"If you are grieving the loss of a relationship with a child because you didn’t know then what you know now, I want to tell you that it is never too late.
I failed my two eldest children in so many ways.
So. Many. Ways.
I promised myself I’d be a great parent, but that was according to neuronormative standards. It was in alignment with my need to keep up with society, to hold up my mask, to ensure my children had good grades and were in gifted and extra curricular programs.
I didn’t promise myself I’d be the parent my children needed.
I decided what they needed, and I failed to ask. It never even occurred to me to do so.
At eighteen, with a backpack of trauma, I had my first baby and on I went from being a displaced young unidentified neurodivergent woman to being someone responsible for the wellbeing, love and care of other human beings. On my own.
I didn’t even know what that meant.
All I knew was punishment, imposed consequences and shaming.
Sadly, this is often the norm in society, in many of our families.
My eldest left the family home at sixteen and hated me.
We were estranged for two years.
And then one day, we slowly began coming back together.
I can’t even begin to describe the pain over that time.
On coming together again, we agreed to sit in counseling together, until I realised that I needed to go on my own. This was on me.
I worked on myself. I started processing my trauma, my pain, my triggers, my hang ups, my fears. This process will never end.
Today I continue to work on what I can, whilst setting important boundaries.
Setting boundaries with my children can be really hard when I parent from a space of guilt and remorse, which is another vote for the importance of working on my self forgiveness.
Every now and then, my children and I have those tricky conversations..
We trigger each other, we get angry with one another, we hang up on one another in the middle of calls and we laugh our guts out about it all later.
But, we speak almost every single day. We send each other TikToks that we know will bring laughter or make a point in a cheeky way.
We don’t see eye to eye on everything, there are parts of each other that we don’t understand or relate to and that is all 100% okay.
Relationships are messy. Sometimes they’re ugly. They change and evolve as do people.
I’ve said sorry a thousand times and I’ll probably be saying it for the rest of my life.
I name the things I did to cause pain, sadness, rage and harm.
“I am so sorry I was so controlling. That must have been so incredibly painful growing up with me”, “I know, I caused trauma and I’m so sorry”, “Yeah, that was really crap, I wish I hadn’t done that and I could take it back”.
There are also days where I mess up again, and I own it.
We’re human. We do the best we can with what we have in any given moment.
But if we don’t forgive ourselves and process the shame and self loathing, we block the space in our hearts our children need to access in order to be truly connected to us.
It is never too late."
-K.F.
I failed my two eldest children in so many ways.
So. Many. Ways.
I promised myself I’d be a great parent, but that was according to neuronormative standards. It was in alignment with my need to keep up with society, to hold up my mask, to ensure my children had good grades and were in gifted and extra curricular programs.
I didn’t promise myself I’d be the parent my children needed.
I decided what they needed, and I failed to ask. It never even occurred to me to do so.
At eighteen, with a backpack of trauma, I had my first baby and on I went from being a displaced young unidentified neurodivergent woman to being someone responsible for the wellbeing, love and care of other human beings. On my own.
I didn’t even know what that meant.
All I knew was punishment, imposed consequences and shaming.
Sadly, this is often the norm in society, in many of our families.
My eldest left the family home at sixteen and hated me.
We were estranged for two years.
And then one day, we slowly began coming back together.
I can’t even begin to describe the pain over that time.
On coming together again, we agreed to sit in counseling together, until I realised that I needed to go on my own. This was on me.
I worked on myself. I started processing my trauma, my pain, my triggers, my hang ups, my fears. This process will never end.
Today I continue to work on what I can, whilst setting important boundaries.
Setting boundaries with my children can be really hard when I parent from a space of guilt and remorse, which is another vote for the importance of working on my self forgiveness.
Every now and then, my children and I have those tricky conversations..
We trigger each other, we get angry with one another, we hang up on one another in the middle of calls and we laugh our guts out about it all later.
But, we speak almost every single day. We send each other TikToks that we know will bring laughter or make a point in a cheeky way.
We don’t see eye to eye on everything, there are parts of each other that we don’t understand or relate to and that is all 100% okay.
Relationships are messy. Sometimes they’re ugly. They change and evolve as do people.
I’ve said sorry a thousand times and I’ll probably be saying it for the rest of my life.
I name the things I did to cause pain, sadness, rage and harm.
“I am so sorry I was so controlling. That must have been so incredibly painful growing up with me”, “I know, I caused trauma and I’m so sorry”, “Yeah, that was really crap, I wish I hadn’t done that and I could take it back”.
There are also days where I mess up again, and I own it.
We’re human. We do the best we can with what we have in any given moment.
But if we don’t forgive ourselves and process the shame and self loathing, we block the space in our hearts our children need to access in order to be truly connected to us.
It is never too late."
-K.F.
❤3
Not mine but thought it was cool. https://www.etsy.com/shop/TheCrystalGemUnicorn