Intergenerational Wounds

[Revision: Revision. Revision made twice. I didn’t like what I wrote both times so hopefully this one stays.]

There is a particular weight to loss that extends beyond the simplicity of death. It is a quiet, lingering heaviness that accompanies the loss of dreams, foreclosed possibilities, and experiences that never came to be. This year, I have encountered more than my share of losses. The grief has woven itself into the very fabric of my existence, and at times, I find myself barely able to stand under its weight.

When my parents traveled to visit me, a small part of me yearned for comfort, hoping that maybe this time, they could be the parents I had always longed for. But in the end, their inability to be that for me only compounded my grief. I sit with this realization now, and it is more than just the loss of the past; it is the loss of hope, of expectation, of the wish that things could somehow be different.

Attachment theory suggests that unresolved conflicts from our childhood tend to replicate themselves in adulthood. We unconsciously recreate familiar patterns, seeking resolution in the places that once hurt us. My father, wounded deeply by his own traumatic childhood, grew up under the harsh judgment of a mother who was impossible to please, in a world of poverty and despair. As an immigrant in a country where he knew no one and spoke none of the language, his survival is nothing short of remarkable. Yet, that survival came at a cost—a cost that is now being passed down through the generations.

I find myself caught in the web of this intergenerational trauma, tangled in a family dynamic that seems inescapable. I am aware of the role I play in this twisted dance: my father projects his unresolved conflicts onto me, eliciting from me responses that are unkind, mean, and cruel. I become someone I don’t recognize, someone capable of hurting him in ways that feel unnatural to me. It’s as though he is splitting me into two, turning me into the “bad mother” who will ridicule him, fulfilling the prophecy of his own internalized pain.

I have studied mental health with a passion, and I understand the complexity of intergenerational trauma. It manifests in insidious ways, often turning parents into people who belittle their children, not out of malice, but because it is all they know. My father, deeply insecure, seeks validation from me that I am unwilling or unable to provide. In withholding it, I perpetuate the cycle of pain that has been spinning for generations.

What troubles me most is the monstrous figure I become in these interactions—a version of myself that feels foreign and frightening. I wonder who this person is, who lashes out at my father, a man who is himself a product of unimaginable trauma. And yet, the more I understand this, the more I see that he is projecting onto me the unresolved pain of his childhood. He seeks from me the validation his mother denied him, and in refusing to give it, I am caught in a loop of repeating the very pain he endured.

This realization dawned on me painfully today, soon after they left to go to the airport. My father, who has survived so much, is still the little boy seeking approval from a mother who could never give it. And I, in turn, have been cast in the role of that withholding parent, a role I never asked for and one that I find myself slipping into despite my best efforts.

It is a cruel dynamic, one that leaves me feeling like I am suffocating under the weight of expectations I cannot meet. I want to break free from this cycle, to be the person I know myself to be—someone who cannot hurt a fly, who lives to serve others, who values kindness and compassion above all else. And yet, when I am with my father, I am pulled into a place of darkness, forced to confront the parts of myself that are unkind, even cruel.

This visit made it painfully clear that my father is still fighting his old battles, seeking from me what he never received from his mother. And I, in my own woundedness, have become the monster he feared, the bad mother who withholds love and approval. It is a dynamic rooted in intergenerational trauma, a twisted legacy that I am desperate to escape. 

As someone who has always been the parent in my family, I have grown up without the emotional support that most children receive. I have been a mother to my mother, father, brother, and cousins, filling the gaps left by their own unresolved pain. It is a role I have grown weary of, one that has left me drained and disconnected from my own needs and desires.

The pain of outgrowing your family is something no one talks about. It is a lonely and disorienting experience, one that leaves you feeling like a stranger in your own life. I have never truly had parents in the way that most people do. I have always been the caretaker, the one who sings lullabies to my mother, fights with my father, and takes on the weight of the world.

Now, as I sit here, exhausted from the weight of it all, I wonder if this is what resting feels like—like a crash, a complete and utter collapse of everything I have been holding onto. I am tired, so incredibly tired, for reasons that go beyond the physical. It is the weariness of a lifetime spent carrying the burden of my family’s pain, of never having had the space to be a child, to be taken care of, to be loved unconditionally.

In moments like these, I question everything. How do you miss something you’ve never had? How do you grieve for the parents you never knew, the childhood you never experienced, the life that could have been?

I am learning, slowly, to sit with this pain, to let it wash over me without trying to escape it. A friend sent me an excerpt from a book called Untamed and when I read it, I was sitting at a cafe and a river of tears kept rolling down my cheeks. I tried to stop it but I couldn’t. It resonated so much: 

“Like Westley from The Princess Bride, who said, "Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something." Like Jesus, who walked straight toward his own crucification. First the pain, then the waiting, then the rising. All of our suffering comes when we try to get to our resurrection without allowing ourselves to be crucified first. There is no glory except straight through your story. Pain is not tragic. Pain is magic. Suffering is tragic. Suffering is what happens when we avoid pain and consequently miss our becoming. That is what I can and must avoid: missing my own evolution because I am too afraid to surrender to the process. Having such little faith in myself that I numb or hide or consume my way out of my fiery feelings again and again. So my goal is to stop abandoning myself - and stay. To trust the process of becoming. Because what scares me a hell of a lot more than pain is living my entire life and missing my becoming. What scares me more than feeling it all is missing it all. These days, when pain comes, there are two of me. There is the me that is miserable and afraid, and there is the me that is curious and excited. That second me is not a masochist, she's wise. She remembers. She remembers that even though I can't know what will come next in my life, I always know what comes next in the process. I know that when the pain and the waiting are here, the rising is on its way. I hope the pain will pass soon, but I'll wait it out because I've tested pain enough to trust it. And because who I will become tomorrow is so unforeseeable and specific that I'll need every bit of today's lesson to become her."

These words echo in my mind, reminding me that suffering is what happens when we avoid pain. Pain is not tragic; it is magic. It is the crucible through which we are transformed, the fire that forges us into something new. To avoid it is to miss our own evolution, to abandon ourselves in the process of becoming. 

So, I am choosing to stay. To trust the process, to believe that the pain and waiting will eventually give way to rising. I am learning to have faith in myself, to stop numbing or hiding from my feelings. Because what scares me more than the pain is the thought of missing my own becoming, of living my life without ever fully inhabiting it.

The landscape of loss is vast and unforgiving, but within it lies the possibility of transformation. It is a journey through the darkest parts of ourselves, a passage that requires us to face the unresolved conflicts of our past and to find the strength to rise from them. I do not know what comes next, but I do know that I will emerge from this, changed and forged by the fire of my own pain.

P.S. To all childhood trauma survivors, kids and teens who never got parents, I feel you. 

August 23, 2024