Educate Yourself

These days, I am choosing myself more and more. It was a practice that became easier with every journal entry, every page read, and every uncomfortable realization I unearthed.

I had tried to bring Sam along on this journey, sending him screenshots and quotes, hoping to spark a conversation. But difficult conversations remained just that—difficult. Still, I wanted him to have the same map I was using. There was still time, and perhaps a sliver of hope, for him to learn how to change his role in his family.

Before I left for Salt Lake City to be with our son Jack, who needed surgery for an old hockey shoulder injury, I left a survival curriculum on the kitchen counter: Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, Self-Involved Parents, and Recovering from Emotionally Immature Parents.

As Sam dropped me off at the airport, I turned to him with a singular, heavy request.

“Please read the books I left for you,” I said.

He gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles white. For a fleeting second, the mask slipped. I saw a flash of the man I had married—not the dutiful son, but the partner who used to dream of a life different from his parents'. He looked like he wanted to speak, to bridge the gap between us, but the words died in his throat. He just nodded, a resignation that felt heavier than a refusal.

And then I was gone.

Flying west, I stared out the window. Below, the landscape shifted from green to arid brown, mirroring the desolation I felt creeping in. To quiet my mind, I opened the books I’d brought for myself—The Myth of Normal and When the Body Says No by Dr. Gabor Maté. I had already listened to Bessel Van Der Kolk’s, When The Body Keeps The Score on my many hikes.

Maté’s helped confirm Van Der Kolk, and their words hit me with the force of a revelation. They detailed how chronic illness is often the body’s answer to unresolved trauma and suppressed rage. As I read about the link between stress and autoimmune disease, the text blurred, and a memory from years ago hijacked my focus.

I was back in a sterile cardiac wing, standing over Jerry Sr.’s hospital bed. The room had smelled of antiseptic and stale coffee. Jerry looked gray and small against the white sheets, his heart failing him. But it wasn't the machinery beeping that I remembered most—it was the silence. Susan stood by the window, not holding his hand, but adjusting the blinds aggressively. There was no comfort in that room, only a suffocating performance of concern. Jerry’s heart hadn't just rusted; it had starved.

The realization made me shiver in the temperature-controlled cabin. The DeYoung history was a medical chart of repression. Mark and Monica’s son had rheumatoid arthritis; so did Susan’s sister. Cousins suffered from alopecia. But the connection that haunted me most was Maté’s link between patriarchal oppression and Multiple Sclerosis.

My mind went instantly to Monica. I saw her frail frame, a physical manifestation of a body succumbing to the crushing weight of the DeYoung expectations.

I closed the book, smoothing the cover with a trembling hand. Generational trauma wasn’t just a buzzword. It was written in our cells. When I stepped into the surgery center in Salt Lake, that theory manifested in real time. The center was a landscape of sharp edges and blinding white floors, a place that offered no hiding spots. It was in our cells.

Jack’s panic was palpable before he even spoke. His hands trembled, his breath hitching in short, uneven bursts. His usually bright gray-blue eyes were rimmed with red, darting toward the doorway as if searching for an escape route.

“Mom,” he whispered, his voice raw.

I reached for him, taking his clammy hand in mine. “I’m here. I won’t leave you. You are going to be okay.”

But my voice was a bandage on a hemorrhage. Jack’s panic escalated, and I was helpless to stop it. I knew that look in his eyes because I had seen it in the mirror a thousand times.

“I just… I can’t, Mom.” His voice broke as he gripped the rails of the hospital bed.

“We can wait a while,” the nurse said gently. “See if he calms down.”

But I knew better. The anxiety had taken the wheel. Had we done this to him? Had I? I watched tears spill down his cheeks and felt my stomach twist with guilt. His panic was mine—the same racing thoughts, the same crushing dread. I had passed it down like an heirloom.

“It’s okay,” the nurse finally said, sensing the shift. “We can reschedule.”

Jack let out a shaky exhale, relief washing over him. But there was no relief for me—only the sinking realization that history was repeating itself.

Walking back to the car, I squeezed his hand. “I’m proud of you. I know that was hard,” I whispered. “We’ll try again when you’re ready.”

He nodded, but the shadow of fear lingered on his face. Later that night, I heard him mutter to himself, “I just couldn’t do it.”

My chest tightened. I knew that voice. It was the whisper that told you that you were weak, unworthy, and small. It was the voice Susan had planted in Sam, the voice she had planted in Mark, and now, it was growing inside my son.

We left Salt Lake City and drove north to Sun Valley, Idaho, for my niece’s graduation. As we climbed in elevation, the landscape opened up. The Sawtooth Mountains pierced the sky, jagged and unapologetic. They stood in stark contrast to the small, contained life I had been living. The vastness of the mountains didn't make me feel small; it made me feel like I finally had room to breathe.

Jack and I left Salt Lake City and traveled north to Sun Valley, Idaho, for my niece’s graduation. The winding mountain roads offered a temporary distraction, with peaks reaching toward the sky as if they held the answers I hadn’t yet discovered.

We stayed with my lifelong friend, Lynne. The warmth of her home enveloped me, a stark contrast to the sterile anxiety of the hospital. Her son, Ryan, stopped by with his service dog, Sunny. The last time I’d seen Ryan, he was a little boy in a Batman cape. Now, he was a quiet young man bearing the invisible scars of relentless bullying.

He and Jack found a quiet corner in the living room. From the dining table, I watched as the Golden Retriever rested his heavy head on Ryan’s lap. I couldn’t hear every word, but I saw Jack gesture toward his chest, mimicking the shallow, suffocating breaths of his panic attack.

“Yeah, it feels like that for me too, sometimes,” I heard Jack say. “Like you can’t breathe.”

Ryan nodded, stroking the dog’s fur. “Sunny helps with that.”

My heart ached. It was a conversation whispered in the shared language of anxiety, a burden two young men should never have had to carry.

Later that evening, as Lynne and I sat at the kitchen table with glasses of red wine, her husband Jeff walked in. He didn't mince words.

“Your family isn’t worth it, Tara.”

He was recounting a conversation he’d had with Sam the previous summer. Jeff wasn’t trying to be cruel; he was concerned. He described a moment where Sam had looked down at his beer, his shoulders slumped in defeat, and whispered, “I know she’s right, Jeff. I don’t know how to fight them.”

Hearing that broke something in me. It confirmed that Sam wasn’t blind—he was paralyzed. But his paralysis was now causing collateral damage. The mental health struggles seeping into the next generation were the cost of his silence. The cycle had to stop with me.

That night, sleep was impossible. I opened my laptop, the screen glowing in the dark room. My throat burned.

My email to Sam wasn’t angry. It wasn’t an attack. It was a plea.

I can’t keep doing this, I typed, not for you, not for the kids. Our marriage has to change.

I typed. Deleted. Rewrote. My hands shook.

I’ve spent too many years making excuses. I’ve waited, hoping you’d see what I see. But I can’t live on hope anymore. I need action, Sam. We need help.

I hovered over the send button. A small voice whispered, If you stop now, you’ll keep waiting forever.

I closed my eyes and pressed send.

Days later, back home, I sat across from Sam. The air between us was heavy.

“I know you read my email,” I said. “And I asked you to read those books.”

He nodded. He looked at me, and for a moment, I saw the exhaustion etched into the lines of his face. It wasn't just the fatigue of travel; it was the bone-deep weariness of a man who has spent a lifetime holding up a wall that was never meant to stand. He looked at the books on the table, their spines cracked. He had read them.

He looked up, and I searched his eyes for fire, for indignation. I expected the usual retreat.

But he didn't rub his head. He didn't look away. Instead, he stepped closer, invading my space with a sudden, fierce intensity.

“I’m going to fix this,” he said, his voice rough. His green eyes searched mine, no longer wavering. “I don’t care what it takes. I’m not losing you.”

A year ago, those words might have been enough. They might have been a balm. But now? As I looked at him—this man finally trying to find his roar—I felt a strange hollowness.

I needed more than words. I needed a revolution.

A few days later, I sat in Elaine’s cozy living room with my friends. They were my anchor, even if they couldn’t fully grasp the depth of the DeYoung dysfunction.

“Weren’t there signs, Tara?” Khaki asked, her voice blunt but not unkind.

I twisted my wedding ring, the cool metal sliding against my skin. “Looking back? Sure. There were red flags everywhere. But no one talked about red flags back then. I thought love was enough to fix anything.”

Elaine leaned forward, her expression soft. “You were young.”

I let out a dry, humorless laugh. “Yeah. And I was clueless to personality disorders.”

The memories flooded in—Susan’s subtle digs, Sam’s avoidance, the way I had consistently brushed aside my own gut feelings. “I’ve spent years trying to prove myself to someone who will never see me,” I murmured. “I know now—Susan never cared about me. She’s only capable of caring about herself.”

Khaki scoffed. “And Sam?”

I met her gaze, my throat tightening. “He’s not his mother, but he is broken because of her. She still conditions him. He’s tolerating the poison.”

The room fell silent.

As I left Elaine’s house, a thought crystallized in my mind, sharp and undeniable. If I continued to let myself be dismissed, unheard, and erased, I was upholding that expectation for every woman who came after me. I was teaching the world that women should shrink, endure, and wait.

I didn’t want to be that example. And I wasn’t going to be—not anymore. I would make my voice heard, for myself and for the next generation. No matter the cost.