Should Have Been a Given
Yesterday ended with a lot of emotional dysregulation and a lack of coregulation, going back to a pattern in my family that traces back for ages — generational trauma doing what generational trauma does. But thankfully the dinner with Esther's husband's family still went well. And today things were largely calmer, now that I've flown back from New York and everything has a little distance on it.
Mom did recognize and apologize for her parts, after I said something to her before I left. I have a lot to improve on too — especially around my temper and the traumatized parts of me that are just emotionally uncool sometimes. Thankfully I can regulate well in front of Jordan, because I know what that older version of me would've been is honestly one of the worst things to have to deal with. I don't want to go into specifics, but yeah — as you can probably imagine, there was a lot of stress, anger, disrespect, and crying happening yesterday lol. This is what happens when intergenerational trauma meets Asian diaspora meets poverty-born legacy from self-made parents. It is what it is.
Mom seemed to think that having a stern parent prepares you for future roles at companies, future supervisors, future workplace dynamics. But I made the case — supervisors and parents are totally different things. One deals with adults. The other one deals with developing children, who can be traumatized, hurt, and form negative core beliefs that follow them far beyond the parent's reach. Beyond that — humans need less energy-stressing points in life, not more, so we can actually focus our energy on the things that matter: career, living healthily, living happily, financial safety. Emotional safety should have been a given. The fact that it wasn't is what makes everything else harder.
It's still a long way off, I suppose, for our collective healing arcs. We'll see. I'm glad it all settled in the end.
Esther's husband's dad seemed pretty impressive though. Probably part of the top 0.1% of the Chinese network. But that's another story.