5. The Inheritance of the Old Hurt

What we experience with our family as a child shapes us. I have described some of what I consider to be the damaging elements in my childhood, in my previous article.

Despite those damaging elements I was exposed to by my parents as a child, I still hold deep love in my heart for my parents. I'm sure many others feel the same way about their parents. My parents tried to love me the best they could. Sadly, I feel that their ability to parent didn't reach the full potential because they were blinded by the severe distress they had to endure. The distress seems to be born of the mental conditioning that is ancient, preserved by unyielding respect for a cultural belief, that they must carry on the pattern of behavior their ancestors carried on for generations.

There seemed to be a disregard for personal happiness there. I saw mental neglect. And it's not just there at my little hometown. It seems to me that the suffering exists at the national level.

I don’t believe that the overall lack of emphasis on happiness and mental neglect is present now because people of the nation today are intentionally neglectful, careless or unloving. I believe it’s because adults of the community are holding inside, deep and ancient pain. Pain that comes from carrying the burden of cultural principles, patriarchy, and group conscious. The pain they inherited from the generations before them. This pain is something so anciet and familiar that people don’t even see it exists most of the time. It’s the kind of pain that eats away at each person’s inside as it’s passed on generation after generation.

Think of any physical pain. Let’s say a severe stomachache or headache. Imagine the symptoms never being addressed so that the pain never goes away. Imagine the pain continuing without relief for days, months, or even years. You can expect that the continuous pain would start causing some dysfunction in your daily activities. The same thing happens with the pain of the heart. The only difference is, that the continuous unaddressed severe pain in your heart will hinder your ability to process reality.

So what do people do with the inherited pain, when it’s level is so high it becomes intolerable, and their reality is distorted? Unconsciously, they spill this overflowing hurt on the only people that are available to inherit… their children. Adults who have inherited this pain will inflict the severe hurt they couldn’t endure themselves, onto the precious children they so dearly care about and want to love. I believe that’s what parents pass on to next generation. And sadly, I see the passing of the pain is happening as we speak today.

To me, as far as the community I knew in Japan is concerned, this old pain seems to have a strong connection to the cultural value the nation held for centuries. What comes to mind is again, the Bushi-Do principle of: loyalty, courtesy, bravery, faithfulness and modesty. This principle of samurai warrior seems noble. But not if applied in a way it seemed to be applied to the community I grew up in.

I am aware that my interpretation here may be overly simplistic and dramatic, but I believe it would help explain the mechanics of conformity in my birth place. It seemed that loyalty, courtesy, and faithfulness were demanded of people in the community, to serve three elements at any cost – honor of the family, the superficial integrity of the community they belonged to, and the survival of the company they worked for. Bravery was also demanded of people to withstand the pain inflicted upon them in serving and fighting for those same three elements no matter what the cost. Lastly, modesty was demanded of people as well, in order to discourage them from putting themselves first before those three elements.

What is alarming is the way people seem to practice these principles with a sense of pride. I cringe because I see this pride to be filled with pain and hurt, caused by irrational adherence to a set of rules that worked in the time when Japan was in the period of constant feudal war.

When I see, the deep-seeded presence of the pride filled with sense of honor and hurt, and the way people praise this pride, I can’t help but sense a disaster lurking just around the corner from them. A kind of disaster similar to what a community may face, if, some life-threatening, undetectable toxin has been released in the air they breathe for ages, and majority believes there is no toxin present at all.

So everyone is breathing the air that contains the toxin with no detectible smell or color. The toxins are poisonous enough to eventually make people who breathe it ill, but not very rapidly. The negative affect of this particular toxin is slow and the deterioration of health occurs over a long period of time. By the time people realize there is something wrong with their health, the poison has already penetrated deep within the body. It’s not easily reversible.

I see the pride filled with pain and hurt in Japanese society, as the toxin in the air they breathe. The toxin mixed with certain hallucinating agent in them, as this pride is considered a noble thing and makes people feel good for a while. I believe the negative effect of concealed “inherited hurt” is just as gradual and subtle, but extremely damaging. The damage would be so great that it encourages people to resign to it and let the damage spread further.

One of the most obvious signs of resignation is denial. By denial, people keep the painful cycle of handing down the old hurt.

Regretfully, I didn’t escape the cycle. I’ve also been a culprit in passing down of the old hurt to the next generation. My current husband pointed out one day, after going through some conflicts with me, that I seem to have suffered some kind of severe trauma in the past. He pointed out the reasons why he thought so. It was only after that point, I came to realize how I had been hurting my own children inadvertently because of the pain I was carrying inside.

My children believed in me. My children came along with me through difficult times after my divorce. They loved me despite my flaws. I was devastated to discover that I, the only person they could depend on everyday, was hurting them like I’d been hurt by my parents. And because of that, I can now at least attempt to prevent myself from passing the old hurt down to my children. Since I have become aware of some of my own pain, I can let the pain lay where it belongs.

I still have a lot to tell. I also still have a lot to learn. As painful as the process of this step in self-discovery has been, I am grateful. For this particular process is turning out to be, perhaps one of the most significant pivotal points of my life.