The thought that recurs in my mind is “how does it feel to grow up in a normal family?” Normal in the sense that the family serves its purpose: as your blueprint on how to love. At one time maybe the love was there — share and communicated. But up until one point, it changed and everybody strayed. And maybe the dysfunction was already there. Then when a certain event happened, it fully blossomed and encapsulated everything. One thing led to another and it just became like a cancer cell that spread. All seems lost and you might think your days in this earth are limited.
I do think it stemmed from a very fucked up notion of love. A generational trauma as the people say these days. But I for one fully understand the meaning of that phrase. If it weren’t for a passed-on misery, maybe the building block of my relationship would be okay. I would not realize the hard way that my way of loving — or how I had been thought so far — is not particularly pleasant. Reducing a person to physical appearance and materialistic value is not a base for a genuine relationship. Again, I had to realize that in a difficult manner — at the cost of my own self esteem.
On top of that, another difficulty that I had to face is not having the medium for the overflowing of love and affection I have in the place I call home. I have no idea where had I imprinted the idea of being a romantic — is it possible to be born a romantic? I must have seen it somewhere, maybe I did experience the same thing — being showered with love. Although honestly I cannot trust my memory anymore since things most possibly was distorted (this was too a painful lesson learned). Then it became a frustration, leading to questions: should I keep all this affection bottled? Why do I have difficulties in showing them to the people I was supposed to be at my most comfort being vulnerable to?
So then I turned to the outside world. The connections that I have forged with some of the most understanding people in the world made me realize how fortunate I am with external relationships. These people that have stayed with me, see the worse in me but also have received the best from me — they became the blueprint for my current and future relationships. In turn, they have become my reservoir for my affection. So far, I have never gotten any complaints so I believe I am not overdoing it. They have also become my teacher. I see how they interact with their own families who are seemingly more normal than mine (at this point ‘normal’ has become such a subjective adjective) to which I reflect. I intertwine it with my core relationship (my family) and I have to say it worked for the better.
Did it completely fix everything? Definitely not. It does not take one to maintain a (healthy) relationship. I, too, still have homework of my own. But I do feel it is heading to a better direction. And I want to implement the better relationship management to my own family in the future (when or if I have one).
I’m writing this to say to everyone with dysfunctional families — whether you are the only one who feels that way or it has been confirmed by many parties — that there is hope for the better. Maybe, a big maybe, your family is beyond help due to the weight of said generational trauma. But you still have a chance to make it better, at least for you. That hope of creating your own sanctuary of healthy relationships exists, you are capable of love and to be loved.
