Honesty Requires Unthawing From the Pain

I would feel triggered when seeing other parents prioritize their children because my mom never clung to me that way whether in person or around other people. I needed to let my heart unthaw and needed validation for how I felt as well as acknowledge what I missed receiving from my mom and how it affected me.

I acknowledged that I felt a culture shock and was waking up to what I should've had and this realization, while painful, is also a part of reclaiming my worth and my voice. I was never the problem. I was just someone deeply in need of love, consistency, and acknowledgement – and those needs are still sacred now.

I’m not alone in this journey. I’m making sense of it and I’m healing – even in midst of the ache.

What I had to be honest about:

• My mom made me feel like a stranger in my own home

• She showed a warm, caring face to others while showing me indifference or contempt behind closed doors, leaving me questioning my own reality

• I felt like my mom was ashamed of me and it created a sense of unworthiness that ran deep

• I was carrying a lot of pain with a quiet strength and was in need of softness and understanding as I processed what I went through

• When my mom treated others with warmth while treating me like I was invisible, it left such a confusing and painful imprint – one that seemed to echo even in my adult relationships

• Triggers made me feel like I was reopening an old wound that never fully healed

• Healing isn’t easy – it’s layered and often painful 

• When we’re deprived of love where it should’ve come naturally, we instinctively look for it elsewhere – especially in places where we saw it given freely, just not to us. It’s not wrong to have those longings – it speaks to how much love we were meant to receive.

• My triggers were valid

• I wasn’t asking for special attention – I was asking to be seen and feel like I mattered and belonged and when that need would be brushed aside, it would confirm a story I had wrongly been told all my life – that I didn’t deserve it. But the truth is: I did.

Once when I was in a car with a mother and her children, she interrupted me to make a clear and unapologetic prioritization of her children, her home, and her routine. And when I’ve grown up with a mother who didn’t even try maintaining a relationship with me – especially in front of others – those kind of moments would lead to a sharp reminder of what was missing and stir something really tender from within. My nervous system remembered what it was like to be pushed aside, hidden, or even erased in the name of hospitality and I couldn’t help but think, “Why wasn’t I ever treated like that?” or “Why was my presence something to be suppressed rather than included?” This confusion around moral boundaries kept resurfacing as I was not just reacting to the situation but trying to discern with an open heart what’s right, what’s respectful, and what’s triggering. And that’s hard when my early experiences immensely blurred those lines.

I’m allowed to feel discomfort in those moments. I’m also allowed to hold both truths: that someone can love their children openly and that it can still hurt when it reminds me of what I didn’t receive. I’m not wrong or selfish for feeling that way – I’m healing.

I kept listening to my soul. It knew what’s right. The mind might’ve wrestled, but my spirit was trying to guide me towards wholeness – where I don’t have to question my worth anymore.

The unthawing process during the healing meant that it would bring both pain and freedom because I had to stay frozen for a long time to survive. Though it ached to feel things I had to numb in the past just to get through, it was also proof that I was finally safe enough to start feeling – and healing.

Coming to terms with what a parent has done, especially a mother, can shake the foundation of ones identity. This kind of betrayal can live quietly under the surface for years, shaping how you trust, how you cope, and how you see yourself. So the grief, the fear, even the superstitious worry – they’re not irrational. They’re echos of things that never got to be processed until now.

It is incredibly hard and brave to not just survive anymore, but to choose to wake up, feel, and move towards a life that’s yours – not one shaped by old pain. That’s huge step. If you’ve walked through similar shadows, I encourage you to ask God for strength to live that new life that’s not based on past pain but rather on the truth of who you really are apart from the way your experiences were trying to mold you. It is good to have some space emotionally and physically where you feel safe to let this all unthaw, little by little.

And I just want you to know that real forgiveness doesn’t mean pretending it didn’t happen or never speaking of it. It means you’ve released the debt, but still have every right to acknowledge the wounds and understand them.

Ezekiel 36:26-27 KJV

[26] A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. [27] And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.

Prayer: Father, please help me to process my pain in a healthy way and unthaw from the parts of me that had been frozen from past neglect and abuse. Please also help me to forgive those who've hurt me and heal all my wounds, softening me from the inside in Jesus name I pray Amen.

Truth: Speaking the truth doesn’t undo forgiveness – it actually deepens it.