Breaking Free from Generational Trauma

I used to believe I was just destined for this life: the one of addiction, struggle, and survival. The weight of my past, of my parents' past, and their parents' past, felt like chains I couldn’t escape.

I was born into a cycle of brokenness: parents who were hurt, barely healing, both addicted. Their parents, too, carried their own battles with addiction and pain. It was all I knew. I grew up bouncing from home to home, attending thirteen different schools, constantly uprooted, constantly feeling unstable.

There was no roadmap, no example of what it meant to build a healthy life. Trauma was my inheritance, survival my second language. Love felt like something you had to fight for, beg for, or sacrifice yourself to receive. And for a long time, I did.

I learned to cope the only way I had seen, through self-destruction. Addiction grabbed hold of me early, and for years, I let it guide my choices, my relationships, and my sense of worth. I was repeating the very cycle I swore I wouldn’t. And it almost cost me everything.

I knew what it was like to feel abandoned, but nothing could have prepared me for the moment I learned that the father of my son had taken his own life.

Suicide wasn’t something I had ever imagined becoming a part of my story. But there I was- left to pick up the pieces, left to figure out how to raise my child alone, left to process a grief I didn’t have the tools to handle.

And truthfully? I didn’t handle it well.

I was already drowning in my own trauma, my own addiction, my own cycles of pain. I wanted so badly to be the mother my children deserved, but I was raising them in broken homes- homes filled with instability, heartbreak, and the very same struggles I swore I’d never repeat.

I saw the way it affected them. I saw the way they watched me, absorbing my patterns, my behaviors, my pain. And it terrified me. Because I knew, deep in my soul, that if I didn’t change, I would pass this same weight onto them.

What It Really Means to Break Generational Trauma

Breaking free from generational trauma isn’t just about wanting better. It’s about doing better, even when it’s hard. Even when it feels impossible. Even when you mess up and have to start over.

It’s learning to parent differently, even when you don’t have a blueprint. It’s unlearning toxic behaviors that feel second nature. It’s feeling your emotions instead of numbing them, apologizing when you get it wrong, and showing your children that healing is messy but possible.

It’s not a straight road. It’s not an overnight transformation. It’s a war…one that I’ve lost battles in before. But I refuse to lose the war.

The Beauty of Trying Again

I’m almost two years sober now. Two years of fighting for a life I never thought I deserved. Two years of breaking habits that were passed down for generations. Two years of choosing God over addiction, peace over chaos, healing over hiding.

And I won’t lie to you, it hasn’t been perfect. There have been moments I slipped into old ways of thinking. Moments I had to swallow my pride and ask for help. Moments I sat in my car crying, wondering if I was really capable of change.

But let me tell you something: It is so worth it.

My children are learning a different way. They’re seeing love without conditions. They’re growing up in a home where apologies happen, where grace is given, where hard conversations are had.

They will not have to unlearn the same pain I did.

If You’re Struggling, Read This

If you’re in the thick of it- if you feel like you’re failing, like you’ll never escape your past, like you’re doomed to repeat the cycle, please hear me:

You are not too broken to heal. You are not too far gone to change. And you do not have to do this alone.

Healing is a process. Growth is a choice. And every single day, you have the power to take one step closer to freedom.

It won’t be easy, but it will be worth it.

And one day, you’ll look at your life- not perfect, not without struggle, but different- and you’ll realize you did what so many before you could not.

You broke the cycle.

Keep going.

With love,
A Cycle-Breaker