Parental relationships are the foundation for our entire lives. The way we attach to our mothers and our fathers in our infancy creates a defining impact on the way we relate to others. What we learn from our mothers and fathers teaches us what we are worth, how we should be loved, what love we should accept, and much more. Children are in need of healthy, functional parent relationships in order to feel confident, supported, and most importantly, unconditionally loved. Conflicted, abusive, neglectful, parent relationships, or a parent relationship where abandonment has been involved, causes a severe strain in a child’s life. Not only is the relationship between parent and child strained, but the child becomes strained with the stress of something so inherently fundamental in their lives not being right. Children carry the strain and stress of a broken parent relationship for the rest of their lives, in every area of their lives, which can lead to the development of emotional issues, psychological issues, physical issues, relationship issues, and much more.
The trauma of not having a fully present, fully loving parent is extremely real. During trauma treatment and therapy, if we are working on our parent “issues”, we are usually asked to think about the ideal parent. Who would we have wanted our parent to be? What would the love from that parent have looked like? How different would our lives have been/continue to be if we could just be loved and supported in that way from our parent? Next commences two challenging processes. First, we have to mourn our losses. We have to mourn the parent that we didn’t have including all of the hurts and disappointments. We also have to mount the parent that we did have and the potentially numerous losses of innocence which occurred in our young lives.
Second, we have to accept that our perfect parent may never come to us, that our current parents may never go through the miraculous and radical transformation which would be required to bring such a parent forth. Our therapists tell us that the responsibility is now up to us to be our own perfect parent and show up for ourselves, as well as all of our “inner children” in the ways we always needed and desired. In our next blog, we’ll look at who your perfect parent might be.
Everyone’s story starts before treatment. Everyone’s story changes the minute they arrive to treatment. The Guest House Ocala offers residential programming for trauma, addictions, and related mental health issues, customized to meet your unique needs. Call us today for information on life at the estate: 1-855-483-7800