The path to healing
I took all my transgenerational - plus personal - traumas and went to a therapist, with whom we achieved such improvement in a year that he himself said that he thought I didn’t need to come anymore, only if I felt I needed it.
With reason
I grew up being the "problem child," just like my father once was. His sisters were polite, good students, and dad was a real "bad boy," the teachers' nightmare. I was labeled a dumb kid because I didn’t read well, wrote poorly, and had bad spelling.
In reality, my father was just hyperactive and should have been put in sports to burn off his excess energy because as a lively little boy, he couldn’t sit in a desk all day. For me, it’s clear that I’m not stupid, just dyslexic.
When my daughter first showed learning difficulties, I immediately took her to a specialist, where it turned out she has ADHD, but with proper attention, it was manageable to such an extent that she was admitted to law school. She didn’t grow up like me and my father, being labeled a failure and receiving no help.
Saying goodbye
I broke the family curse by getting divorced. My great-grandmother really didn’t have much opportunity for this, but my grandmother and especially my mother did, yet they chose to stay in unhappy marriages. I rather said goodbye to my lousy husband and now I am happy with a wonderful man.
Fanaticism
I left the "congregation" – which I think is more like a cult – and started living for myself, not for an invisible male figure who believes women are inferior to men.
The announcement
I announced that I wouldn’t be a surgeon – like everyone else in the family – but a veterinarian. Since then, I’ve been the black sheep of the family, but I don’t care; I love animals and want to help them.
Boundaries
At one Christmas gathering, I told my uncle that I was no longer willing to tolerate his rude, hurtful jokes and if he didn’t stop, I would take the kids and go home. Everyone fell silent because it was the first time a female family member dared to set boundaries.
The milk coffee
My son knocked over a cup of milk coffee and my husband and I said nothing, just cleaned it up. He wiped the table, and I changed the soaked shirt on the child. My sister, who watched the whole thing, went out to the garden. I followed her and asked what was wrong. With teary eyes, she said she was sorry and crying because at her place, after something like this, there would always be yelling and punishment, and how patiently and kindly my husband and I handled the situation. That’s when I knew I was doing something right by not raising my child the way I was raised.
The hamster wheel
Instead of working myself to death – like everyone in my family, where you can only earn recognition by working until you get sick – I took a year off and traveled. When I announced this, my parents looked at me like I was crazy, and I just laughed.
Mental hygiene
Part of my family does not acknowledge their mental illnesses, while the other half boasts about bearing the suffering as martyrs, caused by depression, anxiety, and other – undiagnosed – disorders. I decided I didn’t want to live like that and went to a doctor. I received a diagnosis, effective antidepressant medication, and I feel better than I ever have in my life. It’s as if the world had been black and white until now and is now colorful.
The appearance
I was fed up with family gatherings full of unspoken resentment, sulking, overly sweet niceties, and palpable tension, so I decided not to celebrate Christmas with them. This was unheard of because no one had dared not to come before. My tyrant grandmother, hateful aunt, and strict mother told me that if I didn’t go now, I would never be allowed again, and I replied that thank God, then I could have peaceful Christmases from now on.
