Editor’s note: The following article was submitted by the Lovefraud reader who comments as “Pearl.”
By Pearl
Someone on this blog once mentioned a book by Alice Miller and Andrew Jenkins, and it caught my attention. So now I’m reading The Truth Will Set You Free—Overcoming Emotional Blindness and Finding Your True Adult Self.
Even though I’m only about halfway through the book, I wanted to share parts of it because it is so important to what a lot of us are working on—forgiving ourselves and trying to understand why this (fraud) happened to us. I know this won’t apply or appeal to everyone, but it might help some of you as it has me. Miller’s ideas help me understand why I was susceptible and forgive myself for my blindness—my inability to spot a “bad guy.”
Miller focuses on childhood—on how corporal punishment (spanking/whipping) and humiliation—cause a type of blindness in adulthood that can lead to being manipulated and UNABLE TO SEE THROUGH LIES. She emphasizes that the kind of parenting and education aimed at breaking a child’s will and making that child into an obedient subject by means of overt or covert coercion, manipulation and emotional blackmail leaves long-lasting imprints on the way we think and relate to one another as adults.
Here is the cycle as she sees it:
- Traditional methods of upbringing, which have included corporal punishment, lead a child to DENY suffering and humiliation. (Can anyone related to having a high pain threshold? Where did I get that bruise or cut—I don’t remember getting it? Ever feel humiliated at being spanked, paddled or whipped as a child? Ever experience a parent being insensitive to suffering?)
- This denial, although essential if the child is to SURVIVE, will later cause emotional blindness.
- Emotional blindness produces “barriers in the mind” erected to guard against dangers. This means that early denied traumas become encoded in the brain, and even though they no longer pose a threat, they continue to have a subtle, destructive impact. (The memory of how to respond to such crappy behavior from our parents and authority figures is still there.)
- Barriers in the mind keep us from learning new information, putting it to good use, and shedding old, outdated behaviors.
- Our bodies retain a complete memory of the humiliations we suffered, driving us to inflict unconsciously on the next generation what we endured in childhood, unless we become aware of the cause of our behavior, which is embedded in the history of our own childhoods.
As children, some of us learned to suppress and deny natural feelings. Some of us lived in a world where our feelings were ignored and denied.
All the beaten child remembers is FEAR and the face of the ANGRY parent, not why the beating was taking place. The child may even assume he had been naughty and deserved the punishment. Miller writes that in the absence of a witness who can empathize with us in childhood and genuinely listen to us, we have no other way of protecting ourselves from the pain but to close our minds to it.
In a bid to blot the fear and pain of our abused younger self, we erase what we know can help us, we can fall prey to the seductiveness of sects and cults, and FAIL TO SEE THROUGH ALL KINDS OF LIES.
Having this information helps me understand why I was “ripe for the picking.” It also goes a long way toward helping me forgive myself and move on in the healing process.
Rune, those “chills” are our intuition telling us that there is a PREDATOR NEAR BY and unfortunately, we “logic” them away in disbelief.
I watched a cat stalk a rabbit successfully a while back. The rabbit would look around in caution,, and once I think it caught a scent or something because it kept it’s head up for quite some time and rotated its ears around listening in all directions, and sniffed the air for scent, but eventually went right back to grazing, just before the cat pounced and successfully killed it.
WE KNOW that we are prey for them now. Some people do not know they are prey. So we are at least one-up of the majority of humanity in that respect.
We do apparently have some weaknesses that some other people don’t have though with our excess of compassion and pity etc. but WE ARE NOW AWARE OF THAT WEAKNESS and we are also more aware of what the predator looks and acts like, how he thinks, and the manuvers s/he will make to “sneak up o n us” so we are learning and as we learn we make ourselves safer and less vulnerable, we make ourselves stronger and hone our emotional defense skills.
They do let their “sheeps clothing” slip once in a while and a glimpse of the wolf underneath show. We can become attuned to looking for these signs that the person we are with is a predator “stalking us” for the kill.
Hi everyone,
Thanks for this excellent article at LF. I have been so busy trying to find a job, having lost my job in November and not visible as much here. BUT!!! NO pity ploy here from me… (I am so on to you S’s, P’s and N’s!) No, instead I working on “change” (thank God this is in the air, in an international kind of awareness, especially today after this most moving inauguration!) I am working on changing my beliefs and my expectations. The ugly S encounter last year that ended up in D&D, crash and burn, lies and torment is behind me, and I have grown from it.
The truth is, I am changed by this. I feel stronger. I know the knowledge I have gained is helping me. Thank God this site keeps us informed and vigilant. (NOT HYPER-vigilant like I was for months after the quick discard from the S. No, just a healthy level of intelligent awareness now!
I remember writing and sharing my story last year here. In a warm and understanding response from Donna, she congratulated me for the healing I had done at that time. (Others did too as my post was read for which I remain grateful). But, I didn’t feel very healed at that time actually but now I look back at how the sharing I did by writing down my experience WAS PART of the healing.
We do grow as we share and compare, listen and support, love and return to faith. That has happened in my life. So, by sharing this, perhaps there is a ray of light for others to see in these few thoughts I am sharing here.
The topic of the article up there, way, way above this response (^^) struck home (ouch). I was abused by a self-absorbed parent (Borderline anger craziness) while growing up. I completely agree it leaves us open to further abuse… until the time comes when we accept we are (sometimes in an understandably “blind” way) a part of the cycle, and ultimately have the ability to break free!
I am now approaching life with this new knowledge. Not just my relationships, but in the work area too! I have come to realize that the owner of the company I had worked for (that did a complete about face and D&D’d me in the most unpleasant way back in November when I was let go) was run by a full-fledged S! (I think the difficult but golden growth I went through after the abusive, overly wealthy, seductive, humble, glib, self-centered, sex-addicted, lying S last summer finally helped to make me stick up for myself more at work this past fall.)
As a result of my new self-protection, I was (and am) no longer willing to put up with illogical abuse at work or in relationships I will be careful now in the future who I work for, how I am treated and how I present myself. Shame at the core of this is being transformed. In its absence, more chances to be close to God, to have deeper faith in my heart and much less hurt as days go by! Check out the evidence, not just my words but many others here as well!
Change tribe, CHANGE!
Drawing a big heart here,
PressEject
“Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off . . .”
Regardless of our political views, we should smell the scent of hope in the air and choose to feel invigorated in the face of change.
Rune,
Rune, LOL, I feel like I do that everyday !!
Speaking ov TV shows…..the XS/P thinks the show “Burn Notice” is about him…. (you know the x gov’t agent whose identity was erased). He also thinks the movie with Pierce Brosnan as the hit man is about him. He cried in the movie theater when he blew up the car on the street. Leaned over and told me “that’s exactly what it was like”.
And he told me I was insane.
Dear Presseject,
Glad to see you back here and in such a positive frame of mind! TOWANDA!!!!
I can’t tell you how much it means to know the REST of the success story rather than just have some one “fade away” and never know what happened to them.
Good luck on your job search!!!
Dear Donna,
This is one I have to read and re read to let it soak in.
Once again, I have seen my life on a Love Fraud post. I read these post’sand have respond every now and the. I always get great feedback, feel comfort, feel like I am part of in stead of a freak. Then I feel a sence of peace. Then I do fine for a while after I label myself as “HEALED”. Then the slightest thing..like seeing the mountains while watching “pay it forward” brings it all back. Then I am right back to wondering what the hell happened, right back to wanting to call and promise my ex to try harder.
I have from the first moment everything went a rye, wanted an explaination. An explaination for his behavior, an explaination for my behavior. I wanted someone to tell me “WHY” things got so bad.
Could your post maybe be my anwser. I never viewed my bare butt spankings, whippings with belts, wooden spoons, blackjacks(spoon shaped hunk of metal wraped in leather) rulers as “corporal Punishment. I never associated the word humiliation with having my pants ripped down off my waist in front of friends, family members and even strangers in my home and out in public, soap cramed in my mouth,having to go to school in dirty clothes,having to take baths with my father when I was in grade school,being MADE to sit on top of my father while he layed on his bed as he made me scratch his back and his chest. I used to tell my self my mom did not know. She never paid attention. I told myself it was because she was hard of hearing and that she just must not have heard what was happening. She often par took in the discipline. I alway thought they did it because I was a ungrateful child, I was a selfish child, I did not listen, I did not obey…..isent that what happens to all bad kids.
When I read
“covert/overt coercion, manipulation, blackmail.it took my breath away…is that what they did then to me so I would behave, become invisable, seen not heard…they did not even want to see me.
Is that why I did not flinch when things got bad..in my marriage ….was it the same thing all over again. Blackmail, coercion, manipulation so I would listen, obey, be invisiable except for when I was needed to fufill a need.
I may not be the worlds best speller but I am not a idiot.
How could I possibly have gotten to a place where I was ok with being treated subhuman….I said nothing, I did nothing except to make sure I did not cause any problems, any stress anticipate any and every possible need, want before they even knew what they wanted.
When I was little I always ran away when it got bad. Then when I would get caught and they were trying to decide if I would be put into a foster home (my possible chance for a real life) I would beg to go back home. Home to a place where I was insignifiant.
I was recent able to escape from my husband. 2000 miles away, safe and all I could and at times all I still think about is how I could do better so I could go back and beg him to let me back home……..How F’ed Up is that.
Some times I am afraid to look at this sight…I was always afraid that someday I might see “the truth” in a post.
I think I just may have seen my truth.
So, now what? I can not change my past.
How do I make it all better? How do I go forward instead of back?
Take Care to all.
Rune–I agree with Oxy, that those chills are part of our intuition, which is more reliable than WORDS spoken by anyone. I think alot of us have had our intuition belittled or confused in childhood or somewhere down the line, so that we learned not to pay attention to the little signs.
But as you (and the Pres.) said, we must pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off.
I’m trying to be true to my intuition which is screaming to me–“Be a mom–enjoy your kids while they’re young. They’ll be gone soon.” You see, I want to work part-time so I can be a part of my kids’ lives. But I am the sole support for my 3 kids. My intuition is screaming, but so is my family, who tells me they think I should find a new full time job. (my internalized parents are yelling at me too) That sounds logical and immensely safer financially. But I would “just die” if I wasn’t able to mother my children. So I’m trying to be true to me. ME. What a concept for us, huh?
Molly—
I’m so glad you saw this thread. What you wrote about your childhood tells me you were abused and it has affected your entire life. That’s hard to believe, isn’t it? It was for me, when I first realized it for me. I just thought it was normal. Here are some quotes from the book The Betrayal Bond. This book helped me understand HOW I got this way. The trauma has become part of our neurological system.
When Children are Faced with Terror
Trauma bonding for children appears to be more severe. First, they are experiencing their primary attachments. If they experience terror in those relationships, the mind creates deep patterns and scripts. Relationships with primary caregivers create a relationship template that will be used across a lifetime. Further, children who experience traumatic bonding often exhibit the following:
•they experience significant biochemical changes in norepinephrine, dopamine, serotonin and endogenous opioids because of stress depletion, and their needs now exceed their ability to produce.
•They respond in hyperreactive fashion.
•They may only remember their emotional reactions and not the actual events because of the insufficient maturation of brain function.
Here are some things we learned to do as kids to adapt/survive with our parents. You said you learned not to cause problems and to anticipate their every need. From The Betrayal Bond:
Compulsive focus on the abuser—for survival’s sake, the child becomes an “expert” on the abuser. What the child wants or needs become subservient to the caregiver’s moods. Thus the child loses the sense of self and identifies with the source of fear. As an adult, the person will obsess about anyone with power over her and do whatever she can to control what happens.
Compulsive self-reliance—the child will become excessively self-reliant. No needs are expresses. No help is asked or accepted. All affection and closeness are avoided. As an adult the victim will use self-sufficiency as a defense against needing others.
Compulsive caregiving—Priority is placed on the needs of the others, with feelings of martyrdom and resentment resulting. Self-sacrifice goes to the extreme. Care is supplied whether requested or not, whether needed or not. As adults, victims become burdensome and easily exploitable.
Compulsive compliance—this is a placating stance in which being extremely agreeable provides protection from more abuse. No wish is challenged. Resistance is token. No boundaries exist. As adults, these people commit to things they do not wish to do, provide information they should not provide, and do things that are self-destructive, uncomfortable or dangerous simply because someone asked them.
Compulsive identification with others—this person can easily be sold a “bill of goods.” He or she has instant sympathy for even the most patent lies, tales of insanity, stories of hardship and seduction strategies. Victim may even have the capacity to see through the seduction, but in the presence of the perpetrator they get carried away by the story. Their gullibility produces personal loss and constant chaos. They are especially irritating to others because they will never negotiate on their own behalf.
Compulsive reality distortion-the victim will persist in not seeing abuse as abuse. Excuses, rationalization, minimization and other defenses combine to allow the endurance of more pain and exploitation. In part, this comes from the deep wish that the story or promise of the perpetrator be true. In adults, it means ignoring the obvious.
Compulsive abuse seeking—the victim sets up relations to repeat the same patterns of abuse. This creates familiar binds, neurochemistry and coping strategies. For a relationship to work, it must comply with the original abuse scenario. What can vary if the amount of risk and intensity.
Sound familiar? It’s just that the behavior that was positive as a child and helped us survive, now is maladaptive—it isn’t good for us as adults. But we are blind to this because it’s become part of our brain/neurological system.
But now we are CONSCIOUS of this. So NOW the change can start. Slowly. With lots of compassion for ourselves. Great compassion for that little girl treated so badly. Please love that little girl, the 3 year old, the 4 year old, the 5 year old, the 6 year old, and so on, until today!!!!
I’ll write some more tomorrow about suggestions from this wonderful book. Best wishes and congratulations for how far you’ve come!!! You’re ready for more healing!
Dear Pearl,
I can not tell you how much your post means to me. While it brings many tears to my eye’s…it seems as if I have finally found “MY TRUTH”. You could post my picture as a child and a adult with all these selfdestructive behaviors. They are and have been me for all of my life. I always wanted to ask my parents “why”, but knew I would never get a anwser. I always wanted to ask my husband “why”, but knew I would never get a anwser. Strange as it may sound…I think I NOW have my anwser. Now I just have to figure out what I am going to do with the truth. That in and of it’s self scares me. But I figure, if I was strong enough to get through what I have “gotten through”, I can muster up the strength to have a “new life” a “real life”, not the life that I excepted as being all that God wanted me to have. I always thought I was being selfish for wanting more. I thought that I was being ungraetful for what I had…there were so many people who had no one, so how could I criticize the people that were placed into my life. I can totally relate to each and everyone of the paragraphs above. As a child and recently in my marriage.
As I said before, now I have to figure out what to do. I have no insurance for counseling. I have talked with a few people on a sliding fee basis…but it did not seem as if they got the whole abuse thing as I had not been hit (YET) and I did not know how to name what was going on inside of me. I went to them so they could tell me..lol
Thank you for giving me a place to start.
Thank you for now helping me to believe in the saying”seeining the light at the end of the tunnel.
Before, I always looked down the tunnel with a flash light, not seeing but believing that there would be a light. But because I always believed others and found that what I was told was a lie…I did not have much hope…I just kept trying anyway..
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.
Molly
Dear Molly,
Yes, that book sure sets out the “way it is” for many of us, doesn’t it.
Not being able to afford counseling is not necessarily a bad thing…you do have some of the BEST counselors in the world right here on lovefraud who DO GET IT and there are quite a few good books like the Betrayl Bond which will let us get an “ah ha” moment.
As Kathy and I have been discussing on another thread, healing is individual to some extent because of where each of us is coming from and our particular resources, but there are also some patterns in there too, that are alike among us.
I see so much of myself in the BEtrayal Bond but have also been reading on on controlling parents, and there are ways of being an abusive controlling parent, VERY abusive and never even hitting the child that accomplsihes the betrayal bond just as well.I kept focusing on this particular article of Pearl’s and I just didn’t “get it” that the few “switchings” I got were a problem for me, and I don’t think they ever were, but it was the EMOTIONAL (not physical) beatings that terrorized me. The ONE time my mother “lost it” and did truly BEAT me, I was 15, and the DAMAGE her emotional abuse did was done WELL BEFORE I started school I think.
Healing is a journey, not a destination, and we take one step at a time, the rest of our lives, but each day we get a bit closer to where we want to be, down that long dark tunnel until we CAN not only see the “light” at the end, but emerge into the SUNSHINE! You are on your way, Molly, hang tough and put one foot in front of the other!! TOWANDA!!! (((Hugs)))) God bless you!