Trauma from your mama

One thing I don’t think we talk about enough is childhood trauma. When I stopped talking to one of my brothers years ago, I received so much backlash. Mainly, from my other family members —“He’s your brother”, “he’s blood”, – “you can’t stop talking to your brother.” – Yes, I can. It’s not as though I woke up one morning and decided that I wasn’t going to have a brother and we stopped talking. I woke up one morning and decided to remove that abuse from my life.

My brother was manipulative and verbally abusive. He would apologize to me, and then, in the same sentence, he’d tell me to go f – —k myself. He was so vindictive that he befriended an ex-boyfriend of mine who had just cheated on me. Imagine, the person who’s supposed to be one of your protectors, going out of their way to do the exact opposite. He wanted me to feel pain.

Did you know that a lot of us experience our first bully being one of our parents? There are so many of us out there who’s parents were the first ones to remind us that we were fat, or too skinny, too dark, too light, etc. Parents who picked on their children and disguised it as “tough love” – Until you have had a toxic relationship with your parents, it is something that you will never understand.

We need to stop letting people guilt us into being, with their toxic positivity, and manipulative comments “you’re ruining the family” – this is something that I still hear, and it’s abusive. When someone says that to you, they are telling you that the trauma this specific person has caused you doesn’t matter. Your feelings aren’t valid. Suck it up – toxic positivity – go to the family event and pretend you aren’t deeply affected by this person. This is wrong.

I once read somewhere that, “loving yourself means that you won’t intentionally put yourself in situations where you know are toxic for your being. You matter which means you need to do all you can to protect yourself mentally, emotionally and physically.” – that statement holds so much value and truth. Perhaps, it’s time to normalize healthy boundaries, and not only with ourselves, but with others. Remove toxicity – find peace, and stay there.