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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I haven't "moved on". My childhood shaped me in lots of ways - some very positive and some very hard. I spent years figuring out who I am and who I want to be, and what some of the drivers of my behaviors are, etc...

Lots of therapy. Lots of work. Lots of patience.

I accept that my parents did the best they could.

I accept that their best was in many ways profoundly damaging to me.

I accept that they loved me and were products of their own damaging past.

I love them.

I craft careful boundaries around my interactions with them so that I felt safe and could still have a relationship with them.

I'm an adult so for quite some time have felt like I get to have primary responsibility for who I am and want to be. They shaped me but I get to reshape me as I see fit.

I did this for decades and managed to make it work. Both parents are deceased now and I have no substantive regrets - which I consider a HUGE blessing. That was pretty much my best case scenario.

So it's never really been about "moving on" for me. That just doesn't ring true.
[/quote]

This rings true for me. My parents are still alive but this is about what I feel. It would not be accurate to say I have "moved on" or am trying to "move on" because your childhood experiences become part of who you are. I can't magically become someone who didn't go through these things, and I think if I tried, it would just wind up coming up in other dysfunctional ways and potentially harm more people. I choose radical acceptance. This is what happened.

And like PP, I recognize that my parents were shaped by their own abusive, neglected childhoods. I can't reach back into the past and fix those anymore than I can fix my own. I actually agree with the other PP that it's not helpful to say "they did their best." I do in fact think they could have done better. If I didn't think that, I would not have become a parent myself because if I believed so little in personal agency, then I would not have believed I could break these generational patterns with my own kids.

So it's like: I love my parents. I resent my parents. I feel bad for my parents. I am sometimes angry at my parents. I know I deserved better. I know they deserved better. Also: I love myself. I love my kids. I know what my kids deserve because it's what I didn't get. I work hard to give that to my kids, and when it results in a positive family life for me, I am proud of myself for helping to create that. I am not estranged from my parents. I have good strong boundaries with my parents. Sometimes when I see my parents, I think about all this and feel sad, hurt, regretful, or mad. When I feel that way, I do the things I need to do to work through those feelings so I can show up for myself and my kids. It can feel cyclical at times but I have also come to appreciate how strong I am to keep working through this, and to find ways to get myself what I need even though I didn't get what I needed as a kid.

So no, it's not about moving on or moving past it. It's about learning to live with the hurt and find pathways to creating something new and better even while carrying that history with me.[/quote]

Thank you for this. Love it. Indeed, it's not about moving on or moving past, but learning to live with it and do better ourselves, because we can, because we know we can do better.  [/quote]

+1.  There are some real gems on this thread.[/quote]

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