When Mothers Stay, Daughters Inherit the Lie

And “doing your best” becomes the cage we pass down.

Trigger warning:

What you’re about to read might make you want to look away — but if you do, ask yourself: what are you protecting — the truth, or the pattern?

This piece is raw. It is unapologetic. It contains references to domestic violence, intergenerational trauma, rage, and emotional betrayal. Reading it may make you want to crawl out of your skin. It may trigger parts of you that have been silenced or buried — the ones you’ve had to ignore to survive.
Read with care. Or don’t.
But know this: the cycle doesn’t break in comfort. It ends when we give ourselves permission to face that which lives lives inside of us, yet unclaimed, so we no longer continue to be trapped in a habituated loop that is inherently and intergenerationally self-destructive.

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The moment I knew I was on my own

I remember the moment I walked in to our shared sleeping room in a two bedroom house in Greece shared with two family units, and my mother is laying on the bed, bruised all over.

Two women (I think) were beside her, taking care of her bruises.

Reassuring me that everything is okay.

It wasn’t.

I could not have been more than five years old in that moment, and the memory is etched into my being like a frozen moment representative not only of total and complete powerlessness, but a defining moment of what my life would NOT be.

You see, I had seen my mother get beat up the night before.

I remember the terror I felt in wanting to protect my mother, but especially my little sister, who could not have been more than four years old. I remember looking over our cribs (that’s how young we were) and needing desperately to keep her safe. I remember I could see different realities playing out, and always my focus was her safety.

Not mine. Hers.

That became a lifelong pattern for me — putting my needs and my life on hold to support her. Lack of boundaries, however, only lead to a life of resentment. The road to hell … and all that.

But here’s the thing — there’s the initial trauma of bearing witness to the unfolding violence, then there’s the lingering, unshakable trauma and terror that only settles in after the fact.

When I saw my mother laying there, pretending to be powerless, I hated her. I hated that she put me in this position. To have to feel sorry for her because, after all, she had bruises on her face. Yet the only one who was truly powerless to do anything at all was a terrified me. This installed a double bind that has yet to be fully integrated into the totality of my being … because I deeply love my mother.

But the rage I have had built up because of her ongoing choice to stay in violence is immense. That’s one layer. The next layer — and it took me years to see this and finally come to terms with it — is that my mother used my rage to spew her fire. I voiced when she wouldn’t. I voiced what she wouldn’t (give herself permission to).

My reward for this? After the fact, she would try to talk to me to help me understand why managing my rage is in my best interests. I’m sure she tried her best, yet she never interphered in the moments where two bulls were colliding (my father and I). The problem was, I was always a powerless child (as all children are).

To speak to the process of this — I was rewarded for being on my mother’s side while simultaniously punished for not being in control in an unconsciounable living environment I simply coudln’t escape.

The pain of that betrayal is so deep, most of us would rather avoid it. So we spend our lives hiding the shame rather than giving ourselve permission to notice our truth.

But that moment of seeing my mom on the bed — that moment became a defining moment for the rest of my life — fighting the good fight for the women who can’t.

As I’ve grown up I’ve discovered, it’s not can’t, but won’t.

And that won’t has intergenerational consequences…

You see, my mother wasn’t the anomaly of the situation — she was the norm. All the women in Albania were being hit by their husbands.

Well, all except, at the very least, my paternal grandmother who would have none of that. So by the age of 2 I had already vocalized to my mother that I wanted a husband like my Basha.

There’s this strange thing women do where they pretend they are “supporting” one another through the violence when what they’re really doing is enabling each other and the lineage to learn to tolerate the intolerable. That’s what sisters do, after all!

This becomes the unspoken expectation that is woven through the fabric of our collective reality — and those of us who don’t do that, those of us who speak the truth of what we see it to be, we are treated as different. Often we are shunned for speaking to that which is to remain hidden — shame. After all, we have violated the Intergenerational Code of Silence.

Sainthood and Martyrdom: It’s a girl thing

LOL, whatever. Makes me want to vomit.

I have never been a fan of pretending or pretenses. Not then, not now, not ever.

In my now 20 year old journey of unwavering personal evolution, I have come to the unapologetic conclusion that very few seek to uncover for themselves:

At the root of all evil is familial secrets and lies.

Adults pretending what isn’t is, and what is isn’t. #gaslighting

Adults punishing the children for telling the truth.

Adults never confronting their internal state for fear / shame / humiliation.

Adults passing the baton of violence along to the next generation.

Adults modeling to their children what it’s like to hate yourself so fucking much that you are willing to sacrifice your children to it’s alter.

Adults unwilling to definitively declare a line in the sand of NO MORE.

But: YOU CANNOT HAVE MY CHILDREN!

Not a damn thing I could do about anyone else’s children, but you — history, intergenerational patterns, cultural conditioning, programming, familiarity, weak-ass-men — cannot have my children.

Imagine… all the energy we focus on protecting the training to beat around the bush and not call a spade a spade going to actually acting on our children’s behalf.

Imagine…. instead of saying “I did the best I could” when the truth of it is we did what was familiar, we take ownership of the pain we have caused and choose to create differently.

Imagine …instead of doing what our mothers did who did what their mothers did, we stop.

We redirect our attention to what matters — the quality of our lives, the safety and well-being of our children, the potential of the future.

But to do that, we have to care enough to be daring. We have to be willing to confront the systemic, intergenerational belief systems that speak loudly to our powerlessness. We have to become active in making different choices.

We have to become The One who declares, in no uncertain terms — it ends with me. I will not expose my children to this. Their safety matters. Their lifelong well-being matters. Their knowing their mother cares enough to be Present and willing to do what it takes to protect them matters.

But for that to happen, the mother has to have an identity shift about who she is. This is why taking ownership of your mind is so critical — your mind shapes and directs your reality. You cannot create a reality that does not exist as a thought form, first and foremost. In other words, you cannot create empowered woman if broken and powerless woman is who you believe yourself to be.

And you cannot have an identity shift if you are unwilling to face the festering sores.

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This is why this upcoming workshop is so critical — it helps you begin to discover how the structure of your mind works. But for any of it to work, you have to want to change your reality, not just talk the talk but walk the walk.

This is why I focus on the process of living because that’s what matters, not “knowing”.

This is why I focus on the quality of your life because that’s the measure.

This is why I focus on identity shifts because that’s a higher order expression of potential (rather than capitulation to what has always been).

But then again, not everyone wants to change who they are. In fact, most people don’t. So they pass the baton of intergenerational trauma to their offspring and hope that they do better.

It doesn’t work, but at least there’s hope.

I choose to put my hope in a different place — in the truth of my experience, revealed through my voice.

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