Trauma

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I once read something somewhere along the lines of no one leaves this world without some kind of trauma and it's true. In life you do survive trauma, some of us definitely have it worse than others but at some point, we all deal with it because we can't control the actions of those around us. Sometimes the trauma is accidental and sometimes it's intentional on the other person's part. Sometimes the trauma can't be helped because people die and things happen that are out of our control and other times it's trauma that is inflected on us by someone not thinking their actions through or maybe they did and don't care but somehow we end having to deal with the consequences of someone else's actions. I think about my childhood and while I remember it fondly there were definitely things that were said and done during that time that hurt me. I have also done things to hurt others due to not thinking through my actions. I always feel bad knowing I had the power to hurt someone. As a parent, I know I've messed up at times and my son gets to live with the consequences of my mistakes much like I get to live with the consequences of my parents' mistakes. We are human and we aren't perfect and while we can try our best sometimes we mess up. Sometimes other people get to pay for our actions and it's not fair but it's life. We need to learn to handle what comes our way and accept that people are flawed. I have done and said things I regret and now as an adult, I try to think things through before I speak and not allow anger to make me say something I'll regret. It's something I've had to really work on. My sister once said that she notices when I'm angry or upset I get quiet. My husband absolutely hates that I get quiet and don't talk when angry. I do this very deliberately. When I'm angry I am way more prone to saying something I don't mean and I know I'll regret so I get quiet and try to focus my mind so I don't just start saying things because I want what I say to be deliberate but not cruel. I know if I talk it will be something mean and that's not who I want to be. I get quiet not to be childish or immature but to really control the impulse to say something I'll regret. I am a relatively laid back person and it takes a lot for me to get truly angry or upset but when I do it takes a lot of restraint to not just say something hurtful because I myself am hurt. I am not perfect, I snap, I say things I regret sometimes but I really do try to stop myself. We all live through different types of trauma in our lives and it's not always something we can control but when we can we should. That also means learning to accept that sometimes people will do things that hurt us but we don't have to hurt them back. We don't need to be a victim of our trauma. We can learn to move forward despite the pain and try and be better ourselves. It's so easy to want to give in and hurt those who hurt us. It's so easy to want some kind of payback or to let the pain eat away at us. My parents weren't perfect people and there have been things they've done and said that really hurt me and I've had to make peace with it because they aren't perfect and neither am I. They did the best they could do and they tried to be better than their own parents. My dad had his own childhood trauma he was dealing. My dad and his twin brother were the oldest of the children my grandma had with my grandpa (she had three older kids she had with the man she was with before my grandpa) and my dad had a lot of responsibility shoved on him. He was almost never told he was loved and expected to take care of his younger siblings while his twin brother got to be a kid. My dad's twin brother was always the favored one and then the unthinkable happened and his twin brother and younger brother drowned in a swimming accident. His younger brother got his foot stuck, and his twin brother went to save him and they both died. My dad always felt it should have been him. My dad finally got his own house, and his parents just showed up and moved in one day without asking, they just did it. They moved in with a bunch of his siblings and my dad didn't kick them out. My dad literally took care of most of his family at some point or another and now the ones surviving barely talk to him. He feels like once he stopped doing things for them they just washed their hands of him. I was never close to my dad's parents or his side of the family because most of them didn't come around. When my dad got with my mom and had us he moved away from his family more. My dad's takeaway from his trauma was to be a better dad. He told us he loved us regularly and spent quality time with us. He said and did things sometimes that he shouldn't have and that sometimes still haunt me, but I also remember the man who stayed calm and taught us how to do things. He didn't scream at us when we made mistakes. Most of the things that traumatized are things he did and said without thinking about how they'd hurt us like making "jokes" about things he shouldn't because he knew they had truth in them, but the point is he did better by us than his parents did him and I'd like to believe I've done better by my son than my parents did us. My mom had an alcoholic father and had a lot of physical trauma that happened to her during her childhood like catching on fire and nearly drowning. She struggled whenever we were around the stove or in a swimming pool. Her trauma that she caused was usually in the way she compared us to other kids or the comments she'd make absent mindedly but never once did I think she didn't love me. I think it just hurts knowing that your parents are seeing your own securities and sometimes without thinking joke about them. It built a tougher skin on me though, I learned to accept my own insecurities and laugh about them but as a kid, those are things you struggle with and hearing your parents joke about them does hurt. They didn't realize it hurt and they weren't trying to hurt me but it happens and I could have had a much worse childhood with terrible parents and my parents weren't terrible they were human. My husband has always struggled with being a father due to the lack of loving parents in his own childhood. He makes sure to not ever call our son names the way the man who raised him called him names and belittled him. My husband can be tough on our son because he wants better for him but sometimes his expectations are too high because that's all he ever knew. He had a tough childhood, and he tries to be better than his dad was to him, but he is basically learning from a completely blank slate. My son is very much my husband's polar opposite in personality in most ways. If my son does have children, I see him being an amazing father. My son is caring and kind and doesn't like the idea of anyone hurting. He's more intentional with his words and tries to make sure he doesn't say mean things. He is one of the best humans I know and I'm not just saying that because I'm his mother. I feel like through generations of trauma we are trying to weed out the worst of it to make our own children better, I know I've played apart in trauma my son has for one reason or another and I hate that but I also hope much like I've done for my parents that he remembers the better moments and remembers that while I'm flawed he is loved beyond reason and I try my best for him. My husband had a terrible childhood, and he is angry from it. He struggles between hurt, anger and acceptance about everything he's been through. He's mad at his biological mother for a lot of things some of which aren't reasonable and others that are. Some things were beyond her control while others were within her control. I've talked to his mom about how he feels and why he feels that way and told her he's allowed to feel what he feels. I'll never tell my husband how to feel about his childhood, but I do remind him that it's not a good reason to hate everyone and everything on his bad days. We can't change the past all we can do is find a way to live with it. You get to be angry but you don't get to use it as an excuse to hurt everyone around you, which was something he did for a lot of years. He especially took it out on his mom when he was forced to live with her in his teen years after the man who raised him died, which I honestly believe is partially why she acts the way she does towards him at times. She sees the hurt and angry teenager still and no matter how much he changes or grows up she'll continue to see him that way. He has come such a long way but yes he still has a long way to go. He had 18 years of trauma and unfortunately it takes some people a long time to work through it. When I think about the trauma inflicted on those around me mine seems pretty small in comparison. I was bullied briefly in high school but I didn't give in and they eventually left me alone. I had friends who turned on me, I had my first experience with learning about how people really are and I learned that I had to be quiet and not talk about myself because I couldn't trust people. I learned that in order for people to like me I couldn't be me, at least that was my take away at the time. I have moved on and learned that I'm just not everyone's cup of tea and that's ok, it isn't my job to stuff myself down to make myself more likable for some people. The right people will always like you for who you are. I learned to get along with people I don't like because that's part of being a grown up. Life has taught me lessons. Trauma has taught me lessons. You are more than your trauma. You can't make it through your entire life without someone or something happening to change you in some way.