Reply to Moving past parents wrongs

Forum Index » Family Relationships

Reply to "Moving past parents wrongs"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I read once that the difference between trauma (which you get stuck on and struggle with) and simply a bad experience that you move past, is processing.

So childhood trauma occurs when there is a bad experience that a child is prevented from processing. Generally though lack of support from adults in their lives, but I think in some cases people are able to process bad experiences just by talking to siblings or friends, if they are fortunate. People can still process those events later in life, in therapy or on their own, but then there will be more to process -- the original event plus the years of suppressing or being unable to discuss or integrate that experience. Sometimes trauma can compound -- a person who was physically abused as a child might then wind up in an abusive relationship in adulthood, and it will be that much harder for them to untangle the layers of trauma because they will be connected.

So I suspect that when people are able to move on and let go of "parent wrongs" more easily, it is because they have had some opportunity to process it. Whether with their parents or through support of friends or community or even just someone telling them when they were still young and impressionable "you know what, that was wrong." Mostly people just want to feel like their experiences matter, and especially that if someone or something harmed them, that someone else cares. It is when people are left alone to deal with difficult experiences with no help, or event actively told "that didn't happen" or "your feelings about that are not merited" that people get stuck and struggle to move on.[/quote]
I agree being able to talk about it and being validated is an important step but don’t agree that is the only difference. There are people who go to therapy or are in self-help groups for years and can’t get past it. I think it’s mostly your personality - some people find forgiveness or empathy easier, some people tend to ruminate, some have anxiety and one experience colors all others, some are more resilient than others, etc.[/quote]

But people's personalities are shaped by their experiences. That's the whole point. The people who keep ruminating and struggle to move on may have had difference experiences. Specifically, they may have been forced to suppress or deny things that happened in their families, for years, and thus have a much harder time acknowledging them and moving forward.

My parents were pretty physically abusive when I was a kid. In my 20s I had a boyfriend whose mom had also been physically abusive. He didn't get why I struggled moving on from it. But our experiences were very different. He'd grown up in an immigrant community where many of the parents had been abusive the way his mom was. His cousins and friends had similar experiences, and they grew up commiserating about it with each other, and it was part of a community narrative of being 2nd gen in their community. In contrast, my parents' abuse was secret and I never knew anyone growing up who had a similar experience. I knew some of the things my parents did would be considered deeply shameful in our community, like my dad whipping us with a belt (which would have been associated with poor, uneducated white people, and a reflection of my dad's own poor upbringing). My siblings and I didn't even speak about these experiences with each other -- we were taught to shut down this sort of talk from younger siblings. My mom explicitly ordered us not to share certain things about our family with others because she knew it would reflect poorly on her. So I grew up with a ton of shame and isolation around this abuse, and it made it very hard to "move on" from, even in therapy.

So yes, it's "personality" but that makes it sound like it's just intrinsic to a person. It's not. People are moldable, for better or worse, especially as children.[/quote]

A lot of personality is intrinsic and  has a strong genetic component including things like anxiety and rigid thinking patterns.  Yes, you can learn to adjust those behaviors the same way someone who is not naturally strong can weight train, but personalities are often independent regardless of how you raise a child.  I agree with PP that two people may respond to the same conduct in different ways.
Social expectations are also a big part of it.  If parental criticism is expected in your culture, you might not experience it the same way as someone in a different culture, for instance.  I think that’s one thing that’s hard for parents to get — they don’t necessarily see that social standards have changed so stuff that was fine when their parents did  it is not longer viewed as fine.  As one example, for my old school Italian relatives, it was not considered weird for a mom to have keys to an adult kids house and let themselves in.  In other cultures, that would be considered really intrusive and a major violation of boundaries.  [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics