Toxic Parents (37 page)

“I
T’S
T
IME FOR
U
S TO
S
TOP
P
RETENDING
”

Tracy decided to confront her father and mother separately. Tracy told her father that she was in therapy but didn’t specify what kind. She said it would be very helpful if he would come in for a joint session with her. He agreed but canceled several appointments before he finally showed up.

Tracy’s father, Harold, was a slightly built, balding man in his late fifties. He was impeccably groomed and looked every inch the
executive that he now was. When I asked him if he knew why Tracy wanted him to come in to see me, he said he had “a pretty good idea.” I began by asking Tracy to tell her father what kind of therapy she was in:

I’m in a group for victims of incest, Dad. People who have fathers and sometimes mothers who did to them what you did to me.

Harold flushed visibly and averted his eyes. He started to say something, but Tracy stopped him and got him to agree to hear her out. She continued to tell him what he had done to her and how sick, frightened, confused, and dirty it had made her feel. Then she told him how the incest had affected her life.

I never felt it was okay for me to like another man. I always felt I was betraying you or cheating on you. I felt like a possession, like I had no life outside you. I believed you when you said I was a slut—after all, I had this dirty secret inside of me. I thought it was my fault. I’ve been depressed most of my life but I learned to act like everything’s okay. Well, everything’s not okay, Dad, and it’s time for all of us to stop acting. My marriage almost fell apart because I hated sex, I hated my body, I hated me! That’s all changing now, thank God. But you’ve been getting off scot-free while I’ve been carrying the whole load. You betrayed me, you used me, you did the worst thing that a father can do to his little girl.

Then Tracy told her father what she wanted from him—an apology and a full acknowledgment of his responsibility. She also gave him a chance to tell her mother before she did.

Tracy’s father was stunned. He accused her of blackmailing him. He made no attempt to deny the incest, but tried to minimize it by reminding Tracy that he had never “hurt her physically.” He did
apologize, but his primary concern was about the effects on his marriage and his professional status if all this became “public knowledge.” He denied that he needed any therapy because he had led a “useful and productive life.”

The following week Tracy pressured her father into “confessing” to her mother. Tracy then came to group and reported on the aftermath:

My mother was pretty devastated but in the next breath she asked me to forgive him and not to tell anyone else in the family. When I told her I wouldn’t agree to do that she asked me why
I
needed to hurt
them
so much. Do you love it—all of a sudden I’m the bad guy in all of this.

Everyone in group was eager to know how Tracy was feeling since she had taken this huge step. I will never forget her answer:

I feel like this thirty-ton weight has been lifted off my shoulders. You know, what I realize now is that I have a right to tell the truth and I’m not responsible if other people can’t deal with it.

We all were thrilled to see how Tracy had taken back her power and come a long way toward devictimizing herself. Ultimately, Tracy decided to maintain a relationship with her parents but to have only limited contact with them.

R
UNNING INTO A
S
TONE
W
ALL

Tracy needed very little help from me in her confrontation with her father. On the other hand, Liz—whose stepfather, the powerful local minister, not only abused her but almost strangled her when she found the courage to tell him to stop—needed a great deal, especially since her mother and stepfather insisted on coming in together. When Liz told her parents that she wanted them to come to
a therapy session, they told her they would “do anything to help her with her mental problems.”

When Liz was 13 she had told her mother about her stepfather’s abuse in a desperate effort to stop it. Her mother hadn’t believed her, and Liz had never brought it up again.

Liz’s stepfather, Burt, was a courtly, ruddy-faced man now in his early sixties. It was significant that he wore his black clerical suit and white collar to the session. Liz’s mother, Rhoda, was a tall, thin, stern-faced woman with black hair heavily streaked with gray. Both were full of righteous indignation from the moment they walked in the door.

Liz did and said everything she had practiced, but every time she attempted to talk about the molestations she was met with a stone wall of angry denial and accusation. According to her parents, she was insane, she was making it all up, and she was a wicked, vengeful girl, trying to get back at Burt for having been a “stern disciplinarian.” Liz was holding her own but getting nowhere. She looked at me helplessly. I stepped in:

You’ve both betrayed her enough—I’m not going to permit it anymore. I’m sorry that neither of you has the courage to admit the truth. Burt, you know everything Liz is saying is true. No one makes up these humiliating and painful things. And no one makes up years of depression and shame. The statute of limitations has run out on your crime, but I want you to know that because you’re in a position of trust and authority with other children, Liz and I have reported you to Child Protective Services. If you ever hurt another child, that report will weigh heavily against you. I don’t see how you can minister to other people when your whole life is built on a lie. You’re a fraud and a child molester, Reverend! You know it and God knows it.

Burt’s face turned to stone. He said nothing, but his rage was obvious. I turned to Liz’s mother in one last attempt to get her to face the truth, but all my words fell on deaf ears.

Burt and Rhoda’s defenses were impenetrable, and I saw no reason to prolong Liz’s pain. She had all the information she needed, so I asked Burt and Rhoda to leave.

Liz knew that she had to make a choice between her parents and her emotional well-being. It was not possible for her to have both. Her decision didn’t take long:

I’ve got to cut them out of my life. They’re just too crazy. The only way I could have a relationship with them is for me to be crazy too. Now that I’m so much stronger, it’s like they’re from another planet. God, Susan, that woman was supposed to be my mother!

She started to cry. I held her for several minutes as she sobbed. Finally, she said:

I guess what hurts the most is realizing that they simply don’t care about me and never have. I mean, by any normal definition of love, they don’t love me.

With that last statement Liz showed a willingness to face the terrible truth that many adults who were abused as children have to face—in the final analysis, her parents were simply incapable of love. It was their failure and their character flaws that created this painful reality, not hers.

C
ONFRONTING THE
S
ILENT
P
ARTNER

Connie’s parents lived in another state, so she decided to confront with separate letters to her father and mother. During the exercise in which she played herself as a child, Connie had remembered that when her father molested her the first time, she had told her mother. It was especially important to Connie to find out why her mother had failed to take steps to protect her.

Connie was climbing the walls with anxiety after she mailed her
letters. After three weeks she bemoaned the fact that she hadn’t gotten an answer from her father.

“But you have,” I said. “His answer is that he’s not willing to deal with this.”

Connie did, however, get a letter from her mother. She read part of it to the group:

No matter what I say, it will always be inadequate for all the harm that has been done to you. At the time I thought I was protecting you the best I knew how. I did talk to him about it, but he apologized and swore he wouldn’t do it again. He seemed so sincere. He begged for another chance and told me he loved me. No one will ever know my fear, my uncertainty. I didn’t know what to do, I thought the problem was over. Now I realize to my own disgust how he tricked me so easily. I wanted a happy family so badly that I resorted to the big cover-up. I was so intent on keeping peace in our lives. My mind is going around in circles and I can’t say any more about this right now. Maybe, as always, I’ve been no help to you, Connie, but please accept that I do love you and want the very best for you.

Love,
Mom

The letter stirred up some hope for Connie that the two of them could initiate a more honest relationship. At my suggestion, Connie set up a conference call between her mother, herself, and me. During the call, Connie’s mother, Margaret, again expressed her sorrow over what had happened and again acknowledged her weakness and complicity. I too began to have hopes that these two women could build something of value between them . . . until Connie asked for the one thing she really wanted.

CONNIE:
I don’t expect you to leave him after all these years, but there is one thing that’s really important to me. I want you to go to him and tell him how horrible what he did to me was. I don’t want anything from him—he’s a sick, crazy man and I’ve had to accept that. But I do want him to hear this from you.

Margaret was silent for a long moment.

MARGARET:
I can’t do that. I just can’t do that. Please don’t ask me to do that.

CONNIE:
So you’re going to protect him over me, just like you always have. When I got your letter, I thought maybe, finally, I was going to have a mother. I thought maybe you could be on my team this once. Just being sorry isn’t enough, Mom. You need to
do
something for me. You need to show you love me, not just say it.

MARGARET:
Connie, it was a long time ago. You have your own life, your own family now. He’s all I’ve got.

Connie was bitterly disappointed when her mother refused to do the one thing she asked. But she recognized that her mother had made her choice a long time ago. It was unrealistic for Connie to expect anything different at this time in their lives.

Connie decided that for her well-being she would maintain minimal mail and phone contact with her mother and accept her mother’s limitations. She decided to cut off all contact with her father.

“W
E
G
O
O
N FROM
H
ERE
”

Dan’s mother, Evelyn, a retired high school principal, responded quite differently when he broke the silence. Dan’s parents had been divorced for about ten years when Dan finally felt strong enough to tell his mother about the years of sexual abuse his father had inflicted on him.

Evelyn wept as she heard the details of what had happened to her son and went over and took him in her arms.

Oh, God, honey, I’m so sorry. Why didn’t you tell me? I could have done something about it. I had no idea. I knew there was something terribly wrong with him. We had an awful sexual relationship, and I knew he was always masturbating in the bathroom, but I never dreamed he would do anything to you. Oh, my baby, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.

Dan was concerned about loading too much on his mother’s shoulders; he had underestimated her capacity to empathize. But she assured him that she would rather share the awful truth with him than live a lie:

I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck, but I’m so glad you told me. So many things are starting to make sense now. So many things are starting to fall into place . . . like your drinking and your depression and so many things about my marriage. You know, for years I’d blame myself because he seemed to have so little interest in me sexually. And I’d blame myself for his temper. Now I know he was sick, really sick, and neither of us was to blame. So we go on from here.

Dan had not only given himself a gift by telling the truth, he had given his mother one as well. By telling her about the incest, Dan had answered for her many of the painful, bewildering questions she had about her marriage. Dan’s mother responded as all incest victims yearn for their mothers to respond—with compassion, anger at the aggressor, and genuine support.

As Dan and his mother left my office arm-in-arm, I couldn’t help but reflect on how wonderful it would be if all mothers responded this way.

Graduation

There comes a time in the treatment process when you will have written and rewritten all the letters, gone through the role playing, the exercises, and the confrontations, and made the decisions about your future relationship with your parents. You will see ever-increasing evidence of your strength and well-being. The changes in your beliefs, your feelings, and your behavior will be integrated into your personality. In short, you will be ready for “graduation.”