Am I Doing Enough to Break the Cycle?

I’m lying in bed, trying to shut off my ADHD brain. I’m usually caught in a cycle of obsessively overthinking my comments and reactions from the day and playing Solitaire over and over until I finally fall asleep. Tonight, I’m in a deep dive: childhood trauma, breaking the cycle, how do you know if you’re a narcissist—you get the picture. I’m reading Reddit threads and medical journals. This is a common theme that usually amps up when I’ve had to apologize to my kids.

It’s Sunday morning, and my husband has left the house at 7 with our oldest for a doubleheader an hour away. I’m scrolling through my phone since I have some time before getting our youngest up and ready for his lacrosse game 45 minutes away. Long gone are the lazy weekend mornings. So far, things have been seamless. I organized all the sporting equipment the night before, washed uniforms, packed bags, mapped out routes, packed the car, and I’m feeling confident this will go off without a hitch. As I’m preparing the “snacklebox,” I’m telling the 7-year-old for the sixth time to get his shoes on and find his lacrosse stick.

Here is where it goes sideways. He can’t find his stick.

We start retracing his steps: he had it outside the night before. Did he bring it in? He thinks it was in his dad’s car, but I remind him he had it outside before bed. At this point, I’m quickly unraveling, and I start to yell. He immediately shuts down, and it sends me skyrocketing. I’m yelling, “I have told you a million times to put your stuff inside! Do you think Dad and I work nonstop just to throw money away every time you kids lose your stuff?”

We get in the car, and I continue to reprimand him while he’s hiding his face, choking back tears. For 15 minutes, I drive in silence. I glance in the rearview mirror and I see it. My baby boy curled inward, completely defeated.

I grew up in a toxic home, and that’s putting it nicely.

I had an alcoholic mother, and when she was drunk, she was mean. She would slur insults and remind me how I wasn’t like my sister. She knew exactly how to break me down and, at times, I thought she almost enjoyed it.

My dad, when he was around, was physically and emotionally abusive. He yelled, slammed things, and used fear to stay in control.

If I made a mistake, there was no guidance, just shaming. By the end of it, I felt worthless and full of shame.

When I saw my child quietly crying, hiding his face, everything I felt as a child came rushing back to me.

I pulled over and grabbed his hand. I apologized for losing control. I apologized for making him feel so sad. And being the sweet, empathetic child he is, he wiped the tears away and said, “It’s okay, Mom. I love you.”

But it wasn’t okay. It was never okay for anyone to make you feel like that.

And in that moment, I became the most vulnerable version of myself.

I told him what I did was wrong. I told him I remembered exactly how I felt when my parents did the same thing to me. We talked about what I could do next time to not let my emotions get out of control. We talked about how hard it is to be a kid and how hard it is to be a mom. We just talked.

The mood lifted, and we ended up having a great day.

But the feeling of failing him still lingers. It keeps me up at night.

Over the last 20 years, I have worked hard to heal. The last three years alone have made me almost unrecognizable to my 19-year-old self. I feel worthy and loved—things I never thought I deserved for most of my life.

While on this self-healing journey, I’ve prioritized the things I needed as a child and made sure to provide those for my own children: to feel safe, to feel loved, and for them to know I am their biggest supporter.

But there are moments when I falter—and they live in my mind. I want so badly not to cause the same trauma to my children that I experienced.

So, am I doing enough? Is acknowledging your faults and being open and honest enough to break the cycle?

I don’t think there’s a simple answer to that. But what I do know is that I’m doing more than my parents ever did. While it might not be perfect, it is more.