To the Children of Unloving Parents

To the Children of Unloving Parents

It’s not your fault. There’s nothing wrong with you. There’s something wrong with THEM.

There’s also nothing you could have done differently. They are unwell. And just because they were too unwell to know how to love you, it doesn’t by any means suggest that you’re unlovable. Not at all. That feeling is just the child inside, still crying to be held, to be validated, to be fed emotional nourishment, to be accepted as a unique and beautiful being. It’s the parents’ job to answer those cries �" to show you the language of selflessness, no matter what you did or how you spoke or what you looked like or what mistakes you made. They are the ones who failed. Not you.

Losing a parent is painful. But an unloving parent is like radiation: invisible and toxic, hidden all around and constantly doing damage. If certain measures aren’t taken, they slowly eat away at your health until you are just as corroded and cancerous as they. But there are ways to protect yourself. You can cut your self free. Emotionally, spiritually, legally.

During the process, you might discover that you’re worth loving. Or maybe you already have children of your own, and you have come to learn what love actually is, and you now see that what these people have been doing your whole life is not love. If so, you’ve discovered more treasures within yourself than the unloving parents will ever be privileged to see. (Shhh! Don’t tell them!)

Don’t back down and beg them to change, either. Don’t say, “Well, if they’re sick, maybe I can fix them!” You can’t. It would have happened by now. Take that compassion and generosity and selflessness somewhere else. A lot of people have never experienced love. And many are still crying for it, each in their own language, from crib to crack house to pulpit to Politburo.

People might give you a hard time. They might not understand why you would permanently exile a parent. Why you would give up. But that’s just it: you’re the one NOT giving up. They gave up so long ago that giving up looks normal, and you’re finally taking action to save yourself, rather than go down with them in their sea of loveless codependency. Parent or not, you have the right to protect yourself from people like that. Period.

To all who know me and recognize what I’m talking about, and who have watched the rot creep for years like a coughing sneezing aisle-seat idiot on a cramped crowded hours-long cross-continental flight, snot strings and all, super gross, I’m sorry for whatever radiation I passed to you. Whether I was your student or guide, reinforcement or rival, and I showed even the tiniest reflection of that sickness, please accept my sincerest apology. I had no idea how radioactive I was, and how much worse I was making it by trying to rescue someone else from the reactor. Someone who had no intention of being rescued.

After decades of labor and expense, growth and evolution, the new sarcophagus has at last been completed and fastened firmly in place. The ruin inside is free to collapse on itself with the dark privacy it needs. May its own cries be answered in the language it understands.

And finally, to the actual loving parents: thank you, one and all, for being yourselves. For doing the work, for persevering, and for not giving up on your children. You DO know what you’re doing, even if you don’t feel like it! I know because without your example I would not have recognized the danger in my life and done something about it. Thank you for sharing with me your experience of love. It is exponentially greater than the one I missed out on to begin with.

Today there are fireworks. We have liberated our selves.