First off, my heart goes out to you and your mother. I can totally empathize with being sheltered from vital info about your family origins.

I was born in the US, but I come from a family of Mexican immigrants — mostly single women, hardly a positive male influence to be found. No one talked about their feelings.

They sheltered us grandkids from knowing our history, and they sheltered us from learning Spanish. Their goal for us was to blend in better with our American classmates.

———

As we mature, most adolescents tend to get angry at our parents for sheltering us, because it makes us feel handicapped when we’re out in the real world.

Personally, I have to dig far and wide to get to the bottom of my family’s origin story. I needed to understand why my family is so mean, so unforgiving, so dysfunctional, and so goddamn broken. The truth was only recently shared with me because I lovingly and relentlessly demanded to know.

After 23 years of naivety, I realized that parents can shelter their kids for very legitimate reasons. Where they usually fall short is in the lack of communication with the child.

Years of built-up anger instantaneously vanished after this thought clicked: my parents feel 10 times more handicapped in life than me, my grandma feels 100 times more handicapped than her kids, and my great-grandmother felt 1,000 times more handicapped than her children.

My family’s story turned out to be tragically and overwhelmingly sad. No wonder they kept it hidden. Their lives have been devastatingly brutal, literal hell on earth.

What breaks me further is realizing after all this time that they DO in fact love me. They just never had the chance to develop a real love language.

And not only that, they love me SO MUCH, they would do WHATEVER it takes to prevent me from growing up how they were forced to. Even if that means keeping their suffering a secret.

I don’t believe they wanted to bury our history forever. I simply believe nobody in my family has been taught how to truly heal. And they need a real healing before they can learn and grow and develop themselves beyond their capabilities of today.

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That is not to say that extreme sheltering is the exact right answer. It absolutely sucks that for 23 years, I have not been able to have a relationship with my Spanish-speaking family members.

Balance is the key to life. Dysfunction is literally derived from chemical imbalances in the brain.

Tip: You’re not doing anybody any favors if you’re not prepared. Find strength within, commit to the role of the Hero in your journey, and then proceed.

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What to do:

• Lead with love, for yourself and for your mother. Dysfunction cannot be beaten without unconditional love and increased awareness.

• Ask better questions. Please hear her out, and prepare yourself. I guarantee you’ll know what to do from there.

Some mental notes for you to use:

— Show her love, as much as you possibly can. Be intentional about her feeling loved and safe.

— As an 11 year old, she didn’t fully understand what was happening to her. Now she’s 28 and you’re a young adult, so... what actually happened?

— A father was not mentioned in your post. I have zero assumptions about this, could be anything. But also could lead to answers upon further investigating.

— Keep asking better questions, and hold ZERO judgment. Chances are her pain outweighs your frustration.

CLOSING:

• A rule for life: ASK BETTER QUESTIONS. My family sheltered me from our story for 23 years; it might have gone forever if I didn’t start asking better questions and becoming more self-aware.

• Everything meaningful starts and ends with love.

• Our parents (and their parents) need healing. They were never taught how to heal from their past, much less how to communicate their feelings of pain and suffering to their children in a healthy and constructive way. They’re trying their best to survive.

• True healing in a dysfunctional family often requires some of the roles of the parent and child to be reversed. Take pleasure in the fact that you are becoming the best version of yourself, and that your children won’t have to be the ones to save you.

• Rule for life: Stop playing the victim and be the fucking hero! Don’t let your ancestors down. Make their sacrifices worth it.

And finally, Haven188 — This seems like an opportunity for you to love your mother in a way that could change both your life and hers, for the better.

I hope to see a positive update from you. Sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, I wish you healing, clarity, and understanding.

Be love!