On Blaming Our Parents

Breathing in, I feel the tension.
Breathing out, I see my trauma.

Virtually none of us are born into normal families — normal in the sense where our parents loved each other and got along. Normal, where the delicate see-saw of balancing the unbearable weight of expectations and the brittleness of acceptance is skillfully juggled. Normal, where happy memories are plentifully abundant that we take them for granted. It’s a blessing to be able to take happy memories for granted.

Perhaps, then, it’s worth reframing what normal means. To grow up in a “normal” household is to grow up in a deficient household. One where most of us feel neglected. One where most of us grew up in an environment where we felt unsafe, unseen. Where alcohol is spoken of more than ice cream, beatings taken more than compliments, nightmares experienced when awake, not asleep.

When we’re aware of our trauma, it’s natural to blame our parents for any associated trauma we might have. But blaming doesn’t solve anything. Yet, it doesn’t mean that our parents are entitled to a get-out-of-jail-free card.

When we awaken to our own traumas, we’re awakened to how helpless we were as children. We’re also awakened to how asleep our parents are, unable to see the four corners of their own jail cell. That it’s not their fault.

To see that the chain of trauma began not from them, that they are acting out of their own traumas, pain, and suffering does not absolve them of responsibility. Blame them, all you want — for they deserve to be blamed.

Breathing in, I feel the tightness in my chest.

Breathing out, I embrace the tightness in my chest.

Breathing in, I hold the tightness.

Breathing out, I feel the tightness.

Hold. Feel.

For a long time, I thought that exercising my mind’s eye to see the underpinnings of my trauma would liberate me. To be able to see that my trauma is not a product of my parents’ doing, as their trauma is not a product of their own. But practicing that simply became a form of repression for me.

To behave like I’ve forgiven them just because I can intellectually grasp that felt like a betrayal to myself. And for a long time, I couldn’t admit that to myself. To be able to see your parents’ source of trauma does not mean that you are no longer allowed to be angry at them.

Be angry. Let those emotions out.

Breathing in, I feel the tension in my stomach. Breathing out, I embrace the tension in my stomach. Feel, embrace.

To be able to embrace the underlying feelings stemming from trauma is what our parents couldn’t do. When we embrace feelings, particularly negative ones, we give them space to transform. This transformation might take time — and it might morph into something more intensely angry, sad, and perhaps neutral someday.

But, give it time.

Allow yourself to feel these feelings.

Get acquainted with them.

Understand them.

Befriend them.

And know that even after befriending them, it does not mean your parents are fault-free. They’re still at fault. And being able to blame them, despite seeing reality as it is, is to be able to accept reality. And to accept reality, the reality that is our parents, is a large part of accepting them. With acceptance comes forgiveness.

Or you might never be able to forgive them.

Even then, the process of feeling your trauma and allowing yourself to see your pain, to feel your own pain, gives it less power. And the less power you give away, the more power you regain.

The power to stop the cycle of trauma is one that you have.

That we all have.

Even if you can’t forgive your parents, choose to stop the cycle. Even if we keep playing the blame game, know that playing the game only means that we have to exercise more awareness and power over our own trauma.

For if not, how different are we from our parents? For if not, we might arguably be worse than our parents — for we’re hypocrites if we choose to play the game, yet keep perpetuating the cycle.

Play the blame game.

Allow yourself to feel.

Even if we don’t end up forgiving, at least we get to redefine what normal means for our kids in the future. The responsibility we all have is to ensure that our kids don’t have to play the blame game in the future. For who wants to be blamed?

Breathing in, I see the source of my trauma.

Breathing out, I stop the cycle of trauma.

And maybe, perhaps, we’ll find it in our hearts to forgive our parents someday. The day when we realize that forgiveness is not for them but for ourselves. That to forgive them is to allow our body’s tension to fully release.

Forgiveness is not to do them a favor; but to do ourselves a favor.

Breathing in, I see my trauma.

Breathing out, I smile at my trauma.

Breathing in, I befriend my trauma.

Breathing out, I befriend my mother.