Parental Trauma

Dear Parents Who Didn’t Heal

This is not an attack. This is not judgment. This is truth.

When parents do not heal, it does not just affect them. It spills into the lives of their children in ways that last far beyond childhood. Unhealed wounds do not stay contained. They show up in parenting, in silence, in absence, in neglect, and in what gets normalized behind closed doors.

Children do not have the language to say something is wrong. They adapt. They survive environments that were supposed to protect them.

When parents avoid their pain, dismiss their child’s voice, or choose comfort over accountability, the child absorbs it. They internalize confusion. They question their worth. They learn to tolerate what should never be tolerated.

This does not mean parents are evil. It means they are human. But being human does not remove responsibility.

Children should not have to parent themselves. They should not have to search for safety outside the home. They should not have to wonder whether they matter.

When parents do not heal, children grow up yearning to be seen, chosen, protected, and understood by the very people who created them.

This is where cycles begin. This is also where they must end.

The After Effects of Parents Who Didn’t Heal

The after effects do not always show up loudly. Sometimes they show up quietly inside a daughter.

For me, the after effects looked like sexual assault at a very young age. They looked like a lack of self confidence, a lack of self worth, a lack of direction, and a lack of guidance.

They looked like being misused and misguided. They looked like over giving, over explaining, over sharing, over loving, over joyful, over kind, over graceful, over hopeful. All in an attempt to be seen by the people who created me.

When protection is missing, awareness is missing. When awareness is missing, doors are left open for others to misuse your child. That is what neglect does. Not always intentional, but damaging all the same.

I became someone who startles easily. Someone who jumps at sudden noises. A nervous system that learned danger before safety.

That does not come from nowhere.

When parents do not heal, children may go searching for a soul family. People who feel safer than their birth family. People they value more because they offer what was missing. Protection. Presence. Peace.

Healing takes time. The past is the past. I am 28 years old now. I am not interested in living there forever. I am naming the things that still try to weigh me down so I can finally put them down.

Because now, I am a parent.

I have a daughter who is about to turn five and that is when everything changed for me. That age cracked something open. It forced me to look at the things I had been surviving instead of healing. I do not want to avoid anything anymore.

I want to be able to teach her what I did not know. I want to give her language, protection, awareness, and safety. Because the moment I start avoiding the things I truly feel, the cycle continues. And I refuse to pass that down.

My son has autism. He cannot say everything, but he can tell me enough. And when you know, you know. You know your child.

That is why I am healing. Because my children deserve safety. Because silence is no longer an option.

This is not about blaming the past. This is about protecting the future.

Dear Absent Father

I wish you understood how vital your role really is. I wish you understood the damage that comes from showing up inconsistently or not at all.

People talk about absenteeism like children will just get over it. They do not. What happens instead is a quiet war inside a child’s mind. Where is my daddy. Why is my daddy not here. What is wrong with me.

That kind of confusion is not small. It is mental. It is psychological. And it can follow a child for a lifetime.

What makes it harder is experiencing it as a child and then watching it happen again through your own children. Watching them love someone who keeps disappointing them. Watching them still hope and still wait.

Children love their parents unconditionally. No matter how unhealed we are. No matter how imperfect. No matter how absent.

There was a movie based on a true story about a child in Los Angeles whose mother and her boyfriend killed him. At the end of that movie, the child still made a picture for his mom saying that he loved her. That is how deep a child’s love runs.

For grown adults to not even be able to give that back is traumatic.

You cannot pick and choose when you want to be a parent. You cannot disappear and then show up for photo opportunities. You cannot play the role when it is convenient and abandon it when it is hard.

If you do not want to be a parent, say that. Take accountability. Sign your rights over and allow that child and the parent who is present to move forward without confusion and broken promises.

Inconsistency is harmful. Silence is harmful. Half love is harmful.

This is not about bitterness. This is about truth. This is about protecting children.

Children do not stop loving their parents. They stop loving themselves.