Healing Your Emotional Self (10 page)

It helps if you breathe into an emotion. As it is with physical pain, breathing into the feeling tends to decrease it and makes it less overwhelming.

As powerful and overwhelming as emotions can be, they are actually positive forces intended to help you process an experi- ence.

As long as you don’t allow yourself to become overwhelmed by your emotions, they will help you come out of and stay out of denial.

Allowing yourself to feel and express your hidden emotions from the past will help heal your wounds from the past.

Exercise: Your Feelings about the Abuse

1. Earlier you made a list of all the ways you were neglected or abused as a child. Return to your list and for each item write about the following:
   

   • How you felt at the time
     

   • The effect the neglect or abuse had on you at the time
     

   • How you feel now as you remember the experience
     

   • What effect you believe the experience has had on you long term
     

     As you write about each incident of neglect or abuse, allow yourself to feel whatever emotions come up for you. It is appropriate for you to feel angry, enraged, afraid, terri- fied, sad, grief-stricken, guilty, ashamed, or any other emo- tions you may feel. On the other hand, do not become alarmed if you do not feel anything. Survivors of childhood abuse and neglect often numb themselves to their feelings as a self-protective mechanism.
     

2. If at all possible, share your writings with at least one other person. Most victims of childhood neglect or abuse did not have what is called a compassionate witness to their pain and anguish. Telling a loved one about what happened to you and receiving your loved one’s support and kindness can be a major step in the healing process. For example, experts such as Alice Miller have found that a sympathetic and understanding witness to a child’s suffering is a crucial prerequisite to empathy in adulthood. Without empathy, we cannot be sensitive to the pain of others.
   

Now that you know the truth, the truth is yours to use for recov- ery. You have a better idea of what physical and emotional pain you endured and what long-term effects you are suffering from. There is healing in discovering the truth, facing it, and, finally, accepting it. Your realization of the facts about your own neglect and abuse clears the way for dealing with your anger and resolving your relationships

with your family. You have lived with lies, secrecy, and deception for a long time, and it has been painful. Learning to live with the truth will help free you from the pain and lead you toward a fuller, richer life.

Place Responsibility Where It Belongs and Give Back Your Parents’ Projections

You met Stephen earlier (home was a cold place where his mother didn’t like him). When Stephen and I started working together, I asked him how he felt about the way his parents had treated him. Even though he wasn’t close to either of them, he didn’t seem to have any strong feelings about them one way or the other. “I haven’t seen my mother in years, and then it is only at family gatherings, where I manage to greet her politely. I don’t want anything to do with her. My father and I have a surface relationship. We talk on the phone about twice a month but we don’t really say anything of consequence.”

After several months of working together, Stephen began to get more in touch with some of his anger toward his parents. But this didn’t sit well with him. “I’m responsible for the good and bad about me—not my parents. I pretty much raised myself. It’s difficult for me to admit that I’m at the effect of anybody, much less them.”

Many people who were neglected or emotionally abused feel the same way Stephen does. They prefer to take responsibility for their lives rather than “blame” their parents. But holding your parents responsible for the way they neglected or abused you and the effects this kind of treatment had on your self-esteem is not the same as blaming them. Blaming keeps us stuck in the problem, whereas right- eous anger helps us move through the problem. People who refuse to get angry at their parents tend to sink into self-blame, shame, and depression. It is much healthier to allow yourself your righteous anger than to turn that anger on yourself. By getting angry at your parents for their negative treatment, you are also more likely to be able to reject the negative messages that came along with that treatment— negative messages that still influence you today.

Earlier we discussed the concept of projection. It is very possible that the negative messages, criticism, and abusive treatment you

received from your parents were a result of your parents’ projecting onto you aspects of themselves they disapprove of or deny. If this is the case, it is important that you give back these projections. For example, Dustin’s mother constantly told him as he was growing up that he was lazy and spoiled. She complained about his not cleaning up his room, and whenever he asked for money for school supplies or other necessities, she accused him of being greedy and ungrateful. With a little reality check gleaned from therapy and from learning more about his mother’s history, Dustin discovered that he wasn’t lazy at all and he certainly wasn’t spoiled. In fact, he spent most of his childhood and adolescence being depressed and feeling guilty for bothering his mother about money. As it turns out, Dustin’s mother had been accused of the same things when she was growing up and she was more than likely depressed as well.

Give Back Your Parents’ Shame

As mentioned earlier, many survivors of emotional abuse and neglect feel a lot of shame about themselves and their bodies. The inner expe- rience of shame is to feel seen or perceived by others in a painfully diminished way. The self feels exposed and it is this sudden, unex- pected feeling of exposure and accompanying self-consciousness that characterizes the essential nature of shame. Shame also causes an overwhelming belief that one is fundamentally deficient in some vital way as a human being. To live with shame is to feel alienated and defeated. It is to believe you are never quite good enough.

As Jane Middelton-Moz explained in
Shame and Guilt
, “Debilitating shame is an isolating experience that makes us think we are completely alone and unique in our unlovability. It is a feeling that we are intensely and profoundly unlovable. Debilitating shame is a state of self-hate and self-devaluation that is comparable to little else. It makes us feel that life is happening to us and that we are helpless in the wake of that happening.”

Although you may
intellectually
understand that the abuse or neg- lect was not your fault, you may not know it
emotionally
. You may still blame yourself. Absolutely nothing you did as a child warranted any kind of neglect or emotional, physical, or sexual abuse that you

experienced. You did not cry so much that your mother had to finally ignore your cries and leave you all alone in your crib for hours at a time. You were not such a demanding child that your parents had to ignore you. You didn’t have such an inflated ego that your father had to “bring you down a notch or two” by telling you that you were stu- pid. Your parents’ (or other abusers’) reactions were their responsibil- ity and theirs alone. It is vital that you understand this.

Turn Your Shame into Righteous Anger

Even if you did not have a shaming parent, if you were emotionally abused or neglected, you no doubt suffered from heavy doses of shame. This shame needs to be turned into anger in order for you to shatter the mirror that shaming creates.

Anger pushes away shame. Releasing your anger toward your abusers will help you stop blaming yourself. Getting angry at your abuser will affirm your innocence, and the vital force of anger will be moving in the right direction: outward instead of inward.

Exercise: Give the Shame Back to Your Abuser

1. Sit comfortably and breathe deeply.
   

2. Imagine you are looking inside your body. Find any shame or bad feelings you might have there.
   

3. Imagine you are reaching down inside your body and pulling out all that dark, ugly stuff—all that shame and self- blame.
   

4. Now imagine you are throwing all that dark ugliness at the abuser, where it belongs.
   

5. Open your eyes and make a throwing motion with your arms. Say out loud as you do it, “Take back your shame. It’s not mine. It’s yours.” Do this until you can feel the truth of what you are saying.
   

In addition to pushing away shame, anger also helps in the sepa- ration/individuation process, which we will discuss later in this chap- ter. Anger separates people. Think about it; when you are angry with

someone, you don’t usually want to be close to that person. In fact, if you are paying attention to your body messages, you will notice that when you are angry with someone it causes your body to turn away or pull away from that person. You may feel uncomfortable even sitting next to the person or having the person touch you. Anger also helps in the separation process because it empowers us and motivates us to make changes. If you allow yourself to become angry with your par- ents for their mistreatment of you, it can give you the courage to begin to break some of your unhealthy emotional ties to them.

You may be reluctant to express your righteous anger toward your par- ents because you are afraid of your anger, the most threatening and frightening of all our emotions. But it is important to realize that your fear of anger has kept you imprisoned in the past, afraid to stand up to those who have hurt you and afraid to go forward. If you can conquer your fear of anger, you can rise above the status of victim to that of sur- vivor. The following suggestions can help:

Identify any myths you have about anger and your right to express it.

Identify the beliefs in your family that prevented the expression of anger.

Whose style of anger have you adopted? How did this person come to be a role model for you? How effective a role model is this person?

Anger itself is not a negative emotion. It is what we do with our anger that determines whether it is negative or positive. If we go about spewing out our anger on innocent people, it becomes negative. If we hold anger in and turn it against ourselves, it also becomes neg- ative. But if we find constructive ways of releasing it and safe places to let out our anger, it becomes a positive force in our lives, creating energy, motivation, assertiveness, empowerment, and creativity.

Anger is energy, a motivating force that can empower you to feel less helpless. By releasing it you will find that you rid yourself of the physical and emotional tension that has sapped your energy—energy

that you could otherwise use to motivate yourself to change. Anger can motivate you to set and keep boundaries with your parents today, as well as with other people in your life. The more you express your anger, the less afraid of it you will be. Anger can be your way out— take it.

Exercise: Constructive and Safe Ways to Identify and Express Your Anger

1. Write down all the negative ways the emotional abuse or neglect affected you. This may take some thought and some time. Allow yourself to feel your righteous anger at having to suffer in these ways.
   

2. Write about any connections you can make between your low self-esteem, your tendency to be self-critical, and your unexpressed anger.
   

3. Write about any connections you can make between your experiences of depression and your unresolved anger.
   

4. Write about any connections you can make between your experiences of anxiety and your unresolved anger.
   

5. Talk about your angry feelings to someone you trust— someone who will just listen and understand without trying to rescue you or talk you out of your anger.
   

6. Write a letter to the parent or caregiver who abused or neglected you, expressing your hurt and anger. Don’t cen- sor yourself; let yourself say all the negative, hateful things that are going through your head. This letter is only meant as a catharsis—do not give it to the person. You can choose to keep the letter, tear it up, or burn it.
   

7. Role-play your anger. Have an imaginary conversation with the person you are angry with. Tell that person exactly what you feel: don’t hold anything back. It may help to look at a picture of the person or to imagine that the person is sitting in a chair across from you. If you are still afraid of this per- son, imagine he or she is tied up and gagged and cannot hurt you or say anything to you.
   

8. Find a creative outlet for your anger. For example, paint the rage you feel when you think about the treatment you received; make a clay representation of your abusive or neglectful parent and then destroy it.
   

9. If you need something more physical, express your anger through dance, scream into a pillow, or scream in the shower (if you can do so without anyone hearing you).
   

10. Find a physical activity that helps you release your anger energy in a safe way. Good examples are running, playing basketball, or going to a batting cage and hitting some balls. If you tend to suffer from explosive anger, avoid aggressive or competitive sports such as boxing, wrestling, or hockey, as they may actually reinforce aggressive behavior instead of releasing anger. Instead, find physical activities that make you feel calm and relaxed, such as walking, swim- ming, or running.
    

Identify and Counter Negative Core Beliefs

If a child is constantly told, “You’re no good,” he ends up believing it. If he is told he will never amount to anything, he will most likely grow up to prove his parents right. Children who were emotionally abused or deprived almost always internalize the negative parental messages they received. In order to eliminate these negative internal messages we need to identify their presence.

Parents communicate negative messages to their children in vari- ous ways. Some are overtly critical of their child or his behavior. Comments such as “You’re stupid,” “You’re a lost cause,” and “You’re an embarrassment to me” are common examples of messages passed on by emotionally abusive parents.

Other kinds of negative and debilitating beliefs are communicated in less obvious ways. For example, in response to the rejection or abandonment you experienced as a child, you may have come to see yourself as unworthy or flawed. If your parents did not mirror back your value, you find it difficult to see value in yourself.

In my case, my mother passed on to me the negative core belief that I did not deserve good things. Whenever good things happened to me when I was a little girl, my mother would either warn me that something bad was going to happen or she would do something to make me feel bad.

The most powerful experience of this message occurred when I was fifteen and a junior in high school. My first two years in high school hadn’t been very good for me. I had transferred from another school district and didn’t know many people. Because we were poor and my mother hadn’t taught me how to take care of myself, I didn’t look as attractive as I could have. But by my junior year I had learned a little from classes in home economics and from watching how the other girls dressed, and I began to dress more appropriately. I had also made some new friends—enough, in fact, that a friend of mine and I were able to create our own lunch table in the cafeteria, a safe harbor in the midst of chaos. I was doing well in school and had gained the respect of some of the more popular kids in my classes. When two seniors asked me to join their YWCA club I was honored. Things were definitely looking up.

On one particular day, I was feeling especially great. My English teacher had complimented me in front of the entire class on a term paper I had written. She said I was a very good writer and that I should seriously consider it as a career. I remember feeling so proud. I respected this teacher very much, and to have her praise me in front of everyone gave me the kind of validation I seldom received in my life. After school that day I was elected president of my YWCA club. Again, this was incredible validation for me.

I sailed all the way home, buoyed up by these validations. I relived the experience of my teacher praising me over and over in my head and felt the warm glow of acceptance and admiration from the club members. It was my mother’s day off and so I bounded into the apart- ment, eager to tell her about both of my successes. I don’t remember what she said about them—certainly she did not praise me or tell me anything positive.

I telephoned my best friend and told her what had happened in class and continued to feel good about myself for the rest of the after- noon and into the evening. I don’t know how I was acting, but clearly

my mother didn’t like it. All I do remember is that my mother, who was sitting on the couch drinking beer, said to me, “You really think you’re something, don’t you?” I stopped short, not knowing what she was talking about. “You really think you’re something because your teacher praised you and because you’re president of your stupid club. Well, let me tell you something. Let me tell you who you really are,” she said in a mocking tone. “You’re illegitimate. You were an unwanted child who ruined my life.”

I stood there, shocked, not quite comprehending what she was telling me, but feeling wounded by her words. The word
illegitimate
rang in my ears. In those days, the mid-sixties, being an illegitimate child was still very shameful. I remember feeling that I was going to pass out as hurtful emotions passed over me like a dark cloud.

I sank to the couch as my mother proceeded to tell me, for the first time, the truth about my father and my birth. My mother was not mar- ried to my father when I was conceived. In fact, she was actually still legally married to another man, even though she had deserted him. She never told my father about me but left town as soon as she discovered she was pregnant. In the moments that followed, my entire concept of who I was changed. I had always felt different and less than others because I had no father, because my mother was so much older than other mothers, and because we were so poor. Now I had another reason to feel inadequate: I was illegitimate. And even though I had always felt unwanted and guilty about my existence, now it was confirmed—I
was
unwanted and I had ruined my mother’s life. Needless to say, all the good feelings I’d had about being acknowledged that day absolutely dis- appeared. Although my mother had not physically slapped me in the face this time, I felt slapped “down to size” nevertheless.

The juxtaposition of the events of this day had a profound effect on me. For many years I could not experience joy or the feeling of success without fearing that something bad was going to happen to me—that I was going to get slapped down to size.

I vividly remember the day when I was finally able to let go of the fear that something bad was going to happen to me every time I felt good. It was about fifteen years ago. I was driving home from work, feeling good about the work I had done that day with clients. I real- ized that my life was going really well—that for the first time in a long

time I wasn’t weighted down by some kind of problem. Suddenly I was seized with an overwhelming fear. I just knew that something bad was going to happen to me. But then another feeling slowly began to seep into my consciousness and I heard a voice inside my head say, “No, nothing bad is going to happen. Just because you are happy right now doesn’t mean that something bad will follow.” I continued my ride home feeling free of the fear that would have normally gripped me, and free to feel the contentment I was experiencing.

That was not the end of the story. For many years I continued to battle with another version of this problem. Instead of consciously fearing that something bad would always follow something good, I had a tendency to do something to hurt myself whenever something won- derful happened to me. For example, several years ago I began rewarding myself with a massage every other week. But after having my body taken care of and feeling so good, I noticed that I would eat too much at night. I often “slapped myself down” in the same way my mother slapped me down on that horrible day.

Negative parental messages like the one I received from my mother cause us to develop certain core beliefs about life and about ourselves, including basic assumptions about our value in the world. Core beliefs about yourself can determine to what degree you per- ceive yourself as worthy, competent, loved, safe, powerful, and autonomous. The core belief I developed from experiences with my mother was that I didn’t deserve good things. After all, echoing my mother’s words, “Who did I think I was?” This belief colored my perceptions of myself to such an extreme extent that whenever some- thing good happened to me, I immediately sabotaged it in some way.