We spend our lives running, trying to circumnavigate situations that seem scary. It starts in school... we don't want to feel rejection. Hurt. We shudder at the idea of being made a fool or taken advantage of. Instead, we hide ourselves away, build up all these walls in effort to avoid emotional pain.

So we didn't learn how to manage the feelings before we had our own kids...

Then, when the alienation begins... seemingly overnight, we feel an influx of negative emotion. And because we didn't learn it in childhood, we feel entirely ill-equipped to handle the pressure.

I remember feeling so terrified of being judged and persecuted. And boy... to be devalued to/by my own sweet angel of a child? I can feel that horror now, just writing about it. I spent my free time numbing with habits in order to avoid the fear & discomfort thinking that the emotions themselves were the danger. But what actually harmed me -- & what is the most dangerous for all of us as alienated parents -- is what we do because of the fear -- the avoidance.

To quote the movie Poor Things: We must experience everything, not just the good. The degradation, the horror, sadness... This makes us whole, Bella; makes us people of substance; not flighty, untouched children. Then we can know the world. And when we know the world, the world is ours.  

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