Living a Life with Living-Dead Parents

Living a Life with Living-Dead Parents

Dysfunction is a hidden word and characteristic many people have within their family dynamics. From childhood issues to adult avoidance and everything in between. Generations raise themselves in broken homes that seem whole on the outside. Pain-filled homes that no one knows exist. Yet the children carry that over with them to figure it out in their adulthood. Parents who do this to their children cannot care about anyone but themselves. Though many people suffer from this forbidden concept, I am going to share mine. My heart breaks for anyone who must go through anything similar to what I am going to share.

Parents are entrusted with the opportunity and responsibility to raise children to be normal, proficient, and successful members of today’s ever-changing world while they take on the role of a parent. Yet often, children abandoned to raise themselves. They are filled with damaged and broken pieces of what tools and skills they are given to be something greater than from which they came. However, they often are left damaging themselves further due to trying to fill the aching void deep within they feel. Unfortunately, they do not know where this void comes from fully. All they know is it stems from their biological family dynamic.

We find ourselves in the adult world at some point. A world we know not much about other than selfish mindsets, anger, lack of love, and many other negative traits that were formed and instilled in our childhood versions of self. The void we feel is from wanting love from a parent. To feel like we matter, to know what true love is, and that we are, in some way, successful. These are the biggest keys to our souls and functionality.

If you do not show love to a child, they do not know how to reciprocate it in the world or environment around them. Thus, you have not only damaged that one soul, but any others they come in contact with until they can find, fix, and produce that love. Love builds empathy, sympathy, and the rationale of caring in general. Caring about yourself. Caring about others. Loving yourself. Loving others. These are key basic foundational blocks of a child’s life. These blocks also are the stepping stones they use for the adult world and when they create a family.

Children who are raised with siblings feel this sting not only from the parental figures they are thrust with but also the ones with which they are growing. They all are trying to navigate the lack of these foundational pieces together which can cause friction among them. Often parents who fall into this category will divide their children. They drive the wedges knowingly or unknowingly. Yet the parental aspects wonder why their children move so far away from them, cut contact, or never seem to care unless it is at their deathbed.

Sadly, the hurt children learn that their parents never truly cared. From the realization of the actions and situations they grew up in and the helping hand of therapy, children become adults who navigate life to move forward and cut ties with toxicity and damage. Not all cut ties or realize it, but most do. Some take longer than others.

It is often discovered that these awakenings occur when the child reaches the age of mid-twenties to mid-thirties. Damage doesn’t just go away. It takes time, effort, learning, adjusting, and patience to heal from.

I am in this category of what was once a broken child raised in an abusive, destructive, and damaging home hidden from the view of society. It took me many years to learn and overcome this. For girls, seeing this environment growing up, makes the viewpoint of love and relationships jaded heavily. Girls tend to seek out the comfort and safety feeling of abusive relationships and partners. They tend to also have lower self-esteem and are meek. Boys do this as well to a degree, but not in the aspect of a partner. Boys tend to surround themselves with figures that they see from a male perspective or immolate the things they see as they thought and were taught were accurate.

I know from my life experience; this is the case for me until now. My mother does not care enough about her kids to even have custody of some. For the ones of us she did have, she made it known she did not want nor cared if we had food, shelter, water, lights, clothes, shoes, etc. My father did not care either. Both worked, yet we often lacked a person's basic needs. Being made fun of in school for the outward appearance of our home situation did its own damage as well. Yet, we could not bring ourselves to talk about it in public or to anyone as we knew not how. Plus, we would have been beaten for doing so.

Having kids of my own fully opened my eyes to the insanity my siblings and I were in. I knew growing up I wanted to break the cycle and be better than what I had been through. I wanted to give my kids the things I did not while protecting them from seeing that type of world. Truthfully, that void remains. It will never fully be filled or go away.

The void of wanting your parents to love you and care about you is a void that nothing here on earth can heal or fill. It is something that is sealed off with the stinging and painful words from my parents of how they hate me and wished I had died when I was younger or deployed. The comments from my parents telling me I am dead to them and how they regretted having me. Comment from my mother telling me on the phone when I was deployed, she wished she had killed me when she had the chance. The comments from my father telling me how he will kill me before he dies. Yet when they need or want things my phone is the one ringing.

I live a life of grieving the death of my parents though they are both still very much alive. Parents who cannot love as they should have. I hold it in, so no one knows how it hurts. I use these as parts to ensure I show my children how much they are loved, wanted, and do my best for them. I have learned as well that a family is not what you are born into. Family is what you make it to be.

I have a father figure from my military career. I have brothers that are not blood relation at all that I am close to and think highly of that I found from my time in the military as well. I have sisters that are not blood-related from the military and life happenstance. For these, I am forever grateful.

So when you see someone celebrating their achievements and accomplishments openly, on social media, or whatnot, I ask you to please celebrate with them. They are not being too flashy or seeking full validation. They are simply happy with the things they have carried out with no one in their corner. They are sharing with you the moments in their lives that mean the most to them because the ones it should matter to, do not care at all. These people are still fully grieving the death of living parents and families.