When my eldest starts getting defiant, like any normal preschooler, I can feel a red screen of rage falling over my eyes.
I feel myself getting hijacked and I become the screaming banshee mother I swore I would never be.
The worst part is in the aftermath of my anger, my children will always come back to me. They always comes back to me. This, in so many painful ways, mirrors the countless times I would keep coming back to my father, because I so desperately wanted his love and approval.
If you struggle with the remnants of a difficult childhood, you’re not alone.
Dr Nadine Burke Harris’ in her , “How childhood trauma affects health across a lifetime” talks about the scale of trauma using a metric named ACE. I score 4 out of 10 for ACE or Adverse Childhood Experiences. This puts me at a much higher risk of depression, suicide and other health issues.
I survived a childhood, adolescence and young adulthood with a narcissistic father. He used his warped ideas of Islam as a tool of control and abused and terrorised my mother, my siblings and me. If we did not obey him, then we were screamed at, ostracised and humiliated.
If we did not obey him, then we were screamed at, ostracised and humiliated.
One of his favourite threats had to do with taking us to task with God on the Day of Judgement for failing to obey him. Even after death, he told us that we would not have any peace. When he wasn’t in the country, he would tell me to put my mother on speakerphone so he could scream at her. And of course, I obeyed.
Many years later, after re-learning Islam with qualified teachers, I realised my father’s threats were baseless. He did not formally learn Islam himself, but made up his own ideas after reading books to his liking. He created his own version of Islam that would suit his own desire to control his wife and children, because like all narcissists, he viewed us as extensions of himself. He embodied very little of the mercy and love that I know is so central to my faith. His own deep anger, shame and grief from his own traumatic childhood bled out to his parenting.
In my twenties, after coping with years of unresolved trauma, I developed bipolar type 1. This ended up being a blessing in disguise, because at long last, with the help of spiritual support, mood stabilisers and therapy, I could embark on my healing journey.
I bring the most painful of my challenges to the safety of my therapist’s office. There, it is safe for me to be heard. There, I can work out past triggers that contribute to my present-day overreactions. There, I can unpack and let go of years of shame and never feeling good enough.
I was finally able to step back, notice harmful patterns in my behaviour, forgive myself for the mistakes I had made, and realise that I was worthy of love and belonging. I finally realise that so many of my wounds began with my father.
I wish my father had the insight to do the same, when he was parenting us, all those decades ago. His own background of poverty and neglect contributed to his own inability to be a calm and connected parent.
His anger, blame and perpetual discontent made me feel inherently unlovable. I had dug deep for many years and learned to love and forgive myself, married a kind man who supported me as an equal, and finally felt some peace.
The greatest gift of my trauma is a commitment to do better with my kids.
In my thirties, with the help of my psychiatrist, I successfully weaned myself from mood-stabilisers so that I could fall pregnant and breastfeed my children. And yet, despite all of the obstacles I’ve overcome, I find myself undone by the hardest thing ever - choosing to parent peacefully, every day.
I have what Dr Laura Markham describes, “A full emotional backpack” because of my traumatic childhood and adolescence. I don’t like revisiting painful childhood memories. I like to stuff them down, and just get on with life. I have enough to deal with, on a daily basis, because parenting young children is non-stop.
I don’t want my children to remember me as being an angry mother who would only love them when they comply. I want them to remember me as a mother who cherishes and accepts them, as they are - not only whey they ‘obey me’. Their strong will is what will keep them safe and grounded, when my husband and I are not around to protect them.
As I commit to daily meditation, self-compassion, and forgiveness, I find my own screaming fits happen less and less. My children have no idea how lucky they are, to grow up in a home where parental harmony is the norm, and crazy screaming (of the parental variety) is the exception.
But maybe that’s the point. They won’t know any better, because unlike me, a peaceful, loving, and safe family home will be their default. And because my children will have brains and hearts that have been wired to expect peace and unconditional love, I can only hope that their life journey will be smoother and less painful than mine.
The greatest gift of my trauma is a commitment to do better with my kids, and a compassion for myself when I inevitably make mistakes. I can only hope that I have broken this cycle of trauma with my children.
Noor Abdul is a pseudonym.
