how can you forgive your parents for messing up your head so bad?

Question

my father was emotionally unavailable and only cared about money and my mother was super crazy and suffered from depression and i witnessed her go through a mental breakdown. how can i forgive them? how can i stop being so angry for having a ridiculously dysfunctional childhood?

Answer 1

I can understand how you are thinking at the moment. I also have had some of the same thoughts and emotions.
As a parent and one who has been through my own share of psychological difficulties. I can only say that your parents did the best that they knew how. We all have dysfunctions to one degree or another. Some of us try not to pass those on to our children. It is hard.
Your father had one way to cope. He probably concentrated on money as a measure of his success in life. The more he had the more successful he was. Most people realise that his is flawed thinking. But we do not have anymore dragons to slay. So how can we measure our success. Society is only concerned with what we want to show them.
Your mother having depression which has many causes most likely tried to cope the best that she could with her own demons. Until she could cope no longer. She had a mental breakdown. This doesn't preclude her from being a good and caring parent. She also can and will with the right treatment get better.

You say that you have had a ridiculously dysfunctional childhood. That is a measure. ( I might say to you that no your childhood was a cake walk. No I hear another voice in my other ear saying that their's was worse and so on)You must have something against which you are comparing things. Have you really examined this ideal child hood.

As to how you forgive them. What are you doing with your life now? Do you think that you, have either of your parents problems? Have you spoken to anyone about this one on one?

I was part of a Men's group. I spoke about backing my father into a corner and having my grievances out with him. The group started to talk about their feelings towards their fathers and parents in general. None of us had what could be called an ideal childhood. They asked many questions of me. One was, What I wanted to achieve by confronting my father?

I learned three very important lessons that night

1/ That every parent tries to do the very best that they can with the knowledge that they have!!
2/ Their is only one person RESPOSIBLE for how you feel and think! That is YOU the individual.
3/ That I didn't need to confront anyone with these issues. I needed to acknowledge them. They are real. You need to understand them. From understanding comes forgiveness. Then work out how I could get on with life. It is not easy but it can be done. The best thing to do is to thumb your nose at your child hood and make the best job you can of your adult life.

If you want to be a better person and parent you can accept that your parents tried the best that they knew how. You can also start to get different knowledge. Be better than they were. One thing to remember is that you will make mistakes. It is only human. Please allow yourself to acknowledge these mistakes to yourself and forgive yourself.

Answer 2

ONE CAN NEVER UNDO THE PAST! And parenthood is, in fact, a responsible affair to grow up the positive children. In your case both are seem to be invalid which creates tension and anger in you! One thing is sure, there are millions of parents like you have in this earth. The too much materialistic society shaped, all these such good people in to greedy minded and depressed crazy ones. What to do? This is the fault of the modern times and its life style. DO ONE THING! SIT RELAXEDLY AND VISUALIZE THIS! ONE DAY THESE TWO ENTITIES, YOUR MUMMY AND DADY WOULD BE GONE FROM HERE FOR EVER TO THE POINT OF NO RETURN! Then, you will be sobbing and feeling a void in to your heart for missing their presence. If by that time, if you too were a parent you may realise their pain for caring money, and crazeful nature for some over burdened committments. Your eyes may shed some tears then, but too late would be your realisation of their Inner Love and Affection, despite of their thousand-and-one shortcomings!
MY BROTHERLY QUESTION IS, WHY CANT YOU TOLERATE THEIR CHILDLY ACTIONS FOR SOME MORE LITTLE TIME? May be, you may realise later, that your knowledge is wrong and the existential experience of this world is the other one!

Answer 3

You don't have to forgive them. Perhaps at some point you will have deeper insight, but that can take time.

The real issue - for you - is that you have a life to get on with. If you feel damaged, then get therapy to help you deal with it and move past it. You do this for yourself and for your own life, not for them. The more you can heal and grow past the damage, the more you will enjoy your life, and the less chance that you will subconciously pass on the dysfunction to your own children. Your parents did what they did because they were flawed and damaged, probably by their parents. At some point you may arrive at an attitude of compassion, but first you need to heal.

Good luck.

Answer 4

I feel the same sometimes. My parents split up when I was little and then my mom was depressed and had abusive boyfriends all thru my childhood, I was never happy or loved as a kid and it still affects me today, .. I could go on but I won't bore you anymore but you get the idea. I alternate between feeling sorry for my mom and then angry with her for all the crap I went thru.
I do think counseling helps, just getting it all out of your head because that anger will eat you up and could turn to depression etc, sorry I can't be more helpful.

Answer 5

You learn from their mistakes...you do not have to repeat the pattern. What happens in your life from now on is up to you, not up to them. First you become a survivor and not a victim (which it sounds like you are doing just that and congrats for doing so!), possibly counseling. Forgiveness is a very difficult one, especially when one comes from dysfunction (I came from a very dysfunctional family),,,,it does take some time with working on yourself before you come to the forgiveness...until then, work on yourself and be the best person you can be and forgive yourself for harboring ill feelings towards them. It is only natural that you have these feelings, and it's ok to harbor them for now...just don't let them consume you. If you'd like more assistance, I would be more than happy to help you...just e-mail me!

Answer 6

I'm dealing with the same thing right now with my fiance. he can't let go of the abuse his father inflicted on him. his mother too. she made him think that spirits where out to get him.

i, myself had a very dysfunctional childhood. my parents were drug/liquor addicts and still are. my father would beat my mom.

I'm an overly forgiving person and it comes natural for me. i forgive but not forget. now my fiance on the other hand can't forgive or move on. he has had to go into counseling.

you could try to right them a letter and express your feelings. let them know that they messed up and you are still very angry. it may not help because your parents may be selfish and not care but you know that you tried and it might help you move on. if worst comes to worse, you might have to cut all ties with them. the tough love aspect may make them realize how they've acted.

i personally had to use the tough love with my parent. they wouldn't stay sober while my kids where at their house. after 8 months they got a clue.

the one good thing that both my fiance and I've learned from having messed up parents is, how to be better parents to our children. so some good has come out of it.
Good luck with whatever decision you make. and remember to stick to your guns. don't let guilt sucker you in.

Answer 7

Realize that people go through problems and have a little compassion for them and stop thinking about yourself so much. If your Mother has mental issues thats a disease and certainly she didn't intentionally try to mess up your head. Your father's obsession with money, maybe he was trying to provide a good life for his family. I don't know your personal situation but maybe you are being too hard on them. Is it time to grow up?

Answer 8

Many of us find that our parents "shorted" us in some way- that we are then unprepared, and even "short" our children because of it. This is true, but easily misunderstood. You need to get new perspective.

We assume that we are entitled to some gift of preparation in life. If so, your children are entitled, too. Where will it come from?

It's not the job of any person or parent to be perfect- and no one is. Our job is to take what our parents give us, throw out all the trash we can, add in all the good we can- and pass that to our children. Then, it becomes their job to do the same thing, and hope that their children do a better job than they did.

Sometimes what we get is pretty poor- but remember, your parents were also limited by what was passed to them, and their parents limited by the generation before that..

The question is, what are we going to pass on? Are we going to feel sorry for ourselves and pass on the anger- or start with what we have and build something better?

Like you- my father left a lot to be desired, and my grandfather was even worse, as I saw it. As I matured and came to understand that my grandfather probably had little to pass along to my father, I began to understand my father's shortcomings. As I learned more about my grandfathers history, I learned that he lost his father and three brothers in one week to a typhoid epidemic in 1894. At that point, his mother was ill but survived. He had to bury most of his family and become the provider for the remaining family- at the age of fourteen. That helped me understand why his priorities were focused so much differently than mine. He came from a place much more difficult than I could imagine, and did what he had to to deal with it. He never told me about that- I think it was too painful for him. All things considered, I know now that he was a far better man than I gave him credit for. I also came to understand where some of my father's characteristics came from. My opinion of my father changed drastically over the years, as I realized that some of what I thought he owed me- he didn't have to give in the first place. Given that, he did well with what he had.

Some people rise to the challenges, some can't cope with them. But regardless of what you were given, the future depends not on what you were given- but what you do with it now.

Given human shortfalls and weakness, I think it's true that most of us are doing the best we can under the circumstances. Sometimes that's pretty sad, but in the end your own life is what you make it, not what others left to you or owed you.

Answer 9

Think about it this way. Would you like your kids to hate you for the damage your parents did to you?

People can't help the emotional problems they have. You just have to learn to accept them how they are.

And another thing. Some people are meant to be parents, some aren't. It's not there fault. My Grandmother was horrible to my mom, she was never there and she never took care of them, but my mom loves her because she knows my grandma just wasn't meant to be a parent. *shrugs* Just do better for your kids even if it may not seem like it, your parents did the best they could.

Answer 10

You mean forgive them for being human? Your mother's psychological issues are probably not her fault, and sometime we don't know what we've done until it's over, I think you should concentrate on the future and not the past. Forgive and forget, don't dwell on it, otherwise you may miss you on a great oportunity to finally have a better relationship and better memories with your parents. I lost my mom at 15, and my dad at 20. I dont have any more chances to make it better, but you do. So don't let it go.