Facing The Cold Hard Facts
“When we don’t know who to hate, we hate ourselves.” – Chuck Palahniuk
Facing the fact that your parents didn’t love you is extremely difficult. You may be aware that they were abusive, negligent or otherwise not good enough, but still believe that they loved you. They may very well have. Unfortunately, in some cases, they did not. In those cases, there is overwhelming evidence but we cannot bring ourselves to face it.
There are many reasons why we cannot face it. Two of those reasons are our society’s prevailing beliefs that we should honor our parents, no matter what, and that since we are now adults we should just move on and get over it.
The problems with these two beliefs are that not all parents deserve to be honored and that moving on and getting over it is not possible without first dealing with it. Sure, many people grew up in dysfunctional or abusive homes, never deal with the effects and live seemingly normal and happy lives, claiming that they have moved on and gotten over it. However, the fact is that if you don’t deal with it, you are living in denial.
This leads to another reason that we cannot face the fact that our parents didn’t love us. In order to do so, we must consider the possibility that they didn’t love us because we are unlovable. If your parents were abusive, you were given the false messages, over and over again, that you were unlovable, stupid, ugly, bad, etc. They may have said these things directly or you may have received these messages indirectly via neglect and/or abuse. These messages are as much a part of you as your DNA. You don’t consciously think about them all the time, but they are always there, coloring everything you do, every decision you make, every interpretation of every event and every encounter with others for your entire life. These messages are like subliminal tapes, constantly playing over and over again, all the time.
How can you possibly truly live a a normal and happy life with these tapes running through your head? You can’t. You can only deny that they are there and fake it. You live an unconscious, unexamined, inauthentic life. You surround yourself with distractions, the trappings of normalcy, people and things that you believe represent how you are supposed to go about being happy. You may even believe, most of the time, that you have moved on, gotten over it, and are happy. That is simply a false cloud of denial.
These tapes must be reprogrammed. You must learn to actually hear the tapes. You have to practice listening to yourself. This is particularly difficult to do for adult children of abusive parents because we were trained to suppress our emotions, wants, needs, opinions and thoughts. We were taught that they didn’t matter so we buried them, long ago. Uncovering them is a painful and slow process.
We don’t like pain. We do everything we can to avoid it. It’s frightening to go against society and put the responsibilities for our lost childhoods and those erroneous tapes squarely on the shoulders of those who controlled them….our parents. We must then take full responsibility for our adult lives, which is also frightening. They failed us when we were children and that’s on them. If we have failed ourselves as adults, then that’s on us.
The good news is that you can acknowledge that those tapes are there, that they are nonsense and provide yourself with new, realistic tapes about who you really are. You can acknowledge that you have lived in denial and fear and made choices based on that rather than choices based on what is actually in your best interests. It’s ok. You were not given the tools to do this before. You can obtain those tools now. You are no longer a helpless child, you are an adult with the power to do whatever you want with your life.
Once you get in touch with those tapes, question them, and realize that they are a product of your not good enough parenting, you can toss them out like the worthless garbage that they are. It’s liberating and exciting! You can acknowledge that your parents didn’t love you, not because you were unlovable, but because they were incapable of love due to their own fear, denial and faulty tapes. You can finally grieve your lost childhood and truly move on. It had nothing to do with you. You can then regard yourself as a clean slate and program your own authentic tapes for yourself. You can be your own good enough parent.
I’m not talking about cheesy, generic affirmations like, “I’m Good Enough, I’m Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me”. To use an example from my own life, whenever I received a promotion at work I was always secretly afraid that I was not up to the task, not deserving of the promotion and would ultimately fail. Luckily, I accepted the promotions anyway, rather than letting the fear take over completely which would have sabotaged any chance of success. But the fear was always there. Once I started really paying attention to it, I realized that it came from those old tapes, not from anything based in actual reality. In reality I was more than capable. I was deserving of the promotions, I was up to the task and I was successful. So, those are my new tapes, based on the reality of my adult accomplishments, not based on some ancient messages dumped on me by inadequate parents.
None of this requires any blame, hatred or confrontation with your parents, although I highly recommend professional therapy (you knew I’d say that). As you begin to become more self-aware, you may experience painful and extreme emotions, possibly for the first time in your life. Having a qualified therapist to help you sort it all out is beneficial and possibly even necessary. In the end, it’s all worth it because you truly are liberated, not only from those old worn-out tapes, low self-esteem and fear but also from the anger, shame and guilt you’ve been carrying around from keeping those ugly family secrets and honoring your dishonorable parents all these years.
Thanks for stopping by!
You can’t even imagine how ironically appropriate this post is in relation to current events in my life.
Delicious post … love this line the most: “You can be your own good enough parent.”
Bravo!
Last night I began writing a new post for my blog titled Revelations. In which, I believe I have discovered the reason I am afraid to pursue my passion is due to my fear of failing at the one thing I truley love to do. Does this have anything to do with my parents, I don’t know, possibly. Although they were not abusive, perhaps the lack of invovlement from my father and my need to show him I can be successful and worthy.
After completing graduate school I had horrible anxiety attacks because I was afraid of succeeding in the real world. I sought advice from a therapist, she made me feel like an idiot. I never returned.
The question is; when you sit down in the big comfy chair some what uncertain of what it is that has you “off”, where do you begin?
It’s easy to blame our parents for all the insecurities and bad things happening in our lives, why not to blame them …
I do think that each of us has to be strong in order not to let the shadows of the past to darken our future, I know it’s very hard but just give it a try for yourselves.
I guess I’m saying that because my parents were really careful with my education and me growing up as a fulfilled grown up, I remember my mom saying to my dad : “Don’t say or do that unless you don’t want to get his self esteem down”, I can say I’m lucky.
But still everybody should be strong as we can bump into “self esteem destroyers” every day and every where.
I think that chanceencounters really missed the crux of many points … it’s not necessarily making lemonade out of lemons but looking at who planted seeds in the garden of you; looking at the gardener square in the eye (so to speak) and then weeding what doesn’t belong.
Some have yet to realize what the weeds look like … perhaps. Damn, I am so inspired by Earth Day and your post all at the same time.
Really?! Wow, I follow you regularly and had no clue.
Thanks Dawn!
Almost 10 years ago when my father passed away after a very long illness, the hospice nurses suggested that we all talk to a therapist. That was my first experience with therapy. I sat down and just started crying. I could no more explain why I was crying or what I was feeling than I could have explained how to split an atom. She just started asking me questions and I answered them. That pretty much went on for the entire 4 months that I saw her.
More recently, when hubby and I were having problems I went to a completely different therapist. The exact same thing happened! I had no clue what my problem was, I just knew something was wrong. She started by asking me questions that I answered, just like the first one.
I’d say you begin by sitting down in the chair and saying exactly what you wrote in your comment, “I am somewhat uncertain of what it is that has me, ‘off’.”. A good therpist will not make you feel like an idiot and will get the ball rolling for you.
Based on your comment, it does not appear that you actually read the entire post. If that is the case, I can only assume that this comment is just a way to get people visiting this post to click on the link to your blog. I was tempted to move it to the spam folder for this reason.
However, giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming that you did read the entire post and just didn’t get it, I actually agree with you, and said so. We cannot blame our parents for our adult choices and offered specifics on how not to allow the shadows of the past to darken our future. What exactly are you suggesting that we try?
Congrats on being lucky enough to have had parents who loved you. I agree, you are lucky.