Choosing Truth Over Tradition

There comes a moment in every survivor’s life when the fog begins to lift. It often starts quietly, long before you understand the magnitude of what you’re uncovering. You start seeing the patterns you once overlooked and the dysfunction you accepted as normal. You realize the stories don’t quite align and that the “truth” shifts depending on who is telling it. You learn that what you thought was discipline was violence, what you believed was protection was control and what was framed as loyalty was silence. These are the moments the unraveling of generational trauma begins.

Confronting Generational Trauma

As children, we don’t question our reality; we adapt to survive it. The questions come later, when you start connecting the dots between your childhood and your adult struggles. When you notice how the toxicity you grew up with resurfaces in the relationships you chose. When you recognize your caregivers’ abusive behavior in the mistreatment you tolerate in a partner.

This year, the moments of clarity hit hard for me. I learned that much of my identity has been built on distortions, omissions, and flat-out lies. Stripping away the deception has felt like its own kind of rebirth. In the beginning, it was disorienting but through the process I discovered something transformative:  

Family is not defined by blood but by behavior.

You are allowed to choose your people.

You are allowed to build a home that feels nothing like the one you came from.

Processing generational trauma is messy and painful. Some will judge you for stepping back. Some will accuse you of rewriting history or tell you to “just move on.” Others will refuse to acknowledge what happened at all. But the truth is, breaking generational trauma doesn’t always involve reconciling with your past. Sometimes it means stepping toward a better future with steady courage, even if the path requires leaving behind the people you grew up around.

You are allowed to walk away from the people who hurt you. You are allowed to create a new legacy rooted in stability, honesty, and love.

The Holidays: A Magnifier of What We Missed

Leaving a toxic family systems carries its own kind of grief and loneliness. These feeling cut deep, especially during the holidays. While the world celebrates with coziness and connection, many survivors are grieving a life they never had or one they fear they will never experience again.

As I watch my wife bring holiday magic into our home, a part of me swells with gratitude. Her warmth highlights how profoundly different a family can be when it is built on authenticity and love. It is a privilege to watch our children experience a joy and safety I never knew growing up. But another part of me aches. Because the “family” I was born into was never a family in the true sense of the word. Because I recreated the chaos I grew up with before I understood what I was doing. And in doing that, I failed my oldest children—at least at first. The hardest truth I’ve ever faced is this: sometimes you don’t see the original wound until you watch yourself repeat it.

But this is where the cycle breaks, in ownership. In choosing differently the moment you finally see clearly. I left that relationship. I clawed my way out and became the safe, steady, present parent I never had.

So, to the single mother doing Christmas alone because she escaped abuse and is rebuilding from the ground up, I see your courage.

To the father being withheld from his children during the holidays while fighting a painful, uphill custody battle, I see your strength.

To anyone who has walked away from toxic partners, parents, in-laws, or siblings and is rewriting their traditions and identity with no roadmap and no support, I see your bravery.

Your choice to protect your peace, your children, and your future is sacred work, the kind of work that changes generations. And the family you build from that truth will be the proof that the cycle ended with you.