I'd like you to realise how you may have been affected by inadequate upbringing, by demonstrating how the pattern of my own false beliefs and DISTORTED REALITY, played itself out in my life.
My father left our family for another woman when I was a toddler. My mum has found herself another man soon after, my step-dad, who was emotionally and physically abusive. His abuse, plus my mother’s, have made me feel that there is something WRONG with me. I have never felt good enough, not only because they were both highly critical. I didn't have the emotional and mental capacity to understand them, nor me at that age. I have overlooked their abuse in many respects, EXCUSING their behavior, particularly because they remained in my life to look after me for which I was grateful...
Unknowingly, I have idealised my father till fairly recently, believing he left only to find peace away from drama I have oftentimes witnessed. I have completely dismissed the fact that he wasn’t ever there for me and my sister. He wasn’t particularly interested in our life, seeing us only sporadically. The little girl in me found it hard to believe that he would leave because there was something wrong with him. Although I felt deserted, alone and helpless, I made his behaviour mean that he left because having us made his life somehow hard. That me and my sister were the problem.
My idealisation of both of my carers was my way to ensure I would cope with our situation emotionally. It simply wasn't acceptable to think anything bad about the people who were meant to love me...
My story was my idealised, FALSE world. My life was driven from my subconscious, painful, FALSE beliefs:
I am unworthy of true love and care hence abuse is OK.
I am unloveable, needing to please others in order to feel better through their acceptance of me.
Those who love me will abandon me, and I will somehow fail at life.
When we are small, not understanding the world, we tend to create the reality which suits us better. Idealisation of others is our coping mechanism, as accepting that WE are bad is less painful...
Have you suddenly woke up after months/years in relationship thinking you do not recognise that person, that they were different when you met them?
No, they were not! Only your mind was operating from your hurt Inner Child, desiring them to be the ideal parent you never had! Take aside narcissits, sociopaths and psychopaths, who purposly pretend to appear exactly how you to like them, I want you to get this:
Become present to your PATTERN of idealisation and your childhood wounding!
This is NOT for you to blame others. But to acknowledge your pain and be able to move THROUGH it. Understand that how others treat us is NOT about us but THEM. That the kind of relationship they have with themselves is due to the kind of relationship they had ( or more often hadn't!) with their parents, and the kind of relationship their parents had with their parents.
Blaming others isn’t the same as acknowledging where has our wounding come from. Because by seeing what has happened and how others are also hurt, allows us to truly forgive. And once we can forgive, there is no more hurt inside us from which we would unknowingly hurt others. No more karma - the cycle of pain being unknowingly carried over for generations...
My father was having multiple affairs. Relationship of my parents was very toxic. Both of my parents were insecure, very wounded people, long BEFORE they even met! They could have been together in love and peace, yet they found it difficult to leave each other because abuse and unhappiness was all too familiar. The failure of their marriage would mean they failed in life, only rubbing their emotional wound of not being good enough further. Their pain of feeling like a failure was harder to bear than the pain of their respective abuse.
My mum comes from a broken family of a mentally ill mother, and an abusive, narcissistic father. My mother (still today!) speaks of her father very higly. She refuses to acknowledge and see he was far from perfect, yet from her stories of how he treated her mother I see how selfish, uncaring and inconsiderate he truly was. My mum robbed herself of the opportunity to understand herself, unknowingly then fell in love with my narcissistic father, and step-father. Finding herself in yet another toxic relationship. My own father had a narcissistic mother and my step-dad was badly emotionally and physically abused by his father from what I know. ALL of these people somehow thought that they can find love in each other, mistaken physical attraction and infatuation for love. They believed what their parents believed: that happiness is to be found in another, failing to see how unhappy they really were.
My parents and my grandparents had very poor relationships with themselves, yet thought they are capable to provide loving care and respect each other. The saddest of it all is that they believed their happiness will be somehow sealed by having children.
I write this for you to realise that happiness and love cannot be found in another, but WITHIN. That unless you understand who your parents truly are/were, and heal yourself, unless you sober up from your own pain, you are destined to hurt others and live the cycle of karma with an illusionary, yet similarly wounded people by your side. That unless you heal you, you are destined to hurt your children the same way your parents have hurt you...
Thank you for reading. If my article contributed to understanding yourself, please be generous and share it with others.
Copyright © 2016 Michaela Patel