Written by Falepaini
“When the cost of that upbringing is a lifetime of people-pleasing, anxiety, emotional detachment and co-dependency, we have to ask ourselves if normal was ever truly healthy.“
– Falepaini
The Unspoken Truth
One of the hardest truths to name—especially in Islander families—is that many of us were raised in homes where abuse, emotional neglect, or narcissistic parenting weren’t just present—they were normalised. These behaviours weren’t seen as harmful. They were dismissed as discipline. Brushed off as culture. Justified with phrases like “tough love” and “we turned out fine.”
For a long time, I accepted that too. I accepted that the physical punishments, the emotional shutdowns, and the pressure to perform were just part of how we were raised. I wore that upbringing like a badge of survival.
But survival isn’t the same as safety. And surviving your childhood doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt you.
Loving Our Culture Doesn’t Mean Protecting Our Pain
I love my culture deeply. I love the way we gather in times of loss and celebration—how laughter erupts from the belly and fills a room, how stories are passed down like sacred treasures. I love the music, the rhythm, the smell of Sunday feasts that wrap the house in warmth and memory.
I love the pride of our ancestry, the richness of our language, and the way we carry our families on our backs—with both love and duty. I love how we show up for funerals with entire villages. How we cook for forty, even when only five are coming. I love the heart and passion of our people—the legacy of storytelling woven into song, and the graceful reverence of our traditional dances, where prayer is spoken through movement.
There’s an unwavering faith and spirit of resilience braided into every generation, like the strength held in the many fibres of a coconut rope. A silent homage to our ancestors, whispering in the summer breeze as we sing hymns that send goosebumps through the soul of anyone lucky enough to feel them.
But loving your culture doesn’t mean blind loyalty. It doesn’t mean we can’t question the parts of our upbringing that hurt us. In fact, I believe true love—for culture, for family, and for the generations yet to come—requires exactly that: the courage to look honestly at the things we were told not to name.
The Cost of Collectivism
Growing up in a collectivist culture often means learning that your identity is tightly bound to your family’s reputation. You’re not raised as an individual first—you’re raised as a reflection of your bloodline. Obedience, respect, sacrifice, and silence aren’t suggestions. They’re absolutes. And for many of us, those values became the mask that concealed dysfunction.
We weren’t taught to express emotions—only to suppress them. We weren’t encouraged to question authority. We were expected to obey without resistance. Sadness, anger, fear—these weren’t valid feelings. They were weaknesses to be corrected, not wounds to be tended.
Silence and Shame Disguised as Respect
The unspoken rule in many of our homes was clear: Don’t embarrass the family. Don’t talk about what happens inside these walls. Don’t challenge the adults—even if what they’re doing hurts you. Especially if it hurts you.
This is how the cycle stays protected—through silence and shame disguised as respect.
It’s why many of us laugh off the trauma today. We joke about the broomsticks, the jandals, the wooden spoons—as if pain becomes less real when we turn it into a punchline.
But beneath the humour lies a quiet grief. A longing for gentleness. A wound that was never acknowledged—just buried and passed down.
The Disorienting Nature of Healing
We learnt to survive by staying silent. But silence doesn’t mean healing—it just means the pain had nowhere to go. And when you finally start to unearth it, healing feels less like peace and more like rebellion.
When I began my healing journey, I didn’t expect it to feel so disorienting. I thought healing would feel light and peaceful.
Instead, it felt like betrayal.
Betrayal of my upbringing. Betrayal of my parents. Betrayal of the culture that raised me.
But that’s the emotional cost of awakening. Once you start to heal, you start to see the patterns. The fear responses that don’t match the moment. The way you over-explain, over-apologise, over-give—because somewhere along the way, you learnt that love had to be earned, not given. That being good, quiet, and useful was the only way to stay safe.
When Love Comes With Pain
Realising that some of your deepest wounds were created by people who loved you—or believed they were doing their best—is one of the hardest parts of this process.
It’s also one of the most liberating.
Because that’s when you understand: trauma isn’t just what happened to you. It’s also what didn’t happen for you. You didn’t get to feel safe. You weren’t soothed when you were scared. You weren’t given space to explore who you were without fear of punishment.
You were raised to anticipate the needs of others before you could even name your own.
What Dr. Gabor Maté Teaches Us
Dr. Gabor Maté speaks to this so clearly. He reminds us that trauma is not just the violence or neglect we endure—it’s the absence of what every child deserves: attunement, comfort, and unconditional love.
Many of us didn’t just experience physical discipline. We were expected to act like adults before we were out of childhood. The parentification forced upon many of us meant that we carried emotional loads our parents never learnt to unpack—often becoming their confidants, caregivers, and emotional shock absorbers before we even had a chance to be cared for ourselves.
When “Normal” Isn’t Healthy
I know not everyone will agree with this perspective.
Some will say: You’re exaggerating. You’re too soft. That’s just how we were raised.
I’ve heard it all before. But the truth is, there’s a difference between being raised in survival and being nurtured with unconditional love.
When the cost of that upbringing is a lifetime of people-pleasing, anxiety, emotional detachment and co-dependency, we have to ask ourselves if normal was ever truly healthy.
The Science of Inherited Trauma
Intergenerational trauma doesn’t disappear with time.
It embeds itself in our biology—shaping our nervous systems, influencing how we respond to stress, how we love, and how we parent.
In The Awakened Brain (a must-read, by the way), Dr. Lisa Miller explains that trauma and depression can be seen on brain scans—even in generations who never experienced the original trauma firsthand.
These patterns are passed down not just emotionally, but neurologically. Trauma can leave its imprint on how our brains are wired, how we cope with stress, and how we form relationships.
These aren’t just emotional echoes—they’re biological ones too.
That’s why healing matters. Because the longer we avoid confronting what wounded us, the more likely we are to unconsciously pass it on to the people we love most.
What Healing Really Means
Healing doesn’t have to mean cutting off your family—unless that’s what feels safest for you. And if it is, that’s okay too. I say this from experience that carries its own grief.
It doesn’t mean disowning your culture or denying the ancestral wisdom in your blood.
It means telling the truth. No longer protecting the systems, patterns, or behaviours that harmed you more than they helped.
It means choosing self-respect over silence.
It means creating space for growth—even if that makes others uncomfortable.
When Responsibility Looks Like Betrayal
And yes, sometimes that choice comes with labels. You might be called the ‘bad one.’ The ‘ungrateful one.‘ The palangi-minded one (Tongan for Western-minded), as if choosing emotional health means abandoning your roots.
But what some see as betrayal, I now see as responsibility.
Responsibility to the little girl I once was. To my two beautiful children. The ancestors whose pain I refuse to carry blindly but most importantly to the legacy I’m building—rooted in truth, love, and freedom.
Why We Do This Work
This is where self-concept work gets gritty. Because once you start remembering, you also start questioning:
Am I overreacting? Am I just being sensitive? Did it really happen like that?
That’s not you being dramatic.
That’s self-gaslighting—a defence mechanism common in children who grew up in homes where feelings were denied or dismissed. If no one around you ever validated your reality, eventually you stop trusting it yourself.
That’s why naming it—out loud, in writing, in therapy—can feel terrifying. Because it’s not just about healing.
It’s about breaking loyalty to the only reality you’ve ever known.
I’ve come to accept that my trauma wasn’t my fault—but healing it is my responsibility.
And I carry that responsibility not with shame, but with purpose.
I don’t want my children to spend decades unlearning what love is supposed to feel like. I don’t want them to confuse fear with respect. I want them to know softness, safety, and what it feels like to be seen—not for who they’re expected to be, but for who they truly are.
To the Ones Breaking the Cycle
To the ones breaking the cycle—I see you.
I honour the way you are rewriting the story.
I know it’s not easy to speak up when silence has been the survival tactic for generations. I know it hurts to grieve a childhood you never got to fully live. But you are doing sacred work.
You are not weak.
You are not ungrateful.
You are strong in the way that matters most.
Strong enough to feel.
Strong enough to name.
Strong enough to change what others denied.
This work won’t always be celebrated. You might be met with silence, resentment, even ridicule. They may call you the difficult one. The dramatic one. The one who turned their back on tradition.
But what they won’t see—at least not yet—is the quiet revolution you’ve started.
The nights you stayed up questioning everything so your children wouldn’t have to.
The boundaries you set, even with shaking hands.
The softness you chose, where you were taught to harden.
The grace you offered your parents, even while healing from the harm they couldn’t name.
One day, someone in your bloodline will feel peace instead of pain—not because life didn’t hurt them, but because they had the tools to move through it. Because you gave them what you never received.
They’ll feel safe in their skin. In their home. In their voice.
And they may never know it was you who planted the seed. But it was.
You chose to end the cycle. You spoke the truth out loud.
This One’s for You
This one’s for you.
The truth-teller.
The cycle-breaker.
The legacy rewriter.
The first in your line to choose healing over hiding.
I see you.
And I honour everything it took for you to be here.
Because your story—the one you’re courageously rewriting—begins where silence ends.
And someone else’s freedom will begin because of you.
xx
Reference: Miller, L. (2021). The awakened brain: The new science of spirituality and our quest for an inspired life. Random House.
The House Of Pine 
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