Living with the legacy of abusive parents
Illustration by Chau Luong
by Karen Fischer
Last Christmas, I had a conversation with a loved one, let’s call her Lisa, about a phenomena in her family.
Growing up, Lisa’s father was both abusive and permitted abuse in the family household. Now 40 years later, those impacts still affect not only Lisa, but her siblings, their children, and even their childrens’ children. However, Lisa’s father passed away 20 years ago, so no one ever got the chance as adults to confront him about his legacy of abusive conduct.
But as the years go by, Lisa notices that her siblings seem to venerate her father more. On his birthday and Father’s Day, they claim that he was the best father in the world and that he was so funny and charming. At one point over Christmas, Lisa even said, “It’s like they don’t remember what we went through, but I know that they know.”
Yet Lisa admits that she also falls victim to remembering her father through rose-colored glasses. She also struggles with anger. As her children were growing up, she had trouble regulating her anger, which resulted in physically abusive behaviors towards her own children not unlike some of the conduct in her childhood home that caused her great pain.
According to Becca Reed, a trauma therapist in Portland, Maine, the befuddlement in Lisa’s family on her father’s legacy and repeating his habits are normal.
“When individuals struggle with emotional regulation due to experiences of neglect or abuse by parents, it can lead to a wide range of consequences throughout their lifetime,” Reed says.
Some of those impacts include substance abuse stemming from self-medication, trouble with trust or intimacy, impulsive overreactions, and chronic stress.
Lianna Purjes, a licensed therapist (LCSW) and coach from Boulder, CO, points to a common phrase that therapists use to describe the contradictory emotions children of abusive parents feel.
“There is a saying of ‘neurons that fire together, wire together,’ meaning our brains naturally make connections between all sorts of stimuli in our environment,” she says. “It is completely natural for someone who experienced abuse by the hands of a parent to reframe, or even excuse the behavior over time… I've seen clients who were severely abused by a parent grieve just like anyone else would when that parent died.”
Lisa still has a difficult time today parsing out the abuse that she lived through and reconciling how she inflicted the same thing on her own children. But according to Reed, that winds back to her own upbringing. Parents are more likely to be abusive in a household when there are elements like substance abuse, mental health issues, a history of abuse, poverty, or young age, among other factors. But the one characteristic that tends to override all else as a predictor of abusive homes is elevated levels of stress.
“Financial, employment, health or mental health, societal, and other forms of chronic stress experienced by someone who lacks the capacity or skill set to regulate their emotions can contribute to reactionary and abusive behavior,” says Reed. “Without healthy relationships to model, children might not recognize their parents as abusive and may come to assume all parents behave this way.”
But even with recognizing the roots of abusive behavior, it’s still common for the children of abusive parents to reframe their conduct as they get older, as Lisa and her siblings do each Father’s Day and on his birthday.
Reed says that one of the most common dynamics she witnesses around Mother’s Day and Father’s Day is that the children of abusive parents become hopeful that their parents will change and be the safe, supportive person that they always needed them to be. However, this often tees up the adult child for disappointment.
Thus, when holidays celebrating parents come around, Reed and Purjes recommend the following tactics for those experiencing some of these struggles, whether the respective parent is still alive or not:
Acknowledge your emotions
It’s common to try to rationalize emotions or make excuses for them, but it’s vital for survivors of abusive parents to acknowledge not only the harms that occurred, but how they feel about it for better or worse, without judgment. “Healing often involves a combination of recognizing the abuse, understanding its impact, and finding a way to make peace with the past,” says Reed.
Chau Luong
Find community
Finding community simply means seeking out others who may have a similar experience as you do so that you don’t feel alone over parental holidays. Check out the podcast Louder Than Silence, which explores narratives from survivors of abuse and neglect. Reed also recommends videos like “Childhood Trauma and the Brain” to recognize the impacts on the brain from childhood trauma.
As a coach, Purjes runs a Facebook group called Resentment to Resilience for women who grew up in alcoholic homes and want to build healthy relationships moving forward. She also recommends The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk which explores how traumatic events impact the entire body.
Put your energy into breaking patterns
Reed says that one of the most important ideas for adult children to understand about abusive parents is the fact that the abuse was never a child’s fault. Connecting with a therapist to recognize behavioral patterns and to work toward breaking cycles with support can make moving forward much better.
“Breaking these patterns supports not only themselves [adult children of abuse], but also their children, and their children’s children, in building resilience to combat life stressors,” Reed says.
However, Purjes also points out that every therapist is different and every client’s needs vary, so keep an open mind to feedback you may receive. “If or when you do feel ready to learn more, take everything with a grain of salt,” she says. “Some advice you find out there won’t be a great fit for you, and that’s okay.”
Recognize cultural influences
Many cultures around the world put an emphasis on blood family, and the U.S. is one of them. And many places in the world have even more entrenched customs around what type of behavior is acceptable to endure from harmful family members.
No matter your background, consider how the larger culture of where you live may impact your emotions on Mother’s Day or Father’s Day. Remember that you are free to unsubscribe from social pressures, especially when they bring you pain. You’re not an outsider just because you’ve had a troubled relationship with a parent, even if it may culturally feel taboo to have those emotions.
“Our culture can be hard enough any day for individuals with abusive parents, because everything revolves around families,” says Purjes. “All of these triggers are typically amplified on holidays because the stimuli in our world focus on love and family.”
Make new traditions
If you find that Mother’s Day or Father’s Day is a trigger for you because of your relationship with a parent, use the day to partner up with a friend or another loved one and plan an activity together that you can return to in the years to come.
“I had a very unhealthy relationship with my mother due to her addiction issues, and I have a friend whose mother died years ago,” says Purjes. “On Mother's Day, we usually plan to go on a hike together. It's a nice way to get out of the house, force ourselves not to isolate from the world, and do something that gets our minds off of our moms.”
Whatever your experience, don’t forget that children are born yearning for healthy, safe love from their parents. What happened to you wasn’t your choice, but you do have agency surrounding how you heal and grow from it.