What Kind Of Example Did Your Parents Provide You For Your Relationships?
By: Sara Knick
Tags: Growing Up, Relationships, Parenting, Love, Parents

Growing up, I had both working parents. They met in college and worked in the same field. They could relate on an educational and professional level. My mom battled breast cancer when I was a toddler. She seemed anxious and stressed out emotionally. My dad worked nearly all of the time. The balance between work and life seemed to be nonexistent.

I wanted a less chaotic environment to grow up in, but I didn’t make the money or the choices. I would go over to other people’s houses and they had it more put together and looking nicer. It didn’t ever really feel like a home in my house. It was like a purgatory. I felt embarrassed over the state of our home. We never really had anybody over anyways.

I wasn’t able to connect with others well because I was growing up in a wealthier area where I had gone to private schools. I did not feel comfortable or on the same level as these other students. There was not much that I could relate with. Making friends was not something that came easy. I didn’t like talking to other people. I mainly just focused on school and did not form many connections. I always felt uncomfortable with who I was and battled a lot of anxiety and depression.

It was not my job to be a parent, but I ended up trying to fit myself into that role. The house was usually a mess. My parents complained a lot. I was entrenched in the cycle of going home and then going to school for several years. I would set myself up in front of a TV when I was at home and do the homework that I needed to do for school. At one point, I wished that I could just be the dog for one day and told her, “I wish I was you” before going to school. I struggled with wanting to be a part of life because life wasn’t worth living at this point.

It was Junior year of high school. I couldn’t deal with the toxicity of school anymore. I ripped myself away from the nonsense and put my stuff into bags out of my locker. I called my mom and said that I needed to go home. I couldn’t manage anymore. I was too overwhelmed and I needed to reestablish what it was that I needed to do. I was going nowhere.

I had no worthwhile goals or anything to be excited about. No one cared. I felt that I was just too disconnected from everything to even make a stable decision. I didn’t want to make a silly decision to go to college just to accumulate student debt when I had no money to begin with.

I learned to establish better habits for myself. I learned to get my nutrition in a better place. I cut ties from toxic people that didn’t have my best interests at heart and just saw me as competition in my high school. I felt that I stopped drowning in misery because I put an end to a lot of the issues and maintained focus.

Balance was not something that existed within my household. Things were done to extremes. There was a lot of emotional tension at times. It was a volatile place. My father did teach me that focus and hard work were of value in the right circumstances. He taught me how to reach goals in that way. My mother taught me positivity, kindness and endurance. In observing my parents as a couple, I did not learn much about how to have a healthy, functional relationship. They at least did not have a pretentious way about themselves trying to impress others and their honesty was very apparent. I did know that what I wanted in a relationship was stability, respect and honesty as well as similar life goals. The example given to me by my parents in how to deal with relationships was not ideal, but I learned lessons. Happiness is determined by somebody using his or her own internal compass. It is best to deal with smaller issues before they become bigger ones.