Though conflicted, Dawn Friedman always speaks highly of her mother, Joyce. Friedman continues, "she overcame a lot. After generations of trauma, mom put a stop to it, she put her foot down." Estranged from her mom for over 5 years has not been easy for her daughter. Dawn is very proud of all that her mother has overcome and says "I still get to remember the good parts of my mom, they still belong to me."
My guest is a licensed professional clinical counselor in the state of Ohio. She has over 30 years experience working with children and parents. Friedman passionately emphasizes, "I love struggling moms, they're trying to heal generational trauma through their own parenting."
Ms. Friedman also provides services through a membership program called childanxietysupport.com, for parents who are parenting anxious kids. We all know the number of anxious kids in the world today is overwhelming, especially because of the past year and a half and COVID.
"Mom is a survivor of an extremely abusive childhood. As an abusive survivor, intimate relationships are more complicated," suggests Friedman. She continues, "mom did a lot of good things in her life and she doesn't have any more good to give."
Dawn's mother Joyce, never got to go to college and yet she always implied that she wanted Dawn to have more than she did. "She wanted me to have it better than her and she raised be to believe that I deserved that, but at a certain point, she wanted me to stop growing perhaps because she felt left behind," Friedman sadly admits.
The family moved around quite a bit for her dad's job when Dawn was young-at least 6 times until Dawn's mom refused to move again. Within a few years, her parents divorced and Joyce negotiated a settlement for her divorce-instead of alimony, Joyce requested a certificate for a tech school-in place of alimony, Dawn's mom went to a computer school for programming.
Once school was completely and Joyce got a job, her life really turned around. She was happy again.
Links:
Child Anxiety Supportchildanxietysupport.com
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