Parent blaming!

I also experienced that many therapists try to base your entire mental situation on your childhood.

I found that to be pretty odd. Certainly there are many addicts and ill people who are mentally ill because of their bad upbringing and they are more prone to have a fucked up life, but it's not enough an explanation for everybody. Some therapists even made me question if I had such a good childhood after all, because it's so easy to blame all your problems on it. But it makes no sense.

Like I had the best childhood I could ever think of. Very caring parents, never ever any financial problems, best education, born in a rich country with good healthcare, no addictions/illnesses in all my environment, always supported me.

And yet here I am - addicted to PMO and alcohol since my youth and stuck in a bad job with a small circle of friends and prone to depression and suicidal thoughts. Many days I have a bad conscience because I think I'm utterly worthless, because I didn't seize the opportunities around me that millions of people on this planet would kill for if they had them.

There is no objective explanation for that. At least not an explanation that involves my parents. Addiction and depression can hit anybody, completely unregarded from their upbringing.

On the other hand I think that everybody has the tools to beat this addiction no matter his history, even though it's tough. So do you. And I hope very much your mum has a speedy recovery.

 

I don't exactly blame my parents, but I recognize all of their failings, also, I recognize the problems I had with them they probably had with theirs. So, really, if your parents are better people now, I mean, what can you do, continue the cycle? KNOW what your parents did wrong, its important, but whether you want to blame them or not its up to you, I don't. I actually prefer to focus to fix what was done to me. So, when therapists focus on your parents, they are totally right, sure, you might have another cause, but its up to you to talk to your therapist and with them try to understand what is happening with you.

 

When things go great in our lives we take credit, when things fall we look for someone to blame. Our parents, colleagues, friends, neighbors, every person we interact with... are responsible in some way for shaping us just as we are responsible in some way for shaping up the people we interact with.

I've seen individuals with super supportive parents and strong upbringing. Strong roots.

A child depends on parents for support. For vaccinations and medicine and schooling. Sadly emotional abuse scars aren't visible. We can't compare parenthood. Any pain is pain.

No child will hate their parent for no rhyme or reason. It's also true that parents did the best they could. The world was difficult a few generations ago. There was no internet. Relatives, friends, and neighbors aren't as helpful as shown in tv sitcoms. Life wasn't easy for parents and for some parents, their outlet of stress was the kids.

If any after counselling i've learnt what kind of parent I do not want to be. if you want to understand why your parents were the way they were, try finding out how their childhood was. chances are it wasn't great, and they passed on the toxicity toward you.

And yeah forgiveness isn't easy.

 

Man,

years ago when i first heard that parents will effect your attitude later in life i thought what bs. Surely we'd develop our own personalities and have overcome whatever it was they said or forgotten about it cause it was so long ago. I was so wrong and arrogantly ignorant. I myself found out that i carried motivations in life cause by the fact that when i was younger, i was never good enough for my dad. So i spend a big part of my life choosing to do things not because i was good at it or liked them but because i thought id get his approval in a certain way. Even picked up his mannerism and what not, his attitude towards relationship and women and tried to be like him. I only realised all this years later after i had a break down and then remembered all the things that were said to me when i was a kid. All of it stored in the subconscious slowly growing stronger over the years.

This story was told to me, i personally believe it to hold a measure of truth - say a kid falls from his bike and runs to his dad crying. Dad #1 says "dont be a wimp, boys dont cry so stop acting like a girl". Dad #2 says "hey champ, everybody falls. come here, gimme a hug". Depending on the dad's response, the child could view his own internal feelings in a good or bad way for the rest of this life. A 10 second interaction that could have life long effects.

I handle calls in a help hotline these days and although not every caller's problems involves parents cause sometimes it's just bad personal choices but you'd be surprised how many kids (and adults) are effected by parents who don't know how to emote with their kids in a healthy way. It is painful whether the child is 18 or 38. I don't use the word blame but it is undeniable that parents have a big INFLUENCE on the child especially since we have more shared experience with them at a much younger formative years. Thing is the influence could be subtle and effects takes longer to form vs a friend who influences our fashion sense and the effect is more immediate and visible. And it is ingrained in us as children to seek a parents love and approval even if we decide to outwardly rebel and say "fuck them, i don't need them". The heart can grow hard but the heart don't lie.

This brings me to parent blaming. I am not a trained psychologist so this is my amateur opinion. At a certain point, we have to realise that they are human beings too, carrying their own weakness, biasness and petty emotions even. And maybe like many people, they didn't know how to process their own painful memories in a healthy way. Many of just try to hide away the painful emotions and memories and in doing so, we may also hide the softer emotional parts of ourselves (cause that's the part that hurts), leaving usually the harder core of the person. It took me some time to understand that my dad carried his own pain from his dad and to learn how to forgive.

More than looking for someone to blame, i think it is important to know where our weaknesses/fears and motivations come from and to make corrective adjustments that will have long term benefits for us and help us to built a healthy emotional core.

@peacefulmagic 21 You sound like a good man and a decent son.

 

Ya man, so true.
Our Parents try their best but they can’t reach everywhere.

Take this addiction for instance.
I got exposed to the concept of Porn in school. People’d talk about it, and be like “Do you shake?” I would never understand it. Then they started naming models....Now it is not possible to convey every single detail of our lives to our parents...
And some day, out of excitement and Curiosity, I MOed, hiding it from my parents and well, here I am.


I know by experience what a HUMONGOUS ball of sadness it can be.
My best wishes, may your mom recover from this.
Take care!

 

To be honest I dont think everyone wants to be a parent. Most of the times society thrusts the responsibility on them. Also some people think having a child will be blissful, solve life issues.

Someone had once posted something like: 'my mom (A) had a mental illness. mom's mom (B) told A to get married, problem will be solved. B then told A to have a child (C), problem will be solved' it only made matters worse as C also developed issues.

It's also true that some of our issues can also be due to bad set of friends, neighbors, spouses.