All parents mess up their children. They do they best they can, and sometimes the best isn’t very good. Regardless - all parents mess up their children to some degree. Even in the families where everything seems picture perfect (sometimes especially those). Nothing ever is.
Personally I’m doing my very best with my girls. I am, however, mentally preparing for the time when they will come and point their fingers at their father and me for not doing x-y-z or for doing x-y-z in the wrong way. Because we all go through that stage. The stage when we realise that our parents messed up. That our parents are in fact not the super humans we expected or wished for them to be. That they too had choices and sometimes didn’t do the right thing (according to us at least).
Our parents are people - just like you and me. They were raised by people who were raised in a completely different time than what we are navigating now. My grandparents were born in the early 1900’s. That’s 100 years ago. Times were so incredibly different then! They didn’t know a fraction of what we know now about mental, spiritual, physical, social or emotional health. Of course they messed up my parents (and step parents)! And the ways in which they messed them up in turn affected how my parental figures messed me up.
So, what I’m trying to get to is that being a little messed up is inevitable. We are all human and everybody is doing the best they can. Sometimes this isn’t great, sometimes it’s down right awful. But everyone is doing their best. And parenting is hard work!
Here’s the beauty in it all though: With each new generation we have the opportunity to get wiser. To forgive. To heal. To pass on less trauma.
Maybe you are in the stage of blame right now. Maybe you are confronting your parents with everything they ‘did wrong’. Maybe you don’t dare to confront them (maybe you simply can’t) but are going through all the feels. That’s ok. Go through it. Feel the feels. Let out the anger. Deal with it all. Let it get messy if need be.
Accept that sometimes healing takes longer than we expect. Just don’t get stuck in it. Don’t point fingers forever. Don’t dwell on the dark stuff for too long. If something isn’t loosening, maybe leave it for a while and then revisit when you’re ready. Don’t forget to live. Because life is now. Life is here. Life is at your fingertips and it’s shining it’s beautiful colours your way and calling for you to join in.
In the game of life we don’t control which cards we are dealt.
But we get to choose how to play them.
Do the work. Forgive (if not for them, then for your own sake). Heal. And then move forward. Healing is a journey - not a destination.