There were parents who had children just because they thought they were supposed to. These parents thought the best way to raise these children was to direct every part of their lives and force them to be exactly who the parents thought they should be. There was no regard for who these children actually were and what they could offer society in the future. It was more important that they be compliant in all ways, understand that they should be seen and not heard, and never, ever question how they were being raised. All questioning and possible revolts should be smashed as quickly and as violently as possible. Comply or be punished, even if you don’t understand what you were supposed to do and why it was important to do that. And all feelings were to be shut down immediately and never, ever considered.
Sound familiar?
This is my life. I have been round and round with all the times I was hurt, misunderstood, and dismissed. I have let so much of it go and I don’t hold any of it against them. But my body is now working on releasing the trauma I endured. It’s like I needed to validate what happened and let the grudge against my parents go and this latest round of dealing with it is letting the trauma leave my body. It’s remarkable how much things build up and impact you decades later when you don’t process them at the time. Or closer to it.
I had a therapy appointment yesterday and it’s amazing how much ground we can cover in just an hour. I see now how many things are linked and how things that happened in my first 10 years of life are still very prevalent today. There are specific examples of my parents emotionally abandoning me and forcing me to deal with and sometimes endure very heavy things on my own. I was blamed for things that happened to me that I didn’t cause. I was asked questions and punished for my honest answers. They made no attempt to understand what I was dealing with as a young child. They focused on their jobs and making money, which is not inherently bad. But they often chose these jobs over my needs for safety and security. They enjoyed causing me anxiety by being nonspecific about upcoming things that were scary to me. They thought hiding the truth from me would somehow protect me instead of helping me to understand that sometimes we just have to do things that are hard and scary. Being thrust into unknown, scary things was so much harder than telling and preparing me for the hard things I was afraid of.
I have let this all go. I have let them off the hook. They are different now. They are two people who continued to choose their own want over the needs of their children. And now both of their children live hundreds of miles from them, choosing to keep their distance instead of staying close. I used to live closer, but they proved that the lack of trust and hesitancy on my part existed for a reason.
Today I’ve made the decision to honor that hesitancy. To allow myself the space from them that I need to feel whole. That working through the traumas and pain they caused means that I choose me. I choose where they exist to prevent future pain. I choose how we engage and when. Working through everything now never has to mean that they get open access to all of me. Therapy isn’t about working things out so that you just automatically trust people who hurt you. It’s about learning that you have the power to not allow anyone to hurt you, no matter who they are. I’m feeling empowered today, like I suddenly can see the point of all this work I have been doing. It’s been hard, but so worth it.
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