"Can I ask you questions?"
"Of course you can. I'll do my best to answer them," She hesistates, looks around the sterile office, "Do you feel comfortable going for a drive?"
Something about cars makes humans feel safe. The drive visibly relieves the tension she was carrying. She begins to open up and seek her deepest curiosities.
"My mom, she gave me something. I don't know, like trauma or what would you call it? But she gave me something and I am afraid to give it to others."
For a moment she is me and I am her. Her mother gave her the same thing my mother gave me. It is the same but also different.
An aching in my chest, a raw gaping wound, a hollow emptiness that can never be filled. For a while, I think I hated my mom for giving this curse to me. It was a rage that built up, every time she failed to meet my needs. Anger took so much energy from me as I spent my early twenties, wrestling with the guilt for hating someone I am supposed to love. I made my peace with this, with my mom that tries her best.
We don't talk enough about toxic family. About how to love the family we can not pick while maintaining boundaries and distance. We learn and model everything from these people who raise us but no one ever tells us it is okay to unlearn the fist they taught us was love or staying with someone to prevent them from hurting when it is killing us or the immature yoyo-ing in and out of "love". Sometimes, our parents are all the things we should not be. Codependency, Gaslighting, Trauma Dumping,
In this moment I have found purpose. In this moment I have found flow. She will never know that we are the same, only how to heal.
Encouraging her to follow her self-awareness and let it guide her to better things. Her worry is that she does not know how to love others. When in doubt, I encourage her to ask her sister, friends, partner, what they need to feel loved in that moment; to invest her energy in changing her response rather than settle for the reactions she has learned. I hope she took these tools and is practising with them as you read this.
What do you need to feel loved right now? If not yourself, who can give that to you? How can you love them in return?
We are capable of breaking all the cycles of intergenerational trauma and violence and apathy. We just have to make the conscious choice to invest our energy in change even when it is hard.
**Disclaimer: My parents were never abusive in away (please Reference 'Reason 3' of '100 Reasons Why'). This is more reflecting on how toxic traits are not always as obvious as violence and in general, we do not discuss the range of unhealthy relationships people can be subjected to.**
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