She is here, you know. Right now. Watching. She sees all the bullshit everywhere. She sees how the holidays have a way of stirring up festering pots of trouble by forcing uncomfortable reunions between estranged adult parents and their adult children. What for? I am writing this post to shed light onto why I will be celebrating Thanksgiving this week with a curated list of the most important people in my life right now. My parents are not invited.
It took a long time to get here.
Once upon a time, imagine a little girl.
She has feelings. But she was always told they didn’t matter. She grew up thinking she was a burden to her parents. What a shame. They missed out. Because she tried. She never got into trouble or did any drugs. She did what she was told.
Me, age four, at Disneyland with my grandmother. I always had to wear anything on my head that gave the illusion of long hair, which I never had. Here the feathers did the trick.
Being their daughter was never enough. She wasn’t special enough to the very people she depended on. And she suffered greatly without ever really knowing why.
She made many mistakes, but that’s because she had to learn everything on her own. No one wanted to be her role model. No one had the time.
Her father was an alcoholic, and her mother was hell bent on fixing him. They had a baby, her, even though they probably shouldn’t have. She was perfect.
She now reads letters she wrote to them when she was away in England for a year. So much love. Did they not see it? Was it Stockholm Syndrome, the thing where you love and protect your captors out of some sort of false loyalty? Maybe. But a child is hard wired to love her parents. It’s survival. And if all the stars align, the attraction is mutual. For a baby to really thrive, she must feel treasured and appreciated. She needs to feel like she can grow up and do anything she sets her mind to do, become anything she dreams, while knowing her parents will have her back, be proud of her, and love her no matter what.
She was not a possession.
She was not their property to make them look good. She was not meant to be responsible for her mother’s endless temper tantrums over imagined slights to boost that fragile yet insatiably hungry ego.
I remember this photo well. I had been in the sun all day for mother's swim meet. I was tired and she was acting like the fun mom for the camera. I got yelled at for not wanting my picture taken soon after this shot.
She was not meant to be a peace-keeper or a band-aid that covered up her parents' aversion towards each other. She hated walking on the eggshells of mandatory compliance and immature behavior from the only people she needed to depend on. It was exhausting. She was her own soul, starved for affection, attention, and soul nourishment. Not because she was selfish, as they often said – quite the opposite.
She would have lassoed the moon if it would have made them happy.
She needed to survive because something was propelling her forward to become someone remarkable. She was told that she wouldn’t ever be enough on her own – in fact, she was discouraged from stealing her mother’s art spotlight. It was understood that her mother would get all the attention for her work. A child got caught in the middle. Her parents were too self-absorbed to notice she was sinking, slowly shriveling up in the clutches of self-doubt and wilting self-esteem. Because if her parents didn’t love her, the future was bleak.
Her job was not supposed to involve making her parents look good. It was her parents' job to make her feel good.
They put on quite a show for everyone on the outside. Imagine how she felt hearing how wonderful her parents were, but behind closed doors, the terror and volatility of a sudden shit storm was all too real. She may learn to trust her own perceptions of reality someday. If she’s lucky.
And she was.
But life was harder for her than it needed to be. She was sad most of the time and didn’t know why.
She flailed around aimlessly, trying to be the daughter she thought her parents needed. She followed a career path that pleased her mother. She became an illustrator to make them proud. She gave them something tangible in the form of a series of picture books to prove her devotion.
To her mother’s friends, she was and still is the thoughtless daughter who never appreciated her parents’ sacrifices.
All her mother's friends were trained as flying monkeys.
She was too young to understand that parenting is all about sacrifices. And you make them because you love your child.
At the time she didn’t know what it was like to not have to try hard to earn someone’s love.
She married the wrong man. Of course she did. She had a rotten father who had no capacity for loving his only child. Her mother also lacked healthy parental instincts. For this young girl, it was only natural that love could be defined by familiar avoidance while trying desperately to attain the unattainable. Unavailability must equal love.
When she grew up, she thought having children would fill the void she didn’t know she had. The emptiness ran so deep she was afraid to think for herself because she was convinced she wasn't capable. Her mother and father knew what was best, didn’t they? They wanted to see her married off to reap the rewards of their pervasive illusion of normalcy. Her mother threw a lavish wedding. And not because she loved her daughter (that was a tough pill to swallow once she figured it out). No, it was because the wedding would impress. That particular day it was all about her mother showing everyone her daughter was marrying into money.
Did she ever ask how her daughter really felt about marrying a man 20 years older? Did she really love him? Did she make sure her daughter knew what she was getting into? It never came up.
She was a good wife. She loved him. It is surprising to think that someone who grew up in a house of neglect and emotional trauma could function much at all. But she had a fire within. It may have taken a while to ignite, but once it did, she became alive. And she realized who she was meant to be, and could finally escape the prison of growing up in a house reeking with the stench of indifference and contempt.
She was not her parents or what they thought. She slowly understood it wasn’t her fault. And only then could she find the strength to direct her own sails.
A disclaimer.
This is not a pity post. Not even close. I am 100% taking responsibility for my life and the choices I have made. I know I did the best I could at any given time with the mental and emotional tools I had available.
For years I felt this surge of loyalty towards my parents. I thought I was the one who was the problem. Imagine the relief when my stories were heard with compassion and empathy. I wasn’t shot down for speaking my truth. The ground did not open to swallow me up and send my ungrateful soul into hell for eternity. Honor your father and mother, damn it. This was quoted at me often.
Quite the opposite happened. I got better. Living through my childhood was a blessing in disguise. I’m not being Pollyanna and encouraging bad parenting practices by excusing them because your kids can turn out ok if you are a tyrant. No.
The therapeutic aspect kicks in when as an adult you realize you do not have to keep people in your life who bring you down and make you physically ill when around them. People who would have me feel bad about myself only to inflate their own egos have no place in my life. And if these sorts of people happen to be my parents, then so be it. We don’t have to follow their same dysfunctional path that we so desperately knew was wrong but were too young to put into perspective. But we can learn to trust ourselves and know that just because people may be blood related, that doesn’t make them family. If they continue to hurt and belittle you as an adult, you do not have to tolerate being the family scapegoat. I decided to surround myself with people who bring out my very best. I treasure those connections; I’ll nurture them and won’t let them go.
It’s time to rethink the idea of family. And I find this especially true when the holidays creep up and happy families seem to come out of the woodwork as a constant reminder that you are not so fortunate.
The truly fortunate ones are those whose houses are filled with love and laughter over the holidays. Who you welcome into your home is completely up to you. Having obligations towards those who let you down you will keep you trapped in pain. And that is giving back your control to people who never deserved it.
Wishing all of you a healthy and happy Thanksgiving.