Toxic Parents (26 page)
SUSAN (as Mother):
You’re selfish and ungrateful!
SANDY:
No, I’m not! I’m always thinking of everybody else. I’m always thinking of you. I kill myself to avoid hurting you and Dad. What about all the times I was exhausted, but I still took you shopping or had you and Dad over for dinner? Nothing I ever do is enough for you.
I told Sandy that she was being defensive. She was still apologizing, arguing, and explaining. She had to stop trying to “get them to see.” As long as she was still seeking her mother’s approval, she was still being controlled. She needed to become nondefensive if she wanted to begin to unhook. The idea is to drain as much heat as possible out of the interaction.
To show her what I meant, I switched roles with her. Sandy would be her mother, and I would be Sandy.
SANDY (as Mother):
Your father and I need a place to stay. You’re being selfish and ungrateful.
SUSAN (as Sandy):
Gee, Mom, it’s interesting that you see it that way.
SANDY (as Mother):
After everything we’ve done for you, I can’t believe you’d even suggest that we go to a hotel.
SUSAN (as Sandy):
I’m sorry you’re upset.
SANDY (as Mother):
Are you going to let us stay there or not?
SUSAN (as Sandy):
I’m going to have to think about it.
SANDY (as Mother):
I want an answer, young lady!
SUSAN (as Sandy):
I know you do, Mom, but I’m going to have to think about it.
SANDY (breaking out of character):
I don’t know what else to say.
Sandy discovered some surprising things during this exercise. She found that nondefensive responses kept the conflict from escalating, and, equally important, she didn’t have to get backed up against the wall trying to defend herself.
N
ONDEFENSIVENESS
None of us is taught to respond nondefensively. That’s why the technique doesn’t come easily. It needs to be learned and practiced. Also, most people assume that if they don’t defend themselves in a conflict, their opponents will see them as weak and ride right over them. In reality the opposite is true. If you can stay calm and refuse to be stampeded, then you retain the power.
I can’t stress strongly enough how essential it is to learn and use nondefensive responses, especially with toxic parents. This type of response can go a long way toward breaking the cycle of attack, retreat, defense, and escalation.
Here are some examples of nondefensive responses that you can try using in your daily interactions:
Oh?
Oh, I see.
That’s interesting.
You’re certainly entitled to your opinion.
I’m sorry you don’t approve.
Let me think about that.
Why don’t we talk about this when you’re not so upset.
I’m sorry you’re hurt (upset, disappointed).
It’s important that you rehearse nondefensive responses by yourself before you start using them with others. To do this, imagine your parents in the room with you saying something critical or denigrating. Respond out loud to them nondefensively. Remember, the moment you argue, apologize, explain, or try to get them to change their minds, you have handed over much of your power. If you ask someone to forgive or to understand, you give them the power to withhold what you’re asking for. But if you use nondefensive responses, you are asking for nothing, and when you ask for nothing, you can’t be rejected.
Once you feel somewhat comfortable with nondefensive responses,
try using them the next time you have a disagreement with someone other than your parents. It’s a good idea to test them out on someone you’re less emotionally connected to—a colleague or a casual friend. It will probably feel awkward and unnatural at first. You may find yourself lapsing back into defensive responses out of frustration. Like any new skill, you’ll have to practice and be willing to make mistakes. But eventually it will become second nature.
P
OSITION
S
TATEMENTS
There is another behavioral technique—I call it “making position statements”—that can help you become less reactive and propel you further down the road of self-definition.
Position statements define what you think and believe, what’s important to you, what you are willing to do and not willing to do, what’s negotiable and what’s not. The issues can range in importance from your opinion of a recent film to your basic beliefs about life. Of course, before you can make a position statement, you have to determine what your position is.
When I asked Sandy what she really wanted to do about her parents’ demand, she answered, “I don’t know. I’m so worried about upsetting them that it’s really hard for me to know just what I want myself.”
Sandy’s dilemma was typical of most people who have spent most of their lives feeling overly responsible for their parents. It’s hard to define who you are when you’ve had little opportunity to do so in the past. To help Sandy make her position statement, I pointed out that there were basically only three positions she could take:
I’m not willing to let you stay at my house.
I’m willing to let you stay for a
specified
, limited time.I’m willing to let you stay for as long as you want.
Sandy decided that while she really didn’t want them to stay at all, it felt like too big a jump for her to tell them that. She agreed to tell
them they could stay for one week. She believed that this would be a good way for her to assert her own needs while at the same time partially placating her parents.
R
EFRAMING
“I C
AN’T
”
Sandy was not completely satisfied with her solution. She was still putting a burden on her husband and on their relationship, and she believed that this was due to her weakness. With a deep sigh, she said, “I guess I just can’t stand up to my parents.” I asked her to repeat her statement, but instead of saying, “I can’t . . .” say, “
I haven’t yet
stood up to my parents.”
“I haven’t yet” implies choice, where “don’t” and “can’t” imply just the opposite: finality. Lack of choice is directly connected to enmeshment. It is the key to keeping the child locked inside. Children’s choices are dictated by adults. By saying, “I haven’t yet,” you open the door to new behavior in the future. You embrace hope.
Some people think that if they merely rephrase an unwanted behavior as a choice, instead of changing that behavior, they’re admitting defeat. I disagree. I see choice as the key to self-definition. Any decision based on choice moves us away from reactiveness. There is a big difference between
choosing
to capitulate to your parents because you’ve considered the alternatives and decided that you’re not prepared to fight, and
automatically
capitulating because you feel helpless. Making a choice means taking a step toward control; knee-jerk reacting means backsliding into being controlled. It may not feel like an enormous amount of progress, but I assure you it is.
Trying It Out on Your Parents
Some of my clients are so excited by the success they experience in trial runs with their new behaviors that they can’t wait to try them out on their parents. But many others worry that their parents will become frustrated and/or infuriated at their nondefensive responses
or their position statements. Toxic parents are used to pushing their children’s buttons. When they don’t get the reactions they expect, they get upset.
My advice to you is: go for it. The sooner the better. To delay taking this small first step, to spend weeks or months “thinking about it,” will only increase your anxiety. Remember:
You are an adult and can withstand your discomfort for the purpose of becoming your own person.
The doing is rarely as bad as the anticipation. You don’t need to jump in with the most emotionally charged issue between you and your parents. You can start to practice nondefensive responses when your mother doesn’t like the color of your lipstick or your father criticizes your cooking.
I suggested to Sandy that she make the most of the time her parents were living with her by practicing nondefensive responses and making position statements about small things. I encouraged her to express her thoughts and opinions. Instead of saying, “You’re wrong, shellfish is bad for you,” she could say, “I don’t happen to agree with you, I think shellfish is bad for you.” In that way her position would be framed as an opinion instead of a challenge, reducing the chance of inciting an emotional reaction.
I also suggested that if she felt brave enough, she might try to tackle some of the larger problems in her relationship with her parents by setting limits, letting them know what she was and was not willing to do for them.
Although Sandy felt somewhat apprehensive about the things I was asking her to do, she knew that unless she began to try out some of this new behavior she would stay stuck in her rut. But she was pessimistic about her parents’ ability to change. She asked me how she could feel good about her behavioral changes if they didn’t work—if her parents didn’t change as a result. I reminded her that they didn’t
have
to change. If she changed her ways of responding to them, she would be single-handedly changing her relationship to them. This
could
cause them to change, but even if it didn’t, Sandy would be tipping the balance of power into her own hands.
When you become self-defined—when you become responsive instead of reactive, when you make clear statements about what you feel and think, when you set limits on what you are and aren’t willing to do—your relationship with your parents will have to change.
12 | Who’s Really Responsible?
I
wish you had a happy childhood, but I can’t change the past. What I can do is help you make a major shift in your beliefs about who is responsible for the pain of your childhood. This shift is essential, because until you honestly assess who owns this responsibility, you will almost certainly go through your life shouldering the blame yourself. And as long as you’re blaming
yourself
, you’ll suffer shame and self-hatred, and you’ll find ways to punish yourself.
Go at Your Own Pace
In the last two chapters, the work we did was primarily intellectual. I asked you to explore, to perceive, and to understand. In this chapter and the ones that follow, we’ll be working on a far more emotional level. Because of this, it is especially important that you take
your time. Emotional work can get pretty heavy and before you know it you may be looking for excuses to avoid it.
If you begin to feel off balance, it’s okay to slow down and put the work aside for a few days. But if you find yourself continuing to put it off, set a time limit for when you’re going to come back to it, and then stick to it.
You may find it useful to enlist some outside support as you begin this work. When you bring strong emotional material to the surface, a support group or therapist can be a valuable guide. A loving friend, partner, or relative can offer encouragement, but may feel intimidated by the intensity of your emotions. You may want to ask this person to read this book along with you. He or she can be much more supportive with a better understanding of what you’re going through.
It Is Their Responsibility
I know I have said this many times by now, but I can’t emphasize enough how important this message is and how hard it is to internalize:
You must let go of the responsibility for the painful events of your childhood and put it where it belongs.
To help you let go of the responsibility, I have designed a list of many of the things my clients have wrongly blamed themselves for. To use this list most effectively, set aside a quiet, private time for yourself to talk to the child within you. To help you visualize how little and helpless you were, you might want to use a childhood photograph. Say out loud to that child, “You were not responsible for . . .” and finish the sentence with every item on the list that applies to your life.
“You were not responsible for . . .”:
the way they neglected or ignored you
the way they made you feel unloved or unlovable
their cruel or thoughtless teasing
the bad names they called you
their unhappiness
their problems
their choice not to do anything about their problems
their drinking
what they did when they were drinking
their hitting you
their molesting you
Add any other painful, repetitive experiences that you have always felt responsible for.
The second part of this exercise involves assigning the responsibility where it belongs—to your parents. To bring this more sharply into focus, just repeat each item on the list, but precede it now with the words, “My parents were responsible for . . .” Again, add anything that is relevant to your personal experience.