I love that we are becoming more and more aware as a society. I am grateful that they have months dedicated to awareness on certain things. I love that people partake and are more aware and active in that month. For myself it isn’t just a month of awareness. For myself it has been a lifetime. From parents to children, spouses to friends. Mental health has lived in my day to day life from the time I arrived until this day. I am sure once I am gone it will continue to live on in my families lives for history tends to repeat. In this case genetics tend to get passed down.
I can not tell you what it looks like to everyone else, I can only tell you how and what it looked like for me. First and foremost family trauma is a crazy thing, along with mental health and addiction. I can not tell you if mental health is the first issue or if it is the family trauma and one gets caught in the cycle of it to be passed down from generation to generation. If the trauma creates a hiccup within your brain function and creates a mental health disorder, or if the brain is already on a misfire and it creates behaviors that damage families and create trauma. Both ways I would imagine. I am no doctor so I honestly have no idea, though if it crosses my mind quickly with little thought I would tend to think that both ways are truth. I do know that when we are raised within family trauma/cycles it becomes our norm so we can walk oblivious to damage until later in life or once we have had our own family and see damage we are doing. Or even the damage it is cause within us, holding us back, limiting our believes in ourselves and society. Again I can only go by my life cycles, family choices and what I have lived, someone else may have a totally different believe and that is a ok in my books. Share, that is how we learn and grow. I am not so narrow minded that I believe my way is the only way. On with my story.
My mother had trauma from a young age, which was a continual cycle of violence, abuse and addiction. From my understanding the cycle was brought down from generation to generation. It is not my place to tell my mothers story, though I can share how her untreated wounds, traumas and mental health effect my life. Without my mothers consent I really do not feel it is my place to share more of her story.
With my mothers childhood trauma it placed her in a spot where love looked different, I can not say 100 percent the visual it gave her, though I can say love hurt in her eyes. The people that you are suppose to entrust all your wellbeing and care at time of birth, the ones that are to keep you safe and loved failed her. With that, trust was something, as well, that had a unfocused picture. Her responsibilities within her family dynamics were heavy and painful from a very young age. At approximately 4 years of age my mother was no longer a child who was able to live free of fear, violence or abuse. Growing up some of our basic needs are safety. things like roof over your head, food in your tummy, and when one is brought up in a home were safety is not at the basic base of what we need it can create so much uncertainty. It can place one in a fight or flight. It can also make one separate from themselves, they have a logical side and a emotional side and the two sides do not jive together. This is where I believe anxiety and depression step in and your mental heath gains speedway. co dependency, addiction, the repeat of violence to gain control, false reality of self, self esteem, self worth, suicide and depression. Now this is the part I am unsure about, did my mother have some misfiring already happening inside her mind, or did the trauma that happened to her very young self, create the misfire or survival that created her crazy behaviors. At four it maybe be pretty hard to figure out if mental health was something she was already struggling with, I can tell you that after she definitely struggled. My mother struggled terribly. She tried to commit suicide, she acted out and behaved terrible, lots and lots of anger, she continued the cycle of violence by choosing a partner who I can only presume resembled how she felt about her self and her worth, medicated to numb and found addiction in other areas of her life, food being one of them.
I am not condemning my mother or trying to say she was a horrible human. She was not. She was a wounded child that carried her wounds with her into adulthood. She brought forth with her the cycle of family trauma that had been passed down for generations. She loved how she thought love was to look. She acted in ways that may seem crazy to others however it was her trying to get her needs met without really knowing what her needs were, she was seeking outside validation that she was good enough, worthy, cared for and that someone loved her. With all of this in place my mother had children, unwilling knowing that they would carry out the cycle. Which brings me to me.. 😉
Long winded so I will write more in next post