses, and navigating the day to day ofStepfamily life. When things don’t go as expected, it can feel especially dissapointing with the amount of effort, and time a Stepmom invests in her family. It can leave her feeling isolated, and wondering how she is going to navigate the tough stuff that surfaces in her role.
So now that we have gone over how to self-regulate
Remember to:
Ground yourself in the here and now
Use Skills to help you respond rather than react
Get support or professional help if it keeps coming up or if you are feeling stuck in what to do next.
Maintaining an ongoing schedule of self-care and focusing on what you are needing can help you manage the day to day stressors that exist in Stepmotherhood. Self-care is an important part of self-regulating your emotions. To download your Free Stepmom Self-Care checklist click here.
Have specific questions when it comes to coping with Stepmom life? I would love to hear from you. Feel free to email what’s leaving you feeling activated at thestepmomsocial@gmail.com.
Want to understand your feelings better and how to accept the challenges of Stepmotherhood and feel empowered navigating through them? Reach out to set up your free 20 minute consultation to see if Stepmom coaching is right for you.