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Thank you for the kind words.

It's less blame/resentment (though I admit I'm still working on it) and more that pretending my childhood was just fine and my parents were absolved of everything just because they tried their hardest was exactly what kept me trapped in a vicious cycle for far too long. Some things go beyond "just" bad parenting and into the level of abuse and potentially lifelong physical/mental conditions. Only by admitting to myself that yes, I was not at fault for all my own misfortunes and maybe someone else did share the blame, was I finally able to start healing.

One of my goals is to isolate the healthy parts of blame from the all-consuming and unproductive ones, which I'm still working on.

For my case (and I speak for nobody else), I don't want to have children until I'm 100% certain I will not make the same mistake as my forbearers and pass down their trauma to my offspring. Some of that decision-making is out of my hands until I've had enough therapy and healing. That's just what abusive parenting does to a person's psyche.

And for what it's worth, I can't predict how my perspectives on parenting will change if I become a parent myself, but even in that case I will never stop believing my own parents were abusive. No model of how the world works makes sense to me without that understanding anymore.



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