Advice I Would Give My Teenage Self

What advice would I give my teenage self? None, because I wouldn’t have listened. As a fifty-five-year-old reviewing my teenage years, I needed guidance, not advice. “We want to bear in mind that the emotional lives of young people are a very complex and mixed picture with very real ups and also downs,” said Dr. Lisa Damour, a clinical psychologist in Ohio. As a struggling teenager attempting to decipher life, I needed empathetic parenting from day one.

“Teens want adults to listen and take their feelings seriously” – Madeline Holcombe

My teenage self needed to hear my parents apologize to me for their mistakes.

This first point comes with a caveat. Did my parents admit to making parenting mistakes? No way. If they did, and I don’t remember, the apology did not sound like, “I am sorry for controlling your physical appearance. That is my problem; you are not inadequate.”

My self-esteem would have jettisoned to space had my parents admitted they were out of control. Instead, they shoved their insecurities onto me but acted like I was the problem. My teenage self didn’t need weight loss, fashion, or hair and make-up advice. I needed to understand my parents had a problem.

…sometimes we inadvertently communicate conditional love instead of loving our kids no matter what…when we tie approval to achievements like grades or sports, kids can feel like they must earn our love.

Participating in an extracurricular activity is only for my enjoyment.

Performance parents, take a seat. As a teenager, I was interested in reading literature and environmental and social justice. I corresponded and donated with Greenpeace and Amnesty International by mail, became a vegetarian at age sixteen, and loved reading from an early age. Instead of encouraging those interests, I played softball, basketball, piano, and clarinet and took dancing lessons. Ultimately, I quit all of them.

My interests did not align with those of my adoptive parents. That was their problem, not my weakness, as they forced me to feel. “When you are living vicariously through your children, the focus is on you: your emotions, what the experience means to you, what you gain from it. When your children have good competitions, you feel that you have succeeded. When your children have bad competitions, you feel that you have failed. With living vicariously through your children, it is all about you.”

My teenage self was thirsty to hear that my adoptive parent’s expectations of me and my soul callings did not have to align. When parents manipulate their child into believing the child is the problem, we have toxic parents.

“By embracing failure, fostering independence, and promoting positive body image and self-acceptance, you can help your child gain an appreciation of their unique, authentic qualities and what they can contribute to the world just by being themselves. These surprising approaches empower children to navigate challenges with resilience and make confident decisions that are aligned with their hearts.” – Jan Bonhoeffer, M.D.

What my teenage self wanted to hear the most- you are enough.

All I wanted to hear from my adoptive parents was that whether I failed or succeeded in my interests, I was still worthy and valuable as a human.

My first post, How Significant Life Events Changed My Perspective of Who I Am, explains how adversity changes us when we learn from those experiences. Recognizing and healing from toxic parenting gives us the courage and strength to positively change the world.

You are, have always been, and will be enough.

How Significant Life Events Changed My Perspective of Who I Am

Every moment in time carries the potential for change. We all experience “ah-ha” moments that can alter our decisions, but how do we explain the gradual implementation of change that is the root of permanent individual change? Three significant life events changed my perspective of who I am and why I will never be that past person.

Finding my biological family changed my perspective of who I am

In 2016, I reunited with my biological family after 47 years of separation. The reunification was terrific, but it was post-reunion that my authentic journey began. The Children and Youth Services agency that oversaw my adoption sent me my adoption file. While reviewing the file notes, I learned that my adoptive parents were not truthful with me regarding several parts of my adoption narrative. Also, some contents were missing from my file—some that I was promised to receive on my eighteenth birthday. Furthermore, my adoptive mother, a social worker at the time of my adoption, participated in a dual relationship with the CYS agency as an adoptive parent and as an employee of the agency.

This knowledge led me to slowly inch my way out of the adoption fog. I learned about adoption and relinquishment trauma. For the first time, I began to understand that my trauma created coping behaviors that I thought were my true personality. My adoptive family still believes that my trauma-coping self is the only me. We are estranged, but, thanks to how this significant life event changed my perspective of who I am, I am fine with that. I am informed while they are stuck by intentionally believing misinformation and their lies.

The next significant life event: my husband admits to being an alcoholic, and I go into recovery

In 2019, my husband admitted to being an alcoholic since college. He stopped drinking in 2016, after I kicked him out of our home in desperation. It took three long and miserable years for the addiction to reveal itself. Years prior, I read Codependent No More by Melody Beattie (go to me for being ignorantly intuitive), so I understood that I needed healing, too. I eventually completed three different recovery programs and still participate in one of them.

In recovery, I realized how significant a life event addiction is and how it changed my perspective of who I am. I learned about boundaries, peaceful detachment, self-care, making amends, and more. I can emphatically acknowledge I prefer today’s me to the person I was before completing the recovery process.

Significant life event number three-Chronic and Autoimmune illnesses afflict my children and me

In 1983, my body began presenting strange symptoms. I played softball for many years, and when I tried out for the high school team, I could no longer swing a bat. Throughout the next twenty-seven years, I would experience numbness that was either temporary or permanent, gut issues, insomnia, random pain, temporary problems walking, food sensitivities, weakness, and more.

After the birth of my tenth child (a significant life event in itself), my health crashed. In 2018, looking for answers, I watched a documentary about Lyme disease. I tested positive for Lyme and a coinfection, so I asked my children to undergo Lyme testing as a precaution. Of the seven who underwent testing, six of them have chronic Lyme disease and coinfections. Two of my grandchildren also tested positive. To say the least, our health and healing journey has been arduous and life-changing.

Now confined to a wheelchair and on the opposite side of healing, life looks and feels changed. My primary observation is that humans spend an unfortunate amount of time being petty. I watch, hear, read, and experience narrow-minded and inconsequential thinking every day. Trauma, addiction, and illness woke me up and were the significant life events that changed my perspective of who I am.

May we find human understanding sooner rather than later.

Daily writing prompt
How do significant life events or the passage of time influence your perspective on life?
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