I find it therapeutic when I write about my own personal trauma’s and stories. I am only able to do this once I’m on the road to healing, because I have already digested and processed it by then. Writing is a tool that I use to release. I physically let go of it and transfer it from my head, heart and soul onto paper.
My bliss and purpose kicks in when I can fully open up my heart and share all of it with you in the hopes that, in some small way, it can somehow serve you. Even though our stories may not be identical, my intention is that something may click and resonate for you, and then you will be able to process your own pain and trauma to help yourself heal.
That is the pure definition of a certified life coach.
Not to try and ‘fix’ you, someone else or a situation. But instead to enable you to help and heal yourself.
There is sadly this culture of ‘not airing our dirty laundry’, but I don’t view this as that. I have quickly built a reputation for openly discussing the difficult things in life. We are raised to keep our mouths shut in order to keep the peace in our tribe. Don’t ‘rock the boat’ and keep everyone else happy – that is everyone except for ourselves. And I most certainly don’t see my life’s journey as dirty, shameful or something that should be kept hidden away – somewhere dingy and dusty in my soul, only to be left to manifest into ugly personality traits because parts of me haven’t been allowed to heal. I would encourage you to do the exact opposite of what the societal ‘norms’ are. Speak my loved one! Speak your truth and by doing so, give others the permission to do the same. In this way you’ll find that you are not alone, and you’ll discover the most beautiful support system. There is no one size fits all on our life journey’s. Each to their own! In whatever creative way you chose to express your healing, I say go for it.
The story I am going to share now with you is honest, new, raw, fresh, real and is going to blow your mind.
Sadly, it is my reality and my truth.
My disclaimer is that I am telling my truth as I have interpreted it from my own unique perspective.
** This is an extremely sensitive story, so obviously others will disagree with my truth, argue, deny or do whatever. The ego will fight to the death to defend itself and be ‘right’, but I am going to share my personal account of the events that took place. **
All my life, my family was my number one priority. I was the type of girl, woman, sister, daughter, mom, mother-in-law, wife that did whatever was necessary to see that my family’s needs where met. Even if that meant sacrificing myself. My 20’s and 30’s were centered around my kids and spouse. Unfortunately though, I operated from a place of fear. My greatest fear was losing my family because I needed their love, approval and acceptance.
The 40’s were liberating as I started discovering myself and my life’s focus moved to allowing everyone to just ‘be’. No judgements. No more hierarchy. I discovered true equality – and that means that I deeply understood that no one was either above nor below me. I was also fortunate enough to find my true authentic self and start living from that place.
Now as I enter my 50’s, I have this excitement building below my soul’s surface and again I’m shifting gears. My purpose of late has been responding instead of the old habitual knee-jerking pattern of reaction. I have had to teach myself to sit with things. Step outside of myself, preverbally lean back, and ask myself,
- What is the lesson here?
- What can I take away from this that is positive and impactful?
- What am I being told here by that which uses no words?
- What can I implement personally in myself or my life so that moving forward I don’t repeat any more negative cycles?
- How can I improve myself to be a better human being?
I am at the place where I ask myself these questions instead of pointing a finger outside of myself and blaming anyone else for my suffering. I take responsibility for my emotions – because no one else can make me think the narratives that make me feel pain.
My energy has been spent on learning to walk away instead of having an argument with my husband. Or allowing my teenager to express himself openly, honestly and with no fear without trying to control the outcome or his narrative.
Respect. I try to offer respect.
And love?
Well, love has just always been a natural thing for me. A gift you could say that my Dad set as an everlasting example – and I chose to practice. I love my own unconditionally. All the time. Regardless. And yes, I have got burnt. Over and over.
I have come to realize that the word family does not give another the right to treat me like crap. I am not ‘judgie’, so many people have either used me as a punching bag when they are emotionally screwed up or the wheelbarrow that they could dump all their trashy feelings into.
Let me get to the heart of this story.
On the 15th of September 2021, my son-in-law sat me down and proceeded to tell me that he believed my daughter and her father (my current husband that adopted her and raised her as his own) were consensually committing incest. Yes, you have read that correctly. He told me how my 31 year old daughter – his wife of 12 years and mother of 4 – “toffed herself up” when she was coming to visit her father. She’d apparently put on her best clothes, do her hair, spray perfume, put on jewellery and even put on some lip-gloss for him – yet she never did these things for him, her husband. He went on further to say that he felt she had given his “honor away” as his children’s father – and gave it instead to her father – when she had canvas pictures made of her kids and gave them to her father for father’s day. I sat there quite literally in shock.
He went on to claim that his mother had planted a seed the previous November and that he couldn’t get it out of his mind. He said that he had been quietly watching the two of them together all of the time since then, and that he was now convinced that the two of them were indeed having an affair.
Here sat a boy in front of me that I had taken in as my own. I had defended in the past. I had grown to love as my own child. I had fought for him when he was wrong. He had disrespected me in the past and I had overlooked it because I loved him. He was not fair in the practice of family and had elevated his own to the degree that him and my daughter had neglected ours. He had sat in front of me and given me his word that I would see my daughter weekly after he married her. But when his mother threw a fit in the first year of their marriage, he had obliged, and I never saw her regularly anymore. His brother also apparently accused us of saying that he lived in a dump. Why would we care where he lived? This brother was never important to us or a part of our lives. However, not once were we even afforded the opportunity to defend ourselves by his parents, brother of even himself – even though we had never seen his brother’s house and had no idea of what the address even was. He had threatened to keep my grandchildren away from me and my home. My mom had died very suddenly at a young age, and I was trying to find myself post-grief. Trying to find my place in the world and I apparently wasn’t religious enough for him. I had ignored all the family drama he brought into our home and, to say I was exceptionally fond of him, was an understatement!
Whenever his own mother kept throwing my daughter out each time she was pregnant, or had a small child, we took all of them in. Fed them. And when I say we, I am technically talking about my husband. My husband provided for my son-in-law’s family every time he had nowhere to go, by putting a roof over their heads. My husband fed his children every time he had no money – or just didn’t bother to contribute (which he openly admitted to me) – to buy food. Clothed his children when he couldn’t – or wouldn’t.
Let me put some things into context.
One year earlier we suddenly found out that our daughter was not happily married like we had been led to believe. He wanted a divorce because he had met another woman and he said my daughter wasn’t seeing to her wifely duties regarding him. He told me to my face that same night on the 15th of September that the other woman (whom he had apparently left 9 months prior) was still his “soul mate and best friend” and that my daughter never was, nor ever could be. He said that every time he wanted to leave her, she would “conveniently” go and get herself pregnant in order to keep him around.
When I questioned him and asked how all of this was true because they had always been so lovey-dovey in front of us, he told me my daughter was incredibly fake and that she insisted on pretending in front of people. He went on to tell me that at home he called her “a f*$&ing b!tch” right up in her face all the time because they had no respect for one another and that there was just no love either. When I asked him if he loved my daughter and wanted to be with her, he replied with “she’s the mother of my children”.
He even told me that he had apparently ban her from coming to my home when I wasn’t there months earlier, but I never knew about it because my daughter never said a word to me. But later she admitted that she had agreed and then proceeded to defend him. She said that “he’s mad” because he shoots hormones in his bum for weight training. “He’s crazy”. It wasn’t actually him because he was possessed by a demon at the time. Yip, you read that correctly!
Apparently, he also accused my husband of walking in on her whilst she was laying naked on the bed after giving birth to our grandson in our home last July. I was on the bed and my daughter was shivering cold from drugs and had towels and blankets covering her. After I told her it was a lie (because she couldn’t remember due to the drugs), the accusations then changed to how she should never had breastfed our grandkids in front of my husband.
The last story in January 2022 is how she has grown into an adult, and looking back, agrees with her husband that her father is not her father because he’s not her blood. In fact, she doesn’t even refer to him as her father any longer. She apparently calls him by his name now.
I felt this strange feeling of not being in my body. It was almost like I was outside of my body watching in. I was struggling to believe that this was actually happing to me, and I couldn’t grasp that this was my life. I am a strong, independent woman. I am a survivor of many terrible things. No, not just a survivor, but a damn victor! And I couldn’t wrap my brain around what was being said to me! I had set the example to my children of never tolerating any form of abuse by divorcing their biological father.
When I finally did confront my child, she told me that his family had explained to her that even kissing her father in greeting was forbidden because he wasn’t “her blood”. And her reason for not leaving was that she always felt that she had to work on her marriage “one last time”. Sadly, she went on to accept all of the nonsense and false accusations – and even agreed with all of it.
I know exactly what you’re thinking.
My daughter is being emotionally abused.
That this is gaslighting.
We desperately wanted to help our child and so we offered her an out.
She has never worked a day in her life and has 4 small children. Her father told her that she could live with us, he’d take care of her and the kids. I told her she could have my car because she needed to drop and collect the kids from school etc. We said we’d help her study something she’s interested in so that she could become self-employed and hopefully earn an income and eventually stand on her own two feet.
But unfortunately, she decided to stay with him.
Even after she swore to me three times that her father has never ever been inappropriate with her.
Even after she had stood in our lounge, hugged her father and apologized to him for not “nipping this in the bud” and allowing her husband’s bad behavior to continue.
The night that this bombshell was dropped on me, her husband had told me that he believed if my daughter were given a choice between her father and anyone else, she would choose her father because he was her best friend. So, ultimately, he winded up giving her that choice and her decision was him.
She sneakily came to our home during the day with her father-in-law and moved all of their stuff out in 2 hours before my husband got home. Didn’t even tell us she was leaving. She did not even tell her father that she was not cooking for him that night – I was away at the time, and she was doing the cooking. My husband got home, saw everything was gone and called me asking what was going on. To this day – 7 months later – she has not once messaged him ever again. My grandchildren are not even allowed in my home anymore. I have been forced to see them in the street for two minutes like a stranger.
The betrayal.
I am my children’s safe place. They know they can tell me anything. I made my daughter aware that she was in an emotionally abusive marriage. I gave her the explanation of what emotional abuse is.
The first step the abuser makes is that of isolating you from everyone. Especially your support system. Your family. They need to control you. They possessively need to have you all alone to themselves and are exceptionally jealous. I showed her all the signs. I reminded her how he had always belittled her about her body and weight, telling her she was fat.
She told me that she just couldn’t admit that she had failed and that her marriage was a failure. She admitted that she was lazy and didn’t want to be alone. She was scared that no other man would want her and her 4 kids and she didn’t want to do it all alone. I told her that she never needed a man to define herself. I begged her to allow us to help her. I pointed out how excuses made by her and his family had just given him and his poor behavior silent permission – and because of that, it had just got worse. That they had silently condoned and agreed to let him carry on by tolerating it. He needed to win, regardless of the consequences. All of this was just his ego.
I told my child that her husband was sick and that his sickness was rubbing off onto her. All the great books talk about the company we keep. She just wasn’t in the place to hear me.
It broke my heart. I was devastated. But, I mean, who actually goes through bullshit like this in real life?! I have felt like I have had to mourn my child and 4 grandchildren that aren’t even dead. And the kicker…They literally live 3 doors away from me! And there is literally nothing I can do about it.
I always tell clients that our children come through us. Not to us. I no longer practice the hierarchy style of parenting, where I am right because I say so. I practice non-interference parenting with my 16 year old son. Through this methodology, he learns responsibility and that there are consequences to every action.
Each and every reaction directed toward us actually has nothing to do with us. It only has everything to do with the person directing and the narrative they tell themselves about us. This story of mine can be used as the classic example! My son-in-law got a story stuck going around and around in his head. It brewed and fermented in there for so long that he actually fully believed it was true. My husband told me that he’d go for a polygraph, but my daughter refused. Even though there was zero proof, he is still adamant that he’s right.
Love and Respect.
I had to do a lot of research during the first 4 months of this journey. I needed to understand what the heck just happened to my family and why. Did you know there is a thing called “roid rage” that is a possible side effect from using steroids?
Did you know that abused woman take an average of SEVEN attempts of leaving before finally getting it right? And those are only the survivors.
10 things I learnt.
- Be incredibly careful of the place you are operating from. If it’s fear, then you’ll manifest your greatest fears. Our lives are the product of our insides. It may not happen exactly as you envisioned it, but I promise you, it’ll happen.
- I had to come to understand that my daughter is a grown woman…a mother….a wife….and there was just nothing I could do to control any outcome that was acceptable to me. I had to accept that I couldn’t just tell her what to do and what was good behavior anymore like I had when she was a child.
- I had to face the reality that our lives are a result of our decisions and choices and that we all have to walk our own path and bump our own heads to learn, improve and grow.
- “You can’t give away what you don’t have” ~ Dr. Wayne Dyer I had read this quote by my favorite mentor for many years, but it only really clicked for me after all of this. I came to understand that I cannot give anyone else love and respect if I don’t have it inside of me. How would I even know what love and respect is to give away if I never felt it for myself? And simultaneously, how could anyone else give me love and respect if they didn’t love and respect themselves? Or their family? And that applies to everything. Respect. Love. Acceptance. Acknowledgement. Validation. You name it. I finally recognized the deep truth of the saying “don’t look outside of yourself for anything”.
- I became acutely aware of how boundaries needed to be set and implemented – something I had been challenged with myself all of my life. Even for our children and our partners. We seem to give up everything as mother’s and then proceed to lose ourselves completely in the process. Then one day when they’ve all grown up, we can’t understand why we are lost, and life has nothing worth living for. We come to discover that our marriage might be a wreck and that we are married to a complete stranger because we neglected one another in the name of raising children. We wake up and find out that we let ourselves down and allowed our lives to float away. That we have run out of time to be what we want to be and do what we want to do. And we can never get that time back.
- I really had to learn the true meaning of forgiveness. This was my own. My blood. My baby. My first-born. My ‘love-child’, because she had taught me a version of love you only feel when you become a parent. She was my person. The one I had turned too whenever I needed help. She was mine…and I was hers…and her children were ours. And then they were gone…all because I had set boundaries.
- I needed to practice true empathy and the real meaning of compassion. I had to figuratively ‘walk in her shoes’ to understand, process and move on. I was sure that I didn’t want to get stuck in this place of darkness and grief. My daughter was rejected by her biological father from the day she was born when she turned out to not be the son for whom he had hoped. Then four years later, when we had our son, he rejected her a little more as he doted on the son he had always longed to have. After I divorced him, he devoted his time to adoring his son and brushing off his daughter. She was eventually abandoned completely after he decided to leave the country without telling his kids – or saying goodbye – and even lied on his immigration form, stating that he had no kids here. She had absorbed the emotional abuse I had endured in my first marriage and replayed the scenario by marrying an amplified version of her biological father – because that was all she knew. We learn behavioral patterns that form our personalities when we are a young sponge-like child which absorbs all we see and hear. I had only divorced her father when she was eight years old to give us all a better life, but maybe it was a little too late for her. So it wasn’t at all surprising – when I viewed it from her shoes – that she would reject the mother that birthed her, the father that adopted her or that she lied prolifically like her biological father. I actually understood it.
- I learnt that everyone is really just doing the best they know how at any given moment.
- I had to let go of guilt and remorse because, at the end of it all, she was an adult and had to take responsibility for her own actions. I could not – and cannot – try to ‘save’ her (or anyone) anymore. That is not my job, my business or my place. I am not here for that. I am here to take care of myself. That’s all.
- I discovered that tolerance is toxic. We believe tolerance is a virtue, but it is not! Instead of biting our tongues, growing bitter or being continuously disrespected, we should find a comprisable solution. One that suites both parties and makes everyone happy. I was forced to take responsibility for the events of my life snowballing the way they did, because I tolerated my son-in-law treating me poorly (in hindsight from the get-go). So I had indirectly allowed it. “You teach people how to treat you by what you allow” ~ Tony Gaskins
Dictatorship in the name of anything is not healthy. Woman not having voices is monstrous and I have become even more passionate now about woman’s self-empowerment, respect and self-love!
We all have toxic family members. We all have negative family relationships. We all know a bully at some stage of our lives.
When we accept that all relationships are here to make us conscious instead of happy, then relationships will offer us perfect alignment with Consciousness”
Eckhart Tolle
In the end, all you’ll ever have is you. Only you can appreciate yourself when times are hard. You should encourage yourself when you feel like giving up. Don’t look for anything outside of yourself. Even applaud yourself when you have got your mission done. Lead and live in such a way that when you lay your head down each night, you feel that you have behaved in a way that makes you feel like a better human being. Self-respect is a priceless asset.
And, if by any chance you, my child – my daughter – read this one day,
please know this…
I am not naming and shaming here.
My only prayer is that you find your own strength and power to see what is true and real. To find it inside of yourself to do what it right for you and your children. Our lives are a constant ripple effect like throwing a stone into a pond. How we choose to live, becomes the path our children walk. That in turn ripples to their friends, partners and children…and so on. We need to actually become the change that is needed to make a difference in the world! And then hopefully our precious loved ones and children won’t repeat any negative cycles of abuse in their own lives one day too.
Finally,
The greatest tool that I’d like to share with you that helped me during this difficult time was Vishen Lakhiani’s 6 Phase Meditation (it’s for free) from Mindvalley. I used it every single day for 7 months. The first three phases are,
- Compassion
- Forgiveness and
- Gratitude
and his beautiful guidance in the mediation helped me to reflect, contemplate and learn all the lessons above. But I can honestly tell you that the most important part for me was learning to forgive my daughter, myself and go on to release and heal. I have mentioned before that Eckhart Tolle teaches us that we only ever have 3 choices when we find ourselves unhappy.
- Accept the situation
- Change the situation or
- Leave the situation (if the first 2 didn’t work out)
I have now learnt to walk away from my daughter and her children with a clean heart after steps 1 and 2 didn’t work.
If any of my story resonates with you, and you need help navigating through your story of family upheaval, please contact me. I deeply desire helping anyone that is feeling like they are floundering through their life’s trials.
Yours in kindness,
Taz