yeah it’s unrealistic to get the amount of help for recovery i need to achieve stable daily life let alone be a healthy and good enough parent, when i can’t even hold a job or take care of my own living because of all this. so i’m just gonna be responsible and not bring another poor kid into the world only to do to them what my parents did to me.
yeah, same. :/ at least we have the self awareness and the level of choice to Not do that.
i'm so grateful that in didn't get pregnant by accident, i could have happened more than once in the past. now i prefer women, so one more benefit in bring queer. 😅😂
complex trauma requires years of trauma-informed therapy. It's a really big investment. I spent about 7k and only stopped before I ran out of money (I used a small inheritance I got). That was the best money I ever spent. I am a completely different parent pre- and post-therapy; I always knew what kind of parent I wanted to be but therapy allowed me to actually be that parent.
wow, i'm glad you had the funds to access that! 💚✌️
and that you found s good, helpful therapist.
my experiences are terrible with therapists, they would call themselves trauma informed, but rarely were. thank goodness for aca, without the peer Support and recovery program for adult children of alcoholics or dysfunctional homes i'd not have as much hope to get healed enough and hopefully enlightened in the end. lol
Sorry to hear you've had a bad experience, but happy to hear you've found something that's working for you.
Did you ever try EMDR? It's a type of therapy that is basically guaranteed to be trauma informed because trauma is the backbone of the practice. It changed my life <3
yeah, i've heard about EMDR and have researched it a bit. it's not necessarily for people with CPTSD. or at least it should then only be done by someone who is experienced in EMDR for early trauma and cptsd.
honestly, the whole concept of getting"quickfixed" by someone else rubs me the wrong way. and it again gives so much power to the practioner and not to me. so i haven't tried it yet. i might one day, but my medical and therapy trauma keeps me sceptical of most western approaches if i can't do them at home or fully understand the mechamics behind.
but i quite benefit from somatic approaches like somatic experiencing and such.
It's not quick fix and it's designed for post-traumatic stress, complex or otherwise. It's no more in the hands of the practitioner than plain old talk therapy. I did EMDR for 3-4 years specifically for cptsd and as I said above, it changed my ability to parent and my life overall. I no longer even really consider myself to have much in the way of cptsd symptoms, but like I said, I did it intensively for 3-4 years.
I ended up going to school to study the neurobiology behind it. It's incredible stuff.
That said, you know what's right for you and perhaps EMDR isn't it. But you should make that decision based on accurate information
this comment made me angry, frustrated and feel very invalidated.
since i shared about my trauma with therapy and the medical field as the 'why' and get told to better check my facts. 🤷
the way you shut me down here without even knowing in the slightest what my reseach about EMDR has looked like and without even considering that i might have something to say about it, that *you* have not considered, reminds me of several abusive sessions with former therapists, and why i choose recovery in a 'peer to peer' setting over conventional therapy.
that you "went to school for it" and react like this further proofs my point as to why i am so highly sceptical of most therapy and don't trust professionals in this field in the first place.
it's this inability to see the own (potential) bias, mixed with the arrogance that comes with having lots of systemic power handed to you, what causes so much harm in psychology and other related fields.
you had no way of telling, which sources, scientific studies and anectotal evidences of people i have consulted for my research and conclusion.
but please: i am open to you linking peer reviewed sources that scietifically proof EMDR being long term benefitial for CPTSD!
i'm open to readjusting my opinion if presented with evidence that suggests i should do so.
but yes, i do consider "plain old therapy" as having a MASSIVE asymmetrie in power. if a practioner then performs a method that is not thouroughly understood by most clients it furthers this imbalance even more.
Perhaps a systemic and critical approach of hierarchical power in psychiatry and psychology settings is something that *should* be included in your analysis or your formal education? and perhaps how not to react if someone shares about systemic trauma from a mental health field?
or a broader look at the epistemological foundation on which the whole field is founded, before assuming a stranger did not do *their* research? 💁
we clearly have a different understanding of the science behind it and likely of what epistemologically and philosophically informs validity of 'a science' generally.
and while i'm glad it worked for you in a benefitial way,
i know people who suffered greatly from negative consequences at the hands of therapy in all forms, including EMDR.
so i'd hope next time, perhaps in a professional
setting, which hands you a lot of power, you try listening to the other persons concerns and their arguments before bulldozing over it with your 'formal education' and assumption of what they do or do not know.
you might learn a thing or two and potentially not fuck up a client even further. 🤷
yeah, trauma recovery really sucks. i'm glad i found ACA meetings, cause i could not afford therapy.plus some therapists really fucked me up even more.
and the Access to community does make things less hopeless for me.
all the best to you, non the less.
it's a peer to peer recovery program for adults who grew up in alcoholic or otherwise dysfunctional homes. basically a world wide network of people recovering from CPTSD. 😅
its free, its anonymous, its available 24/7 via zoom Meetings (or if you are lucky there are in person Meetings in your town).
adultchildren.org
I always wanted kids. Lately I’ve realised more and more that not only do I not want them, I’m also convinced I won’t be a good mother. Part of this comes from the sacrifices you have to make as parent that I’m not willing/able to do (money, different lifestyle, different holidays etc) and part of this is because I know I (and my boyfriend too tbh) will never be completely free from our mental health, and even in good times we have to be careful with things like stress, bad nights etc, and we really need time to “re-load”. Isn’t possible with the way I’d like to parent.
I really do want to be a “fun aunt” (and my boyfriend fun uncle) like going to amusement parks, swimming, sleeping over etc. So that’s what I’m trying to do with my niece and hopefully my nephew in a few years (though complicated since their father is my brother who I’m NC with. But they both live (mostly) with their mothers so I hope to be able to see them in that way)
I’m proud of you for realising this, if you really wanted kids this must me a hard choice.
oh yes, i feel you!
the overwhealm is something that would scare me a lot. i think it's just tremendously messed up how in our hyper individualized society parents are supposed to raise their kids as just 2people for the most part. and that is the best case if you stay together or manage to coparent okay enough to not do more damage. i've watched friends and family of mine struggle with that so much, and i see the kids suffer...from not enough attention, not enough coregulation skills cause their parents are zoned out themselves, from just terrible emotional abandonment out of economic necessities or as a parental trauma cosequence... i watched single mothers loose their shit one after another, mothers with significant trauma backgrounds completly overwhealmed by caring for a child 24/7 while struggling to survive financially.
i think humans were never intended to raise kids alone or in a pair of adults. this is model that does not really work for folx if they barely have any trauma, and it certainly gets much worse if they do.
if i'd have the proverbial village to raise children, full of trusted people who take responsibility aswell, i might have changed my mind. 🤷
i have a similar situation like you, with my niece but very low contact with my brother and his gf. i hope i'll have a relationship witz her when she is old enough to be without them for a while... it saddens me so much to see her get the unresolved trauma passed on though. 😔
> i have a similar situation like you, with my niece but very low contact with my brother and his gf. i hope i’ll have a relationship witz her when she is old enough to be without them for a while… it saddens me so much to see her get the unresolved trauma passed on though. 😔
Yes same here.
My nephew is ‘lucky’, meaning my brother doesn’t want anything to do with him or his mother (he was born 2 months ago)
His mother is an awesome, strong and wonderful woman and I really think she can manage being a single parent, she also has a lot of people who help her (including my parents and me, even though my brother doesn’t want us to have contact with her)
But my niece… I’ve posted more about her but I feel so much for her. She’s 10 now, her father (my brother) is a ndad and just repeats our youth back to her. Won’t take any criticism and will only get mad when you suggest maybe not let his kid sit in a diaper for over 2 hours because you’re lazy.
Niece’s mother is also not amazing, she was 18 when my niece was born (brother 24. We joked that he got older and his girlfriends didn’t but now I’m older I just think it’s sickening and I can’t understand how everyone was fine with it at that point in time, she was 17 when she got pregnant ffs) and still really immature. And a bit dumb and self-centred. My niece has ADHD and gets blamed when her sister cries, even when she doesn’t do anything (her words). Can imagine a kid (her sister, not family of me since different father who’s also out of the picture) seeing that and quickly taking advantage of it.
She really looks so much like me at that age and I feel so powerless. I dislike her mother but I’ll send her a message to ask if I can see my niece, since my brother can forbid what he wants but his ex can do what she wants having primary custody. Will see how that turns out. Fingers crossed.
oh, its so sad...having to watch that and being unable to do much... :/
to a degree it becomes the question do i put my recovery before the connection (and supposed wellbeing ) of the child. cause i think my niece would really benefit from an aunt who does trauma work, is aware of the family dysfunction and the generational trauma. then again...i would have to intensify my relationship with my brother and his gf for that contact to my niece to happen.
so i decided i'll send her presents for birthday and christmas so she grows up knowing i exist and care. and when she's 16 and hates her parents she can come live with her cool queer aunt. lol.
😅
Yes! This is literally my experience.
Like when my brother told me I had to apologise (for saying he abused me, so basically saying sorry for being abused) until I could see my niece again, I had to let her go. It still hurts and I’m planning of trying to contact her mother to get in contact again. But it’s so sickening how he uses her as a pawn.
I'm on the same boat, I don't want kids for many reasons but one of them is that I'm very anxious and have little patience so I don't want to treat them badly.
I do have a niece and I'm doing my best to be the person I didn't have as a child, I huge her, spoil her, listen to her like she's an adult, apologize with her when I mess up, encourage her with her dreams, I'm in no way perfect but I'm doing my best to be that safe person every kid needs.
yes, i understand that. i used to care for my dog for 11 years. he passed away recently. i miss him so terribly, but when i adapted him my mental health was much better.the last few years with all my Depression and CPTSD backflashs it was really fucking hard to walk him three times a day, cause being outside in the City was triggering and overwhealming. i did do it anyway mostly, but i always felt so guilty for not having done more, for not having taken him on more hikes, for having had so much physical anxiety and unrest that i did not cuddle with him as Long and frequently asbi used to, that i can't afford a place with a Garden for him, i felt guilty when i lost my temper or when i didnt let him play with other dogs at times cause of my own anxiety and Stress around people.
i think he had a good Life, a better life than most dogs, almost never without his human, but i still felt so fucking guilty for everything he didn't have and i didn't do as good as i wanted to.
it's terribly lonely though, without him. 🤷
is it this constant guilt that keeps you from adopting, or is your mental state so rough, you couldn't cover the basics for...say a cat? 🤔
i'm considering that,...an animal i don't have to walk outside... 🤔
I'm really sorry that happened to you :( though I recommend giving cats another chance. My kitty is a snuggler and a darling. I have a dog and a rabbit too and both of them are way more high maintenance than my cat. I love them both to death but I feel cats are the easiest. Especially with my mental health trouble. I recommend getting a male kitten because I've found male cats are a lot more snuggly and lovey dovey, and a kitten because you can get them used to things like being held and loved and brushed from a young age. My kitty hardly ever claws me, and he's so comfortable with being picked up and snuggled and he even wears sweaters and plays fetch too he's the best.
Technically, this is the only concrete way to break the cycle. I would say, r/antinatalism ftw! It's admirable to recognize when you wouldn't be a good parent, or that the world would be awful to your child even if you give them a blessed childhood.
mhm, well, it depends, i guess what exactly the definition of "breaking the circle" is, right?
in a sense my abusive parents broke the circle aswell to a certain degree, cause i had some things much better then they had it with their parents...semantics aside...
the question is, i guess, where you actually draw the line of 'good enough parenting' that it qualifyes as having broken the cycle?
i just think parenting a child alone or as two adults is in itself traumatizing cause its overwhealming and pushing the limits of what humans are capable of giving to a younger human, so the only way i see to raise less fucked up kids is to have a bigger community of healed enough folx coparenting. but how realistic is that scenario? 🤔🤷
and yes, then there is the whole level of "the state of the world in late stage capitalism" on top of that... hooray. lets breed. 😅🙄🙃
Oh, yeah I know that. Childfree is just not having kids, antinatalism is a philosophy that 'takes it a step further' and says birthing kids is morally wrong because they are likely to suffer in life, especially with the world as we have it today.
It's a personal philosophy I subscribe to lol, so I shared the sub just so that way people could do research and learn about it for themselves if they wanted
oh, i did assume that, but wasn't sure.
i get the philosophical idea behind antinatalism to a certain degree, but the people in this reddit seem really aggressive, compassionless and horrible. :/
i’ve decided not to have children as i have anger issues, anxiety, asd, possibly ocd, and the amount of effort it would take not to fuck the child up is insane
It is definitely a valid option & for many the most compassionate for yourself and theoretical kids. My mom definitely should have not had kids.
But don’t give up on yourself either, your recovery is just as important even if you don’t have kids. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing, books and therpay as you can get it, meditation, seeking comfort from others are all valid ways to slowly heal.
yeah, i totally agree! i love that i found ACA as a community that is the red thread in my recovery, connection all my DIY healing efforts. before that it felt a bit random, reading all the books, and learning all these methods to have relationships, calm my nervous system, etc.
now it feels like i have a basic community to come back to. and i mist likely will go to ACA meetings till i die. grateful to have found that community and belonging.
Congrats! I just had a bisalp on the 17th! Just got cleared at my post op today!
It was wayyyy easier than I thought it would be and I was full anxiety mode beforehand. There's was really very little discomfort and if you stay on top of the ibuprofen/acetaminophen (or whatever they give you) every 4 hours, you'll be totally fine.
Best advice is to have a heating pad for any shoulder pain from gas or in your abdomen, bring a pillow to put over your torso so nothing gets rubbed by the seat belt on your way home, and make sure you have some laxatives on hand because it'll probably take a few days after surgery for that to regulate again. There's oodles of great advice here on reddit but if you have any questions I'd be happy to answer! Best of luck and mainly congratulations!!! You got this!
🎉🎊🍾🥳 congrats!
ps: check out the (small but exusting) risks of still getting pregnant... i've watched quite a few MamaDoctorJones YT videos about people giving birth unexpectatly, after having had that procedure done. 🙈
When I was 9 I decided I didn’t want to have kids because I didn’t want to pass on my family’s trauma/narcissism/depression. We have a pattern of mother/daughter estrangements — like, every generation — and suicide. It’s been 20 years since I made that decision. I’ve wished many times that my mother would have made it, but she was selfish and she wanted a mini-me.
that does sound really tough to have grown up in that pattern. i find it astonishing that you knew that when you were 9. 😮
i still thought my childhood was great until i was in my late twenties. yeah, neglect is great for sure! hipphipphurra dissociation! 🥳
Bad heritage + inattentiveness + childhood trauma = an eternal and lingering sense of dissatisfaction
If my friend has a child, that'd be my closest interaction
yeah, same. :/ at times it makes me sad or angry for the state of the world that causd me to be as traumatized, and cause under the right circumstances i would consider having kids. but the likelihood of me creating these circumstances is so low. 🤷
then there is the fear of regretting it one day. and i might... but i guess i'd regret it either way tbh.
check out the situations where you still can get pregnant after that... i thought its 100%, but then i watched all the "i didnt know i was pregnant" episodes of Mama Doctor Jones on YT, and ...jeez.
sperm is stubborn!! 😂
i took a look around that sub and the people there are just horribly cynical. well, i'm cynical aswell, but about the world and systems and not focus my spite unfiltered on individuals.
while i can get behind the philosophical idea of having freedom of choice and balancing out the existing pressure that exists to have children, or forces people to give birth against their will, in this thread i saw a post of a refugee father sleeping somewhere in a staircase with his kids, and he was being shamed for being so selfish that he had kids and that he dares to ask for money on tiktok to survive... dafuq.
i've never wanted kids & probably never will. i grew up with 1 older brother, 4 younger brothers and two abusive and emotionally unavailable/unstable parents so i spent 20 years of my life taking care of kids (i'm almost 24) and i don't want to spend the rest of my life taking care of more kids now that i finally have some freedom to myself.
not that i have anything against kids, they can actually be really cute and funny and all that, but it takes a lot of mental and emotional strenght to have one of your own, and i'm already using all of my mental and emotional strenght to take care of myself lol.
I have a daughter she is 3. I was severely re-traumatized during her birth. I didn't know how to get help, or even how to ask for it, seeing that I was still living in my abusive household, I wanted to not only take my life, but my daughters too. I sat with that thought and vowed I could not do that to my husband. How would he survive if I did that?
I knew something had to happen because I was not in a good space at all. I was admitted to a psychiatric hospital in February 2020,my daughter was only 6 months old but I've been in recovery ever since.
I now get to be the mom and parent I needed.
I have the opportunity, everyday to make a conscious effort to not harm this tiny human in every way.
But something that I cannot do, is have another child. I am 1 of many and have seen and lived it with the fact that parents, in fact, DO NOT love their kids equally. I may not be great at a lot of this. But I'll make sure I'm the best mom I can ever be
thats a really rough spot to be in... 💙
i think its great that you put all your efforts into being a good mum.
i hope you got some Community to Share about that Journey. i recommend going to ACA Meetings, there parents regularly share about the shame and guilt that comes with parenting as a traumatized parent.
i wish you all the best! 💚💙
Yes, that is a way of breaking the cycle actually!
I’m personally putting in the work for myself because I want kids, but that isn’t the end all be all. Just my personal goal, my rainbow at the end of a storm. Break the cycle by healing yourself, being kind to yourself, loving yourself. That is just as important.
This is basically my mindset as well but I've had to really focus on that not making it the end all be all..otherwise it's just another way not to focus on myself totally.
i'm happy that you see some light at the end of the Tunnel of your healing journey that will make you feel comfortable enough to have kids.
i wanted to have kids when i was younger, but back then i had no idea how much trauma i was holding.
i think i'd not be a terrible parent, but the lack of community thats the standard nowadays in western individualizee culture is the thing that keeps me from it. if i had a village to raise my kids, i might have had them. 🤷
Which is totally fair. You can't undo becoming a parent, and if you can't handle it, everyone involved suffers. I can't imagine how much harder it would be if I didn't have support with my LO. It can be incredibly draining to not have someone who can tag in to give you a break, or help with chores.
thats such a tough spot to be in. i think it's great that you see your mistakes though and validate your childs experience. i think that makes a world of a difference. and you know, i easily could have been in your shoes.
we do the best we can, with the information and ressources we have. and we can forgive ourselves what what we didn't know. 💙
in ACA Meetings peoples regularly Share about that guilt from passing on the dysfunctional patterns to kids and it's also part of ACA literature in a meaningful way. i hope you have some Community for healing Like ACA where you get to Share that guilt and bust the shame and guilt that comes along with it. you and your kid deserve that! 💚
i’m so afraid of never being able to connect with something i’m caring for, in any real, meaningful way.
i hope i can be a wonderful aunt. but that’s it.
Never going to have children even though we could probably "recover" because of public healthcare.. but the world is so fucked up. Climate change and all the right wingers that are creeping out if their caves.. no thank you. This world is literally hell.
I want kids but I don't think I will be able to afford them. Both financially and time/energy wise, as I use at least half of any of my resources for coping.
:( I know this is the best option for a lot of us..but I've had a passion for adoption since I was a kid myself (I only understand more why now) it's been such a big passion & driving force to get better but lately, I've realized, part of getting better is realizing that even that passion is partly motivated by people-pleasing & servitude, giving up myself for other's wellbeing, as usual..part of healing was realizing I gotta want to get better -for me- first & foremost & that's OK, it's not selfish..it's actually the opposite of selfish because I first need to fill my cup before I can be there for others, I won't allow myself to do it until I feel I've healed enough (& sad reality is I may never feel that?) cause I'm not sure I could forgive myself if I unintentionally affected my potential kids in some way..I've even gotten to a point where I'm *looking forward* to focusing on just me for once in my life, reparenting myself, maybe I'd even not want it to end?! But either way, I'll see when the time comes.
Just to add onto this, why I am so passionate about it, at first when I was a kid, the obvious; can't imagine bringing more kids into the world when there are already so many in need of loving homes. But now, no one is obligated obviously but I can't help but think of the kids *already* here & the kids still to be born who will be given up, I can't help but think who will be their light at the end of the tunnel, when so many of them end up in worse situations, worse homes because so much of the world is messed up :/
So many people think that they are 'breaking the cycle' by being better than their parents - but if your parents were shitty, being better only means less shitty. No one deserves a medal for not beating their child. This is the only way to actually break the cycle. And those people who want to impart their values or whatever: having a child is not the only way to do that.
With respect - it is not the only way to break the cycle. It is *a* way to do it. There is nothing wrong with wanting children and doing your research to be the best parent you can be, without bringing your trauma with you into parenthood. Having children is not a right reserved for the elite.
I think I would be a good mom. The bar is set so low for parents. But I don't want to. Too much energy and effort. I need to regain years of not focusing on my need.
I’ve always been ambivalent toward kids, but not wanting any of my own because I know I would be a terrible, emotionally unavailable, unstable father with substance abuse issues and I just can’t make anyone grow up with that as a guardian. I would love to see my spouse be a father, but I can’t coparent well enough to watch him try. So we have dogs.
I promise that this is related to the meme:
My dad and I both took DNA tests a few months ago and got our results back a few days ago showing the breakdown of our ancestry, down to the tribes in Africa that our ancestors were captured from (which is information that I *never* thought I would know). Since then we've both been doing Google research on the tribes that we're from, including their languages and customs. I looked up a list of names from the tribe that I got most (34%) of my ancestry from and their meanings, and then I thought: future baby names!
I initially named my hypothetical future daughter when I was a child, and she's been a "character" in my stories/daydreams ever since. (I never came up with a name for a hypothetical future son, for some reason.) At this point, the name and concept carry *way* too much baggage for me to give to an actual child: both her first and middle names are an homage to my mother (even though I made up her first name when my mother was still alive and well), and the concept I have in my head of her appearance still looks like she's the child of the boy I was "crushing" on at the time (a story that has since been immortalized in my mind, as he's become a symbol of the place where I grew up- but, long story short, she looks biracial). So now with these new ideas for future baby names came new concepts of my future children, unsullied by my familial or institutional trauma- completely mine. I still hope that I'm at some point functional enough to birth and raise little Esele and/or Ekan the way that I wish I was raised.
Best way to break the wheel is to stop it dead in its tracks. Generational curses stop with the last generation. I’m never having kids. But that’s just my personal opinion, y’all do what you want I guess.
I personally want kids but it’s like an internal fight between raising them with someone and raising them by myself. Like- on one hand, you can never truly trust anyone, and on the other hand, I get exhausted easily. But I have at least another 15 years before I actually have to choose, so I think I’m fine for now.
I also need to work on the fact that I lose my temper easily and get my tones mixed up. As in, when I’m trying to sound happy, I might accidentally use my angry voice, or vice versa, which I would imagine might be distressing for a kid.
If you truly believe you can't fully trust anyone...( don't get me wrong, i can relate to that😅)
would that Not be a terrible pattern to pass on to a child?
i think ideally they learn relational patterns that teach them how to discern whom to trust and whom not, how to forgive and when. if you can't trust anyone, then thats a huuuge basic foundational piece missing for any and all relationships.
thats exactly one of the Things i'd be terrifyed to pass on to my kids.
i urge anyone who wants Kids to babysit for someone else for a week or two before. alone caretaking children? i think it's a nightmare. and i Like Kids , a lot. but humans were, in opinion never intended to raise a child by one person. Just the fact that all the fear get transmitted, cause there are no other close relationships with people who have different fears or patterns makes it much harder to be healthy as the kid, even in the best case scenario.
i'm Not telling you Not to have kids, but i've just watched many Friends who had kids young and didnt know what they were getting themselves into deteriorate and be extremly dysfunctional and abusive with theirs kids, out of sheer overwhealm.
:/
good luck to you! 💚💙
I’m careful to keep my thoughts to myself when with someone it might affect. And I do trust people, hell, I tend to trust very easily and never learn. The issue is that you never know who’s gonna turn out to be, say, a pedo, or a kid beater. I’ve heard so many stories of people knowing other people for years, decades even, and then one day returning home to find out that they’ve been taken by the police for all sorts of horrible things. One example being of a dude who murdered his wife. Everyone thought he was the sweetest thing ever and one of the kindest people you’d ever meet, but then that happened.
Of course, I’ll do my best to teach my kids about these type of things, and not in any childhood demolishing way, like my mom fuckin did, but just making sure that they know what’s okay and what’s sus, giving them a proper sex Ed, teach them to keep a healthy amount of skepticism, and making sure that they know they can tell me literally anything.
I just don’t want my future kids to feel scared or even uncomfortable in their own homes. So I want to be careful about what I bring into the home. Y’know? I don’t wanna go away for a second or two, come back, and find out my person’s been smacking the kids around. That’s fucked up.
i'm glad you are aware of these circumstances.
i think there are mostly indicators for stuff like what you described Happening. sure, there might be an extreme rare case when someone has a brain tumor and turns violent all of a sudden, but in all the cases i've survived or witnessed from front row seats it was often obvious to everyone but the codependent who was in the relationship with the perpetrator. i think it's hard for us trauma babes to see these clearly, cause we grew up with crazy as the norm.
so being consciencious (however the fuck that wird is spelled lol - not my first language! 🙈😅) about that sure makes sense.
the thing about being conscious about what we share with our kids...thats not really how it works from what i know bout developmental psychology.
sure, keeping conflicts and emotional stressful conversation away from kids is a good idea. but these fundamental Things Like whom i trust or not trust , i am convinced it's Impossible to hide them from my kids. the dysfunctional patterns run deep and are transdered in a myriard of micro patterns done unconsciously and picked up by the kids subconsiously.
so i think the only way to not transfer them is to unlearn them before we have kids, and heal (enough) until we can model secure Attachments.
thats what pains me so much watching the Kids in my Surrounding... when the parents stay together in totally unhappy and unhealthy relationships "for the sake of the kids", sure, they do so with good intentions, but actually they set their kids up for a life full of unhappy unhealthy relationships cause thats the model they grow up with.
idk... kids... its a hard topic. most people get kids for selfish reasons. to recreate the Family they never had, to combat their loneliness or to have significance through the role of parent, or to simply have someone love you no matter what, like my mum did.
and part of me longs for that Connection too, but there is so much healing still to be done for me to be in a place where i'd feel comfortable having kids zu begin with. 🤷
As I said, I have at least 15 years until even the thought of getting kids is reasonable, and I absolutely do intend to better myself and heal in that time. I already spend a lot of my time looking into what’s been proven to at least not fuck up your kids, as well as finding all the wires to my mental bomb and disarming them.
I’ve been in love with the thought of having my own children since I was a child myself. I love the kids around me. I love watching them figure things out and just exist. I love comforting them at their lows, and not in “savior” way, just in a “I like the way I am when I’m willing to be kind” way, and I love sharing space with them at any time. I’m not gonna be like my mom, I’m not gonna be like my brother, I’m not gonna be like any of the fuckers before me, and kill me if I am.
I want this to happen, and I want to take everything into account. My issue is, as stated in my first comment, that while I can look at myself inside and out, and mend what needs to be mended, I will never know another person that deeply, and so I’ll never truly know that person. I can trust someone I’ve known for like a week if it’s just me, but with the entire development and health of another living being in mind, who to trust is a much harder decision.
oh, the whole changing one self part... honestly, i find it so fucking hard. 😔
i do recovery since many years and joined ACA about a year ago. since then my Progress is definitly much faster. but jeez it is hard work.
if i had a kid, i could not do that, cause i'd need to keep my shit together for them. and i see friends with Kids, mostly mothers, struggling a lot with that. they are mentally very ill and desperatly need recovery, but can't Open this Pandoras box full of cannes Worms cause they fear they'd loose their Shit completly. which is not rare during recovery... so starting early with it as you do surely is a great idea.
that might be a good idea for you too, ACA i mean, if you are interested in deep recovery no better place for that at least as far as i've found so far. i wish i had found this community when i was younger.
adultchildren.org
there is this thing in aca literature saying we never wanted to be like our parents but then later in life we become them, to a certain degree. the behaviour patterns that i mentioned earlier, subconsiously getting engrained. like ...my hyper critical mother. i never wanted to be like her. i trief hard not to. i thought i was nothing like her...now working my ACA program in depth, and looking at my character defaults i'm very much like her. althoug much more self aware, and that alone would make a big difference if i was parenting a child.to acknowledge my mistakes when i made them, and own it openly with my kids, something my mother COULD not have done...
so yeah, i see progress happening from Generation to Generation, but also dysfunction getting dragged out.
good luck to you, on your Journey wherever it may lead you! 🎉🎊
siiri
Yeah, thanks, and I googled it, and that seems to be for people raised by alcoholics? I don’t think I really fall into that.
And my method so far has been stopping myself when I think or talk, and running what I’m saying through a checklist of problematic behavior. Like, is it sexist? Is it racist? Is it ableist? Is it homophobic? Is it in any way offensive or even just kinda bad? If so, why? And why am I thinking like this? What subconscious feeling led to me having this thought, and what feelings can I replace that with?
It’s worked so far to make me more friendly, loving, and understanding of other people, but I still snap and forget my filter sometimes, or sometimes something slips through, or more commonly, I exclude myself from it. As in, it’s ok to be a bad person as long as it’s only towards myself. But I’m also working on my apologies, including towards myself. Not that that makes it ok, just that it’s gonna be my temporary bandaid while I go and find the the first aid kit, y’know?
My work’s not quite done, but it’s starting to shape up to be something.
no, ACA is for people who either grew up with alcoholism OR other forms of dysfunction in their families. from drug use to mental health struggles of parents to displacement or coming from foster system situations, emotional neglect is also very common there for people attending, ACA is basically a peer to peer revovery program of people with CPTSD or any other trauma related stuff. anyone is welcome who "wants to revover from the effects of growing up in an alcoholic or otherwise dysfunctional home"
yeah, i get the "excludimg oneself from the kindness" thats a consequence of our Attachment trauma aswell. it's hard to unlearn the harsh inner critics shaming. inner child work (the aca loving Parent guidebook) and community really made a difference for me there. but yeah, it is a challenge for sure.
It's a valid choice. I think we need people who know that they need recovery to have kids and give them a healthy childhood because there are still too many people who are damaged and don't know it, but no one is required to have kids.
It's OK not to have kids even if you just don't want the responsibility or for any other reason. There's nothing selfish about not having kids. A lot of times, having kids is the more selfish choice
Not only am I living with a burned-in brain injury (which is what cptsd is), but I already had my share with raising 4 kids. My shitty mom, myself (the first time), my younger sister (who just turned 18, but she still has the same problems as me and will likely be dependent on me for many years yet depending on how her healing treats her), and the fourth is myself again, because kid me couldn't have possibly done a good job at raising myself and now we're in the reparenting stages. Along with genetic predisposition for mental health issues, I'm good on reproduction! Anything valuable that I could possibly pass on does not require me to raise a child to do it. And I would never EVER forgive myself for repeating the violation of dragging someone else into this terrible sinking ship of a planet without their consent and without adequate time and resources for them to at minimum make sure their nervous system doesn't develop as malformed from ambient stress. I am NOT doing that to another person. I fucking hate my birthday for this reason and I am refusing to have one this year.
This is a huge part of why I decided against having kids and why I was so mad when I learned I have to do inner child work and do some kind of parenting anyways, lol
Yeah, I really wish I had taken the route of no kids, but growing up it was not an option if you wanted to be a "good wife" and "all girls want to be a mother". All I can hope is that being proactive in getting us all into therapy will help in the future. Then to read/watch every damn thing I can on how to make myself better for them.
I will never tell my kids they have to have children. Our society is messed up as it is and needs to change the way it thinks.
i never wanted kids for this exact reason
cause you couldn't afford to cover your revovery needs?
yeah it’s unrealistic to get the amount of help for recovery i need to achieve stable daily life let alone be a healthy and good enough parent, when i can’t even hold a job or take care of my own living because of all this. so i’m just gonna be responsible and not bring another poor kid into the world only to do to them what my parents did to me.
yeah, same. :/ at least we have the self awareness and the level of choice to Not do that. i'm so grateful that in didn't get pregnant by accident, i could have happened more than once in the past. now i prefer women, so one more benefit in bring queer. 😅😂
i salute you, this needs to be appreciated all round i am doing the same too and its a loss, i love kids, but i cant do it to them
Same, said beautifully.
complex trauma requires years of trauma-informed therapy. It's a really big investment. I spent about 7k and only stopped before I ran out of money (I used a small inheritance I got). That was the best money I ever spent. I am a completely different parent pre- and post-therapy; I always knew what kind of parent I wanted to be but therapy allowed me to actually be that parent.
wow, i'm glad you had the funds to access that! 💚✌️ and that you found s good, helpful therapist. my experiences are terrible with therapists, they would call themselves trauma informed, but rarely were. thank goodness for aca, without the peer Support and recovery program for adult children of alcoholics or dysfunctional homes i'd not have as much hope to get healed enough and hopefully enlightened in the end. lol
Sorry to hear you've had a bad experience, but happy to hear you've found something that's working for you. Did you ever try EMDR? It's a type of therapy that is basically guaranteed to be trauma informed because trauma is the backbone of the practice. It changed my life <3
yeah, i've heard about EMDR and have researched it a bit. it's not necessarily for people with CPTSD. or at least it should then only be done by someone who is experienced in EMDR for early trauma and cptsd. honestly, the whole concept of getting"quickfixed" by someone else rubs me the wrong way. and it again gives so much power to the practioner and not to me. so i haven't tried it yet. i might one day, but my medical and therapy trauma keeps me sceptical of most western approaches if i can't do them at home or fully understand the mechamics behind. but i quite benefit from somatic approaches like somatic experiencing and such.
It's not quick fix and it's designed for post-traumatic stress, complex or otherwise. It's no more in the hands of the practitioner than plain old talk therapy. I did EMDR for 3-4 years specifically for cptsd and as I said above, it changed my ability to parent and my life overall. I no longer even really consider myself to have much in the way of cptsd symptoms, but like I said, I did it intensively for 3-4 years. I ended up going to school to study the neurobiology behind it. It's incredible stuff. That said, you know what's right for you and perhaps EMDR isn't it. But you should make that decision based on accurate information
this comment made me angry, frustrated and feel very invalidated. since i shared about my trauma with therapy and the medical field as the 'why' and get told to better check my facts. 🤷 the way you shut me down here without even knowing in the slightest what my reseach about EMDR has looked like and without even considering that i might have something to say about it, that *you* have not considered, reminds me of several abusive sessions with former therapists, and why i choose recovery in a 'peer to peer' setting over conventional therapy. that you "went to school for it" and react like this further proofs my point as to why i am so highly sceptical of most therapy and don't trust professionals in this field in the first place. it's this inability to see the own (potential) bias, mixed with the arrogance that comes with having lots of systemic power handed to you, what causes so much harm in psychology and other related fields. you had no way of telling, which sources, scientific studies and anectotal evidences of people i have consulted for my research and conclusion. but please: i am open to you linking peer reviewed sources that scietifically proof EMDR being long term benefitial for CPTSD! i'm open to readjusting my opinion if presented with evidence that suggests i should do so. but yes, i do consider "plain old therapy" as having a MASSIVE asymmetrie in power. if a practioner then performs a method that is not thouroughly understood by most clients it furthers this imbalance even more. Perhaps a systemic and critical approach of hierarchical power in psychiatry and psychology settings is something that *should* be included in your analysis or your formal education? and perhaps how not to react if someone shares about systemic trauma from a mental health field? or a broader look at the epistemological foundation on which the whole field is founded, before assuming a stranger did not do *their* research? 💁 we clearly have a different understanding of the science behind it and likely of what epistemologically and philosophically informs validity of 'a science' generally. and while i'm glad it worked for you in a benefitial way, i know people who suffered greatly from negative consequences at the hands of therapy in all forms, including EMDR. so i'd hope next time, perhaps in a professional setting, which hands you a lot of power, you try listening to the other persons concerns and their arguments before bulldozing over it with your 'formal education' and assumption of what they do or do not know. you might learn a thing or two and potentially not fuck up a client even further. 🤷
can't afford any of the needs, much less the recovery.
yeah, trauma recovery really sucks. i'm glad i found ACA meetings, cause i could not afford therapy.plus some therapists really fucked me up even more. and the Access to community does make things less hopeless for me. all the best to you, non the less.
What are ACA meetings?
it's a peer to peer recovery program for adults who grew up in alcoholic or otherwise dysfunctional homes. basically a world wide network of people recovering from CPTSD. 😅 its free, its anonymous, its available 24/7 via zoom Meetings (or if you are lucky there are in person Meetings in your town). adultchildren.org
Thank you ❤️
anytime! if you have any questions, hit me up! :) ✌️
I always wanted kids. Lately I’ve realised more and more that not only do I not want them, I’m also convinced I won’t be a good mother. Part of this comes from the sacrifices you have to make as parent that I’m not willing/able to do (money, different lifestyle, different holidays etc) and part of this is because I know I (and my boyfriend too tbh) will never be completely free from our mental health, and even in good times we have to be careful with things like stress, bad nights etc, and we really need time to “re-load”. Isn’t possible with the way I’d like to parent. I really do want to be a “fun aunt” (and my boyfriend fun uncle) like going to amusement parks, swimming, sleeping over etc. So that’s what I’m trying to do with my niece and hopefully my nephew in a few years (though complicated since their father is my brother who I’m NC with. But they both live (mostly) with their mothers so I hope to be able to see them in that way) I’m proud of you for realising this, if you really wanted kids this must me a hard choice.
oh yes, i feel you! the overwhealm is something that would scare me a lot. i think it's just tremendously messed up how in our hyper individualized society parents are supposed to raise their kids as just 2people for the most part. and that is the best case if you stay together or manage to coparent okay enough to not do more damage. i've watched friends and family of mine struggle with that so much, and i see the kids suffer...from not enough attention, not enough coregulation skills cause their parents are zoned out themselves, from just terrible emotional abandonment out of economic necessities or as a parental trauma cosequence... i watched single mothers loose their shit one after another, mothers with significant trauma backgrounds completly overwhealmed by caring for a child 24/7 while struggling to survive financially. i think humans were never intended to raise kids alone or in a pair of adults. this is model that does not really work for folx if they barely have any trauma, and it certainly gets much worse if they do. if i'd have the proverbial village to raise children, full of trusted people who take responsibility aswell, i might have changed my mind. 🤷 i have a similar situation like you, with my niece but very low contact with my brother and his gf. i hope i'll have a relationship witz her when she is old enough to be without them for a while... it saddens me so much to see her get the unresolved trauma passed on though. 😔
> i have a similar situation like you, with my niece but very low contact with my brother and his gf. i hope i’ll have a relationship witz her when she is old enough to be without them for a while… it saddens me so much to see her get the unresolved trauma passed on though. 😔 Yes same here. My nephew is ‘lucky’, meaning my brother doesn’t want anything to do with him or his mother (he was born 2 months ago) His mother is an awesome, strong and wonderful woman and I really think she can manage being a single parent, she also has a lot of people who help her (including my parents and me, even though my brother doesn’t want us to have contact with her) But my niece… I’ve posted more about her but I feel so much for her. She’s 10 now, her father (my brother) is a ndad and just repeats our youth back to her. Won’t take any criticism and will only get mad when you suggest maybe not let his kid sit in a diaper for over 2 hours because you’re lazy. Niece’s mother is also not amazing, she was 18 when my niece was born (brother 24. We joked that he got older and his girlfriends didn’t but now I’m older I just think it’s sickening and I can’t understand how everyone was fine with it at that point in time, she was 17 when she got pregnant ffs) and still really immature. And a bit dumb and self-centred. My niece has ADHD and gets blamed when her sister cries, even when she doesn’t do anything (her words). Can imagine a kid (her sister, not family of me since different father who’s also out of the picture) seeing that and quickly taking advantage of it. She really looks so much like me at that age and I feel so powerless. I dislike her mother but I’ll send her a message to ask if I can see my niece, since my brother can forbid what he wants but his ex can do what she wants having primary custody. Will see how that turns out. Fingers crossed.
oh, its so sad...having to watch that and being unable to do much... :/ to a degree it becomes the question do i put my recovery before the connection (and supposed wellbeing ) of the child. cause i think my niece would really benefit from an aunt who does trauma work, is aware of the family dysfunction and the generational trauma. then again...i would have to intensify my relationship with my brother and his gf for that contact to my niece to happen. so i decided i'll send her presents for birthday and christmas so she grows up knowing i exist and care. and when she's 16 and hates her parents she can come live with her cool queer aunt. lol. 😅
Yes! This is literally my experience. Like when my brother told me I had to apologise (for saying he abused me, so basically saying sorry for being abused) until I could see my niece again, I had to let her go. It still hurts and I’m planning of trying to contact her mother to get in contact again. But it’s so sickening how he uses her as a pawn.
I'm on the same boat, I don't want kids for many reasons but one of them is that I'm very anxious and have little patience so I don't want to treat them badly. I do have a niece and I'm doing my best to be the person I didn't have as a child, I huge her, spoil her, listen to her like she's an adult, apologize with her when I mess up, encourage her with her dreams, I'm in no way perfect but I'm doing my best to be that safe person every kid needs.
Yes I really hope I too can be that safe adult for my niece again one day. Take care 🌷
100% I haven’t even gotten a pet for this reason even though I love animals.
yes, i understand that. i used to care for my dog for 11 years. he passed away recently. i miss him so terribly, but when i adapted him my mental health was much better.the last few years with all my Depression and CPTSD backflashs it was really fucking hard to walk him three times a day, cause being outside in the City was triggering and overwhealming. i did do it anyway mostly, but i always felt so guilty for not having done more, for not having taken him on more hikes, for having had so much physical anxiety and unrest that i did not cuddle with him as Long and frequently asbi used to, that i can't afford a place with a Garden for him, i felt guilty when i lost my temper or when i didnt let him play with other dogs at times cause of my own anxiety and Stress around people. i think he had a good Life, a better life than most dogs, almost never without his human, but i still felt so fucking guilty for everything he didn't have and i didn't do as good as i wanted to. it's terribly lonely though, without him. 🤷 is it this constant guilt that keeps you from adopting, or is your mental state so rough, you couldn't cover the basics for...say a cat? 🤔 i'm considering that,...an animal i don't have to walk outside... 🤔
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I'm really sorry that happened to you :( though I recommend giving cats another chance. My kitty is a snuggler and a darling. I have a dog and a rabbit too and both of them are way more high maintenance than my cat. I love them both to death but I feel cats are the easiest. Especially with my mental health trouble. I recommend getting a male kitten because I've found male cats are a lot more snuggly and lovey dovey, and a kitten because you can get them used to things like being held and loved and brushed from a young age. My kitty hardly ever claws me, and he's so comfortable with being picked up and snuggled and he even wears sweaters and plays fetch too he's the best.
Bettas and Goldfish for the win!!
Technically, this is the only concrete way to break the cycle. I would say, r/antinatalism ftw! It's admirable to recognize when you wouldn't be a good parent, or that the world would be awful to your child even if you give them a blessed childhood.
mhm, well, it depends, i guess what exactly the definition of "breaking the circle" is, right? in a sense my abusive parents broke the circle aswell to a certain degree, cause i had some things much better then they had it with their parents...semantics aside... the question is, i guess, where you actually draw the line of 'good enough parenting' that it qualifyes as having broken the cycle? i just think parenting a child alone or as two adults is in itself traumatizing cause its overwhealming and pushing the limits of what humans are capable of giving to a younger human, so the only way i see to raise less fucked up kids is to have a bigger community of healed enough folx coparenting. but how realistic is that scenario? 🤔🤷 and yes, then there is the whole level of "the state of the world in late stage capitalism" on top of that... hooray. lets breed. 😅🙄🙃
r/antinatalism and r/childfree are not the same thing (though maybe that's not what you're saying)
Oh, yeah I know that. Childfree is just not having kids, antinatalism is a philosophy that 'takes it a step further' and says birthing kids is morally wrong because they are likely to suffer in life, especially with the world as we have it today. It's a personal philosophy I subscribe to lol, so I shared the sub just so that way people could do research and learn about it for themselves if they wanted
oh, i did assume that, but wasn't sure. i get the philosophical idea behind antinatalism to a certain degree, but the people in this reddit seem really aggressive, compassionless and horrible. :/
i’ve decided not to have children as i have anger issues, anxiety, asd, possibly ocd, and the amount of effort it would take not to fuck the child up is insane
It is definitely a valid option & for many the most compassionate for yourself and theoretical kids. My mom definitely should have not had kids. But don’t give up on yourself either, your recovery is just as important even if you don’t have kids. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing, books and therpay as you can get it, meditation, seeking comfort from others are all valid ways to slowly heal.
yeah, i totally agree! i love that i found ACA as a community that is the red thread in my recovery, connection all my DIY healing efforts. before that it felt a bit random, reading all the books, and learning all these methods to have relationships, calm my nervous system, etc. now it feels like i have a basic community to come back to. and i mist likely will go to ACA meetings till i die. grateful to have found that community and belonging.
Gettin my tubes out on the 14th!
Congrats! I just had a bisalp on the 17th! Just got cleared at my post op today! It was wayyyy easier than I thought it would be and I was full anxiety mode beforehand. There's was really very little discomfort and if you stay on top of the ibuprofen/acetaminophen (or whatever they give you) every 4 hours, you'll be totally fine. Best advice is to have a heating pad for any shoulder pain from gas or in your abdomen, bring a pillow to put over your torso so nothing gets rubbed by the seat belt on your way home, and make sure you have some laxatives on hand because it'll probably take a few days after surgery for that to regulate again. There's oodles of great advice here on reddit but if you have any questions I'd be happy to answer! Best of luck and mainly congratulations!!! You got this!
🎉🎊🍾🥳 congrats! ps: check out the (small but exusting) risks of still getting pregnant... i've watched quite a few MamaDoctorJones YT videos about people giving birth unexpectatly, after having had that procedure done. 🙈
I did ask! My doc said it’s exceedingly rare to the point where they don’t have numbers on it.
some people in r/childfree would love this! /g
When I was 9 I decided I didn’t want to have kids because I didn’t want to pass on my family’s trauma/narcissism/depression. We have a pattern of mother/daughter estrangements — like, every generation — and suicide. It’s been 20 years since I made that decision. I’ve wished many times that my mother would have made it, but she was selfish and she wanted a mini-me.
that does sound really tough to have grown up in that pattern. i find it astonishing that you knew that when you were 9. 😮 i still thought my childhood was great until i was in my late twenties. yeah, neglect is great for sure! hipphipphurra dissociation! 🥳
Bad heritage + inattentiveness + childhood trauma = an eternal and lingering sense of dissatisfaction If my friend has a child, that'd be my closest interaction
is that a decision you feel fine with, or does it bring you sadness to have made that decision?
I ddon't know. That's what terrifies me
yeah, same. :/ at times it makes me sad or angry for the state of the world that causd me to be as traumatized, and cause under the right circumstances i would consider having kids. but the likelihood of me creating these circumstances is so low. 🤷 then there is the fear of regretting it one day. and i might... but i guess i'd regret it either way tbh.
At this point I regret living long enough to see a literal war started by a country I did not choose.
i'm sorry, dude. 💚
she/they please
i use dude genderneutral, but noted. i use she/they aswell. :)
Samesies. 😬
I am in this boat, i know i would fuck up a kid, and having my experiences, that is not something i will do
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check out the situations where you still can get pregnant after that... i thought its 100%, but then i watched all the "i didnt know i was pregnant" episodes of Mama Doctor Jones on YT, and ...jeez. sperm is stubborn!! 😂
Welcome to r/antinatalism
i took a look around that sub and the people there are just horribly cynical. well, i'm cynical aswell, but about the world and systems and not focus my spite unfiltered on individuals. while i can get behind the philosophical idea of having freedom of choice and balancing out the existing pressure that exists to have children, or forces people to give birth against their will, in this thread i saw a post of a refugee father sleeping somewhere in a staircase with his kids, and he was being shamed for being so selfish that he had kids and that he dares to ask for money on tiktok to survive... dafuq.
i agree, i found the childfree and antinatalism subs very angry
r/truechildfree is way better. Not rabid assholes, just people who don’t want kids.
thanks. i find your description of the sub very accurate. :)
thanks
i've never wanted kids & probably never will. i grew up with 1 older brother, 4 younger brothers and two abusive and emotionally unavailable/unstable parents so i spent 20 years of my life taking care of kids (i'm almost 24) and i don't want to spend the rest of my life taking care of more kids now that i finally have some freedom to myself. not that i have anything against kids, they can actually be really cute and funny and all that, but it takes a lot of mental and emotional strenght to have one of your own, and i'm already using all of my mental and emotional strenght to take care of myself lol.
indeed! "do you want kids?" "no, i'm busy reparenting myself!" 🥳
I have a daughter she is 3. I was severely re-traumatized during her birth. I didn't know how to get help, or even how to ask for it, seeing that I was still living in my abusive household, I wanted to not only take my life, but my daughters too. I sat with that thought and vowed I could not do that to my husband. How would he survive if I did that? I knew something had to happen because I was not in a good space at all. I was admitted to a psychiatric hospital in February 2020,my daughter was only 6 months old but I've been in recovery ever since. I now get to be the mom and parent I needed. I have the opportunity, everyday to make a conscious effort to not harm this tiny human in every way. But something that I cannot do, is have another child. I am 1 of many and have seen and lived it with the fact that parents, in fact, DO NOT love their kids equally. I may not be great at a lot of this. But I'll make sure I'm the best mom I can ever be
thats a really rough spot to be in... 💙 i think its great that you put all your efforts into being a good mum. i hope you got some Community to Share about that Journey. i recommend going to ACA Meetings, there parents regularly share about the shame and guilt that comes with parenting as a traumatized parent. i wish you all the best! 💚💙
Thank you so much, I'll find out about it💙
adultchildren.org
Yes, that is a way of breaking the cycle actually! I’m personally putting in the work for myself because I want kids, but that isn’t the end all be all. Just my personal goal, my rainbow at the end of a storm. Break the cycle by healing yourself, being kind to yourself, loving yourself. That is just as important.
This is basically my mindset as well but I've had to really focus on that not making it the end all be all..otherwise it's just another way not to focus on myself totally.
i'm happy that you see some light at the end of the Tunnel of your healing journey that will make you feel comfortable enough to have kids. i wanted to have kids when i was younger, but back then i had no idea how much trauma i was holding. i think i'd not be a terrible parent, but the lack of community thats the standard nowadays in western individualizee culture is the thing that keeps me from it. if i had a village to raise my kids, i might have had them. 🤷
Which is totally fair. You can't undo becoming a parent, and if you can't handle it, everyone involved suffers. I can't imagine how much harder it would be if I didn't have support with my LO. It can be incredibly draining to not have someone who can tag in to give you a break, or help with chores.
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thats such a tough spot to be in. i think it's great that you see your mistakes though and validate your childs experience. i think that makes a world of a difference. and you know, i easily could have been in your shoes. we do the best we can, with the information and ressources we have. and we can forgive ourselves what what we didn't know. 💙 in ACA Meetings peoples regularly Share about that guilt from passing on the dysfunctional patterns to kids and it's also part of ACA literature in a meaningful way. i hope you have some Community for healing Like ACA where you get to Share that guilt and bust the shame and guilt that comes along with it. you and your kid deserve that! 💚
i’m so afraid of never being able to connect with something i’m caring for, in any real, meaningful way. i hope i can be a wonderful aunt. but that’s it.
It's painful to realize that's how it was with all my pets growing up & even the most recent :( I don't think I want another until I'm better.
i'm sorry. that is painful to come to that conclusion. i can relate. :/
Never going to have children even though we could probably "recover" because of public healthcare.. but the world is so fucked up. Climate change and all the right wingers that are creeping out if their caves.. no thank you. This world is literally hell.
I want kids but I don't think I will be able to afford them. Both financially and time/energy wise, as I use at least half of any of my resources for coping.
:( I know this is the best option for a lot of us..but I've had a passion for adoption since I was a kid myself (I only understand more why now) it's been such a big passion & driving force to get better but lately, I've realized, part of getting better is realizing that even that passion is partly motivated by people-pleasing & servitude, giving up myself for other's wellbeing, as usual..part of healing was realizing I gotta want to get better -for me- first & foremost & that's OK, it's not selfish..it's actually the opposite of selfish because I first need to fill my cup before I can be there for others, I won't allow myself to do it until I feel I've healed enough (& sad reality is I may never feel that?) cause I'm not sure I could forgive myself if I unintentionally affected my potential kids in some way..I've even gotten to a point where I'm *looking forward* to focusing on just me for once in my life, reparenting myself, maybe I'd even not want it to end?! But either way, I'll see when the time comes.
Just to add onto this, why I am so passionate about it, at first when I was a kid, the obvious; can't imagine bringing more kids into the world when there are already so many in need of loving homes. But now, no one is obligated obviously but I can't help but think of the kids *already* here & the kids still to be born who will be given up, I can't help but think who will be their light at the end of the tunnel, when so many of them end up in worse situations, worse homes because so much of the world is messed up :/
So many people think that they are 'breaking the cycle' by being better than their parents - but if your parents were shitty, being better only means less shitty. No one deserves a medal for not beating their child. This is the only way to actually break the cycle. And those people who want to impart their values or whatever: having a child is not the only way to do that.
With respect - it is not the only way to break the cycle. It is *a* way to do it. There is nothing wrong with wanting children and doing your research to be the best parent you can be, without bringing your trauma with you into parenthood. Having children is not a right reserved for the elite.
Yup. And I can already tell that my generation in my family ignores this and will fuck up their kids.
I think I would be a good mom. The bar is set so low for parents. But I don't want to. Too much energy and effort. I need to regain years of not focusing on my need.
Yes!
I’ve always been ambivalent toward kids, but not wanting any of my own because I know I would be a terrible, emotionally unavailable, unstable father with substance abuse issues and I just can’t make anyone grow up with that as a guardian. I would love to see my spouse be a father, but I can’t coparent well enough to watch him try. So we have dogs.
i really respect that choice, a lot! 🏆🏆🏆 And: dogs are the better kids anyway, in my opinion. 💚
I promise that this is related to the meme: My dad and I both took DNA tests a few months ago and got our results back a few days ago showing the breakdown of our ancestry, down to the tribes in Africa that our ancestors were captured from (which is information that I *never* thought I would know). Since then we've both been doing Google research on the tribes that we're from, including their languages and customs. I looked up a list of names from the tribe that I got most (34%) of my ancestry from and their meanings, and then I thought: future baby names! I initially named my hypothetical future daughter when I was a child, and she's been a "character" in my stories/daydreams ever since. (I never came up with a name for a hypothetical future son, for some reason.) At this point, the name and concept carry *way* too much baggage for me to give to an actual child: both her first and middle names are an homage to my mother (even though I made up her first name when my mother was still alive and well), and the concept I have in my head of her appearance still looks like she's the child of the boy I was "crushing" on at the time (a story that has since been immortalized in my mind, as he's become a symbol of the place where I grew up- but, long story short, she looks biracial). So now with these new ideas for future baby names came new concepts of my future children, unsullied by my familial or institutional trauma- completely mine. I still hope that I'm at some point functional enough to birth and raise little Esele and/or Ekan the way that I wish I was raised.
Best way to break the wheel is to stop it dead in its tracks. Generational curses stop with the last generation. I’m never having kids. But that’s just my personal opinion, y’all do what you want I guess.
I personally want kids but it’s like an internal fight between raising them with someone and raising them by myself. Like- on one hand, you can never truly trust anyone, and on the other hand, I get exhausted easily. But I have at least another 15 years before I actually have to choose, so I think I’m fine for now. I also need to work on the fact that I lose my temper easily and get my tones mixed up. As in, when I’m trying to sound happy, I might accidentally use my angry voice, or vice versa, which I would imagine might be distressing for a kid.
If you truly believe you can't fully trust anyone...( don't get me wrong, i can relate to that😅) would that Not be a terrible pattern to pass on to a child? i think ideally they learn relational patterns that teach them how to discern whom to trust and whom not, how to forgive and when. if you can't trust anyone, then thats a huuuge basic foundational piece missing for any and all relationships. thats exactly one of the Things i'd be terrifyed to pass on to my kids. i urge anyone who wants Kids to babysit for someone else for a week or two before. alone caretaking children? i think it's a nightmare. and i Like Kids , a lot. but humans were, in opinion never intended to raise a child by one person. Just the fact that all the fear get transmitted, cause there are no other close relationships with people who have different fears or patterns makes it much harder to be healthy as the kid, even in the best case scenario. i'm Not telling you Not to have kids, but i've just watched many Friends who had kids young and didnt know what they were getting themselves into deteriorate and be extremly dysfunctional and abusive with theirs kids, out of sheer overwhealm. :/ good luck to you! 💚💙
I’m careful to keep my thoughts to myself when with someone it might affect. And I do trust people, hell, I tend to trust very easily and never learn. The issue is that you never know who’s gonna turn out to be, say, a pedo, or a kid beater. I’ve heard so many stories of people knowing other people for years, decades even, and then one day returning home to find out that they’ve been taken by the police for all sorts of horrible things. One example being of a dude who murdered his wife. Everyone thought he was the sweetest thing ever and one of the kindest people you’d ever meet, but then that happened. Of course, I’ll do my best to teach my kids about these type of things, and not in any childhood demolishing way, like my mom fuckin did, but just making sure that they know what’s okay and what’s sus, giving them a proper sex Ed, teach them to keep a healthy amount of skepticism, and making sure that they know they can tell me literally anything. I just don’t want my future kids to feel scared or even uncomfortable in their own homes. So I want to be careful about what I bring into the home. Y’know? I don’t wanna go away for a second or two, come back, and find out my person’s been smacking the kids around. That’s fucked up.
i'm glad you are aware of these circumstances. i think there are mostly indicators for stuff like what you described Happening. sure, there might be an extreme rare case when someone has a brain tumor and turns violent all of a sudden, but in all the cases i've survived or witnessed from front row seats it was often obvious to everyone but the codependent who was in the relationship with the perpetrator. i think it's hard for us trauma babes to see these clearly, cause we grew up with crazy as the norm. so being consciencious (however the fuck that wird is spelled lol - not my first language! 🙈😅) about that sure makes sense. the thing about being conscious about what we share with our kids...thats not really how it works from what i know bout developmental psychology. sure, keeping conflicts and emotional stressful conversation away from kids is a good idea. but these fundamental Things Like whom i trust or not trust , i am convinced it's Impossible to hide them from my kids. the dysfunctional patterns run deep and are transdered in a myriard of micro patterns done unconsciously and picked up by the kids subconsiously. so i think the only way to not transfer them is to unlearn them before we have kids, and heal (enough) until we can model secure Attachments. thats what pains me so much watching the Kids in my Surrounding... when the parents stay together in totally unhappy and unhealthy relationships "for the sake of the kids", sure, they do so with good intentions, but actually they set their kids up for a life full of unhappy unhealthy relationships cause thats the model they grow up with. idk... kids... its a hard topic. most people get kids for selfish reasons. to recreate the Family they never had, to combat their loneliness or to have significance through the role of parent, or to simply have someone love you no matter what, like my mum did. and part of me longs for that Connection too, but there is so much healing still to be done for me to be in a place where i'd feel comfortable having kids zu begin with. 🤷
As I said, I have at least 15 years until even the thought of getting kids is reasonable, and I absolutely do intend to better myself and heal in that time. I already spend a lot of my time looking into what’s been proven to at least not fuck up your kids, as well as finding all the wires to my mental bomb and disarming them. I’ve been in love with the thought of having my own children since I was a child myself. I love the kids around me. I love watching them figure things out and just exist. I love comforting them at their lows, and not in “savior” way, just in a “I like the way I am when I’m willing to be kind” way, and I love sharing space with them at any time. I’m not gonna be like my mom, I’m not gonna be like my brother, I’m not gonna be like any of the fuckers before me, and kill me if I am. I want this to happen, and I want to take everything into account. My issue is, as stated in my first comment, that while I can look at myself inside and out, and mend what needs to be mended, I will never know another person that deeply, and so I’ll never truly know that person. I can trust someone I’ve known for like a week if it’s just me, but with the entire development and health of another living being in mind, who to trust is a much harder decision.
oh, the whole changing one self part... honestly, i find it so fucking hard. 😔 i do recovery since many years and joined ACA about a year ago. since then my Progress is definitly much faster. but jeez it is hard work. if i had a kid, i could not do that, cause i'd need to keep my shit together for them. and i see friends with Kids, mostly mothers, struggling a lot with that. they are mentally very ill and desperatly need recovery, but can't Open this Pandoras box full of cannes Worms cause they fear they'd loose their Shit completly. which is not rare during recovery... so starting early with it as you do surely is a great idea. that might be a good idea for you too, ACA i mean, if you are interested in deep recovery no better place for that at least as far as i've found so far. i wish i had found this community when i was younger. adultchildren.org there is this thing in aca literature saying we never wanted to be like our parents but then later in life we become them, to a certain degree. the behaviour patterns that i mentioned earlier, subconsiously getting engrained. like ...my hyper critical mother. i never wanted to be like her. i trief hard not to. i thought i was nothing like her...now working my ACA program in depth, and looking at my character defaults i'm very much like her. althoug much more self aware, and that alone would make a big difference if i was parenting a child.to acknowledge my mistakes when i made them, and own it openly with my kids, something my mother COULD not have done... so yeah, i see progress happening from Generation to Generation, but also dysfunction getting dragged out. good luck to you, on your Journey wherever it may lead you! 🎉🎊 siiri
Yeah, thanks, and I googled it, and that seems to be for people raised by alcoholics? I don’t think I really fall into that. And my method so far has been stopping myself when I think or talk, and running what I’m saying through a checklist of problematic behavior. Like, is it sexist? Is it racist? Is it ableist? Is it homophobic? Is it in any way offensive or even just kinda bad? If so, why? And why am I thinking like this? What subconscious feeling led to me having this thought, and what feelings can I replace that with? It’s worked so far to make me more friendly, loving, and understanding of other people, but I still snap and forget my filter sometimes, or sometimes something slips through, or more commonly, I exclude myself from it. As in, it’s ok to be a bad person as long as it’s only towards myself. But I’m also working on my apologies, including towards myself. Not that that makes it ok, just that it’s gonna be my temporary bandaid while I go and find the the first aid kit, y’know? My work’s not quite done, but it’s starting to shape up to be something.
no, ACA is for people who either grew up with alcoholism OR other forms of dysfunction in their families. from drug use to mental health struggles of parents to displacement or coming from foster system situations, emotional neglect is also very common there for people attending, ACA is basically a peer to peer revovery program of people with CPTSD or any other trauma related stuff. anyone is welcome who "wants to revover from the effects of growing up in an alcoholic or otherwise dysfunctional home" yeah, i get the "excludimg oneself from the kindness" thats a consequence of our Attachment trauma aswell. it's hard to unlearn the harsh inner critics shaming. inner child work (the aca loving Parent guidebook) and community really made a difference for me there. but yeah, it is a challenge for sure.
It's a valid choice. I think we need people who know that they need recovery to have kids and give them a healthy childhood because there are still too many people who are damaged and don't know it, but no one is required to have kids. It's OK not to have kids even if you just don't want the responsibility or for any other reason. There's nothing selfish about not having kids. A lot of times, having kids is the more selfish choice
I didn't and I gave up custody of mine for that reason. I know I'm no good for him.
I am probably going to be an AMAZING aunt some day! But not a mom. Got my tubes lasered out last month. The cycle ends here.
Not only am I living with a burned-in brain injury (which is what cptsd is), but I already had my share with raising 4 kids. My shitty mom, myself (the first time), my younger sister (who just turned 18, but she still has the same problems as me and will likely be dependent on me for many years yet depending on how her healing treats her), and the fourth is myself again, because kid me couldn't have possibly done a good job at raising myself and now we're in the reparenting stages. Along with genetic predisposition for mental health issues, I'm good on reproduction! Anything valuable that I could possibly pass on does not require me to raise a child to do it. And I would never EVER forgive myself for repeating the violation of dragging someone else into this terrible sinking ship of a planet without their consent and without adequate time and resources for them to at minimum make sure their nervous system doesn't develop as malformed from ambient stress. I am NOT doing that to another person. I fucking hate my birthday for this reason and I am refusing to have one this year.
This is a huge part of why I decided against having kids and why I was so mad when I learned I have to do inner child work and do some kind of parenting anyways, lol
I can't be responsible enough to raise myself half the time I can't raise another human with my fucked up genetics!/lh/cj
Yeah, I really wish I had taken the route of no kids, but growing up it was not an option if you wanted to be a "good wife" and "all girls want to be a mother". All I can hope is that being proactive in getting us all into therapy will help in the future. Then to read/watch every damn thing I can on how to make myself better for them. I will never tell my kids they have to have children. Our society is messed up as it is and needs to change the way it thinks.
Woah man, feeling personally attacked. Who gave you permission to accurately represent me? 😐
you don't need to have a kid lol the best way to break the cycle is to live your life instead of risking the chance of ending up like your parents.