Thank you so much for this. I was a child of emotional neglect and abuse. Tonight my 2.5 y/o ended up breathlessly hysterical during our bedtime routine despite all my best efforts. It was just one of those times she had to have REALLY big feelings. I feel like I handled it okay with her and gave her the support and space she needed to have those feelings, but MAN it was triggering for me. I remember so viscerally having that same breathless upset feeling as a child and just being screamed at for it. Nobody was there for me. My emotions weren’t valid or allowed. For years. It’s so upsetting to me to see her like that, and I have no actual idea how to handle it. I’ve done a tremendous amount of healing work on myself as an adult and have been working with a wonderful therapist for six years, plus I avidly read up on parenting techniques that feel right for our family. I’m using all the tools at my disposal. But it is so hard to be so triggered by someone I love so deeply, who is just experiencing normal toddler emotional release. I have a feeling the next few years are going to be especially tough.

This is the personal burden I bear, to undo it all in one generation.

My mother suffered in her childhood but has never shared. She is also a narcissist. I did not realize all of this until I had children myself. All along I thought it was me. I was who I was and I reacted because of who I was.

It wasn’t until having children and being triggered and the thoughts that came to my mind…but in that moment, while these thoughts went off in my head like a fireworks display, I made my first connection to trauma in my childhood. From there my journey has been long, painful, rewarding and freeing.

I witnesses my mother exhibit emotional manipulation over my child and verbally diminish me in front of all my family members. That was the start to the end of that relationship.
I happy, I free, I no longer have a role in the narcissistic narrative that was once my life.
However, I still have triggers and my responses are not always admirable. So if this trauma cannot be undone in one generation, is my fate with my children going to take a similar path that I have taken with my mother?
This is such a great fear of mine. I am working hard, on me, for them.