SO NOW WHAT?

So, now what do I do? Now that I can look back at my life with clarity, wisdom, insight, and mature judgement, what do I do with the fallout of misguided, dysfunctional, irrational choices that have reverberated across generations and infected, disabled, wounded, and stigmatized my very own children?? How do I make up for the mistakes that have been made? How can I prevent them from repeating my errors when in fact, a few of them are already well on their way in recreating the dysfunctions they grew up with and are adeptly passing those same errors along to their own children?

I realize that I am not the first to witness generational cycles of dysfunction; and certainly, mine came from somewhere! Do I simply wash my hands of all responsibility, now that each of my six children are of legal age and beyond? Do I shrug my shoulders and claim that we all have our own paths to walk, lessons to learn, and problems to solve and decide to let my children just "deal" with what they've inherited? Besides, how long am I supposed to tend to their hurts, their mistakes, and their pain? And yet, when I see them struggling as a direct result of the mistakes I made as a parent, whether directly or indirectly, I feel obliged to assist.

As I see the story of my life-choices unfold, that some of those choices have negatively effected me is simply a universal law of reaping what we have sown; but to see my choices harm my children even into their adult years is an unbearable pain for me and it triggers even more regrets. So now, what??

As the regrets pile up, the solutions seem so far out of reach. While it is true that my horizon looks bright and promising, will it come to pass soon enough? Currently, I am in no position to truly help them because I am still struggling with gaining self-suffiency and independence. Once achieved, will it be too late??

I worry about my twenty-five year old son, for example. He has no high school diploma, a limited work history, and discovered he is the victim of identity theft - something that occured when he was still a young adolescent, but didn't realize until he was of legal age. He's trying so hard to get on his own two feet, but when you are in the depths of poverty, one step forward is almost always followed by two steps back. In fact, none of my six children are truly independent or self-sufficient. Whether dependent as housewives, or living at home, or struggling to survive and making it only with the daily help of boyfriends and parents or inlaws, each one of my children struggles to stand on their own. I accept the blame. I realize I did not do nearly enough to get them established. Of course, not me alone; their father had a huge role in their upbringing too. But the errors he made, I allowed. I did not stand up for my children's best interest and now they pay the price.

So now what?? All I can really do is take it day-by-day and continue to help them, guide them, and point them in the direction that will best help them overcome their inherited burdens. But while doing all that, I often feel guilty, remorseful, sad, disappointed, and overwhelmed with worry. And sometimes, I even feel a sense of shock and disbelief that I fell so short of my own personal goals as a parent and allowed my dysfunctional marriage relationship to take precedence over everything else, including my children...and I wonder if I can ever forgive myself for that.

INSIDIOUS

Insidious in·sid·i·ous/inˈsidēəs/Adjective 1. Proceeding in a gradual, subtle way, but with harmful effects

Years ago, while talking with a very good friend of mine, we discovered that the word insidious best described the marriage relationships we were both in. She's blogged about it, and I feel compelled to do the same.

When I look back at the dynamics of my marriage relationship I realize, retrospectively, that while he and I are both to blame for the outcome (especially its effects on the children), the origin and progression of the dysfunction was so insidious that I was blind to the depth of its effects on me and my kids.

Losing my sense of self was the first and foundational insidious effect of our relationship upon myself and it set the tone for everything that followed, year after year. From the very start, I was stripped of my identity, and although my gut told me, right from the start, that something was wrong, I did not know to trust my instincts and so I told my gut to shut up.

The night I moved in with him, as I was hanging my clothes in his closet, he would tell me, "throw THAT one out" because, according to him, in was inappropriate, too revealing, sleazy, or "whore clothes." He assured me that he would replace all of it. By the end of the night, most of my wardrobe was in a Hefty bag, along with a  chunk of my identity.

The first of many regrets formed that night. That was the night that I began to shove things into the basement of my soul. Yet, I justified it. I had to. I was young. That's the typical response. And I was young; I was only nineteen. So I forgive myself...to some degree. But it set the tone. It set the foundation for all that followed. He assured me that if he didn't love me so much, he would not tell me that I looked "cheap" in my clothes. It never occured to me then to point out that he seemed to like how I looked in my wardrobe while he was pursuing me. It never occured to me to simply say, "I'm sorry that you suddenly don't like my clothes, but I like my clothes and I intend to keep them!"

He never replaced my wardrobe. I took to wearing his clothes and lost my femininity, my sense of style, and did not realize at the time that my identity had been assaulted. In fact, I allowed my identity to be assaulted because his methods were so...insidious.

Little by little, day by day, my identity continued to be assaulted. I was criticized for the way I mothered my daughter (I was too lenient, I didn't spank, and I played too much with my daughter who was then only three years old). I was degraded because of my spiritual beliefs (told I was stupid because I was agnostic). I was ridiculed for the music I liked to listen to (because it wasn't identical to his musical preferences). I was overpowered, little by little, piece by piece, ever so...insidiously.

It would be years before I was finally able to see the big picture. It was at least a decade before the pattern of emotional assault became vividly apparent. What was insidious in the moment, became blatant with hindsight. Whether it was my clothes, my music, my choice in friends, my vocational desires, my parenting methods, or the way I cooked lasagna, if it was innately mine, it was wrong.

Sure, that all seems so obviously wrong, so how did I not see it? Because it was insidious. Because each individual assault could be rationalized - either by me or him - to make it seem like love and concern. I had to believe that his motives were pure. And on the rare occasion that I would accuse him of being malicious, he would turn it around: How could I be so untrusting, so hateful, as to accuse him of being mean or purposely hurtful?!

And so the cycle of emotional abuse persisted, year after year, gradually and subtly eating away at my sense of self, diminishing my inner stregth, and destroying my confidence until finally, one day, there was nothing left of me but a crying puddle on the floor who wanted nothing more than to close my eyes and go to sleep and never wake up again...except for one thing: my kids. I could not walk away from them.