Life is looking a bit brighter today.
As I’m listening to this book, and reading in a couple of groups I joined about estrangement, I am recognizing both my privilege and realizing how lucky I am. I have some emotional intelligence that others may never gain. I read these stories and see parents lamenting about how they were good parents, and CANNOT accept any feedback or entertain any feedback from their adult children that they remember things differently. Ego and hubris, really. I’m not going to lie, it was bewildering to hear the things my daughter said, but being also an empath, I almost always try to see things from the other person’s point of view, so once I realized she was working on core trauma stuff, I did some reading to understand.
In the end, what does it cost me to ask and try to understand her point of view? What SHE remembers? It costs me nothing. I posted yesterday about the message I sent her, now I will post her response, with names changed to protect the innocent (or guilty, as the case may be),
“I’m not really sure where to start. I’m not ready to unpack my trauma with you or the way it was perceived from my stand point of being a child and growing up in our home. There’s a lot, and it’s not just you. It was grandma, and auntie, and step-dad, and bio dad. It was family trauma. My therapist had to abruptly leave the practice recently so I’ve been doing a lot of the work myself but that only works so much without the guidance of a professional. Nor do I want to get another therapist before I leave and get attached just to have to break up. With everything… just because I’m not ready to unpack my trauma with you specifically doesn’t mean I wish us to not communicate. You are my mom, and of course I love you dearly.
You did SO MANY thing right when I was a kid. You taught me to lead with love, accepting, and caring. It’s one of my most valued traits as an adult and one I have to thank you for. You took us outdoors and camping and all of those things which has left me with a lifelong love for nature and our earth. There’s a lot that I am thankful for, but that doesn’t make the trauma just not happen, nor does it heal that trauma.
Yknow and when I talk about my trauma, it’s not always all just based around you and our family. Between the ages of 11-23 I put myself in so many horrible situations mom, and then had the weirdest relationship with calling it trauma for the longest time because I “did it to myself”. Imposter syndrome about your own trauma? Is that a thing? Probably. But learning that it was trauma not the less and then healing from it has been such a wild journey.
But I hear you mom. I hear your apology and your desire to make it right. I hear your want to be in my life and grow from this. I appreciate it, and hope I can take these conversations as a learning lesson when my children are grown and trying to navigate their traumas as well.
My healing, right now, is a pretty solely internal journey. I need to recognize the parts of me that are traumatized, how they became that way, and how they’re affecting me in my day to day life, and especially in my parenting. I need to heal me first so I can be good for my babies and my husband. I need model better behavior to my entire family so that they can recognize a healthy family dynamics and communication. My healing journey started because of them, but it’s a me journey and even if I wanted to I couldn’t sit here and make a timeline of the moments that “traumatized” me in my life because truly, from the age of 23 and younger is such a whirlwind I’m not even entirely aware of everything that happened. But I need to heal first before I project that trauma onto the people who traumatized me because I need to be able to do it in a way that doesn’t cause more harm and if I did it now it would be for too emotional of an experience for me to do in a healthy way. There’s still a lot of pain, and I don’t want to cause other people pain because I’m hurting from un healed parts of me.
I admire her too. She is so strong. I think she is the best of me, in a lot of ways. She has demons and has dealt with things I will never have to deal with. Addiction to substances (besides food) is not a path I have had to walk, and I’m sure some of her coping mechanisms are from that. She tried to bury her pain for a long time in substances, which I certainly understand, I just don’t think I ever did that because I had kids so young, so already had too much responsibility to go down that path to the degree she did.
It occurred to me, that, like, everyone should be forced to have an internal clock that forces one to examine their psyche like, every five years. Who am I now? Who do I WANT to be? Am I there? How do I behave? Have I forgotten lessons? Do I need to re-examine them? How do the lessons I’ve learned changed as I become an older adult?
I had a conversation last night with a friend who really brought something home to me. I made a huge mistake in thinking that my daughter and I had transitioned from a “parent-child” relationship to a more egalitarian “adult-adult” relationship. This friend said, unless it is working on in therapy, it’s not possible to have an “adult-adult” relationship with an adult child, because they will ALWAYS see you as parent. I feel SO SAD that so much of what I thought was regular, adult communication with my daughter, she was perceiving as my trying to parent her, infantalize her, or judge her. That’s going to be something to forgive myself for, for reals.
Note to self: ALWAYS be willing to be shown a mirror, and to take that look at yourself, and/or be willing to see how others see you. There is always room for growth, or ways to see things in a different light. For me, next up is my relationship. Until this “crisis”, I hadn’t realized how complacent I had become in so many different ways and areas in my life. I hadn’t worked on my relationship with my daughter, or updated it, checked in.
I am in much the same place with my relationship. I don’t know, anymore, if we belong together, or it would be better if we weren’t together. I just don’t know anymore. If someone is afforded dependence, do they rely on that? Does it excuse them from doing anything to help themselves? If they have cognitive deficits, are they capable? Or is it just convenient? These are hard thoughts, but they are things I need to figure out. I’ve also thought about how unfair part of this perspective is. If he were the sole working human, there wouldn’t really BE this conversation. It’s much more “socially acceptable” for women to stay home. If men stay home, what can the expectations be?
Todays thoughts….today I have to conduct a bunch of interviews for new student workers. Next week, Monday afternoon….therapy!
Peace.
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