Is My Family Cursed?

How unhealed trauma destroys families until someone is brave enough to heal.

Photo by Amir Geshani on Unsplash

Dear friend,

How are you? And how is your beautiful heart?

I met up with my first and oldest friend a few weeks ago, also called Sabah, and friends since we were just three years old. Living in different cities, and mothers with families of our own now, it had been years since we had been alone, just the two of us. This meant there was a lot of catching up to do, and as you know, catching up usually means things get real deep, real quick.

After a few hours together, she sat back in her seat and looked at me quizzically, “Sabah, is your family cursed? It really sounds like your family is cursed.”

I laughed it off because of how extreme it sounded, but as an outsider looking in, I completely understood where she was coming from. Growing up, she and everyone else I had ever known, had known of my family as one large, happy, very tight-knit unit. A majority of us even lived in three terraced houses, side-by-side, led by the patriarch of the family - my grandfather.

Now, 30 years after my grandfather’s death, everyone lives dispersed in their own nuclear families, and many of the grandchildren of the family now with children of their own. Although surface-level ‘fine’, after decades of the normalisation of abuse in all its many forms, traumatic situations, toxicity and dysfunction, every single person suffers from minor and/or major physical ailments and dis-ease, as well as poor mental health. Some are still perpetuating those same cycles that they grew up in with their own families and children, those same children morphing slowly into their parents as they enter adulthood. Everyone blames each other or ‘kismet’ and seemingly, no one appears to know the part they play in their own suffering and the power they hold within themselves to create change.

It’s a group of hurting, suffering children trapped in the bodies of adults, all connected by blood - and pain. Deep-rooted pain. I don’t exclude myself from that.

I looked back at my childhood friend Sabah (how ironic - perhaps I was looking back at myself), and said,

“Yeah, you could say my family is cursed. It’s easier to put it that way. But actually, this is what happens when we refuse to see ourselves. This is a family of people who are deeply conditioned and traumatised, and are not yet willing to face their pain.”

“Sweep it under the rug”

I am a South-Asian British Muslim woman, born and brought up in the UK on the intersection of two differing cultures and two very different ways of life.

My family were quite liberal in the grand scheme of things, at least that is what I always believed. There were no forced marriages as I grew up and there was no prevalent abuse in terms of what I thought abuse was back then. Yet growing up, waking up and having embarked on my journey of spiritual healing and personal liberation, God has revealed more and more to me as the years have ticked by.

I began to see things where others seemed blind, and I began to question things where others were oblivious. And what I began to realise was that everything I had once known to be true, was a lie. That my conditioning - social, familial, religious, cultural - ran so deep that it was intertwined within my very bones. And that the process of extracting and undoing all of that was going to be excruciatingly painful.

That much has proved to be true.

When I was six years old, I was sexually abused by an uncle on a family trip to the homeland of Pakistan. I told my family, and they did nothing. We never spoke about it again. Yet, this was just the tip of the mountain of trash that has been swept under the rug over the years.

The stories of others within my family are not mine to tell, but what I can say is that we have all endured a lot and been subdued into dismissal and silence by a culture that heralds pride and honour above all else. And the poison of that culture continues to multiply and harm because the masses are unwilling, or perhaps too afraid, to see it clearly for what it is.

So people keep tripping over that rug, the trash beneath it continuing to mount. Yet no one wants to look beneath its surface and clean up. Why?

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Healing as an act of resistance

In my culture, people are quick to place blame on things outside of themselves. Poor mental health, anxiety and depression? She’s possessed by a Jinn or a spirit. Cancer and chemo? Oh, someone must have given him the evil eye or performed black magic. A broken family with all of the above and more? Cursed, definitely cursed.

It is a culture and community based on the external, in every facet of their lives. Holding up a mirror to such a community means they are forced to see themselves, and that alone can be the scariest thing in the world because suddenly their identity and everything they have built their life upon, is questioned.

If that is all a person has ever known, to take responsibility, journey within and focus on the internal requires tremendous courage and an unequivocal will for change. This in itself is a major act of resistance in a community where nothing ever changes. And as we have seen throughout history, resistance is most often labelled as terrorism - the resisters scapegoated as troublemakers, ostracised and shunned from society. And nobody wants that, do they? So they continue playing it safe, never questioning anything and keeping quiet, suffering unknowingly as a result of their own oppression.

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I think I have always been a spiritually attuned person to some extent, questioning the norm and standing against injustice since I was a small child. However, it was when I was 22 years old that God decided it was time for me to level up. That levelling up meant the destruction and crashing down of all the veils that had been placed upon my eyes, mind, heart and soul. It also meant having to distance myself from the family I once believed was my everything.

And in no way am I close to the finish line - I don’t believe there ever is a finishing line - but I have made the conscious choice, intention and prayer to heal. Not only for myself but for my culture, my community, my own little family, for future generations to come and for the whole of humanity. We all have that choice.

In my South-Asian culture, I may be viewed as a troublemaker and this healing may be seen as an act of resistance. And it damn well is an act of resistance! But as history has proven time and time again, it is these acts of resistance that lead to change to benefit all - and that’s the goal.

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Under the rug, there is a mirror

Observing the family I grew up in from the sidelines as a conscious spectator, it has pained me massively to see how much suffering there is. Especially knowing that there is a cure to the suffering.

Earlier on in my journey, I tried to help. I tried to have conversations, make recommendations, listen and hear people out. I gave people chance after chance, even after disrespect and drama. I continued to maintain ties and relationships that were harmful to me and my children because it was family. Because it was family.

What I know now is that I can’t save anyone. I can’t do the work for anyone who is unwilling to do any work within themselves. I can’t force the difficult conversations, confront the familial demons or sacrifice myself to save anyone else. Even if it is family.

What I know now is that unhealed trauma manifests in a myriad of ways.

What I know now is that unhealed trauma can destroy entire lives and family lines.

What I know now is that there is always a choice and I get to choose differently for myself and my children. Even if that means letting go of family in the process.

What I know now is that my healing is my responsibility. As their healing is theirs. As yours is yours.

What I know now is that choosing to heal means that I get to play my part in a future that is different for my own children, and all those yet to come.

To speak of my own family is to actually speak on the whole of society at large. The unconscious anguish of the people to whom I am tied by blood is a microcosm of humanity’s suffering on the macro level. It is all connected.

For those who are suffering deeply and blaming all their symptoms on everything outside of themselves, I urge you, with a calm, hopeful heart to lift up the rug. Underneath the rug, among the mess, there is a mirror. And that mirror will reflect back to you all you will ever need to know.

Those who want to see will see.

Those who want to be free, can become free.

With Light, Love & Peace,

Sabah x

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