Here Be Dragons

1. Generational Trauma Shapes Us Deeply

Suzanne was the only person who ever looked at me and said, “You’re such a disappointment.”

Inherited patterns. Family history can pass down more than just physical traits; it can transmit patterns of mental illness, addiction, vanity, and emotional instability across generations. The author's maternal line struggled with issues like alcoholism, depression, and a strong focus on outward appearance over inner well-being. These deeply ingrained traits and behaviors created a challenging environment.

Unseen damage. Growing up in a seemingly normal household can mask underlying dysfunction. The author's childhood, marked by her parents' divorce and her mother's subsequent struggles and volatile relationships, felt normal at the time but left unseen emotional damage. Kids often lack the emotional capacity to comprehend the long-term ripple effects of instability.

Seeking escape. Early signs of wanting to escape the family dynamic can appear in childhood. The author recalls wanting to get away from her mother and feeling a constant sense that her mother wanted something she couldn't give. This early desire for distance foreshadowed later struggles with the relationship.

2. Motherhood Reveals and Amplifies Our Own Wounds

What I didn’t know at the beginning of this whole journey was the ways parenting would cause me to have to continue to heal and deal with my own past and the baggage I’d carried along the way.

New perspective. Becoming a mother provides a profound new lens through which to view one's own upbringing. The author's experience of unconditional love for her daughter highlighted the conditional nature of her relationship with her own mother. This realization was painful but also a catalyst for deeper understanding and healing.

Breaking cycles. The desire to provide an emotionally healthy environment for one's child fuels the commitment to break unhealthy generational patterns. The author prayed from the day her daughter was born for the strength and wisdom to avoid repeating the brokenness she experienced. This intentionality became a driving force in her parenting.

Vulnerability exposed. Motherhood, with its exhaustion and emotional fragility, can expose a parent's own past battles and vulnerabilities. The author found herself understanding her mother's struggles more deeply, but also recognized the need to protect her child from the same pain she endured. This protective instinct became paramount.

3. Mean-Girl Dynamics Can Start in the Home

My mom was my first mean girl.

Early criticism. The author experienced mean-girl behavior firsthand from her mother, characterized by criticism, sarcasm, and tearing down anything she built. Her mother's words felt specifically curated to hit her in the most tender places, creating a constant sense of insecurity and a lack of safety. This dynamic was unpredictable and emotionally toxic.

Competition and resentment. Instead of support, the author often felt competition and resentment from her mother. Her mother seemed to resent the author's close relationship with her father and any happiness or success the author found. This created a dynamic where the author felt she could never quite measure up or please her mother.

Learned behavior. Growing up with this dynamic led the author to adopt similar unhealthy patterns in her own relationships, seeing other girls as competition and sometimes tearing them down. She realized she had become a "mean girl" herself, mirroring the behavior she had witnessed. This highlights how easily toxic patterns can be internalized and repeated.

4. Toxic Relationships Require Courageous Boundaries

The thing I determined that night was that our relationship felt more like a terrorist/hostage situation and that I was never going to be able to meet her demands.

Recognizing the dynamic. Over time, the author realized her relationship with her mother was not healthy but a constant state of trying to manage her mother's volatile moods and avoid conflict. This felt like a "terrorist/hostage situation" where the author was always trying to meet impossible demands to maintain a fragile peace. This constant effort was exhausting and futile.

Power of choice. The author realized that her mother's power over her was only the power she allowed her to have. Her mother could not destroy the author's marriage, take away her child, or turn her supportive friends and family against her. This realization was incredibly freeing, showing that the author had the agency to change the dynamic.

Walking away. Deciding to sever a relationship with a parent is incredibly difficult and scary, but sometimes necessary for healing. The author wrestled with the idea of cutting off contact, fearing it was overly dramatic or unforgiving. However, she realized that the relationship was too diseased to ever be healthy and that walking away was the only path to peace and wholeness.

5. Forgiveness Doesn't Always Require Reconciliation

You can have forgiveness without reconciliation or restoration of the relationship.

Separating concepts. A key realization for the author was that forgiveness and reconciliation are not the same thing. She learned that she could forgive her mother for the pain and damage caused without needing to restore the relationship to its previous state. This understanding was crucial for her healing process.

Letting go of bitterness. True healing involves letting go of bitterness, resentment, and unforgiveness, which are part of the destructive cycle the author sought to break. She prayed for peace to fully forgive her mother, recognizing that holding onto anger would only perpetuate the negative patterns within herself. This was a conscious choice to break the chain.

Protecting peace. Sometimes, maintaining personal peace and emotional health requires distance from the source of pain, even after forgiveness. The author realized that reopening the relationship would likely bring back the chaos and instability she had escaped. Her priority shifted to protecting the healthy family life she had built.

6. True Healing Happens Below the Surface

sometimes true healing can’t take place until you cut off the source of the pain.

Surface vs. deep healing. Just as cosmetic treatments can improve skin appearance without addressing underlying damage, focusing only on surface-level fixes in emotional healing is insufficient. The author realized that her attempts to manage her mother's behavior or create external peace were like surface treatments; they didn't address the deep-seated issues. True healing requires confronting the root cause.

Painful process. Healing from deep-seated trauma, especially from family relationships, is often painful. It requires acknowledging the full extent of the damage and making difficult choices, like cutting off contact with a parent. This process is uncomfortable and goes against the natural inclination to maintain family ties.

Cutting off the source. Like amputating a diseased limb to save the body, sometimes the source of chronic emotional pain must be removed for true healing to occur. The author's decision to cut off contact with her mother, though difficult, was necessary because the relationship itself had become too toxic and diseased to allow for her own wholeness and peace. This drastic step enabled deeper healing.

7. Raising Resilient Kids Means Letting Them Face Dragons

It’s hard to bring up a warrior who fights dragons rather than a princess who gets rescued.

Character building. Pain and discomfort are necessary building blocks for character and resilience. While parents naturally want to shield their children from suffering, allowing them to face challenges is crucial for their growth. These difficult experiences forge strength and tenacity needed to navigate life's battles.

Equipping, not rescuing. Raising a warrior means equipping a child to fight their own battles, not constantly rescuing them. The author learned that her instinct to overcompensate for her own past pain by shielding her daughter too much could hinder her daughter's development of grit. Finding the balance between support and allowing struggle is key.

God's purpose in adversity. Difficult circumstances, like facing mean girls, can be the very things God uses to shape a child into who He means for them to become. The author saw her daughter's struggles in high school, though heartbreaking, ultimately foster resilience, character, and a stronger sense of self and faith. Adversity can lead to unexpected growth.

8. God's Faithfulness Breaks Destructive Cycles

God specializes in taking the places in our lives that feel barren and doing something refreshing, healing, and new.

Redemptive power. Generational sin and trauma can feel like inescapable patterns, but God's redemptive power can break these chains. The author's family history was marked by dysfunction, but she and her husband intentionally sought to create a new, healthy legacy. This required relying on God to heal the past and guide their future.

New beginnings. God can bring refreshing and healing to barren places in our lives, creating something new where there seemed to be nothing. The author's relationship with her mother felt like a dead field, but walking away allowed God to bring peace and new growth in other areas, particularly in her own family life. This demonstrates God's ability to redeem difficult situations.

Obedience brings blessing. Walking in obedience to God, even when it involves hard decisions like setting boundaries or walking away from toxic relationships, can lead to blessings for future generations. The author believes that her and her husband's efforts to break cycles and trust God allowed their daughter to flourish in ways that might not have been possible otherwise. This highlights the intergenerational impact of faithful choices.

9. Finding Your Identity Beyond Others' Opinions

I fully believed that no one would really love me if they knew the real me.

External validation trap. Growing up with constant criticism and conditional love can lead to believing that one's true self is unlovable. The author spent years trying to contort herself into what she thought others wanted, fearing that if people knew the "real" her, they wouldn't like her. This fear drove her to seek external validation and hide parts of herself.

Mean-girl tactics. Mean girls, whether family or peers, often target insecurities and twist strengths into negatives to tear others down. This behavior reinforces the belief that there is something fundamentally wrong with you. The author recognized these tactics in her mother and later in her daughter's peers, seeing how they aimed to diminish self-worth.

True worth in God. Finding identity and security in God is the antidote to seeking validation from others. The author's faith journey helped her realize that Jesus loved her fully, mess and all, and wasn't afraid of her darkest parts. This unconditional acceptance from God provided the foundation for her to see her true worth and stop letting others define her.

10. Supportive Relationships Are God's Anchors

God had brought someone into my life who totally understood me and where I’d come from, and I knew I’d found a soft place to land.

Divine connections. God often places supportive people in our lives at crucial moments to provide understanding, love, and stability. The author found such anchors in her best friend Gulley, her in-laws, and her husband Perry. These relationships offered a stark contrast to the toxicity she experienced and provided a safe haven.

Seeing clearly. Trusted loved ones can offer perspective that is difficult to gain when you are in the midst of a dysfunctional dynamic. Perry's outside perspective helped the author see the truth about her parents' divorce and her mother's deceit, challenging the narrative she had believed for years. This external clarity was vital for her healing journey.

Building a new foundation. Supportive relationships are essential for building a healthy new family legacy. The author and Perry intentionally built their marriage and family on a foundation of love, trust, and open communication, counteracting the patterns they had grown up with. These relationships became the "good fruit" in her life, demonstrating that healthy connections are possible and necessary.

Last updated: May 18, 2025