drew shannon | globe and mail | terezia farkas | depression help| beliefnet

As an adult, you will have to deal with your abusive parents at some time. But at some level, you are always your parent’s child. No matter how old you are, how aware you are of the abusive relationship between you and your parent, there remains a parent-child dynamic that any emotional trigger will immediately send you spiralling back into. Your mom or dad can easily do something that will send you reeling back to the moment you were 13 years old, and all of those old, bad emotions are there again, crushing down on you like a tidal wave.

How can adult you deal with an emotionally abusive parent?

The first step is taking back your power. This is not an easy process. It means getting a lot of emotional healing and mental and physical support.

Emotionally and mentally you need to get the help of a professional who will counsel and guide you towards dealing with your trauma. This can get very costly. Sadly, this is the reason many adults don’t get the full healing they deserve because medicare doesn’t cover all mental health services. You can also get help through books. There are many self help books written by survivors of emotional and physical abuse.

Most people forget the physical support part of dealing with an emotionally abusive parent. Let’s not forget that your physical body holds inside its cells memories of trauma. Cell memory is as important as mental health when it comes to healing. Your body reacts certain ways to stress. It has been conditioned to respond certain ways to negative words and emotions. Think how a certain word can make you sick to your stomach. Or how your dad looks at you triggers a panic attack. These reactions are your body’s response to attack. It couldn’t flee when you were a child, so it tried to protect you by warning you that danger was present.

Stop all contact with the abusive parent.

It can be the most liberating decision. Remove contact with your abusive parent. Don’t feel guilty or ashamed or wonder if God or Karma is going to pay you back for being a bad daughter or son. You have to start living your life. Your parent has already lived his or her life, and made choices to hurt you. You need to be free from reliving those harmful choices of your parent, and be free to expand emotionally.

Disconnecting with an abusive parent isn’t easy to do or a simple choice to make. Abusive parents have hooks in their children. I like to think of it like negative threads that hook into the aura of a person. Your aura contains all your energy and potential. The negative threads, once hooked into your aura, suck away your potential and your energies. The negative back wash from the threads can enter your aura and contaminate you. To become the person you originally wanted to be when you entered the earth realm, you need to shear off or disconnect these negative threads from your aura.

It might come across as being selfish at first. You’ll probably be shamed by friends or family who don’t understand or know about the abusive relationship. You’ll be called ungrateful, a bad seed, and worse. As an adult though, you need to stand up and make a choice. Are you going to stay connected with negative threads to this person who keeps hurting you and will never change in that behaviour, or are you willing to snap those threads off yourself and be free to experience positivity? It won’t be easy.

Abusive parents have a way of conning you back into a relationship with them.

Abusive parents have developed survival skills when it comes to maintaining power over their children. It can be as simple as setting one sibling against another. Or as complex as hitting guilt buttons on your psyche. Either way, the abusive parent has enjoyed power and privilege over you for years. Your mom or dad won’t want to give up that power dynamic.

So you need to look at your parent not through the eyes of a child. You need to see your parents through the eyes of a third person. Then you have to consider all the options. You can stay in the status quo. You can get a third party involved to help resolve issues. You can try talking or changing your parent. Then look further into your choices.

Realize that your options aren’t limited. You can disconnect, remove contact, or give some space between yourself and them. There is nothing that says you must remain the child of your parents until you die. That’s an emotional thing we tell ourselves, but isn’t the truth of our existence.

Find me on Twitter  @tereziafarkas

Visit my website http://www.tereziafarkas.com

Heart of Love Evolution - Surviving Depression | Terezia Farkas | depression help

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