Read Healing Your Emotional Self Online
Authors: Beverly Engel
Healing Your Emotional Self (6 page)
A child growing up with an overly controlling parent hears a barrage of commands, orders, and suggestions about anything and everything, including what foods to eat, how to eat them, what clothes to wear, what classes to take in school, or what type of person to date.
Many children feel tyrannized by their parents’ moods. “My father’s moods fluctuated constantly,” my client Tyrone told me during his first session. “We’d be getting along just fine and then suddenly, for no apparent reason, he would blow up and yell at me about some-
thing. Then he’d insist I do something stupid, like go out and mow the lawn, even though it had just been mowed a few days before.”
The Mirror Controlling or Tyrannical Parents Hold Up
Children who grow up with a tyrant for a parent will feel weakened from their encounters with their parents and will inevitably have deep emotional scars from the experience. Like Lorraine, they will doubt their abilities and may feel unbearable pressure when asked to do something, particularly when an authority figure is doing the asking. They often feel stupid, inadequate, and incompetent, and these feel- ings usually discourage them from trying new things or taking risks.
The following e-mail is an example of how controlling parents can break a child’s spirit.
Dear Beverly,
I have read your book
The Emotionally Abused Woman
and have learned a lot from it. I am a twenty-eight-year-old woman who is still living with my parents. My mother is verbally abusive and there has been an incident of physical abuse. I feel so ashamed to still be living at home at my age, but I don’t have enough money after my monthly bills are paid to seriously save to move out. I left college a year ago because of personal and financial reasons. My parents are extremely disappointed that I didn’t finish, and remind me of that often. I quit college because it would have meant quitting my job and being even more dependent on my parents.The situation continues to get worse. I cannot stand being around my parents. All my life I have felt inferior. I want to leave but I don’t have the money. I feel I can’t take any more. But my parents say if I would just listen to them, my life would be better. Are they right?
Just as too much physical force can break a child’s bones, too much control can break a child’s spirit and fracture his psyche. It can cause a splintering of self, causing a child to disown some parts of himself and to inflate others.
Children growing up with a tyrannical parent often become what is referred to by professionals as
hypervigilant
, meaning they develop extraordinary abilities to notice any warning signs of an impending attack. They learn to recognize subtle changes in the facial expressions and voice and body language of others as signals of anger, intoxication, dissociation, or sexual arousal. When they sense danger, they attempt to protect themselves by either avoiding or placating the other person. In addition, children with a tyrannical parent usually carry around a great deal of repressed anger—repressed because they cannot afford to admit they have it, much less risk expressing it.The Perfectionistic Parent
Parental Mirror: “You Are Never Good Enough”
Perfectionistic parents are often driven by a fear of disorder, unclean- liness, or flaws. They tend to put a great value on appearances, status, and material possessions, or on what others will think. Many feel strongly that anything short of perfection is failure. Consequently, they are also domineering and tyrannical when it comes to what they expect from their children.
Rod’s father expected him to excel in everything he attempted. During high school and college, his father insisted he bring home all As, be class president every year, and shine on the football field. Needless to say, this was a heavy burden. Whenever Rod made a mis- take, his father would always say to him, “Get on the stick, Wilson.” Whenever he complained about being tired or showed any weakness, his father would say, “There’s no room for whiners at the top.”
By the time Rod graduated from college, he was emotionally numb. “I pushed myself so hard all my life that I don’t even know who I am. When I look in the mirror I don’t even recognize who I see.”
We’ve all heard of perfectionistic parents who push their children to excel in a particular sport, in academics, or in other endeavors. These children are given the powerful message (sometimes spoken, often unspoken) that they only have value if they perform to their par- ents’ satisfaction. Oftentimes this is because the parent is living through his child, trying to make up for his own lost dreams.
Perfectionistic parents tend to have disdain for flaws of any kind. This makes them especially critical of their children’s appearance. “My mother was always concerned about the way I looked,” my client Veronica told me. “She hated my teeth, which were crooked like my father’s, so she taught me how to smile without showing my teeth. She couldn’t wait until I was old enough to get braces, but even then she seemed to be embarrassed by the fact that I had to wear them.”
Veronica’s mother’s concern about her appearance understandably made her very self-conscious. “I thought I was a real ugly duckling,” she confided. “I thought everyone had the same reaction to my teeth and later my braces as my mother did—that they couldn’t stand to look at me. Today, even though I have nice straight teeth, I still smile with my mouth closed and put my hand in front of my mouth a lot.”
The Mirror Perfectionistic Parents Hold Up to Their Children
Instead of receiving encouragement and support from their parents, children of perfectionistic parents tend to receive only criticism, demands, and sometimes ridicule. Consequently, they often grow up feeling inadequate, incapable, awkward, or inept. Since they receive little praise or constructive guidance, their self-esteem is usually very low, and they have little faith in their own abilities. They are often over- whelmed with anxiety whenever they have to perform in any way, and this sets them up for failure. In addition, people raised by perfection- istic parents tend to suffer from any or all of the following problems:
A sense that they are valued for what they
do
instead of for who they
are
(
doing
versus
being
)A tendency to be self-critical, never satisfied with themselves or their performance
A tendency to doubt themselves and to second-guess
An inability to identify and express their emotions
Compulsive behaviors (extreme dieting, overexercising, exces- sive cleaning)
Depression
Hypercritical, Shaming Parents
Parental Mirror: “You Are Bad” or “You Are Unacceptable”
Stephen grew up feeling that both his parents didn’t like him very much. “Our home was a very cold place,” Stephen shared with me during our first session. “My mother didn’t want to spend time with me. She said I reminded her of my father—that I was stubborn and opinionated just like he was. She always looked at me with disdain, as if to say, ‘You’re so miserable I don’t want to be around you.’ ” His ear- liest memory is of being in a crib, screaming at the top of his lungs. He felt he had done something wrong and was being punished for it.
His father was a strict disciplinarian, and Stephen always seemed to be in trouble with him. He often shamed Stephen because Stephen didn’t meet his expectations. “I tried to be perfect so I wouldn’t disap- point my dad and so I wouldn’t get punished, but no matter how hard I tried I never made the mark.”
Stephen was a bed-wetter until age ten and felt a lot of shame about it. His mother constantly complained about having to wash his sheets. Eventually, Stephen began to view himself in the same way his parents did—as a bad kid. “Who I was, wasn’t acceptable.” His mother also became verbally and physically abusive toward him, especially after she and his father got a divorce. “She used to call me a loser. When my dad left it became obvious that she didn’t want anything to do with me.” The last time his mother beat him, he ran away from home and never returned. He was fifteen. He ended up moving in with some older boys he had befriended.
“I always felt like I was under my parents’ thumb when I was at home. With my friends I felt freedom for the first time in my life. I didn’t need a mother or a father—I decided I’d raise myself.”
And that he did. He became very demanding of himself. He did well in his last years of high school and even went on to college, pay- ing for his tuition by working at a grocery store as a bag boy. Stephen built a fortress around himself to prevent himself from ever getting hurt again.
When I met Stephen he couldn’t cry, even though his wife was
threatening to leave him. “I don’t know why my wife married me in the first place. I’m just no good,” he told me at our first session. The sad truth was that Stephen had pushed his wife away because he was so afraid of losing her and so convinced that he was not worthy of her.
How Parents Shame Their Children
Sometimes parents deliberately shame their children into minding without realizing the disruptive impact shame can have on the child’s sense of self. Statements such as “You should be ashamed of yourself” or “Shame on you” are obvious examples. Yet, because these kinds of statements are overtly shaming, they are actually easier for the child to defend against than more subtle forms of shaming such as contempt, humiliation and public shaming. For example, behavior that is accept- able at home is suddenly seen by parents as bad when they are in pub- lic. Or a parent seems to be ashamed because a child is not adhering to certain social norms that he is completely unaware of. Such com- ments as “Stop that, you’re embarrassing me in front of everyone” not only cause a child to feel exposed, judged, and ashamed but also bur- den him with his parents’ shame as well.
There are many ways that parents shame their children. These include belittling, blaming, contempt, humiliation, and disabling expectations:
Belittling.
Comments such as “You’re too old to want to be held” or “You’re just a crybaby” are horribly humiliating to a child. When a parent makes a negative comparison between his child and another, such as, “Why can’t you act like Tommy? Tommy isn’t a crybaby,” it is not only humiliating but also teaches a child to always compare himself with peers and find himself deficient.Blaming.
When a child makes a mistake, such as accidentally hitting a ball through a neighbor’s window, he needs to take responsibility. But many parents go way beyond teaching the child a lesson by blaming and berating their children: “You stu- pid idiot! You should have known better than to play so close to the house! Now I’m going to have to pay for that window. Do you think money grows on trees? I don’t have enough money to
constantly be cleaning up your messes!” All this accomplishes is to shame the child to such an extent that he cannot find a way to walk away from the situation with his head held high. Blaming the child like this is like rubbing his nose in the mess he made, and it produces such intolerable shame that he may be forced to deny responsibility or find ways of excusing it.
Contempt.
Expressions of disgust or contempt communicate absolute rejection. The look of contempt (often a sneer or a raised upper lip), especially from someone who is significant to a child, can be a devastating inducer of shame, because the child is made to feel disgusting or offensive. Having an overly critical parent, one who always finds something wrong with the child, guarantees that the child will be constantly subjected to shame. When I was a child, my mother had an extremely nega- tive attitude toward me. Much of the time she either looked at me expectantly, as though she were saying, “What are you up to now?” or with disapproval or disgust over what I had already done. These looks were extremely shaming to me, causing me to feel that there was something terribly wrong with me.Humiliation.
As Gershen Kaufman stated in his book
Shame: The Power of Caring
: “There is no more humiliating experience than to have another person who is clearly the stronger and more powerful take advantage of that power and give us a beat- ing.” I can personally attest to this. In addition to shaming me with her contemptuous looks, my mother often punished me by hitting me with the branch off a tree, and she often did this out- side, in front of the neighbors. The humiliation I felt was like a deep wound to my soul.Disabling expectations.
Appropriate parental expectations serve as necessary guides to behavior and are not disabling. Disabling expectations, on the other hand, involve pressuring a child to excel or perform a task, a skill, or an activity. Parents who have an inordinate need to have their children excel are likely to behave in ways that pressure a child to do more and more. According to Kaufman, when a child becomes aware of the real possibility of failing to meet parental expectations, he or sheoften experiences a blinding self-consciousness—the painful watching of oneself—that is very disabling. When something is expected of us in this way, attaining the goal is made harder, if not impossible.
Yet another way that parents induce shame in their children is by communicating to them that they are a disappointment. Such messages as “I can’t believe you could do such a thing” or “I am deeply disappointed in you,” accompanied by a disap- proving tone of voice and facial expression, can crush a child’s spirit.
The Mirror That Criticizing and Shaming Parents Hold Up to Their Children
Overly critical parents can destroy their child’s confidence and self- esteem and devastate their self-image. Instead of motivating children, overly critical comments tend to destroy a child’s will to succeed and his capacity to change, and deprive him of motivation.
Like Stephen, a child who is shamed by rejection, mockery, or expressions of disgust or contempt will often shrink from contact with others. He may seek invisibility in order to feel safe. He grows up feeling unlovable because he was taught that it was his fault that his parents did not love him, or that his acceptance was conditional— depending on whether he performed to his parents’ satisfaction.
Because shame is so debilitating, it makes sense that we would do almost anything to avoid it. Human beings strive to stay in control. We are raised to believe that we are responsible for what happens to us and that we can control our own lives. When something goes wrong, we tend to feel ashamed about the fact that we have lost control of our lives. This is especially true of children, who instead of simply believ- ing that something bad “just happened,” tend to believe that they somehow caused or contributed to the events and are therefore responsible for them. Being victimized causes us to feel helpless, and it is this helplessness that leads us to feel humiliated and ashamed. As a protection against these feelings we may take personal responsibil- ity for our own victimization.
Becoming Shame-Bound
Sometimes a child has been so severely shamed or experienced so many shame-inducing incidents that he or she becomes what is referred to as “shame-bound” or “shame-based,” meaning that shame has become a dominant factor in the formation of the person’s personality. Shame- based people suffer from extremely low self-esteem, feelings of worth- lessness, and self-hatred. They feel inferior, “bad,” unacceptable, and different from others. They were often taught that they were worthless or bad by hearing adults say such things to them as “You are in my way,” “I wish you were never born,” or “You’ll never amount to anything.”
Shame-based people are commonly survivors of severe physical discipline, emotional abuse, neglect, and abandonment—which all send the message that the child is worthless, unacceptable, and bad. These acts also convey the message that the adult will treat you any way he or she wants because you are a worthless commodity. Many shame-based people were also humiliated for their behavior (being chastised or beaten in front of others, being told, “What’s wrong with you?” or “What would your precious teacher think of you if she knew who you
really
are?”). Last but not least, shame-based people often had to endure shame-inducing traumas like child sexual abuse.Shame-based people tend to defend against any feeling of shame with anger. Whereas most people react with anger whenever they are made to feel humiliated, devalued, or demeaned, shame-based or shame-bound people tend to be extremely sensitive and defensive. They go into rages when they feel criticized or attacked—which is often. Because they are so critical of themselves, they believe every- one else is critical of them. And because they despise themselves, they assume everyone else dislikes them. If you are shame-bound, one teasing comment or one well-intentioned criticism can send you into a rage that lasts for hours. Because you feel shamed by the other per- son’s comment, you may spend hours making the other person feel horrible about himself by dumping shame back on him.
Another way shame-based people use anger as a defense is by attacking others before they have a chance to attack them. It’s as if they are saying, “I’ll show you. I’ll make you feel like shit because that’s what you think of me.”
Shame-based people feel very vulnerable underneath all their
defensiveness. If you are shame-bound, you may also use anger to keep people away from your vulnerability by raging at them. In essence you are saying, “Don’t get any closer to me. I don’t want you to know who I really am.” This type of raging works; it drives people away or keeps them at a safe distance. Of course, this also makes you feel even worse when you realize that others are avoiding you.
Rage
Rage occurs spontaneously and naturally following shame. It serves a vital self-protective function by insulating the self against further exposure and by actively keeping others away to avoid further occur- rences of shame. Extroverted children are more likely to express rage at being shamed, while introverted children often tend to keep their rage inside, more hidden from the view of others.
Humiliation can be a fertile breeding ground for hatred and for revenge-seeking. By hating one’s oppressor and nursing revenge fan- tasies, the shamed and wounded person can salvage something of his or her dignity. To do otherwise, to give in to the power of others, may feel to some like a relinquishing of integrity and, in doing so, a loss of self-respect.
A related way that victims suppress their feelings of helplessness is by
identifying with the aggressor
. We find this phenomenon to be par- ticularly common with boy victims. In most societies it is not accept- able for men to be perceived as victims. Because of this, boys tend to blame themselves and even convince themselves that they caused the behavior in the abusive person. The boy may also come to identify with the aggressor—that is, become like his abuser. The only way left for him to discharge his shame and aggression is to do to others what was done to him.As Gershen Kaufman explains in
The Power of Caring
: “If rage emerges as a strategy of defense, what we will see is an individual who holds onto rage as a characterological style. This manifests itself either in hostility towards others or bitterness. Although this hostility or bit- terness arises as a defense to protect the self against further experi- ences of shame, it becomes disconnected from its originating source and becomes a generalized reaction directed toward almost anyone who may approach.”Exercise: Your Shaming Experiences
If you recognize some or all of the examples of parental shaming listed previously, this exercise will help you further identify and process what you personally experienced as a child.
Make a list of experiences in childhood and adolescence that shamed you the most.
Write down how each of these experiences made you feel.
How did you react to the shaming experiences of your childhood? Did you blame yourself? Did you become angry?
How do you think these shaming experiences have affected your life? Write down your insights.
The Self-Absorbed or Narcissistic Parent
Parental Mirror: “You Don’t Matter” or “You Are Invisible”
Some parents are egocentric, meaning that their needs, wants, and beliefs are always more important than their children’s (or anyone else’s for that matter). These parents have little or no sense that their disregard (active or passive) for their child is teaching her that she is not worth much. Such treatment tends to result in either self-hatred or an idealized, defensive sense of self that leads to frustration, failure, and unhappiness for the child.
My client Sara described her mother in this way: “My mother was completely self-absorbed. Everything centered around her—her needs, her interests, her ideas. Most of the time I was invisible to her. I could be in the same room with her and she wouldn’t notice me. If I needed anything she acted as if it was a huge imposition. I didn’t dare interrupt her when she was busy or she’d snap at me and make me feel like I was being selfish by bothering her. The only time she seemed to validate my existence was if I drew some positive attention
to myself. As a little girl, if someone told me I was cute, my mother would beam with pride and make some comment about how much I looked like her. When I discovered I had a talent for music, she told me I had gotten it from her. As far as she was concerned, there was nothing I achieved on my own—it was either because I inherited it from her, because she helped me, or because she made it possible.”
Like a self-absorbed parent, a narcissistic parent is only interested in what reflects on herself. Her needs are all-important; nothing and no one else counts, including her children. But narcissistic parents take self-absorption to an even greater extreme. Everything a narcis- sist does or experiences is seen as a reflection of self; therefore, her children are perceived as her possessions, useful to her only if they can provide something she needs—admiration from others, validation that she is a good mother, or someone who will adore her and put her on a pedestal. Narcissists enjoy the power they have as a parent and use it to build up their own shaky egos.
Mason came to see me because he wanted my help in breaking away from his mother. He was twenty-five but had been living on his own for only about six months. “When I left home my mother acted as if I’d stabbed her in the heart,” Mason lamented. “All I did was what kids are supposed to do—grow up and become independent from their parents!” To make matters worse, Mason was an artist, and his mother had acted as his manager for many years, doing all the legwork of getting his paintings in galleries. “I am very grateful for all my mother has done for me, but frankly, she did it more for herself than for me. It made her feel good about herself for raising such a child prodigy, and she took most of the credit for my career. You should hear her talking about how much she did to encourage my talent as I was growing up and what hard work it was getting people to take notice of my work. Now that I’m on my own, she feels threatened. I’m showing her I don’t need her, and she doesn’t like it.”
Mason was describing a typical narcissistic mother—chronically cold but at the same time overprotective. She invades her child’s autonomy and manipulates him to conform to her wishes. She rejects all about him that she finds objectionable, putting him in the anxiety- ridden position of losing her affection if he expresses dissatisfaction.
Psychological health comes from the experience, starting in early
infancy, of parental acceptance. It comes from learning that although you are not perfect, you are still worthy of love. Children need to know that all that they are—both good and bad, naughty and nice, smart and stupid—is acceptable to their parents. But children of nar- cissistic parents do not experience this kind of acceptance. Instead, a narcissistic parent rejects everything about her child that she finds imperfect or objectionable. She has extremely high expectations of her child and continuously works on improving him.
As Elan Golumb wrote in her classic book
Trapped in the Mirror: Adult Children of Narcissists in their Struggle for Self
, the child of a narcissist has rejection as her birthright. Because a narcissistic parent unconsciously despises himself (due to his parents’ rejection of him), he cannot accept his children. His attitude—a variant of the old Groucho Marx adage “I would not join any club that would have me as its member”—becomes “I would not love any child who would have me as its parent.” Therefore, the narcissistic parent is most demanding and deforming of the child he identifies with most strongly.In its extreme, narcissism becomes a character disorder. Someone with narcissistic personality disorder, or NPD, as described in
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
(DSM-IV), has the following characteristics:An inflated or grandiose sense of self-importance (for example, exaggerates own abilities and achievements)
A preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, fame, power, beauty, and perfect love (uncritical adoration)
A belief that he or she is special and unique and can only be appreciated and understood by other special or high-status people
Requires excessive admiration
A sense of entitlement, that is, unreasonable expectations of being treated especially favorable or automatic granting of his or her own wishes
Exploitative in his or her interpersonal relationships; that is, takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own needs
A lack of empathy for others; is unwilling or unable to recog- nize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her
Arrogance or haughtiness in behavior and attitudes
In addition, those with NPD or strong narcissistic traits will exhibit the following: a tendency to feel rage with little objective cause; a readiness to treat people with cool indifference as punishment for hurtful treatment or as an indication of the fact that they have no current use for the person; a tendency toward severe feelings of inferiority, shame, and emptiness; a need to be looked at and admired (exhibitionism); and a tendency to overidealize or devalue people based largely on a narrow focus.
Narcissistic parents have an investment in preventing their chil- dren from becoming separate individuals. They do not recognize that their children have their own needs, feelings, desires, and percep- tions. For example, these parents believe their children should always be as happy or as miserable as they are. When a child does not share their own emotional moods, it is taken as a sign of disloyalty and insen- sitivity. Children of narcissists are trained to distrust the reality of their own thoughts and to allow others to think for them, because a narcissist attempts to define his children’s reality. He tells them what they are feeling and thinking, often creating great confusion in the children’s minds.