From Pain to Purpose: Breaking Cycles

Last week, I shared my journey of 11 years without alcohol - a path that has transformed my life and my work. This week, I'm sharing a deeper layer of that story - one about intergenerational healing, neurodivergence, and transforming pain into purpose. 

The Weight of Unspoken Differences

Yesterday would have been my father's 69th birthday. But he passed at 45 when I was 16.

For years, I carried his story as a simple narrative: abusive alcoholic, gone too soon. But time and healing have revealed a more complex truth I'm ready to discuss.

Behind his addiction and anger lived a man who I firmly believe carried undiagnosed neurodivergence and unprocessed trauma. A man who never learned how to cope with a mind that processed the world differently. A man who chose alcohol over tools because that's what generational trauma had modeled.

Echoes Across Generations

Now, at 39, navigating my own late-diagnosed autism and ADHD, I see echoes of his struggles in my sensory overwhelm and in the way my brain lights up differently. But I chose a different path. Instead of numbing, I chose to understand. Instead of hiding, I chose to heal.

The bitter irony? The very sensitivity he tried to drink away might have been his greatest gift - a depth of feeling that, properly supported, could have transformed his pain into purpose.

I've realized that growing up with undiagnosed neurodivergence in the 80s and 90s meant carrying a weight of difference without words to name it. Add to that the generational trauma of growing up in a family where intense emotions were seen as weakness, where deep sensitivity was something to discourage, where alcohol was the only accepted coping tool - and you have a recipe for deep, unresolved pain.

"I wish you'd lived long enough to meet the woman who turned your legacy of pain into a mission of healing."

Breaking Cycles, Making Choices

The cycles of unaddressed neurodivergence and trauma run deep in my family tree. Now, I see the patterns differently - the similar sensitivities, the similar struggles, the similar unspoken differences echoing through generations. Some chose alcohol, like my father. Others chose denial, refusing to acknowledge or understand these differences, perpetuating the cycle of misunderstanding and pain.

Sometimes, breaking cycles means making difficult choices. It means choosing understanding over ignorance, growth over comfort, even when those choices lead to necessary distance from those who aren't ready to understand. It means accepting that not everyone will be willing to do the work of understanding neurodivergent minds and hearts, even when they might share the same traits themselves.

Finding Light in the Legacy

Today, I honor both versions of him: the father who struggled and the man who never got the chance to understand his own mind. And I celebrate breaking cycles by choosing presence over escape, understanding over judgment, healing over hiding.

This healing journey has taught me that understanding doesn't excuse the harm caused, but it does illuminate the path forward. Every time I choose to regulate instead of react, every time I honor my sensitivity instead of numbing it, every time I model healthy coping for my community - I'm not just healing myself. I'm healing backwards through time, offering dignity to that lost, overwhelmed man who never learned how to hold his own sensitivity sacred.

A Mission Born from Understanding

To everyone carrying complex grief around death, mental health, and addiction: Your journey to understand and heal what previous generations couldn't is sacred work. Your choice to face what they fled is revolutionary. Your commitment to breaking cycles is changing future generations.

And to my father: I understand more now. I wish you'd had the tools I have. In my work now, teaching therapeutic yoga and mindfulness to others, I've learned that healing isn't just about understanding our past - it's about making conscious choices about our future. Sometimes, that means setting boundaries with those who aren't ready to understand. Sometimes, it means creating the supportive, understanding family we need through community instead of blood ties.

Your story didn't end with your last breath. It transformed into a mission of healing, a commitment to creating spaces where sensitivity is celebrated, where different minds are honored, where the cycles of trauma end and new patterns of healing begin. To borrow from the words of the late great Carrie Fisher, I took my broken heart and turned it into art.

I wish you'd known that your different way of experiencing the world wasn't a flaw to numb but a gift to honor. I wish you'd lived long enough to meet the woman who turned your legacy of pain into a mission of healing.