For your consideration, our estranged children have a story they tell themselves. Though it may be puzzling or even unknown to us, they have a personal narrative in which a justifiable action was to remove themselves partially or fully from the family system.
What is your narrative? What are you telling yourself regarding not only what led to this, but what your own worth is post-estrangement?
Do you have a long history of negative thinking patterns that you’re now allowing to create a story in which you are the problem? Is your story one of self-administered guilt and punishment?
You are not the problem. The problem is the problem.
Yes, there are bad parents walking the earth. Some of us were raised by parents who abused or neglected us. Let’s not kid ourselves.
In all my years of working as a counselor, though, I’ve not found that such parents admit much if any fault, let alone seek peer support or counseling.
So as you read this, maybe you’ve made mistakes and are allowing your narrative to portray you as if you are some sort of monster.
Please take a moment to center yourself and to clear your mind as well as you can. Control your breathing and see if you can close some of those mental “browser tabs.”
Try to look at the facts as objectively as you can. Those facts certainly may include mistakes. Through my work in PLACE, I’ve yet to encounter a faultless parent. I’m certainly not one.
But do the facts merit the way you’re treating yourself? Do you indulge this negative narrative because you feel shame which compels you to think this way?
What if you worked to shift your view? What if you can find the places where you have been resilient, accountable, and ultimately a worthy human and parent in spite of the current circumstances?
And as you re-examine this narrative, can you see events in the story for which you can feel gratitude?
Even if the uplifting chapters in your personal story remain largely untold, you can revisit them. Can you see the good? Can you strip away the automatic negativity? Can you view yourself with compassion and allow that you remain a worthy human being?
If you want to cope and heal moving forward, allowing yourself to wallow in a negative self-authored narrative will only inhibit your progress.
You count. You are worth something.
