God bless the internet.
Of course, I am on a constant journey to understand pieces of why I am how I am - and to gain a better understanding of my family background to forgive.
Today, Yahoo had this article about emotionally neglected kids: https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/10-things-emotionally-neglected-kids-153003243.html
It reads like a checklist of how I felt growing up (i.e., ignored, invalidated, muted). "Talking about a problem with unnecessarily burden other people" - I got this unspoken message not only from Mom and Dad but from Margaret and other "friends," too. Definitely the same with "Relying on another is setting yourself up for disappointment."
It also talked about the message that it isn't good to be too happy or too sad. I STILL remember the day in World Lit class when I felt like I heard myself laugh for the first time. I think one of the reasons I laughed so freely and loudly when I lived with Allison (one of our neighbors referred to us as the "Giggle Girls" one time) was that I never really felt like I was allowed to do that at home. If I laughed out loud at something on TV, it would be met (usually judgmentally from Dad) with "What's so funny in there?" There's a reason why I felt safer closed up in my room by myself (no one to judge).
Of course, I STILL don't feel comfortable crying in front of people. Hell, I still feel strange allowing myself to cry in private. While I don't have specific memories about that, I'm sure I was told sternly at some point to stop crying (because that would be on brand).
The article also lists "Others are not interested in what you have to say." I also remember the first time - as an adult - that I was telling a stupid little anecdote but realized that my friends were actually listening to me. Honestly, it still simultaneously excites and terrifies me when someone really is listening. I honestly did not feel heard or listened to at all growing up.
But the thing about this article is not only that I feel seen and validated in how I have felt about my childhood, but I actually can see how Mom and Dad most likely experienced a lot of this within THEIR childhoods. Of course they wouldn't really know better - how would they have gotten the tools in their lives to that point to raise their kids differently? I do think that both of them (for better or worse) would have raised us differently now than they would have then.
I think validating or owning what you have experienced doesn't necessarily make the one(s) that made you feel that way automatically evil. Mom and Dad absolutely did not intentionally overlook me or bully me. That's what they knew, and they were functioning from their own wounds. I wish the me back then could've recognized that. And, to some extent, maybe I did in some ways that's why I always felt such a responsibility to protect Mom.
It also makes me feel so justified in NOT raising kids myself. Even with the personal work I have done and continue to do, I think I would have still passes along a lot of the same wounds to my own kids. Right now, I'm just thankful that my marriage and career path are coming out of that origin darkness to really bloom.
