One of the hardest things I had to do in early recovery was revisit my childhood and acknowledge that it wasn't perfect. Today I operate from a place of full acceptance that my parents loved me and did the best they could, but like their parents before them, they weren't well equipped to nurture their children—my siblings and me—emotionally.
We were well fed, were beautifully housed and dressed, and felt physically safe and secure growing up, always. Unfortunately, due to their own family traumas and the emotional limitations that grew out of those traumas, neither my mother nor my father were equipped to provide the emotional nurturing that we so desperately needed as little children and then as teenagers.
I hate that I have to admit that, not only because of what it meant for me but what it meant for them too. My heart breaks for little me and the inner children of my siblings, but also for my parents' inner children.
Intergenerational trauma (and neglect is a trauma) sucks. Thankfully, being on a recovery journey means I can bring healing forth into the next generation.
We can't rewrite history, but we don't have to repeat it.