Two Truths Can Co-Exist
A reflection on shame, survival, and the emotional inheritance of Asian and immigrant families.
So you’ve decided to start or are thinking about starting therapy.
You’ve realised that something hasn’t felt quite right inside you for a while. Perhaps there is something about your family dynamic that feels off, and you can sense it may be connected to what you carry within yourself.
But then another thought appears:
“Can I actually say this out loud to someone?”
I see this tension often when I work with clients, especially those from Asian and immigrant families. It usually sounds something like this:
If I focus too much on my pain, I’m disrespecting my parents. I’m not a victim.
If I try to understand my parents, I’m minimising how they treated me. It’s like my feelings don’t matter.
And never the two shall meet.
I know this polarisation well. It lived inside me for years and only began to soften when I started processing the death of my mother. But you don’t have to wait for a parent to die to acknowledge both their pain and your own.
For many of my Asian clients and clients of colour, duty, honour, respect and gratitude were deeply ingrained from a young age. So the idea of speaking about their parents’ impact in therapy can feel almost unthinkable.
“What if someone finds out?”
“I don’t want to come across as ungrateful”
“What kind of child talks about their parents like this?”
And there we meet our old friend: shame.
Sometimes the shame begins the moment you realise that your therapist will be the one to “find out.” But is it really surprising?
Many of us grew up in environments where it was considered shameful to:
get a “bad” grade
date someone before marriage
struggle with our mental health
express anger, sadness, or anxiety
The first time I ever went to see a counsellor, before my psychotherapy training, I knew instinctively that I had to keep it a secret from my parents. At the time, I didn’t question why. It was simply part of my “core language,” as Mark Wolynn describes it: certain feelings were not to be discussed, especially not with them.
Only later, with distance and compassion, did I begin to understand where this came from.
The survival context
From the moment my parents left Sri Lanka, they were in survival mode.
They arrived in a new country where they had to:
work multiple jobs
learn a new culture and language
rebuild social networks from scratch
face racism and prejudice
navigate unfamiliar values and expectations
And my parents were among those who left by choice. Many Sri Lankan Tamils were forced to flee because of the civil war. For them, the rupture from home was not only disorienting, but deeply traumatic – a grief that felt ineffable.
Across many Asian and immigrant communities, there is a shared history of:
displacement
loss
survival under pressure
grief that was never processed
In such contexts, emotional expression often becomes a luxury. Survival comes first.
Back home, problems were often kept within the family or shared with trusted elders. But in a foreign land, with fewer familiar faces and less trust in the outside world, that circle of safety became even tighter.
So feelings like:
anger
sadness
depression
envy
anxiety
could seem insignificant compared to the scale of what the previous generation had endured.
Many of us heard some version of:
“Be grateful.”
“You have no idea how hard we had it.”
And while survival life was indeed traumatic in ways the second generation may never fully grasp, we have to ask:
Does that justify the micro-traumas we experienced?
The survival rules we inherited
Many of the expectations placed on us were rooted in survival:
Pressure to achieve academically
No dating until marriage
Stay positive and don’t cause problems
Don’t bring shame to the family
From a survival perspective, these rules made sense. Our parents were often terrified - consciously or unconsciously - that if we strayed from the “right” path, we might not survive in this new world.
So their fear became our inheritance.
Without realising it, many parents projected their anxiety and trauma onto their children. Not out of cruelty, but out of fear.
They could not imagine that:
there were other ways to live
different paths could still lead to safety
we might survive even if we did things differently
The impact of this can exist on a wide spectrum:
persistent criticism
emotional dismissal
verbal aggression
rigid control
in some cases, physical violence
Often, our parents treated us the way their parents treated them. And we internalised the way those words made them feel.
These are our traumas and micro-traumas.
As Wolynn writes: “Many of us unconsciously take on our parents’ pain. As small children…we had not learned how to be separate from our parents and to be connected to them at the same time…If we too carried [their unhappiness], they wouldn't have to carry it alone.”
The two truths
And this is the part I want to say as clearly as possible:
It is okay to recognise the impact of your parents’ projections and still feel grateful for what they gave you.
It is okay to acknowledge your pain and still understand their history.
Both truths can exist.
Healing often begins when we stop forcing ourselves to choose between:
loyalty and honesty
gratitude and grief
compassion and anger
Instead, we learn to hold the complexity.
Your parents may have done the best they could with what they had.
And you may still carry wounds from what you experienced.
Both can be true.
This article reflects my professional perspective and is intended for reflection and education. It is not a substitute for therapy or personalised mental health support.
