Dear Parent of an Estranged Adult: What Might Repair Your Relationship
Dear estranged parent,
So why did your son or daughter cut you out of their life?
I …
Dear estranged parent,
So why did your son or daughter cut you out of their life?
I …
âThere are two things you should never waste your time on: things that donât matter and people who think that you donât matter.â ~Ziad K. Abdelnour Â
âWhat is wrong with me?â I asked myself. Crying in the dark of the night. âWhy doesnât he love me?â
Iâd tried to fold myself in all the ways I could to be loved and accepted, but it was never enough. I found myself repeating patterns of chasing men who just didnât want me. Same cry in the night, different men.
The more I chased them, the more they ran away, and the deeper …
“And some days life is just hard. And some days are just rough. And some days you just gotta cry before you move forward. And all of that is okay.” ~Unknown
I have always struggled with low moods. I guess that considering that I spent close to twenty years of my life inactive and depressed, this could be seen as progress. But that still didnât feel good enough.
I wanted to feel more balanced, light, and happy, and I wanted to achieve it in natural ways without having to take any kind of medication since that hadnât worked for …
âNever make the mistake of thinking you are aloneâor inconsequential.â ~ Rebecca McKinsey
I can still remember it as vividly as if it happened yesterday.
Our kitchen was small. Only enough room for a few people, and there were four of us kids scrounging to get our hands on the rest of the leftovers. It wasnât a fight, but I can say with certainty that there was an underlying assumption that whoever got their hands on it first was able to claim it, so there was competition.
I grabbed my spoon first and then went to the fridge to …
âGrowth is uncomfortable because youâve never been here before. Youâve never seen this version of you. So give yourself a little grace and breathe through it.â ~Kristin Lohr
I was kinda sorta showing up.
To the outside world, it looked like I was doing all of the things. I was smiling. I was talking about exercise and eating well. I was posting happy, positive vibe quotes, but I wasnât really showing up for myself.
I had experienced a miscarriage at thirteen weeks. This was supposed to be the safe zone. I had told family and friends. My husband and I …
TRIGGER WARNING: This post deals with an account of sexual abuse and may be triggering to some people.
âRecovery is a process. It takes time. It takes patience. It takes everything youâve got.â ~Unknown
We are often told in therapy that we need to dig deep and explore our feelings until we find the root of our problem, as though weâll finally have peace and relief just because weâve found the âNugget of Trauma.â
The problem with long-term childhood trauma is that there was not just one Nugget, or one moment that we were left reeling from. For many of …
âNew beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.â ~Lao Tzu
In the middle of a storm, it is difficult to see any way out. But on the other side, we usually can recognize a silver liningâsomething we gained from the experience that enhanced our lives in some way.
When my husband unexpectedly died and left me a single mother to three young children, I could not conceptualize anything good coming out of it.
Yet, years later, I am here to tell you that the gutting, heart-wrenching experience taught me invaluable lessons that have helped me to not just survive but …
âI was once afraid of people saying, âWho does she think she is?â Now I have the courage to stand and say, âThis is who I am.ââ ~Oprah WinfreyÂ
In May of this year, I decided to take a personal development course, hoping to resolve some of my limiting beliefs and raise my confidence to pursue my professional goals.
The course turned out to be far different from what I thought it would be, and it blew my mind. In just three days, I transformed the way I functioned in most of my relationships.
A week before the course, I …
âA season of loneliness and isolation is when the caterpillar gets its wings.â ~Mandy Hale
I feel so alone right now. Like, crawling out of my skin, Iâll do anything I can do to not feel this way alone.
I havenât felt this way in a long time. Thank goodness I have tools to take care of myself. Let me explain.
My earliest childhood memory is my motherâs empty bed. The sheets are white, untucked, and messy. The duvet cover is loose and hanging halfway on the floor. The room is quiet, thereâs no sign of mom, and I …
TRIGGER WARNING: This post deals with accounts of sexual harassment and assault and may be triggering to some people.
âThere can be a deep loneliness that comes from not having a family that has your back. I hope you can find supportive people who show up for you.â ~Laura Mohai
I feel and have felt extreme sadness, anger, isolation, and fear over several sexual harassments and assaults in my life.
The first time I was sexually assaulted I was seven. I was at a friendâs birthday pool party. My friendâs dad put his hand down my swimsuit and grabbed my …
âItâs okay to let go of those who couldnât love you. Those who didnât know how to. Those who failed to even try. Itâs okay to outgrow them, because that means you filled the empty space in you with self-love instead. Youâre outgrowing them because youâre growing into you. And thatâs more than okay, thatâs something to celebrate.â ~Angelica Moone
I thought I had married the love of my life. I had never felt a connection so strong before. I was sure he was my soul mate, and I thoroughly believed he was my twin flameâmy one and only.
I …
âWe can all make powerful choices. We can all take back control by not blaming chance, fate, or anyone else for our outcome. Itâs within our ability to cause everything to change. Rather than letting past hurtful experiences sap our energy and sabotage our success, we can use them to fuel positive, constructive change.â ~Darren Hardy
I parked my car and began to walk toward the mall while covering my puffy eyes with black sunglasses. I was fresh out of a session with my therapist, where I had hit a breaking point. We both came to the conclusion that I …
âWhen itâs time for something new, you will feel it. You will feel a desire to let go, to shed layers, to move, to re-create. You will know because there will be subtle shifts all around you. You will release the old because you are really clearing the path for whatâs ahead. Trust the process.â ~Brianna Wiest
I landed myself in the ER three days short of my twenty-fifth birthday, due to a mental health crisis.
It was January, always a difficult month for me. The holiday season tends to be stressful, and I’d recently visited my parents back home, …
“As traumatized children, we always dreamed that someone would come and save us. We never dreamed that it would, in fact, be ourselves as adults.” ~Alice Little
Like most people, I used to run away from my pain.
I did it in lots of different and creative ways.
I would starve myself and only focus on what I could and couldnât eat based on calories.
I would make bad choices for myself and then struggle with the consequences, not realizing that I had made any choice at all. It all just seemed like bad luck. Really bad luck.
Or I …
âYou are allowed to terminate your relationship with toxic family members. You are allowed to walk away from people who hurt you. You donât owe anyone an explanation for taking care of yourself.â ~Unknown
You might think I’m a monster because I don’t have a relationship with my parents. I don’t spend holidays with them; I don’t call them and reminisce; they don’t know pertinent details about my life, my friends, my family, my work, or even the person I have become. Do these facts shock you?
It is possible that you have only known loving, supportive parents. Parents who …
âYour children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Lifeâs longing for itself⊠You may give them your love but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrowâŠâ ~Kahlil Gibran
Now that my daughters are in therapy trying to heal their relationship with me, I have more compassion than ever for my mom. I havenât felt angry at her in years. But when I was a teen, I earnestly desired to kill her more than once.
I …
âI love when people that have been through hell walk out of the flames carrying buckets of water for those still consumed by the fire.â ~Stephanie Sparkles
I have a tattoo on my back of Charles Bukowski’s quote âWhat matters most is how well you walk through the fire.â It spoke to me as I had been walking, often crawling, through a fire for much of my life.
At times, I took different paths, skipping through fields of flowers, but eventually I would find my way back to what I knew, which gave me a strange sense of comfortâthe fire …