Throughout my life, the crumbling of a relationship has always crippled me.

I remember the day I found out very vividly about my dad having an affair, how it led to my mom’s suicide attempt, and how it put me through a mentally abusive dark childhood.

How do you tell a 10-year-old who sees the world of love like a fairy tale story and yet has to witness the reality of her parent’s relationship not making it through?

Growing up, when it comes to relationships, I am still that 10-year-old witnessing the fall of her parent’s marriage. To know that something that was once so precious, and could have so easily become nothing has riddled me with the failure to trust. I am cautious against it; it’s self-protection and self-sabotage all-in-one.

Intimacy has become a problem in my professional and personal life. I want to be close to people, yet afraid to be betrayed and turned against. I failed to relax and always had to defend myself, and this often became a source of misunderstanding with others.

In my professional journey, I recalled how the constant feedback I received from my superiors was not about my work performance but my interpersonal skills. This resulted from the insecurities that pushed me to be self-assertive and protective against being hurt, jeopardizing most of my promotion opportunities.

Being weighed down with the baggage of mistrust, I hate talking about feelings and emotions. I can’t open up and share bits and pieces of myself with my significant others at a deeper level. Failing to do so often ends up in unnecessary conflicts between my spouse and me and stakes our marriage.

For years, I didn’t realize that I had been acting and living the life of my dysfunctional family as if they were my life. The result of that has taught me that when we are raised in broken or dysfunctional homes, it can seriously wrap up the person we become and how we see the world around us.

Finding our way back to the person we were always meant to be means releasing the trauma and cultivating the knowledge that enables us to let go of those failures.

Our families don’t have to define us. Break free of the negative patterns, and redefining your fear of failure will bring you discovery.

While my parents’ relationship crippled me, it hasn’t paralyzed me. I am still redefining my fear of failure and learning how to move past it. I am still healing from the downfall of their union, hoping to become strong enough for the future of my own.

My fears of failure are a work in progress. It is a continuous learning journey of self-discovery and self-development.