To Former ‘Difficult’ Children
Most parents don’t realize how much their parenting struggles impacted their children in the long run, especially if they were very vocal or angry about those struggles. Mine certainly didn’t. It’s absurd- I am over 35 and I still feel guilty over my failure to breastfeed. I vividly remember my mom screaming at the top of her lungs because I forgot my lunchbox at school in pre-k for the second time. We were in the upstairs bathroom and she went from calm to enraged at the drop of a hat. Even then, I had internalized an unintentional message: I was somehow ‘wrong’ and needed to be ‘fixed.’ Over time I became ‘lazy,’ ‘difficult,’ and once in my late teens my dad said he had “lost the ability to empathize with me completely.” Like most parents, my mom and dad tried their best with the knowledge they had and don’t remember ANY of these things. These pivotal moments in our lives as ‘difficult’ children were just blips of stress, moments of struggle our parents were just trying to make it through, unable to look at the big picture and see the potential impact they were having on us.
If a parent or guardian ever called you a “difficult child,” I’d like to remind you it was THEIR difficulty. Every child is difficult because parenting is difficult and none of this was your fault. If your parents still interact with you through that lens just remember, you were a child. They were not. As a child, it was not your job to articulate or fully grasp your needs in a calm and clear manner. Children have tantrums. Children get overstimulated. Children don’t understand or can’t verbalize their emotions. Children lose control. Your struggles are valid, your emotions are valid and once again YOU WERE A CHILD! And it’s no wonder you were impacted by your parents’ reactions to you- as young children, we assume our family lives are the norm and our parents’ words and behaviors reflect objective truth. Children don’t question these these things because they have no basis for comparison.
Your reaction to your childhood now is as valid as it was then- and this extends to your reaction to your parents now even if they have changed or your relationship has shifted. I often feel guilt as my parents have put fourth real effort to treat me differently*, yet my nervous system doesn’t trust this effort just yet. You are allowed to have natural, instinctive feelings about your interactions and require time, space and/or healing. Even if what they’re currently doing or saying is innocuous, any feelings you have that seem ‘out of place’ or ‘left over’ are completely valid. Your parents don’t need to have had bad intentions for your feelings to be valid either. You were impacted by your parents’ behavior regardless. You also do not need to feel guilt or shame around setting boundaries with your parents just so you can heal, even if your current relationship is completely different (some people find the DBT skills ‘DEAR MAN’ or ‘DEAR MAN PLEASE GIVE’ helpful in setting boundaries, it’s easily accessible via any online search).
Some formerly ‘difficult’ children have an urge to over explain themselves as adults. We feel like we need to validate our decisions, our processes, even our very existence. This, too, is misplaced. If you find yourself making excuses for qualities you yourself don’t even see as flaws, it’s time to reassert your values over how you see yourself. Part X, your inner saboteur, can easily internalize messaging you got from childhood. And if you find you’re labeling yourself with the same things you internalized as a child such as ‘lazy’ ‘useless’ or ‘overdramatic,’ ask yourself “whose voice is this really?” And do what needs to be done to banish that voice. And if having shame around certain aspects of your identity DOES conform with your values, does the shame help you work on these things? Or does it, in fact, impede that process? (I’m genuinely asking, the answer may differ from person to person.)
Shadow work, which I’ll explain in depth in future articles, can also help in your healing journey. It’ll force you to get closer to and accept the parts of yourself that, as a child, you were pressured to banish, condemn or hide- parts that to this day you’re ashamed or embarrassed of (if we were speaking in IFS terms, these parts may be comparable to ‘exiles.’) When we accept our whole selves, it’s easier to heal from past pain as well as become resilient, confident and self assured despite not having been set up for those qualities as kids. It may appear daunting or even impossible, but remember that sometimes ‘moving on’ and ‘moving forward’ are not the same thing. It is possible to heal and become the best version of yourself despite having been a ‘difficult’ child.
*If your current interactions with your parents are just as destructive as when you were a child and your parents are NOT open or able to put fourth any effort towards changing this, perhaps it’s time to consider professional help with goals of not just healing, but detaching from them either partially or completely. There’s no reason to put your efforts towards healing the relationship with your parents if they are incapable of doing the same. It’s up to you to decide if this is the case and when enough is enough, but bringing in an outside perspective is often helpful in making that decision. P.S. I’m so sorry if your parents just can’t be bothered to even try for you. You’re trying and you were a child when the rift began - so I’ll remind you this is their failure not yours.
