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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 6 of 6. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by lonelygirl on March 31, 2004, at 17:11:11
In my last session, we were talking about when I was in high school and my parents, among other things. I mentioned that my parents hate me and regard me a failure, and he asked me if they said that. I said, "Well, not often."
Now I am feeling guilty for saying that. I feel like now he has the impression that my parents are always like that. The truth is that they are ok most of the time, though pretty strict, and they tell me they love me more often than they tell me they hate me. They've always been generous and provided for me and probably done what they thought was best for me, even if they were wrong sometimes. So whenever I say anything bad about them, I end up feeling like I've betrayed them. I also feel guilty because I know there are a lot of people who had things a lot worse -- they were beaten all the time or sexually abused or neglected (or all of the above) -- and I sort of feel like I am disrespecting these people because my problems pale in comparison.
On the other hand, there were times that my parents made my life a living hell, and things they did that hurt me a lot. Things that still hurt and have probably had lasting effects on my life. They've also said things, to me and about me (when they didn't know I could hear them). Sometimes it was just out of anger, during arguments, but there are things that they have repeated enough times that I know they are true (for example, my father has repeatedly referred to me as "a cancer on the family"). But it's not like it was unprovoked; I know that everything they said was my fault, because of things I did or said. I'm sure I have told them I hate them many more times than they've said they hate me.
Sometimes, I really don't know what to think about my parents. For most of the past 5 years, I have been living away from home, and I get along with them much better when we're 2,000 miles apart. They are usually ok when I come home for breaks, though we still get in some arguments. I guess I know that my parents "love" me, but at the same time, I am acutely aware of the fact that I am a huge disappointment to them, I've caused them a lot of problems, and they would honestly be better off if I had never been born.
I don't know if I should clarify myself next time or not. It just seems like my parents have these two conflicting identities and I'm not sure whether to love them or hate them. I think it's hard for other people to understand. Sometimes, I get annoyed when people think that I'm so lucky that I have such a great family and I'm so "close" with them, because they have no idea about all the times that they really hurt me. But on the other hand, if I talk about the bad things and people end up thinking they're horrible, I feel like I have exaggerated and I should defend them.
Posted by pegasus on March 31, 2004, at 17:39:53
In reply to Childhood, posted by lonelygirl on March 31, 2004, at 17:11:11
Oh, yeah, I know exactly what you mean. I think in a different way my family has also been both an asset and a major challenge for me. They have a style of relating that involves a lot of verbal sparring, and sometimes some very aggressive verbal fights, where terribly mean things are said. I grew up having these types of fights with everyone in my family, and it seems as though the goal of them was always to inflict the largest amount of pain. So, they've said some really horrible things to me, and me to them. Now as a grown up, I've chosen to learn a different way of relating, and I can hardly stand to be around them when they get into it. But I get sucked in, and have no idea what to do about that.
And then, on the other hand, I know they love me, and they've been incredibly supportive in some ways. There was no real "abuse", although they believed in physical punishment. My mom has said some very kind and wonderful things to me in recent years. But I don't remember any of that from my childhood. I just remember a lot of yelling, and fear.
So, anyway, this has come up for me in therapy too. Whenever I try to explain how it felt being a child in that family, I feel like I make it sound like they were hateful people. And maybe in some ways they were, but in some ways they were the exact opposite. My old T used to reassure me that he didn't assume that the pieces I told him about them were the whole story. My new T, when I bring up that difficulty, invited me to tell her what I thought she needed to hold in mind about my family while I told her the hard parts about them. So I told her about having dinner together every night, and playing games together, and laughing, and taking vacations, and a lot of the good parts. It does feel better to have explained that to her, but I still feel like I'm not representing them correctly in therapy.
Will you let me know how it goes if you bring this up with your T?
- p
Posted by Racer on March 31, 2004, at 17:40:51
In reply to Childhood, posted by lonelygirl on March 31, 2004, at 17:11:11
Listen, you can't measure your pain by how much pain someone else experienced. (That really is analogous to cellular automata -- you could look it up...) The only thing you can do is check your own Pain-O-Meter and see how bad your pain was to you. Machts nichts what someone else experienced, although it's natural to try to look at it that way. But there's a name for looking for an external meter for your experiencial distress: Invalidation.
As for feeling guilty, that's natural, too, and it's part of this weird disorder called Depression -- I'm betting you've heard of it. "Gee, I don't deserve to be depressed -- nothing really bad ever happened to me, not like the kid down the street who got beat twice a day..." Want to hear something I read in an analysis of some research studies a few years back? Sexual molestation didn't -- in and of itself -- cause lasting damage. For those few children who experienced molestation and got good support from their caregivers right away, there were few if any lasting effects. Guess what causes the damage? The inappropriate responses of the caregivers, which are a lot more common, since caregivers tend to do the bulk of the molesting. It really doesn't matter why you experienced pain -- it matters that you did experience that pain. Now, though, it's time to examine that pain and try to work through it. Worrying about overreacting to nothing does nothing healthy for you. It only makes your current distress that much worse.
I'm very fortunate in many ways to have grown up with my mother. Yes, I experienced abuse throughout most of my childhood, and from a very wonderful woman whom everyone around me would never have believed a word I said against. Here I am, a badly damaged adult, saying that I was fortunate to have had this woman for a mother. (Everything's relative, right? Hamster mothers eat their young...) Do I still have some anger and pain over things that happened? Yes, as a matter of fact I do. Do I blame my mother for some of her behaviors? You betcha! Do I blame the people around me who *should* have protected me? Damn straight I do. And how does that effect me now? Well, let's see -- I'm trying to be successful in processing the left overs in therapy. Do I ever mention this sort of stuff to my mother? Very rarely, and I always stress the point that it's what *I'M* working on, not something she can do anything at all about at this point. She's got her own trauma over it, and that's her business. My business is to process what happened and try to learn to adjust my own behaviors in order to avoid continuing to recreate the same situations over and over again.
Here's my easier said than done advice -- a specialty of almost everyone who gives advice on this sort of thing, and something I should probably bookmark and reread weekly for my own good -- ignore what other people say about how lucky you are in having such a close family. Say something neutral like, "Yeah, I guess I am" and then put it out of your mind. It's one of those meaningless politenesses like, "How are you?" is always replied to as, "Fine, thank you, and you?" Means nothing more than that. Work, in therapy, on allowing yourself to experience how YOU felt about your existence, and how to get past it.
Good luck to you, kiddo -- you know that you have my support.
Posted by Karen_kay on March 31, 2004, at 18:32:34
In reply to Childhood, posted by lonelygirl on March 31, 2004, at 17:11:11
And he's very wise for being so young. I used to always go in and say "Well, I love my parents dearly and I feel that I come in here and tell you awful things about them. And it's not fair to them. I'm telling you horrible things about them and you don't hear the good things. And I feel horrible telling you bad things. That you must think my parents were horrible people." He told me (and I swear it sunk in the first time he said it) "Listen, you aren't here to talk about the joys of your life or the things that don't need to be fixed. You are here to be healed. I realize that your parents did some very incredible and wonderful things in your life, or you wouldn't be such a wwonderful person. But, I also realize that your parents are human and made some mistakes. And you are here to heal those mistakes. And they don't heal by talking about the wonderful things your parents did all the time. They heal by talking about some of the things your parents may have done wrong and finding patterns you are repeating. So, I will be better about discussing both the good and the bad. But don't think that I believe your parents only made mistakes, or you wouldn't be so great."
Ok, now he didn't say this word for word, but it was similar.... And from then on, I NEVER beat myself up for telling him some of the mistakes my parents may have made. I love my parents. But, they aren't in that room. And I realize they were doing their best when they raised me. And if it helps me to become a better person, then why not say MY interpretation, as I saw it? There's no reality, only perception, dear! And don't think that your hurt is worth any less than any other person's. It hurts just as much.
Posted by fallsfall on March 31, 2004, at 20:59:22
In reply to Childhood, posted by lonelygirl on March 31, 2004, at 17:11:11
I know that I also do a lot of "black and white thinking" (also called "splitting"). Where I see something as one extreme or the other (i.e. good or bad), but I can't see the greys in between. It is possible that you experience this cognitive distortion, too - it's actually pretty common.
Posted by DaisyM on April 1, 2004, at 11:00:27
In reply to Re: Childhood, posted by pegasus on March 31, 2004, at 17:39:53
I worry all the time about what I might be doing to my kids that I don't realize hurts them. I've talked about this with my Therapist who says it is a universal truth that parents hurt their kids in some way. I usually whine at this point that I want them to blame THEIR DAD though, not me!
I have huge issues with my parents and love them both tons. My mother is the most amazing person I know yet she will never be for me what I want or need. My Dad is two people for me, the one I know now and the one I knew then.
And while we do spend lots of time in therapy on the "bad" stuff, we have talked about the good parts too. My Therapist says what Karen's says: You couldn't be who you are without some good things. It helps me to think that as people, my parents have failings. And my mom did her best. She "parented" really well. She just forgot to "mother" me...
So don't beat yourself up about talking about your parents in therapy. This is a judgement free zone in which to explore who you are and how you came to be this way. And most importantly, where do you want to go next and how do you get there.
This is the end of the thread.
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