Adult Children…

Chapter 3 Thoughts

This chapter focuses on the childhood difficulties caused from emotionally immature parents. There were a lot of issues that mom and dad caused but this chapter starts with a check list of painful difficulties that emotionally immature parents may have caused. I noted 13 out of 15 for this assessment when recalling how my parents acted and affected me.

[My parent’s moods affected the whole household.] There was never a day that we didn’t walk on egg shells to make sure that dad’s mood was protected and considered.

[My parents weren’t sensitive to my feelings.] When I wore the red sunglasses indoors after school for days at a time until I went to bed, there wasn’t a discussion of what I was feeling or why I was doing it. Only later did I find out my parents believed it was because I was depressed. The why wasn’t it talked about?

[I felt like I should have known what my parent wanted without being told.] Even at a young age we were told that we were expected to know what to be doing and already be doing it without having to be told.

[I felt like I could never do enough to make my parents happy.] Even if I got good grades or listened or did what I was supposed to, I was left with this empty feeling that nothing was ever good enough. Mostly because there was always another explosion of anger around the corner even if it wasn’t our fault and we had to bear the brunt of the fall out.

[I was trying harder to understand my parents than my parents were trying to understand me.] I spent a lot of time trying to make sense of my parents short comings including the fact that their parents really fucked them up too and were not emotionally intelligent either. However, whenever I brought up having issues it wasn’t met with understanding and curiosity, it was shut down with “you don’t have it that bad, we had it worse,” amongst other things.

[Open, honest communication with my parents was difficult or impossible.] Mom telling us that we had to keep certain things to ourselves led me to believe that both dad and her would not be tolerant to specific kinds of information and made me feel like sharing would not be in my best interest.

[My parents thought people should play their roles and not deviate from them.] As children we were expected to be away from the adults and not seen or heard unless required. We had to be respectful and obedient and were met with criticism and punishment if we deviated slightly from how we should be perceived.

[My parents were often intrusive or disrespectful of my privacy.] From taking doors off hinges to going through dresser drawers periodically, it was never a safe space.

[I always felt that my parents thought I was too sensitive or emotional.] Even recently it was made clear that any feelings I’ve had on how we felt we were treated would be met with incredulity and ridicule. “Oh, I traumatized my daughters, I traumatized my daughters, HA!”

[I often felt pent-up anger towards my parents that I couldn’t express.] Anger was often hurled at us kids, but if we ever dared speak up it was seen as “back-talking” and punished.

All of these things I’ve felt, but even to this day if I bring them up they will be dismissed and thought of being overly emotional. Just the other week my mother still said she doesn’t understand why we couldn’t just let what our father said roll off us and not let it get to us…like she did with her father. Well because it’s not something that she was able to let roll off her or move on from. She carried those memories and scars with her and gave them to her own children too.