For the first 40+ years of my life, I would have answered “No!” to that question with the justification of “what happened in the past needs to stay in the past, what’s the point of rehashing past experiences”. Today, my answer would be very different.
I learned firsthand how incredibly unhealthy it is for one to go about their adulting life, ignoring their childhood experiences within their family of origin. Why? Because left unexamined I can promise the people around you today are paying a huge price for that negligence.
I can now admit that I was so foolish all those years to turn a blind eye to the effects my childhood has played on my adulting life. Now I cringe when I hear someone boldly claims "Their past bears no weight on who they are today, so why bother to go there. What happened in the past needs to stay in the past." Unfortunately, that is a lie they have come to believe. That is also when a huge familiar imaginary sign pops up, flashing, "Beware! Beware! Beware!" Why? Because diminished self-awareness is very very toxic. These patterns of behavior seep into every area of your life.
The Holy Spirit has ever so gently been showing me this truth over the past couple of years in regard to my own childhood. This toxicity of my own diminished self-awareness came to fruition during a season shortly after the death of my dad when I had to begin reflecting more deeply on the full impact of my childhood experiences.
Understanding what it meant to be, a daughter, of emotionally diminished parents, as well as the only extraverted sibling of four sisters, in an alcoholic family.
Facing the realities of how addiction is not a solitary illness. This means that even though one member of the family may have introduced the addiction, each member is affected by it. Professionals fully understand that addiction is a family disease, and the effects it has on each of the family members are significant. Addiction can cause severe dysfunction in how a family communicates and interacts with each other.
My alcoholic family of
origin was no exception. To
cope with the unpredictable behaviors of my dad’s addiction day in and day out,
over the span of fifty-plus years, each family member has definitely adopted
their own certain maladaptive patterns of
behavior in order to cope with his
addiction. Unfortunately, these behaviors to this day interfere with each of
our abilities to lead fully healthy and normal adult lives.
During that season of facing my childhood realities and grieving my losses, I also had to overcome more pain and fear as they surfaced. The Holy Spirit used those memories from a completely different perspective to gently heal me from more deeply hidden wounds. Cancerous emotional wounds that had very potent and silent consequences on my marriage and the family of origin that my husband and I co-created.
I had to go back and reevaluate what kind of impact being a Third Culture Kid (TCK) had on me during the first half of my life. This time the Holy Spirit showed me how my dad was the final thread that I used to keep a stronghold on my past life that was no longer mine to keep present. What I learned was that while alcoholism had a major impact on my personal life especially within families of origin, being a TCK had more of a cultural stronghold on my life outside of my family of origin.
Both were major losses
I needed to grieve. Both stemmed from my childhood and were hugely instrumental in keeping me stuck in my life as an adult.
So, now I ask you, "How did your family of origin impact your adult life?"
***************
I pray you found what you were needing today. Please leave a comment below, I would love to hear how this post might have been helpful for you.
Remember you are not alone! No matter what you’ve done or failed to do you are still loved unconditionally by a very merciful and just Lord and Savior!
May God Bless You,
Leslie
No comments:
Post a Comment