#adoption-reunion
#adoption-reunion
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#parenting #family-dynamics #grief #mental-health #identity #lgbtq #friendship #family #support #aging
Mental health
fromSilicon Canals
7 hours agoI'm 66 and I recently understood that the reason I find it so hard to ask for help is not independence - it is the very specific and very old belief that needing something from another person is the first step toward becoming a burden, and a burden, in the house I grew up in, was the one thing nobody was allowed to be - Silicon Canals
Independence can often mask fear, leading to a reluctance to ask for help and a belief that needing assistance is a weakness.
#parenting
Parenting
fromSlate Magazine
1 day agoMy Wife Is Struggling With a Very Basic Part of Parenting. I Can't Keep Swooping In to Save Her!
Managing emotional responses in parenting is crucial for effective problem-solving with young children.
Parenting
fromSlate Magazine
3 days agoI Just Turned 40. My Mom Still Hijacks My Birthday Every Year.
Establish boundaries with your mother regarding birthday celebrations to prioritize your own needs and desires.
Parenting
fromSlate Magazine
5 days agoMy Mom Seems to Think I Owe Her for Raising Me Alone. I Don't Want to Pay Her Price.
Family relationships shouldn't be transactional, and one is not obligated to provide childcare for a parent.
Mental health
fromSilicon Canals
3 weeks agoThe hardest moment of parenthood isn't the sleepless nights or the teenage arguments - it's the first time your adult child handles a crisis without calling you, and the pride you feel is real but underneath it is a grief so specific that no one who hasn't felt it will ever understand what it costs to become unnecessary to the person you built your entire identity around - Silicon Canals
Successful parenting creates independence in children, which paradoxically causes parents to experience profound grief as their role becomes less needed.
Mental health
fromSilicon Canals
3 weeks agoThe hardest moment of parenthood isn't the sleepless nights or the teenage arguments - it's the first time your adult child handles a crisis without calling you, and the pride you feel is real but underneath it is a grief so specific that no one who hasn't felt it will ever understand what it costs to become unnecessary to the person you built your entire identity around - Silicon Canals
Successful parenting creates independence in children, which paradoxically causes parents to experience profound grief as their role becomes less needed.
#friendship
Relationships
fromSilicon Canals
6 days agoI walked away from a fifteen-year friendship last year and the hardest part wasn't the loss. It was realizing I'd been auditioning for a role the entire time, and the version of me that friendship required was someone who never disagreed, never needed anything, and never outgrew the dynamic. The grief wasn't for the friend. It was for the years I spent performing. - Silicon Canals
True friendship requires authenticity and conflict, not just compliance and absence of disagreement.
Retirement
fromSilicon Canals
1 day agoI retired two years ago and the part nobody warned me about isn't the boredom or the loss of purpose. It's that the friendships I thought were mine actually belonged to the job, and the job took them when it left. - Silicon Canals
Retirement reveals that many friendships were based on shared work experiences rather than genuine connections.
Relationships
fromSilicon Canals
2 days agoPsychology says the loneliest part of getting older isn't being alone - it's realizing that some friendships were only meant for a season, and not everyone grows with you - Silicon Canals
Friendships often fade as adults prioritize responsibilities and seek deeper connections, leading to feelings of loneliness even among familiar faces.
Relationships
fromSilicon Canals
6 days agoI walked away from a fifteen-year friendship last year and the hardest part wasn't the loss. It was realizing I'd been auditioning for a role the entire time, and the version of me that friendship required was someone who never disagreed, never needed anything, and never outgrew the dynamic. The grief wasn't for the friend. It was for the years I spent performing. - Silicon Canals
True friendship requires authenticity and conflict, not just compliance and absence of disagreement.
Psychology
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 days agoAfter her remission from cancer, Christine's friends abandoned her just when she needed them most | Bianca Denny
Support often diminishes after cancer remission, leaving survivors like Christine feeling abandoned and struggling with their psychological wellbeing.
fromBuzzFeed
4 days agoI Kept My Family's Secret For Over 60 Years. Now, I'm Finally Telling The Truth.
In 1959, the woman who brought me into this world bundled me in a basket and placed me in a Hong Kong stairwell near Sai Yeung Choi Street, a bustling region of the British colony. I was 4 days old. A passerby called the police, who transported me to St. Christopher's Home, the largest non-government-run orphanage on the island.
Chicago
Fundraising
fromIrish Independent
5 days agoWexford father organising charity match in memory of son who died at birth - 'When you lose a child, you lose all the days that go with it'
Féileacáin provides essential support for parents affected by the death of a baby around birth, helping them navigate their grief and keep memories alive.
Relationships
fromSilicon Canals
4 hours agoPsychology says people who were the emotional anchor for their families rarely experience loneliness as a single event. They experience it as a slow accounting where they realize the support only ever flowed in one direction and nobody designed a return current. - Silicon Canals
Family support often flows in one direction, with one person bearing the emotional load while others remain uninvolved.
Parenting
fromSilicon Canals
1 day agoMy mother still introduces me to people as her baby and I used to find it embarrassing and now I let her because I understand that the introducing is not about me at all - it is about a woman in her 70s who still has her baby, and that is something worth letting her have - Silicon Canals
A mother's affection can evoke mixed feelings, but understanding her perspective can transform embarrassment into appreciation.
Mental health
fromNonprofit Quarterly | Civic News. Empowering Nonprofits. Advancing Justice.
4 days agoTrapped and Alone: Fear of ICE Is Deepening Postpartum Isolation for Immigrant Mothers | Nonprofit Quarterly | Civic News. Empowering Nonprofits. Advancing Justice.
Immigrant mothers face isolation and stress during childbirth due to fears of deportation and separation from family.
#family-dynamics
Psychology
fromSilicon Canals
4 days agoPsychology says the adults most likely to feel invisible in their own families are not the most difficult ones - they're the ones who made themselves so consistently available, so reliably capable, so quietly present, that everyone around them stopped noticing the person and started relying on the function - Silicon Canals
Reliability can lead to emotional invisibility within family dynamics, where the capable individual is overlooked despite their struggles.
Psychology
fromSilicon Canals
4 days agoPsychology says the adults most likely to feel invisible in their own families are not the most difficult ones - they're the ones who made themselves so consistently available, so reliably capable, so quietly present, that everyone around them stopped noticing the person and started relying on the function - Silicon Canals
Reliability can lead to emotional invisibility within family dynamics, where the capable individual is overlooked despite their struggles.
Writing
fromSilicon Canals
6 days agoI've been useful my entire life - to my employer, my family, my parents when they were aging - and I'm only now beginning to understand that being useful and being known are not the same thing, and I've had plenty of the first and almost none of the second - Silicon Canals
Being useful does not equate to being known or valued as a person.
fromLGBTQ Nation
5 days agoClassmates subjected a young teen to "relentless" homophobic bullying. Then tragedy struck. - LGBTQ Nation
Leyton's mother stated, 'None of the boys in that school accepted him. They told him they would never accept him for the way he spoke. He was a sassy speaker, more feminine - not the 'hard boy' type. This wasn't going on for just a little while.'
LGBT
Law
fromIndependent
3 weeks ago'Even the simple distribution of heirlooms can become contentious' - how to divide inheritance in blended families and avoid arguments
Estate planning in blended families requires careful consideration to avoid inheritance issues, especially regarding stepchildren and property ownership.
Relationships
fromSilicon Canals
4 days agoThe friend who always checks in on everyone but never tells anyone when they're struggling isn't hiding. They've simply never had the experience of someone noticing without being told, and after long enough, the idea of being spontaneously seen starts to feel like something that happens to other people. - Silicon Canals
Being the emotional caretaker in friendships can lead to neglecting one's own emotional needs and feelings.
Psychology
fromSilicon Canals
4 days agoNobody warns you that when you stop caring what everyone thinks, you also discover which of your relationships were held together entirely by your willingness to be whoever the other person needed - Silicon Canals
Stopping people-pleasing leads to a necessary audit of relationships, revealing which ones are genuine and which are based on expectations.
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 weeks agoNorth Carolina woman forgives mom for disappearing without a word 24 years ago
Amanda Smith expressed her feelings about her mother’s long absence, stating, "I know everything is not black and white, there's a whole gray area. Life's too short for me to hold a grudge against her because she's my mom."
SF parents
Psychology
fromSilicon Canals
6 days agoI'm in my 30s and I just understood something about my father that therapy never gave me. He didn't withhold affection because he didn't feel it. He withheld it because in the world he came from, the moment you showed someone how much they meant to you was the moment you gave them the power to destroy you. - Silicon Canals
Emotional withholding can protect against vulnerability, revealing deeper love and care beneath perceived indifference.
Relationships
fromSilicon Canals
5 days agoPeople who grew up watching their parents stay together unhappily often become adults who are simultaneously terrified of commitment and terrified of leaving. They inherited the architecture of endurance without ever being shown what it was supposed to protect - Silicon Canals
Children of unhappy marriages may develop relational paralysis, feeling unable to commit or leave due to learned endurance without understanding its purpose.
fromThe Washington Post
1 month agoBaby left in shopping cart in 1972 reunites with women who found her
That's when I saw the baby's face. I was shocked. She was swaddled really tight. She was perfect, lying there as calm as can be. She got examined there. She was beautiful and healthy. Doctors told them the baby was about two or three hours old when she was left in the shopping cart.
US news
#family-estrangement
Relationships
fromSilicon Canals
1 week agoThere's a specific kind of guilt that belongs to people who left difficult families and built better lives. It's not survivor's guilt exactly. It's the knowledge that your peace required a distance that someone who raised you experiences as abandonment, and there is no version of the story where everyone is okay. - Silicon Canals
Family estrangement often leads to complex guilt that doesn't fit traditional narratives of victimhood or ingratitude.
Relationships
fromSilicon Canals
6 days agoI'm 65 and I recently realized I have spent my entire marriage being the strong one, and now that I actually need someone to be strong for me I don't know how to ask without feeling like I'm dismantling a promise I made forty years ago - Silicon Canals
Long-term role rigidity in marriage can lead to one partner becoming the sole pillar, creating an imbalance that may hinder growth and change.
Parenting
fromSilicon Canals
6 days agoThere's a particular grief that hits when your parent asks you for help with something they used to do effortlessly, and neither of you acknowledges what just shifted. You both pretend it's a preference. It's not a preference. It's the first visible transfer of authority that neither of you consented to. - Silicon Canals
Aging parents often disguise their need for help as preference, masking the underlying shift in the parent-child power dynamic.
Parenting
fromSilicon Canals
6 days agoPeople who grew up being the one their parents confided in didn't become mature faster. They became adults who can't tell the difference between being trusted and being used, because the two things arrived in the same conversation and nobody told them those were different experiences. - Silicon Canals
Emotional parentification involves children taking on adult roles, leading to hypervigilance rather than true emotional maturity.
Relationships
fromSilicon Canals
1 week agoThe most painful version of not belonging isn't being rejected by strangers. It's sitting at your own family's dinner table, surrounded by people who share your last name, and feeling like you're watching the evening through glass. - Silicon Canals
Belonging can exist alongside profound loneliness, where one feels unseen even in the presence of family and friends.
fromEmptywheel
2 months agoHow Do You Want Your Family to Remember You?
The Stasi, the secret police, were legendary for their data files. Their work was based on instilling fear, and they induced stunningly amazing numbers of East Germans into informing on their neighbors. Something along the lines of 1 in 6 East Germans were informants, whether out of fear or out of approval of what the East German government was doing.
Real estate
fromBusiness Insider
2 months agoOur new neighbors helped us during an emergency. Now, 6 years later, they're like grandparents to our children.
A sudden basement flood after moving prompted retired neighbors to rescue the family, forging an unexpected, lasting friendship that became like extended family.
fromemptywheel
2 months agoHow Do You Want Your Family to Remember You? - emptywheel
The Stasi, the secret police, were legendary for their data files. Their work was based on instilling fear, and they induced stunningly amazing numbers of East Germans into informing on their neighbors. Something along the lines of 1 in 6 East Germans were informants, whether out of fear or out of approval of what the East German government was doing.
US politics
Parenting
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month agoMy sisters and I had the same parents but were raised apart. It taught me there's more to siblings than meets the eye
Siblings share a family yet experience different childhoods due to birth order, family dynamics, parental evolution, and individual circumstances beyond simple personality theories.
Parenting
fromPinkNews | Latest lesbian, gay, bi and trans news | LGBTQ+ news
1 month ago'You don't need millions to adopt - kids just need love and a safe place'
A same-sex couple adopted two mixed-race sisters to prevent their separation in care, addressing the significant underrepresentation of Black and mixed-heritage children in adoption systems.
fromPsychology Today
2 months agoWho Am I? Replacement Children and the Quest for Identity
The origin of the word "identity" comes from the Latin identitas and suggests "sameness with others," that is, our identity is both an individual self-concept and a collective one. Identity forms early in life and is fluid, evolving, and contextual. This is my hand, my foot, my voice, my dream, but I am also a we. I identify with an ethnicity, a gender or non-binary, a nationality, politics, class, occupation, and sexual identity.
Psychology
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