There are days when I continue to emotionally and mentally struggle. We trust those close to us have our backs, that if there is a struggle they will help. Not knowing about cerebral palsy would have been an issue, but if my mental and emotional issues had been dealt with and I had have been supported, I would have coped better. When we're not supported, trust becomes the issue.
The Dark Side of Trust
The dark side of trust lies within the dynamics of any relationship. We don’t go into a relationship thinking about trust, we assume it's already there. We have a certain unconscious expectation about that.
Trust Starts in Childhood
Trust starts in childhood. Children form a secure attachment to their parents through trust. It's not something they stop to question until something becomes obvious and they begin to question. It took me years to make the correlation.
Trust Helps a Child's Psychological Development
But trust is necessary for a child’s psychological development. It's important for good mental health. How parents communicate with each other, will damage their children's trust of them. Parents who lack integrity are duplicitous – in other words their actions don’t correspond with their words. In those circumstances, their mixed messages may destroy a child's self-esteem, confidence, sense of reality and their sense of self.
Trust Should be Based on Honesty
Trust should be based on honesty and openness. It's important children believe what they're being told. Trust is the glue that bonds families and relationships together. Trust can sometimes become the issue. It is trust that facilitates positive emotional connections between people, and in families. It is important to get that right.
My parents were always sending out mixed messages, so it's no wonder my brain is scrambled. I was manipulated and brainwashed into doing their bidding, which was bizarre seeing as they wanted me to make them happy.
The reality was that nothing I could have ever done would have made them happy, so they drove me insane for no good reason. It destroyed my identity and sense of self after they buried me under a mountain of guilt, shame and remorse for not making them happy which shouldn't have been my responsibility.
It boggles my mind that any parent would do this to their children and act like they didn't do anything wrong. We trust our parents to do what's right.
You're absolutely right Randy it was never your job to make them happy. Your parents should have done that for themselves and each other.
As children we trust our parents to get the parenting thing right. That they will stand by us and attend to our emotional and physical needs.
It's important not to carry or own anything from your past that doesn't serve you. The guilt, remorse and shame belongs to your parents, not to you. It's important you let go of those and start a new chapter.
Reflection is a good tool to use for us to understand our past, but then we must move on so that mentally live in the present.