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Reflections

  • Writer: Christian Van Linda
    Christian Van Linda
  • May 18, 2024
  • 2 min read

My family still doesn’t treat me like an adult.


They don’t see how if you don’t treat your children like adults at any time they will not grow into adults. Children largely reflect the version of themselves their parents give them back to the parents. Its all learned.


Children usually subconsciously play the role they are given within their family structure without understanding what’s happening and the forces working against them. This exaggerated in a dysfunctional family.


My mom felt like she had no control over anything. She was right. She was traumatized. My father had done immeasurable damage to her mental health. She had grown up in a conservative Catholic family. The second eldest of nine. She was raised to be a wife.


She was terrified. Her family. Her parents and siblings did nothing to help her. It was unthinkable neglect. I know she did the best she could. She was the only who can say that in my family.

Unfortunately, as the youngest and a 7 year old the obvious receptacle to overcompensate for the lack of control in all other areas was me. It hurts to say but she saw my father in me. She felt as though she was his victim and he left her holding the bag. But we were kids, not a bag. And he was never going to be a parent. We needed her to understand that long before she did.


So while my father quite literally would have let me starve if the courts didn’t mandate child support, my mother smothered me and was controlling me well into my 20’s. She still doesn’t see any of this clearly and that is ok. I do. And I have nothing but pure intentions to work through this as gently as possible. I have to work through it. It will continue to involve hard truths but I will be gentle and compassionate.


I had to go to college before I was ready because she “needed a break” but then she worried so much when I was out of her sphere of influence that she arranged an intervention because “she was saving my voicemails because she thought I might die”. Interventions are supposed to be about drug use but no actually had any examples at mine. I was not in mortal danger. She was as unready for me to be in college as I was. More so. That’s the truth.


It was the worst possible way to raise me given the reality of who my father was and I’m still recovering.

 
 
 

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