Read Healing Your Emotional Self Online
Authors: Beverly Engel
Healing Your Emotional Self (5 page)
The Abandoning or Rejecting Parent
Parental Mirror: “You Are Worthless”
Some parents abandon their children
physically
through death, pro- longed illness, or divorce (leaving the home and seldom if ever seeing them again), or by shipping them off to boarding school. Other par- ents abandon their children
emotionally
(by being emotionally
unavailable, by punishing their children with silence or rejection). Both forms of abandonment are devastating to a child, usually creat- ing emotional scars that do not heal without professional inter- vention.
Children who are physically abandoned are particularly wounded because they often feel as if they have no value. This is how my client Nancy described her feelings about being abandoned by her parents. “I felt like my parents threw me away, like some worthless garbage.” Nancy’s parents got a divorce when she was four years old and sent her to live with her grandparents (“just until they each got settled in their new jobs and new lives”). Her grandmother was very strict; Nancy missed her parents terribly and could not understand why they had abandoned her. Her mother came to see her once in a while and always promised to take her to live with her soon. Each time her mother left, Nancy felt abandoned all over again. She would lock her- self in her room and cry for hours—certain that she had done some- thing wrong to make her mother abandon her like that. Occasionally her father called but always had some excuse as to why he couldn’t visit. Nancy became convinced that her parents had rejected her because she hadn’t been a good daughter. She became very insecure, fearing that her grandmother would reject her as well. This made her try hard to be a perfect child, but since this was impossible, she began feeling like a worthless failure whenever she made a mistake or disap- pointed her grandmother.
Some parents find parenting too demanding or difficult. They resolve their dilemma by abandoning the burden of parenting, leaving their children solely in the care of a nanny or babysitters, sending them off to boarding school, or giving them away. Parents who aban- don their children often rationalize their actions by saying that the child is better off without them or, in the case of boarding school, that they are providing him or her with the best opportunities money can buy. But their real intention is to be free of child care.
Parents who escape into alcohol, drugs, sleep, television, or books also abandon their children because they are essentially not there emotionally. Jennifer told me the painful story of how it felt to be raised by a mother who was emotionally detached from her. “My mother is just never present. Even if she is in the same room with me
I can’t really feel her. I just can’t connect with her. When I was a child it was extremely painful to be around her because I always felt so empty and alone in her presence. She didn’t take an interest in any- thing I did or listen to anything I had to say. She would just look at me with a blank stare when I tried to talk to her. She reminded me of a ghost sometimes, kind of floating around. Most of the time she had her head stuck in a book, off in some fantasy world. In many ways I feel like I never had a mother.”
Parents who are so tied up with their work or interests that they have no time for their children are, in effect, abandoning them. Often parents abandon their children because they are unable or unwilling to spend time with them. Parents who have professions that take them away from home, such as truck driving or traveling sales, are often unable to fulfill their responsibilities as a parent. Although this usually cannot be helped, the abandonment the child feels is no less poignant.
Many fathers abandon their children when they get divorced from the children’s mother. They make all kinds of excuses for cutting off their ties with their children, including that their mother is demand- ing too much child support, or that the father needed to move out of the area for a job, but the fact is, the children feel abandoned.
Psychological Abandonment: Rejection as Abandonment
Some parents simply don’t want to bother with their children, which they make very clear by their actions. Whenever their child needs help with his homework, help making a decision, or someone to listen to his problems, the parent says something like, “Can’t you see I’m busy? Don’t bother me with these things,” or, “Go ask your father to help you,” or even, “I don’t want to deal with your problems.” When a par- ent puts the child off or passes the buck to the other parent, the child senses his parent’s lack of love and concern for him. Other parents communicate this same message more subtly by allowing their chil- dren to do whatever they want, but in their lenience they too are not taking an interest in their children’s activities.
Parents can also show how they feel about a child by their sins of omission, such as forgetting a child’s birthday, neglecting to give him gifts, buying gifts that he clearly does not want, or failing to make pos- itive comments about him (particularly when he has done something outstanding).
Although a great deal of parental abandonment is unintentional or a result of inadequacies or selfishness on their part, some abandon- ment is intentional. Downplaying a child’s success or saying something negative about him to someone who has just complimented him can be a way of intentionally hurting his feelings.
Some parents routinely abandon their children as a form of disci- pline, such as when a parent gives a child the “silent treatment” when he disapproves of what the child is doing. Rejecting parents use their power and importance to their children to control them. Children are so attached to and dependent on their parents that the loss of the sup- port of a parent can be devastating.
When my mother was upset with me, she would routinely stop talking to me. We lived in a very small apartment, so it was difficult for us not to cross each other’s path. Nevertheless, my mother would walk right past me or even sit in the same room without looking at me or saying a word. If I spoke to her she would ignore me. Sometimes she wouldn’t talk to me for days. I would have to beg for her forgiveness for whatever transgression I had committed, but she still would not talk to me until she was ready. This left me feeling utterly abandoned.
My mother also used the threat of abandonment to control me. When I did something that upset her, she would say, “If you don’t start minding me I’m going to send you to a convent.” This is a common tactic by some abandoning, rejecting parents.
In the heat of anger or frustration some parents tell their children things like “If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t have gotten mar- ried to your father and had you kids.” While parents can sometimes secretly think these things, these thoughts should definitely be kept private, because they are correctly interpreted by the child as outright rejections. Some parents actually say these kinds of things to inten- tionally hurt their child.
The Mirror Held Up by Abandoning and Rejecting Parents
The secure child is nourished by the confidence that her relationship with her parents is strong and enduring and that nothing she does will make her parents abandon her. When a child does not have this inner certainty, her life is marked by it. Children who are routinely aban- doned or rejected, whether intentionally or not, tend to suffer from extreme insecurity and feelings of worthlessness. They often become very upset when their parents leave to go somewhere, convinced that their parents will never return. This insecurity and fear often contin- ues into adulthood, resulting in insecure adults who are clingy with their adult partners or who are afraid to be alone.
This was the case with Nina, who came to see me because she was being physically abused by her husband. As is the case with many abused women, Nina stayed in the relationship because she was hor- rified of being alone. “I know I should leave my husband but I’m so afraid of being all alone. At least now I have someone who needs me. Yes, he is possessive and jealous but there’s something I like about that—it makes me feel like he likes being with me. My parents never did. They were always going out and leaving me all alone with some babysitter, and I never knew when they’d be coming back. I remem- ber standing at the front window, watching them drive away and cry- ing my eyes out because I thought they were gone for good. Even when they were home I never felt like they enjoyed being with me. They just seemed to tolerate me, and I was always doing something that upset or disappointed them.”
Abandonment creates insecurity, self-obsession, and the tendency to turn anger against oneself and to idealize others. These feelings fes- ter beneath the surface, where they interfere with self-image and the forming of healthy relationships. Adults who have been abandoned as children tend to lack the confidence to reach their true potential. They also have difficulty delaying gratification, and their low self- worth causes them to go for the quick fix (they eat the chocolate cake because they need it now, forfeiting the chance to have the body they desire).
The Smothering, Possessive, or Intrusive Parent
Parental Mirror: “You Are Nothing without Me”
This type of parent smothers his or her children with overprotection, guilt, rules, and demands. Many are desperate for their child’s love and attention. Smothering parents are overly invested in their chil- dren, often making huge sacrifices and commitments but expecting the child’s soul in return. They will often go to any length to make cer- tain that their children do not experience the necessary separation- individuation process and have independent lives.
I want you all for myself
is the underlying theme, and the mirror the smothering parent holds up to the child is “You are nothing without me.”
Mark’s mother did everything for him. When he was a child she continued to cut up his food even after he was capable of doing so
himself. She continued to clean his room well into high school and never required him to do any household chores.
Both his parents were overprotective to the point of smothering. They constantly warned him about the potential dangers all around him. “Don’t go into the deep water, you’ll drown,” “Don’t ever use a public toilet or you’ll get a disease.” They discouraged him from roller- skating because they were afraid he’d fall and break a bone, and they didn’t let him take the training wheels off his bicycle until he was seven years old.
This overprotectiveness doomed Mark to become an under- achiever as an adult. His parents’ negative views of life became a self- fulfilling prophecy, and because his mother had done everything for him, he never learned how to assume responsibility for himself or his possessions. His lack of survival knowledge was embarrassing to him, and he tended to neglect his health and his physical appearance.
Smothering parents emotionally and sometimes physically engulf their children. They can be controlling, overbearing, or simply ever- present in their child’s life. This engulfment discourages independ- ence and breeds unhealthy dependence. It also can create an attitude of hopelessness and powerlessness on a child’s part. If everything is done for you, as it was in Mark’s case, or if you are discouraged from trying things on your own, how can you know what you are capable of?
There are several types of smothering, possessive parents:
Those who are motivated primarily by fear (fear of something bad happening to their child) as with Mark’s parents
Those who need to control their children
Those who want their children to think, feel, and do just as they do
Those who do not feel separate from their children and there- fore do not want their children to be independent from them
Those who fear being alone and therefore attempt to tie their children to them by making them dependent on them
Those who see their children as reflections of themselves— narcissistic parents
Those who use their child to satisfy needs that should be satis- fied by other adults
While people who were neglected or abandoned often feel invisi- ble, those who were smothered often feel the opposite. They tend to feel overly scrutinized—so much so that they wish for a place to hide from the ever-present gaze of their parent. Often the look is that of a disapproving parent who is just waiting for them to do something wrong. Other times the look is that of a worried parent who fears someone or something will hurt the child. Whatever the intention of the look, the result is that children who are smothered and engulfed often have a difficult time discovering who they are apart from their parent and in separating from that gaze. “Even when I was out of my mother’s sight I still felt her looking at me,” my client Samantha told me. “It was as if her eyes followed me wherever I went. As a matter of fact, I still feel those eyes on me today—judging my every move.” Still another client, Monica, explained it like this: “It is as if my eyes are my mother’s eyes. I see everything from the context of whether or not she would approve of what I am doing, or whether she would approve of a person I am with. It’s like I’m never really on my own, to make my own decisions, to make my own mistakes.”
The reason Samantha and Monica experience life this way is that their mothers discouraged their individuality. Both mothers were overly invested in their daughters’ becoming replicas of themselves. They wanted them to think, feel, and act just the way they did; any dif- ferences were viewed as threatening.
Smothering parents often have difficulty seeing their children as separate human beings with their own needs and feelings. They often assume they know what their child needs and insist they know what their child is thinking. This mind reading can be especially damaging to a child because it makes him feel intruded upon and separates him from his own private world. This is how my client Jordan explained it: “My dad always thought he knew what I was thinking and feeling. Instead of asking me what I was feeling, he’d tell me. I hated it when he did that. It was like I couldn’t even have my own private thoughts without him intruding upon them. What really bothered me was that sometimes he was right. That really
freaked me out. It was like he had the power to read my mind. I had no place to hide.”
Some smothering parents insist that their children adopt their values. This is often true of highly religious parents, but it also occurs in the homes of people who come from other countries and have maintained the old country’s traditions. I have had many clients from Europe, South America, and Mexico whose parents were overly smothering, including my client Lupe, whose parents came from Central Mexico.
“My dad acted as if he owned me—body and soul. I had absolutely no say in what I wanted to do. Everything was dictated by what was proper for a young girl. When I was little I had to wear these frilly dresses, which I hated. I was always stuck in the kitchen with my mother and aunts and could never play games out in the backyard like my brothers were allowed to do. As I got older I still had no choices. I was told I had to go to a Catholic high school, that I had to take cer- tain classes, and that I couldn’t date until I was eighteen—and then only if my older brother went along as a chaperone.”
When Lupe finished high school she wanted to go on to college, but her father insisted they didn’t have enough money to send a girl to school when they still had two more boys coming up. Even when Lupe got a college scholarship, her father insisted that she stay home to take care of her ailing grandmother. Lupe quietly obeyed her dad. “I know American girls would have fought for what they wanted, but you just don’t disagree with my dad—not in our culture. That would have meant I don’t love him and it would have been like turning my back on everything I was raised to believe in.”
When Lupe first came to see me she was twenty-five years old. She had fallen in love with a white man, and she knew her father would never accept him. “I know what I need to do. I need to say good-bye to Tom. I just wish I didn’t love him so much. I’ve tried walking away, but we work together and seeing him every day causes me almost unbearable pain. But I can’t hurt my father like this. I just can’t.”
This would be a difficult situation for anyone, but for someone who had never been allowed to make her own choices the situation was particularly daunting. Lupe had started suffering from horrible stomach pains and she was missing a lot of work because of it. “I guess
I’m just going to have to quit my job. That way I won’t have to see Tom. I don’t know what else to do.” It didn’t occur to Lupe that her health was being affected by her inability to stand up to her father and do what was right for herself.
The Possessive Parent
The possessive parent wants to control, own, and consume her child. She begins when her child is an infant, overprotecting him, holding him so close that he may feel suffocated. When the child reaches the age where he wants to begin to explore the world separate from his parent, the possessive parent feels threatened and clings to her child even tighter. This need to possess can continue throughout childhood, causing the parent to feel jealous of anything and everyone that threatens to take him away. For example, the parent may discour- age her child from making friends by always finding fault with each of his playmates. Instead of beginning to loosen the reins a little as he becomes older and more mature, she may become even more strict, insisting on knowing at all times where her child is going and with whom. When he begins to take an interest in dating, the possessive parent may become especially threatened and may either forbid her child to date or make him feel that no one is good enough for him.
Some fathers and stepfathers become very possessive of their daughters. This can come out of a reluctance to acknowledge that one day their “little girl” will grow up and marry. But other times it arises out of the fact that the father is sexually aroused by his daughter and doesn’t want any other man to have her. This kind of father will typi- cally forbid his daughter to date and will be horrified if she wears any- thing that he feels is the slightest bit revealing.
Emotional Incest
Other parents become what is called emotionally incestuous with their children. These parents desperately crave their child’s love and atten- tion. Their message to their children, although usually unspoken, is:
“Above all, always be available to me.” Parents who have been divorced or widowed often attempt to replace the lost spouse with their own child. If a parent treats his or her child like a confidante or friend instead of maintaining a parent/child relationship, this is a form of emotional incest. It is not a child’s role to make parents feel good or to listen to their problems.
Emotionally incestuous parents turn to their children to satisfy needs that should be satisfied by other adults—namely intimacy, com- panionship, romantic stimulation, advice, problem solving, ego fulfill- ment, and/or emotional release.
Emotional incest can take many forms. On one end of the spectrum the parent treats the child more like a buddy or a peer. She either becomes childlike herself and may even interfere with her child’s social life (by wanting to hang out with the child’s friends) or she expects her child to act like an adult friend who will talk to her about adult issues and feelings. She may also emotionally “dump” on her child by talking about her problems to the child. This can include complaining to the child about the other parent. Sometimes both parents dump on a child in a way that puts the child in the middle.
On the other end of the spectrum, the parent turns to a child of the opposite sex for the intimacy and companionship one would nor- mally expect to find in a romantic relationship. There is often a flirta- tious, teasing quality in this relationship and in many cases, an undercurrent of sexuality.
The Mirror That Smothering or Possessive Parents Hold Up to Their Children
Smothering or possessive parents do not allow their children the space to grow and develop their unique personalities. Because they do not allow their children to separate from them, they restrict and limit their children’s potential to make something of themselves in the world. Because adult children of smothering parents are overly con- cerned about their parents being devastated when they leave home, many do not do so. The ones who physically leave home often remain emotionally bound to their parents.
Donna’s parents discouraged her from leaving home by warning her of all the dangers there were for young women. Every evening her father would read some horror story in the local paper about a woman who had gone missing or had been raped. Her parents also stressed that young girls had no business going out to dance clubs. “These young girls are asking for trouble,” they’d say. Donna actually got up the courage to move out when she was twenty-two, right after she graduated from college. She and her friend Mary found an apartment together. But she soon felt compelled to move back home. “Mary went out almost every night and I felt lonely and scared in that apart- ment all alone. She tried to get me to go out with her to the clubs, but I really didn’t like it. I knew my dad didn’t like me going there and that it made my parents worry about me. Besides, my dad told me that my mother had been really depressed ever since I left home.”
A smothering parent assumes that her child’s mistakes will trap him for life, and so she will try to manage her child’s life in such a way that the child will accept his parents’ attitudes about the world. We saw this happening with Lupe earlier in the chapter. The prob- lem is that the parent’s behavior prevents an adult child from devel- oping his own attitudes and beliefs. Although a smothering parent may only be trying to protect her child from harm and disappoint- ment, her attempts may actually emotionally cripple the child later in life, causing him to fear venturing out on his own or trying new things.
If a child identifies with his parents’ overprotective attitude, as we saw with the example of Mark, he will live his life in fear, doomed to being an underachiever. If he is unable to take risks out of fear of get- ting hurt, he will never experience the joy of accomplishment and the pride of reaching his potential. This will inevitably cause him to feel like a failure and to suffer from low self-esteem. When parents trans- mit a lack of confidence in their children’s ability to get along in the world, or constantly warn them of how people are untrustworthy, they often create a self-fulfilling prophecy in which the child grows up overwhelmed with insecurity or expecting people to disappoint, hurt, or take advantage of him.
Because their parents’ needs cancel their own, adult children of smothering or possessive parents are often unable to discover what
The Overly Controlling, Tyrannical Parent
Parental Mirror: “You Are Powerless”
Lorraine is an attractive woman with large, dark eyes, flawless skin, and a luscious mouth. She was once considered voluptuous but is now extremely overweight. But what stands out the most about Lorraine is that she talks and acts like a little girl. At nearly forty years old she has the mannerisms of a young child. Although she is quite intelli- gent, she frequently appears confused and cannot easily understand instructions from her employers, which has cost her more than one job. Why does Lorraine behave the way she does? She is still suffer- ing from the emotional abuse she experienced as a child at the hands of her mother.
When Lorraine was a child she was expected to act like an adult. Her mother insisted that she and her sisters take responsibility for cleaning the entire house while she was at work. This wouldn’t have been so bad, except that her mother was a perfectionist. The girls could never do anything right. Lorraine remembers one time when her mother told her to scrub the kitchen floor, even though she was only six years old.
As usual, when her mother got home from work she inspected the house, looking for anything out of place or left undone. When she found scuff marks on the kitchen floor, she became furious. She yelled at Lorraine, calling her “a stupid good-for-nothing girl who never did anything right.” Lorraine was humiliated. She told her mother that she had tried and tried but was not able to get the scuff marks off. Even though it was past Lorraine’s bedtime, her mother insisted that she scrub the floor until the marks were completely gone. This took
hours. By the time the marks were gone Lorraine’s fingers were bruised and bleeding.
Lorraine still remembers how helpless and hopeless she felt as she desperately tried to get the scuff marks off the floor. Today, whenever a boss asks her to do something, Lorraine panics. She is so afraid of doing something wrong that she becomes frozen in fear and is unable to move. It takes her several minutes to come back to herself and by that time she has forgotten what her boss asked her to do.
The mirror that Lorraine’s mother held up led Lorraine to believe that she was powerless and incapable of doing anything right. This prevented Lorraine from developing self-efficacy and positive self-esteem. It also stunted her emotional growth, leaving her feeling like a perpetual child, overwhelmed by authority figures and responsibility.
The tyrannical parent has a cruel and inflexible style of parent- ing. Often every member of the household, including her spouse, is expected to blindly obey her and grant all her wishes, no matter how outrageous. This type of parent usually believes strongly in rules and obedience and that the authority of parents should never be questioned. They attempt to dominate their children completely, needing to feel in control over others in order to feel powerful and important.
Sometimes this controlling behavior is dictated by perfectionism, as was the case with Lorraine’s mother. Other times parents are moti- vated by a sheer need to dominate, often because they were domi- nated by their own parents. They are often passing on the same behavior to their children and ventilating the anger they could not express to their own parents.
