When I look back at my childhood, I don’t remember much of our family life. My parents worked long hours, so my older sisters and I fended for ourselves after school. When my father and mother returned home, there was no rehashing of anyone’s day. No one asked what I did, or how I felt, or if anything special occurred. At dinner, my parents would talk briefly about errands that needed to be completed.

There is one rare expression of emotion that sticks out in my memory: the one and only time my father kissed me, when I fell as a little girl and scraped my knee. That little kiss was so foreign that I didn’t even know how to interpret it. Another memory: One night, my mother came up to my room and sat next to my bed talking to me, an unusual occurrence. Bravely, I ventured to share my feelings with her. I told her that I felt dumb in class because I could never figure out the math riddles that my teacher brought for extra credit. “No, you’re smart,” my mother said, shaking her head. I didn’t feel reassured. Her comment was just one more confirmation that revealing vulnerability wasn’t safe in my family.

As I segued from childhood into my teen years, I began to explore my feelings. I almost became intoxicated by the existence of my inner world. I’d hide out in the basement and talk to my friends for hours, swapping stories and sharing our impressions, feelings, and insights. If someone walked in, I’d quickly put on a no-nonsense face and begin to talk loudly about homework or something else technical.

At school, around my friends, I lived and breathed my emotions. At home, I obsessively hid my inner self. If I needed to release my feelings, I’d scribble in my secret diary, which I carefully hid under my clothes. I remember the terror that seized me one day when I suspected my older sister had peeked in my diary. I never found out if she did, because how could I ever admit to the embarrassing habit of writing in a diary?

In high school, friends became my new family. I spent days and nights in their houses; there, I could be myself. I remember once taking a long walk with a friend around my block and sharing my deep anguish over something. I kept looking up to make sure no one could spot me from our porch. I was so nervous that I’d be caught being emotionally expressive.

I weathered so much on my own. I went through some heartrending breakups with friends, but I didn’t breathe a word about it. Not that anyone asked. When some kind of feeling did intrude on our family life, no one knew how to handle it. The one and only time I remember seeing my older sister cry was when she heard that our married sister couldn’t make it to her wedding. She locked herself in the bathroom and walked out with red-rimmed eyes. Everyone tiptoed around her after that. The house was eerily silent. There was no discussion, no proper reaction for such a scenario. We just waited until it lapsed and we could go back to pretending nothing ever happened.

During high school, I went through a fanatic stage. I took my adherence to halachah to an extreme, way beyond my comfort level. At one point I made a kabbalah to say Tikkun Chatzos. I’d sit on the basement floor and recite the pesukim, trying to invoke some tears. One night, I was discovered. The basement door slowly opened (how could I not have locked it?!) and my sister walked in. I sat there, speechless, my heart pounding madly. My sister looked at me, smirked, and then walked out without asking for an explanation. After that, I became even more determined to construct a protective armor around my heart.

In the summers, I went away to camp. I should have felt heady with freedom now that I didn’t have to hide myself. But oddly, I was intensely homesick. Somehow, being away from my parents made me even more desperate for their love. In the privacy of my bunk, I’d jot down my supersecret feelings in a journal, including the gnawing question that I would never have dared ask at home: Does Mommy love me? Yes, my mother took care of me, cooked meals, and paid for everything I needed. But did she actually feel anything for me? (It didn’t even occur to me to ask that question about my father, who was so cloaked and distant.)

Over time, I began to develop a love-hate relationship with feelings. In camp and at school, they were my air and water; at home, they were taboo. They saved my sanity, but then they complicated me when I was home because they forced me to hide.

I dreamed of getting married. It would be my ticket to freedom. I couldn’t wait to have my own home, a safe haven where your whole self could really feel at home. Not where you keep turning around to make sure no one discovered the real you.

I got married young to a very stable and kind husband. For the first time in my life, I felt truly free. In our newlywed apartment, I created my own little world. A safe world where I was accepted, with all my depth, sensitivity, emotion, and aspirations. A world where I wasn’t disdained for being weak or sentimental. A world where I didn’t have to be ashamed to be me. Finally, I could shed my armor.

To this day, I am infinitely grateful to my understanding husband, who allows me to share, and be weak and vulnerable when I need to. I know that sometimes I overwhelm him when I overindulge in my feelings. That is another sub-issue I had to learn to deal with as time went on.

A few years into marriage, when I was settled and comfortable in my new life and building a family of my own, I was able to reflect on what I had gone through in my childhood. And then, a huge and frightening wave of anger washed over me, consuming me. Why had I always had to hide? Why was I deprived of a basic human need? Everything inside of me protested, kicking and screaming, about the emotional starvation I had endured.

Once this realization dawned, it was excruciating for me to interact with my parents. Just being around them exacerbated my anger, pain, and sadness. Eventually, it was too overwhelming for me to handle. So I protected myself. I created a thick brick wall around me, and didn’t let my parents in. I became uber-independent, and rebuffed their every attempt to be a part of my life. I didn’t alienate them, but I kept a cool distance.

If my mother asked me how I was recovering after birth, I’d respond that everything was “fine,” even when it wasn’t. If I detected that my mother was making the tiniest attempt to show her concern, I would instantly shut her down. Too little, too late, I’d think, while smoldering inside.

Our family rarely gives gifts, but on one occasion, my mother sent me a set of elegant cups as a birthday gift. She attached a note with the words, “Happy Birthday, from Mommy.” Coming from my mother, those few words were like an outpouring of feeling. As I held that box of cups, I wept. For my lonely childhood, for the emotional isolation I had felt all those years, for the love that I still craved but would never receive.

My sisters and I grew older and made our own lives, but still, the family tradition of shunning emotion carried on between us. That was our training, our only way of relating to each other. We could have intellectual conversations, but no one would dare interject any vulnerable expression. Once, I tried, and instantly regretted it. My husband was away for a few days, and visiting my sister, I commented that it was hard on me. All my sister could manage was, “Aww,” and then she changed the subject.

Year after year, the anger continued to fester. Though I yearned to forgive, the little girl in me who starved to hear “I love you” — even just once — couldn’t let go. I was afraid that by forgiving, I wouldn’t have permission to feel the pain. And I needed to feel it, to process it, if I was ever going to move past it.

I wanted to believe that my parents did their best. I wanted to understand that it wasn’t their fault — it was Hitler’s. He was the one who crippled an entire generation. The trauma endured by my grandparents taught them to be tough and not yield to any weakness. This is the only way they knew how to build the future — by burying the past, with all its pain. This is what my father absorbed, and this is the home he built with my mother, who followed his lead.

At one point, I began to relive my childhood with a therapist, and I felt relief in unloading. I let out all the pain, and then it was there, in front of me, and I could put it in a box. I didn’t have to live it all the time.

I began to look at the positive side of my childhood. And there were positive things. We were financially secure, my mother ran a clean home with homemade meals, and I learned countless healthy habits from my mother. My dear parents gave me life and so much more, except for the critical tool of feeling and expressing feeling — which they didn’t own and therefore couldn’t give.

Slowly, I began to heal. But I still couldn’t take my wall down completely. Though I had changed, my parents had not. But my therapist taught me to see my wall in a new light — one that was made of glass instead of impenetrable brick. It’s still a wall, but you can see through it. Maybe I couldn’t let my parents get too close or involved, because it was painful for me, but at least they could see me.

Cautiously, I began to include my parents in my life, careful to honor them, but also honor and validate the feelings in my heart. Whereas I used to keep them out of my life out of anger and the desire to show them that “they deserve this,” now I only keep to myself as much as I need to protect myself from getting hurt.

I am on the road to forgiveness, but I’m not there yet. My inner child still kicks and screams sometimes. Yet slowly, I am beginning to accept my parents’ emotional limitations as part of my life story. I try to see it as part of Hashem’s plan and not as my parents’ mistake.

On one side of me, a glass wall stands erect between me and my parents. But on the other side of me, facing my children, there are no barricades. There is eye contact, hugging, tickles, affection, “I love yous,” and an emotionally safe space for them to express themselves.When I glance at the glass wall, I see my reflection. The reflection of a girl-turned-woman who wants no more walls, glass or otherwise, down the generations.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 918)