ssawano - Tumblr blog

[ssawano]

“Is the positive upbringing of a person important to form healthy relationships?”

“Mysterious ba talaga ako? O nag-aadjust lang ako parati sa mga tao sa paligid ko?”, “Kaka-adjust ko ano na ba talaga ang totoong personality ko?”. These two questions boggle my mind every day as I find out that my classmates perceive me as mysterious because they can’t figure out my true personality.

Before diving into the topic, I would like to share that this topic resonates deeply within me. I grew up in a broken family, having to constantly visit each parent because we don’t live together. During my early childhood, I used to live with my mom and I was totally okay with that, it was also fine that I didn’t have my father by my side. Being raised by my mom was adequate, the way she cared for me, the values that she taught me, and how I was shaped as a person were alright.

Then after I reached the age of 10 or so, I can’t really remember what age really anymore, my mom had to leave the country to work overseas and be with her new husband as well. I wasn’t included in the trip, so my mother had to give me to my father and live with him. All I can say is that I regret living in the same household with my father, I wished that my mother had a choice to bring me overseas instead of giving me to my father, living with my father was a huge culture shock. A lot of the norms and values that my mother taught me, were being taught as well by my father but in a very unorthodox way that didn’t really fit me. This caused me to fight for what I think is right in the form of what is commonly viewed by the majority as retaliation or “pagrerebelde”.

With that out of the way, I would like you to ponder on how my childhood affected my current personality and my ability to connect with other people. Do you imagine that I am someone like a people-pleaser? Doing everything to make other people happy, or do you think that I’m someone who doesn’t give a care about other people only prioritizing one’s happiness and needs? Some people might imagine the first, and some would choose the latter, but the people who really know me might say a combination of both.

Based on that backstory, I personally agree that a positive upbringing is important for a person to be able to form healthy relationships with others. When I say relationships, I don’t only pertain to the romantic ones but as well as to platonic relationships and paternal relationships. Having a positive upbringing will help a child develop positive traits that are beneficial to have as a person. For example, If I was raised in a healthy and complete household, I would surely develop great communication skills, be able to trust others, and have great conflict resolution skills. However, being not in the ideal household, I was not able to develop all the positive traits and that left me troubled about how can I cope with this personal dilemma.

Due to my personal troubles, I was and currently pondering on how my childhood has affected me. I’m always overthinking things like “Ayaw ba nila akong makasama?”, or “Wait, masyado na ba akong umaasa sa ibang tao?”. These thoughts correlate with the possible negative effects of not having a healthy upbringing. The effects of a negative upbringing include: Codependency, it is where a person develops low self-esteem and a high desire for approval from other people. Being avoidant, people with painful pasts may become afraid to become close to other people. Lastly, having a controlling personality, these traits may be caused by their parents/guardians who are also controlling or abusive.

Discussing the effects of a negative upbringing, I’m going to focus on the two negative traits that I find the most interesting, Codependency, and Controlling Attitude. According to Meaghan Rice on Talkspace, the five most common causes of codependency are childhood neglect, overprotective parenting, emotional and physical abuse, permissive parenting, and substance abuse. We can see that all of these are factors that contribute to having a negative and unhealthy upbringing. The second negative trait is a Controlling Attitude, which is mainly caused by the parent or guardian having the same controlling attitude towards their child. As the child grows up, they unconsciously copy the attitude of their parent even in the smallest things without even realizing it.

Having these two negative traits, etc., makes the person have a strong sense of neediness, low self-esteem, poor communication skills, and as I’ve mentioned before, being a people-pleaser, and other more negative characteristics.

What I’m trying to really convey to everyone is that it is really important for an individual to have a healthy relationship with the family because it is what shapes the child and continues even throughout their adulthood. If ever you came from an unhealthy upbringing, it is up to us to stop the generational trauma. We need to become aware of the issues that we have, we can’t help other people let alone heal ourselves if we tolerate ourselves. I am encouraging everyone to seek help if they experience the problems that I stated in this post of mine. It doesn’t have to be from a professional, you can seek help from your family, relatives, or if you prefer, from your close friends.

As a reminder, I’m leaving everyone with this quote from Sigmund Freud: “Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways.”