Share your experience with overcoming the abuse/neglect of your parents

[HokeyReligions]

If your parents died right now - ask yourself how you would take care of yourself? live in a shelter? stay with a friend? Take whatever legal jobs you could and force yourself to have a positive attitude about them and ask yourself everyday "what can I learn from this job today?"

 

Then do it. Having control over your life and taking responsibilities for your decisions - good or bad - can empower you to 'tell yourself' how to manage the emotional scars, or baggage, every single one of us has. It's a daily, if not minute-by-minute, activity in which you cannot be passive.

 

There was a line in some goofy old romantic movie that I thought was rather poignant (at least to me). "Childhood is what you spend the rest of your life trying to overcome" It's how you assert yourself and how much of a participant you are in the "overcoming" part that is important.

 

I married a man who I knew was abused and neglected, but the repercussions of that abuse STILL show up in unexpected and surprising ways & quite often. He's in his 60's now & we've been together for over 30 years. The more I learn about myself the more the neglect from my own past comes to my mind, and my heart too sometimes. We've both made mistakes in how we have dealt with these things over the years; and we've both had poor judgment sometimes - but we also realize that even at our ages, we are still growing and still learning and are better able to deal with the past each day.

 

Learning about our parents pasts and understanding that what we think and feel now - they also experienced in similar form during their lives too. They thought they changed and were better parents than their parents, but really only the details changed - the emotional experiences were similar.

 

I may be a female, but how I got through it - and how I deal with the bad bits of my past is that ever day I "man up". I don't analyze anymore. I don't rehash or repeat or react - I just get up and man up and when I go to bed, I have fewer regrets and I'm another day distanced from every hurt or slight - real or imagined.

 

It's different for everyone - we all reach for our peace of mind in different ways and find it in different places. But one thing that is the same - peace of mind must be achieved repeatedly because it's not like "once baptized - always baptized" as some religions believe. Peace of mind is not a constant and LIFE is what it takes to find it.