This is something that I hold very close to my heart and for a long time, I never felt like it was an issue until I started realising that it felt like a catalyst to a lot of things happening in my life and the way I perceived and handled situations that are presented to me.
I'm not sure if this will ever go up onto findmeclarity because I feel like that space is a little too public and maybe this may not be so coherent after a while because I'm just trying to type out whatever is going on in my head right now. I'm trying not to sugarcoat my thoughts.
Blame it on PMS, but the last 2 weeks I've been struggling quite a bit internally. Maybe it's because I've finally
figured some shit out last semester thanks to my first trip to the counsellor, or perhaps it's due to the fights and arguments over Skype I've had with my dad recently. Many friends tell me about how shit it is to have fights with their significant other over Skype or on the phone and even though I don't have a boyfriend as a SO, (and sometimes they think that I do not empathize... but) I
do have a father that is pretty significant in my life and fighting with him
sucks.
So ever since I *thought* I figured out the root cause of where a lot of my unhappiness and internal conflicts were stemmed from the way I was brought up aka linked it to my dad, I unloaded a lot of blame, shame and guilt on his method of parenting. I keep repeating that children are always a shadow of your parents, and this statement just screams me. I won't go into the details today but there are many resounding facts or incidents that have occurred over the last 20 years that convinces me that I am a shadow of my parents.
But today, I just stumbled across an article written by the oh-so-famous Mark Manson, called
It's Not All Your Parents' Fault. You know how when you feel strongly after reading/watching certain things it's because you either share the same sentiments with whatever you just read/watched, or it is something that goes against what you believe in, right? After reading this article, it kind of felt like a mixture of both.
It felt like after struggling so hard and finding a little bit of reason behind all of these thoughts, this article felt like it was stealing a bit of my truth and telling me that I was wrong (partially, but it still sucks) in believing whatever I've been trying to comfort myself with the past year. It went against what I wanted to believe in. What I wanted to convince myself to believe. And I was doing an ace job the past few months, let me tell you.
You see, I agreed that for the longest time, like any other child, you always see your parents as just... parents. I found it terribly hard to believe it in my core that parents are not 100% correct all the time and they are flawed, too. Because they are only human. That was a conflict I had with myself whenever they did or said something to me that didn't feel "right". I never told myself that they were the ones that were wrong. It was always me, my fault. I had to change, not them. It almost felt unnatural to tell myself that my parents are the ones that were handling it wrong because... they!! are!! my!! parents!! They know what's right! Just listen to them and nothing will go wrong.
Until I made that connection that they
can be wrong and suddenly things just clicked for a bit. It still stirs up a bit of emotion whenever I write this or talk about this particular revelation I had.
Mark Manson reiterated this point in his article:
Therefore, as children, we naturally come to see our parents as infallible.
And there’s a deep sense of security that comes with knowing that our parents always have the answer, always know what’s right, and always know what to do next.
But at some point, as we grow up, something terrifying happens. We realize that our parents are flawed. And we realize they have problems. Sometimes serious problems.
And what’s worse, once we hit our twenties and thirties, we start to realize that we also have problems, many of which are similar to the problems that mom and dad have too!
Therefore, it’s almost impossible to not draw some sort of correlation between mom and dad’s behavior growing up and our own behavior as an adult. They’re too similar to ignore.
So what Mark Manson discussed in his article did highlight some points which I felt went against what I wanted to or tried to or just simply, believed in:
- Parenting methods have no noticeable effect on our permanent personality traits
Well, he mentioned that there are effects, but just not as astounding as we think they actually are. He explained it with the reason of genetics, instead of parenting methods and conditioning.
The influence is just small, much smaller than Freud thought. And much smaller than most of us tend to think.
About 45% of our permanent personality is determined by our genetics. About 55% is determined by our environment and life history. Our relationship with our parents falls somewhere under that 55% umbrella of environment and life history.
Yes, your parents are just another part of your overall “environment” and not emotionally special in some way.
I'm still trying to wrap my head around this argument and attempting to link it back to my own relationship with my father. Because for the longest time, whenever he said things that were hurtful, I always gave it the excuse of saying, "oh because
HIS father used to do that."
- My peer group and social life are mainly the ones that shape my self-perception, self-worth etc
In fact, a lot of research suggests that outside of major traumas, our peer group and social life as a child has far more influence on our self-perception, our self-worth, and who we eventually become than our parents do.
What I mean is, on average, statistics show: shitty parents in a good environment are better than good parents in a shitty environment. Environment simply matters more.
A lot of this isn’t easy to read. If you had particularly shitty parents and you’ve held onto the belief that your life’s problems come from how your parents mistreated you, your stomach may be rolling right now.
Conflicted. Yes, my stomach is rolling.
It felt like a lot of the truth I have been holding close to my heart has been shaken after reading this part. Because for the longest time I always saw my friends as a support group, don't get me wrong, they are still the best supporters, but to have this concept that the peers that I have viewed a certain way are now found out to be influencers on our self-perception, self-worth etc...... okay now that I'm typing this out and actually a.b.s.o.r.b.i.n.g this information, it feels almost like common sense.
A close friend once told me that who you are is basically the mixture of the top 3 people you hang out with. That sentence makes a lot of sense and till this day, I still reasonate with it. When my closest friends and I were all growing up and trying to survive secondary school while struggling to live through adolescence, eating disorders, useless crushes, depression, self-harm and shitty family issues, it was hard trying to be happy and supportive people when we were all trying to get ourselves out of our own sinking holes. Perhaps affirmation and support was what we all really needed to give one another at that point in time before we solidified our own self-worth as negative and self-perception as fat, untalented or useless.
But looking back on the circumstances, who can we truly blame? Each other for not being understanding, supportive or strong enough? Our family for being a wreck and causing so much pain? Ourselves for being too weak, self-destructive and hopeless?
No one. We blame no one. It's not their fault, neither is it our parents' fault and most importantly, it isn't our fault. The easiest thing someone can do is find an outlet where they can channel all the blame towards. We always want to find a reason to explain things and this is no different. The whole time, I was searching for a reason to explain why I was constantly thinking a certain way, repeating shit outcomes in various situations I place myself in and so easily and subconsciously I blamed it all on myself.
Now at 20, I know my friends are all moving in the right direction and getting better, no matter how slow or how fast. So perhaps my constructed perception of myself and how I view things to be are solidified with experiences and the environment I was in when I was 14 or 15.
This point that he wrote made me think quite a bit and I reflected on what I've been trying to do the past year. Through conversations with my mum (mostly her) and my dad, I would like to think that they slightly understand a little bit more of where I'm coming from.
Mum has been nothing but wonderful the past year. If anything, I think building up strong communication and awareness about how you feel towards certain things being said and how you react to it causes other people, like my own mother, to be more tactful and definitely more aware. I am grateful that she has been open to the idea of so many things that I know she wouldn't have been a couple of years ago. Initially, she struggled to come to term with my issues that I presented with, and we've had a couple of disagreements and fights about blaming and guilt over it. So are you trying to say I'm a bad parent now? Is it my fault now? Are you trying to make me feel guilty when I am already trying to do the best that I can? That kind of thing. But all has come to pass (for now) and I can only hope for the same to come with my dad.
It's not a matter about who sucks in this situation or who is at fault. The fact that I'm trying to learn how to be okay with myself and my flaws is still a work in progress, and it's just unfortunate that given my relationship with my father, genetics **, the environment and peers I've surrounded myself with has led to me to this construction and perception of self. It's also fortunate at the same time, given my relationship with my father and mother, genetics **, the environment and peers that I've surrounded myself with has led to the gradual improvement in my construction and perception of self.
To see a counsellor this year was a big move for me, and putting it out there aka talking to my family about it was another big move. I never thought too much about it, because I really do try to be as open as possible with my family. But when I told my counsellor about discussing about this issue with my family, she told me that many kids only try to figure these issues out when their parents are dead. So at 20, to open up this topic for discussion is something that not many people do, and she told me to believe that it was a good and commendable thing to be able to do so. On some days I believe that it is a good thing, but on other days it gets a bit harder to believe that things will get better once I've exposed my weakness in front of the people that have hurt me before.
But what I've learnt is that family will always love you. They try to show it perhaps in ways that I don't see it as a form of an expression of love, but family will never actively try to hurt you.
To end this post off, I'll end it with Mark Manson's last few paragraphs which made me go eogheotgjeltgkjgnw... i don't know. It makes sense.
Till the next time.
Every parent screws something up with their kids. Some really fuck things up. They all do it. And we’re all going to do it. Partly because many of our problems have genetic roots. But also because it’s simply impossible to permanently control the environment a child grows up in.
To continue to hold our parents responsible for their negative influence on our lives is to return to the mindset of a child — a mindset where we feel entitled to have everything fixed for us and where we perceive the responsibility for our lives to reside outside of ourselves. This position is understandable, but it’s something that must be let go.
I believe you could define true adulthood as relinquishing the narcissistic and childish expectations of what our parents should have provided for us, and what they should have accomplished in raising us.
True adulthood is letting go of the notion that mom and dad somehow gave us all of our problems and admitting that, regardless of where they came from, our problems are our own, that we are responsible for ourselves, and while we can’t control our genetics or our life history, we can always control what we do based on them.
True adulthood occurs when we realize that our parents didn’t dig the hole that we find ourselves in today, but rather that they’ve been trying to climb out themselves their whole lives. That the abuser was once the abused. That the neglecter was once the neglected. It’s not all their fault. To be honest, at some point, it doesn’t even matter whose fault it is. Because it’s always your responsibility.
So if it’s a big hole, start climbing.
