lido,
Depending on how old you were when your parents divorced, what you witnessed while growing up in their behavior, what kind of attention and sense of comfort you recieved can make a difference in what kind of person you, yourself became.

I am not suggesting you harbor bad feelings for your parents or blame them for how you turned out, which often DOES happen. The fact that you are forgiving them and making efforts to connect with them as you are older is not bad at all. In fact the forgiving is good.

But the depths of you can contain some deep troubled areas that you may not be consciously aware of. Many children grow to hate or resent their parents because the parents made life choices not really considering the child. Or, the child often feels that they were not loved or important enough in major decision making of their parents. This reaction is normal, and can be expecially difficult when parents separate if thier child is anywhere from 10 through early teens.

lido, the human brain is designed to learn, and log memories, emotions, and images in order to remind us of danger, good things, when things are safe, how things should be, more than we consciously realize in order to survive and thrive, as well as teach our own offspring. The other thing that our brains carry is a capacity to absorb emotional signals that also signal good/bad/danger/etc.

So what happens when children grow up around parents that are very unsettled in their relationship and through off troubling signals of insecurity, anger, sadness, confusion, and even anxiety. Unfortunately, the child in this environment simply absorbs all these confusing signals as well.

When parents end up breaking up, not resolving their issues and divorce and begin surviving on their own in confusing and troubling ways, that too is absorbed by their children. Children are designed to be sponges, meant to learn and absorb and this is what they carry for the rest of their lives to help them thrive and survive.

When I talk about Bipolar disorder, Borderline Personality disorder, Obsessive Compulsive disorder, and a variety of anxiety disorders, including PTSD which is another disorder. Well, these disorders can develope in childhood as a reaction to a troubling atmosphere, signals, etc. that are given off by their parents. Often the child is truely not aware of how these disorders form and reminders of any sense of bad, insecurity, etc. can give them sudden senses of anger, sadness, depression (low self esteem, constantly questioning self worth) and even a desire to super motivate themselves into producing postive results in their environments, which can be somewhat obcessive and compulsive that they simply do not understand. I would describe it as behavior patterns that try to make up for the insecurities of what a child experienced growing up. ( However it is possible, as science suggests that a child can be born with these disorders, at least that is what is said now)

A child can develope Borderline Personality Disorder which is a personality type that constantly needs, however tests all partners in wait for abandonment. It can seem like a sick game, it can start by a pattern displaying "how a child now grown has achieved skills, professional standing, etc) and as an adult it can show up in a kind of grooming a perspective mate with postiive attention, only to eventually present anger and provoking some kind of end result of having the relationship end, replicating the abandonment that was presented in the childhood. Often the person that displays this type of behavior pattern is truely confused, because there is a desire for finding that one person that will love and accept them no matter what. However the deep seeded insecurity that this event could not possibly truely present itself, often lends to a very troubled secret waiting period which will present rejection.

It is possible for a person to have Post Tramatic Disorder that is presented in the brain of a child suffering from constant abuse, or even later on. However this can also present a Borderline Personality Disorder as a result of abuse/neglect as well. It is not always a definite result depending of what attention a child did get growing up. If one parent fills a loving role and nurtures, it can prevent that child from developing that disorder.

So, what you need to do is, preferably with a therapist, review your childhood to see what you really did learn, what you actually took away from that experience that is present in you now. If you can do that, it is the beginning to truely identifying your own issues that you may simply not be aware of. And whatever you DO have from that environment, if recognized and identified, can slowly be worked through, you can be retaught methods in how to identify the needs that were not met and how you may unknowingly be reacting to that now.

It is not always a parents fault for not filling the needs of their children, remember, most parents simply do not know the significance of the messages they send to their children. No there simply has not been a demand that parents receive education on how to produce the right atmosphere to raise a healthy child.

So, yes, you can forgive your parents and find a way to love them and have relationships with them in their later years. And, you can learn about yourself, where you may fall short unknowingly and learn to forgive yourself as well. It is important to learn about yourself, where you may be trying to make up for something you never got, but truely needed to just grow up and be a well adjusted adult etc. This you can do in therapy, work on your own lack and simply learning how to consciously recognize it and finally learn how to learn new ways to finding a better balance in yourself.

Sadly, there are many different ways a child can grow up with different ways of finding a sense of self security, that often can present behavior misperceptions, and reactions that are simply not the fault of the grown individual stemming from a very troubled child.

Open Eyes