Butterflies and Boundaries

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Growing up in a large family with generational trauma and being stricken with financial instability, boundaries were not common. If one of my siblings were to want distance, our parents were there to guilt-trip us into being the "perfect and dutiful" child. Every last one of us wants to escape our parents' hold. Some are more successful than others. 

Children that are a by-product of dysfunction often muse how their life would have been better if their parents had sought therapy instead of a family. Every parent enters into parenthood with hope to not be like their parents but always end up being so much worse. 

— Like a house of cards inevitably falls down, parents are there to disappoint you.

When parents say, "We tried our best with what we had," they are gaslighting you to believe it isn't their fault they failed at being parents. "The cards were stacked against us," they will say when you are left with a cracked foundation as a result of a lifetime of childhood trauma. 

But eventually, you realize that they had stacked the deck AGAINST THEMSELVES and that is when the house of cards falls down. You begin to wonder what your life could have been if your parents would have improved their lives long before you were in the picture. If they had finished their education. If they had sought better employment opportunities. You can't live off of what-ifs and resentments, so you move on. Going low contact with those that were supposed to protect and provide for you. Hoping you don't become exactly like them. You build your own deck and play your cards right to live a life without regret or poverty.

— But time and time again, we fall back into old habits.

With an emotionally-distant father and a self-loathing mother who projects her insecurities onto her kids; it makes sense that my siblings and I want to abandoned and forget our childhood to rid ourselves from becoming like our parents. So, we become what we swore to destroy — it's unfortunate.

One can only take so much mistreatment, judgement, pressure to fulfill expectations, and mental anguish before enough is enough. The cycle ends here