I Refused to Pass Down Childhood Trauma | Episode 19

My parents loved me, protected me, and did what they believed was best for me. But love and good intentions do not always prevent childhood wounds.

In this episode, I open up about being introduced to dieting at an early age, struggling to believe my body was acceptable as it was, and learning that parts of my personality did not always fit what others expected a girl to be. My mother wanted to protect me from how the world treated bigger bodies. My father wanted his only daughter to embrace her femininity. Neither of them intended to cause harm, but those experiences still shaped how I saw my body, my identity, and myself.

When I became a parent, I made a conscious decision not to pass those pressures down. I wanted my daughter to have a healthy relationship with her body, movement, food, femininity, masculinity, and the freedom to be exactly who she was.

This conversation is not about blaming our parents or pretending they did not love us. It is about recognizing that people can love us deeply and still leave us with something we must heal. We cannot always control what was planted in us, but we can decide what continues through us.

What did you inherit that you never wanted to pass down? What behavior in your child triggers something unresolved within you? And what can you change now so the cycle ends with you?

I am looking honestly at what shaped me, honoring the people who raised me, and choosing not to repeat what no longer serves the generations coming after me.

Heavenly minded, but earthly good.

The Spiritual Realist is edited and produced by Organized Movements

Recorded at Privicast Studio

Watch Video Podcast on Patreon

Subscribe on YouTube @thespiritualrealest

Follow on Instagram @thespiritualrealest

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

This is the spiritual realist, and I'm Scarlett Drown. This is a space for honest conversation about spirituality, individuality, and growth. Welcome to opening your mind without pressure, performance, or pretending. From views to heavenly minded, but earthly good.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

From church fans to creed. Mama had a Bible open. Grandma had a job of root. Cross hanging over the door. But the dirt still know the truth.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

Let's begin.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

Scarlet draw speak. Let the spirit speak.

SPEAKER_02 0:56

So today we are going to play our sambol to get rid of any negative energy or stop any distraction that may come while we spend this time together. So chamomile is our scent. You can actually get the chamomile. It comes in little flower leafettes. You can make your own tea with it. You can actually use it in an oil, and we have it in our diffuser today. And it is for peace. It's for emotional release. It's for safety. And most of all, what do we have here? Honesty. Because we are realists, right? And we're going to talk about how you can stop the curse of passing down childhood trauma. And I'm going to use me as an example for you. So let's get into it. So one of the things that for me was very important or very prominent in my life, I should say, was my weight. I was very athletic. I have nothing but brothers who are like all American sports. Okay. Football, basketball, they run, they do it all. That's what they do. That's who they are, right? And so I literally was the big girl who was athletic. I ran, I played football, I played basketball, everything my brothers could do, because A, I'm competitive. And you're not finna beat me. And so that's that. That's just how it went, right? But I was chubby. I did not look like the other little girls, right? I had long hair. I was, you know, cute with round cheeks, but I was thick, right? And I come from a family of not thick people. Let's just say that. But to attestament to my parents, and let me just say this very plainly, very clearly, very matter-of-factly. I love my parents with my whole heart. I love my brothers, I love my family, I love them with my whole heart. And there is nothing that anyone could do to sway me from that, right? But, you know, parents like me, like you guys, you love where you're at. And so even though you are doing something for your child out of the kindness or the goodness of your heart, because you don't want them to suffer. You don't want them to feel heartache and pain and get teased on or anything like that. You know, we kind of do things to help maneuver them through society and help give them tools to maneuver through society the best we know how. Let's just face it, right? We are all perfectly imperfect. And so at a very early age, I was introduced to dieting. And that's because I believe that my mom didn't want me to go through life. You know, back then, big girls and big people were not celebrated, bodies were looking like a type, and that was that. And so, you know, my mom definitely didn't want me to be put in a box or get categorized based on the look of who I was, because she recognized that I was gifted, I was talented, I was smart, I had all of these acclamates, but people's first impression is what they see, okay? And so, you know, out of the loving part of her, right? She wanted to make sure that I had all the choices that I could make in a healthy way. So I learned dieting at a very early age. Now, what that did for me is it stifled my ability to think that I was okay just as I was. It hindered me from accepting me in totality just as I was, whether I was big, skinny, happy, sad, whatever, right? It always caused me to try to mask my physical look. And so for me, it became a trauma unbeknownst to her. She had no idea, you know, because I also got in the pattern of asking, right, for that help because I thought that's what I needed to do because it was something I was taught. With that being said, let me give you a little background on who I am as a person. I was very athletic. I have the ability to do like these long runs even now in this sexy size. I have the ability to, I can run for at least an hour and a half, or at least an hour, I should say, maybe not a half, but a total hour consistently at a certain pace. I am a good cross-country runner. I have that kind of stamina, right? And so therefore, I learned that because my I was competitive with my brothers, uh, 100%. And one day my dad was taking us to the rec center where my brothers then were getting ready to play like a pickup basketball game. And y'all not gonna leave me because it's me. I mean, come on, you're not leaving me. I'm going with my brothers and my daddy, and he had some of the other boys from the street. Fast forward, we're like one stop light away from the center, from the rec center. And my dad makes it a race so that we can kind of all kind of cross the street, pretty much. That was his point. And it was our turn to go. And baby, I had these blue Converse shoes. And my brothers hated to see me put on those shoes because I smoked. When I tell you, baby, I was bolding it. You couldn't beat me. You couldn't beat, you couldn't let nobody beat me when I was in these shoes. And I believe my brother literally like threw them away. He like cut them up, I want to say, because he lost a race to me one time and I was smoking them. And I'm the shortest thing in the house. Let's be clear. My mom is tall, my dads are tall, my brothers are tall, I'm the shortest thing in the house. And my dad, not dads, FYI. But anyway, so we're sitting in here and we are uh running, and he's like, all right, y'all. When I say go, y'all go. And I run very low to the ground because I was short, so I was already low. When I tell y'all to go, shh. Now I know that there's a wall in front of the place where I'm getting ready to go. It's a like little stuff wall about, you know, yay high for me. So, and you know, I'm down on the ground. I'm running, and all of a sudden, because my crazy butt forgot to jump the wall, knock myself clear out. I mean, stars above my head, the little bird going do, gone. But my brothers keep running because they want to beat me, because I always smoke them, right? And so my dad realizes that I'm I'll go unconscious for like three, four seconds, maybe five. And then I get up and I'm like, ugh, I jump the wall, I fall back down. Boop. So my dad is like, ooh, had to carry his baby girl home in his arms, like this. My mama's freaking out. She's like, what did you do? You always let her do that, you know, whatever. But I said that to say, you know, I was always athletic, just to, you know, say the least. So as an adult, when I decided that I was going to have a kid, I knew that I did not want to bring the body pressure or the weight pressure or the physical appearance pressure onto my child, the way that it came to me. I knew that I wanted to do something different. I knew that that was something that I wanted to break. Even if that generational curse had started with me, it would have ended with me. And so when I did have my kid, I allowed her to try anything. She did swimming, gymnastics, taekwondo, boxing. She did anything, anything that she desired, dance, you know, anything that was indicative of movement, sports, exercise, I allowed her to do because I wanted her to have a healthy relationship with movement, exercise, and things like that. I wanted her to have the ability to choose to do these sports and these activities in lieu of me bringing in diet. She actually decided to be vegetarian in her life between the ages of nine, and I believe she went back to eating meat at 13. And I facilitated her in that. I did not. I'm a carnivore. I eat meats. A lot of them. Pig, goat, dill. I actually like dill, lamb, you know, I eat meat. So please judge yourselves, okay? I'm just saying. But I also accommodated her. I cooked two meals. I made it fluent for her. If she went to people's houses that ate meat, I made sure I sent her her form of meat with her so that they didn't have to try to look for themselves. Because I wanted her to have a healthy relationship with a healthy body. Not like me who went through the toils of diet and gastrobypass and, you know, eating and bulimia and all of these other things, because I wanted her to be able to accept her for who she is. And this young girl has done that. She accepts her body. When she got a pudge, she still wear crop top, okay? Uh, that is true. You know, she loves her body wholly, fully, and I appreciate that for her. And so, yeah, parents sometimes don't on purpose create trauma. They sometimes are doing things out of the love for you, and it might not be what's best for you at that time, and you then have to go through and help move these things along within your own life. But you want to make sure that you do it in a respectful way and in an honoring way because I honor my mother and my father. And my father, for me, my biggest trauma with my father is I was a girl. That's it. I am my dad's Bob the Builder. I will be outside with my dad. I was a whole, for lack of better terms, dude in a female body. And uh, I don't think they appre he appreciated that in the sense of I was his girl, right? I was like the only girl. And I came out so like, eh, legit, you know, Squill. I'm ready. You know, I came out so boisterous in my masculinity, right? I had to learn my femininity because I didn't have to grow up in survival mode, right? Uh, not that kind of survival mode where I had to fight and stuff like that. I didn't have to grow up in that. I didn't have to be that way, yet I was rough and tough. You know, I remember this one time I have this whole like scar on my arm because this one time this guy was riding his bike, and I am again like the only girl on the street outside playing with dudes. And he, you know, when boys like you, they like to hit. Horrible, horrible. Teach your boys if you like them, use your words. Get your hands off these females, because then they grow up to be men who like to fight and females, and then, you know, that's not nice. Anyway, so this guy, we were actually walking around the corner to another friend's house to pick them up. We're in the same grade, so it's no grade difference. And he is on his bike, and me and my friend standing to me and this other guy standing up talking, and he is riding his bike, and he's standing up on his bike, and he's riding real fast. And then as soon as he got to me, he stuck his hand out across my face. And then, so I didn't even think, and I would tell you right now, I didn't even think. And this is how masculine my energy was. Before he could even process or say one thing, I was behind his bike. I was running. Because let me tell you something, I knew at a very early age, I got a lot, but this face right here, this was gonna get me in a lot of doors. Okay, forget that weight. This face was gonna help me enter in. This smile, it's undeniable. Let's be clear. I mean, you know it. I know it. We know it. So I am chasing him down. My friends are trying to go get my brothers. My brothers is trying to come get me because they understand she's about to lose her brain. He done hit her in the face. I done grabbed this boy bicycle by the back tire and how back Florida by the bike tire. The wheel is still spinning, skins my whole arm. Uh I mean, skins it up. Blood is everywhere. By the time I finish beating him with that bike, that he no longer can ride. My brothers are trying to stop me. And they said, What happened? And I said, He slapped me in the face. They was like, Well, he won't do that no more. And I walk home. But this is what made my father tell me, you can't go outside with them boys no more. You can't be that rough, you can't be that tough, you gotta be a girl. I am a girl. He just slapped a girl in the face, and I just beat his ass for slapping a girl in the face. You should be proud of your girl that didn't let a nigga slap her in the face. And my dad just, you know, from that point on, that kind of changed his outlook on me going outside with the boys and doing this and doing that. I wanted to be the first female NFL player. I could play football, y'all. I could read the field, I could throw. I was better than my brothers there, even though they were all American. I mean, yeah, all American sports in high school. They were both of them. I was beast. No lie. I got picked before boys got picked. Because I could tackle and we was playing on asphalt, y'all. We ain't weren't these soft children. These, this, we was hardcore. This is them the 80s, them early, them late 80s, early 90s, babies, when we was we went outside and your mama said, Don't bring your ass back in this house to you. Drink the water from the holes. That's me. I grew up like that with nothing but boys. But my dad's biggest thing is he wanted me to be feminine. Now, mind you, until I started developing and his body started developing, I went with him. I was my daddy. My brothers don't, to this day, they don't put nothing together. Christmas, holidays, my baby brother probably now, because he got shooting with. You know what I'm saying? Like, me, my dad put everything together. So it was confusing to me that my dad didn't want me to be this athletic person anymore. And I'm like, okay. And I did. I was coming outside. Let me tell y'all, one of my outfits, I came outside with some fishnet laces stockings on that I stole from my mama, a skirt, a sports bra, and some tennis shoes. Imagine. And playing football. Till my daddy got home and was like, if you don't get y'all in the house. And to this day, I've never heard my parents curse. So if I curse while I'm saying what they said, it's me cursing, not them. I've to this day, I've never one day heard my parents curse. Ever. But I'm just saying, I'm being dramatic. I'm telling you. And so for me, I wanted to make sure that my child didn't have an issue with whether if her feminine side was out this day or her masculine side was out this day, or she combined both at the same time. And would you she do? Because she will wear some basketball shorts and a crop top with some heels. Okay? If that ain't combined to two genders, I don't know what it is. But I wanted to make sure that the things that stifled me as an adult that caused me pause or caused me unwarranted stress or worry about the society around me. I wanted to make sure that I did not reiterate that in my own child. And so I did the work. I made sure that I let her live outside the box. I made sure that I let her be who she was authentically without giving claim to my right social norms, social habits or behaviors that I had issues with. And so for me, I would tell you, there are things in your lives that our parents unintentionally may have caused trauma. There are issues that we may have that they were unintentionally implanted in us, not out of harm, but because our parents loved us and they just wanted us to not go through what they considered would be issues or problems in life. So I implore you, I really do, that if there is something in you that stemmed from parental trauma or issues that were given to you or started with you from parents just trying to do the right thing. Because granted, again, I love my parents. I had a great childhood. Yes, nobody's perfect. No parent is perfect, no person is perfect, no thing is perfect, right? I mean, pretty much, except those who believe Jesus is perfect, and I'm gonna leave that there. Now that I got that out, I want you really, honestly, what do you see that you've repeated in your childhood that you didn't want to repeat? What is that thing that you had the trauma with, that you see right now, even before it even started? Maybe you have a newborn, maybe you have a toddler, maybe you have a third grader and you see a habit that you did not want to repeat, but your child is repeating it. How can you change it? What can you do to move forward? How can you change your behavior and tell which will change that child's behavior, right? How can you fix? And not fix is such a word that I don't like to say when it comes to humans, because we don't need fixing. We came with everything we have. We came with everything we need to be our highest self for our highest good. So fix maybe not the right word that I want to use, but what can you do to change or alter the trajectory of that childhood trauma that you didn't want to continue, that you see continuing, how can you change that, right? This week, sit with yourself, watch your behaviors, watch your child's behavior, watch what triggers you about that behavior because that is how you notice it. If it's something that triggers you when you see your seed do it, then that is something that you may want to change, or your purpose is to change it. And you know, go from there. This week, I really would like us to let's stop. Let's stop continuing to do what we know isn't right to do. Let's fix that because I would like to lead this world better than I found it, so that when I come back, it's a better world. Hopefully, I succeed and I get to Oracle, but that's a whole different conversation. Nevertheless, it is what it is. I'm Scarlet Drow, heavenly minded, but always earthly good. And as always, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart join in, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer. Be good to you, because he's good to you.

SPEAKER_00 23:29

From church friends decree.

SPEAKER_02 23:31

If something about this episode stays with you, then you're exactly who this space is for. Share with a friend you think should be here too. You can watch on YouTube, listen on all the podcast platforms, and continue the conversation at The Spiritual Realist. I'm Scarlett Drow, heavenly minded but earthly good. Until next time. The Spiritual Realist is produced by Organized Movies.