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- Barriers in the mind keep us from learning new information, putting it to good use, and shedding old, outdated behaviors.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.
PS “IF you had controlling parents” …I think that was the name of it…helped me, but Betrayal Bond really helped me even more.
JAH, oh dear, that probably wasn’t the right thing for me to write, when you’re going through this.
I had such a good time writing it that it was until I hit the “post” button that it occurred to me that everyone might not find it so amusing.
JAH, I’m sorry about your mother and that you have to go through all this. You sound like you could use a break. Or a change of environment. Is your work the kind you could do on a laptop at Starbucks? It’s sometimes as good as a vacation for me to get out of the house.
Matt
I just read the end of your post about you feeling one emotion when you put your parents in the ground, and that was relief. You are the only other person on God’s green earth besides myself I have known to have said that! I get so much grief because I have said the same thing. My dad isnt so bad as my mom but I have been able to forgive him for all the crap because in his old age he wont say it out loud but he gives me enough signals that he is sorry and I let him have the little pride left he has in his life. My mother on the other hand, is the the biggest problem still in our family(if u call it that) and now to the third generation! I moved an hour away trying to get peace and where I am from, an hour is like being on the opposite coast of the world. She thinks she is doing so good with her co-dependant/enabling ways by helping as she calls it!!! Im so sick of cleaning up her messes. The latest issue was my youngest sisters alcoholism and she was concerned about her two yr old son that was being neglected. Of course she called me and I stepped in. I was awarded temporary custody of the child and it was very apparent he was mentally and physically behind at 2 yrs old. In a day and a half i had him in a daycare that was in the top 6% in the country, got him on a schedule and he actually started to speak at two yrs old. he flourished for the eight months i had him. My mom after asking me for help started leaving voice mails on my phone saying it was wrong of me to keep my sister from her son blah blah blah and covering up for her. Ultimately the last time we went to court my mother said she would provide for my sis and her son until they got on their feet! Little did they know she has been providing for her for 12 yrs.. (the babys father is in prison by the way) but nothing I said, letters I had, kept the kid in my care. The system sucks! But I guess I learned a lesson in that too. Im still the “fixer” my family taught me to be. so i too was the perfect target for my sociopath! but this is what i am learning……….YOU CAN”T FIX WHATS NOT BROKEN TO SOMEONE ELSE!!!
In my case “The pot was already cracked when I bought it” but if I turned the pot around until I didn’t notice the crack it was a beautiful pot. So when I ignored the flaw in the pot the more convinced I was it wasn’t broken, just a slight flaw that does not take away from it’s overall beauty. But the crack just got bigger until I could no longer turn the pot around and hide the fact, the pot is flawed all around. Even with all my super glue the pot was cracked when I bought it. And I am soooo out of super glue!!!
JAH: I’m sorry for your additional trauma. But, I’ve read of many “paths to enlightenment,” and unimagineable trauma is one of them. As you go through the next hours and days, you must know that the LF community is here, understanding, and ready to support you. You’re entitled to all your mixed feelings. And you’re being such a hero as you take each step.
Dear Matt, I am reading both “If you had controlling Parents” and the “Betrayal Bond”—-I put them aside last night to read a novel, and had a great day yesterday working outside in the sunshine.
I think sometimes we need to BALANCE our thinking, working, and reading on “the subject” with other things not quite so deep, while we “process” the things we have read. Information has been coming in so RAPIDLY lately with so MANY “AH HAs” that Ihave sort of had to take some time to “process” and THINK without getting a great deal more of NEW information.
Henry, the “flaw” you spotted in the pot, I think you overlooked some BIG cracks in that one! LOL and I think we MANY OF US to some extent see some BIG cracks and think they are “small.” Some Ps have a good “coat of paint” over the cracks that make them difficult to see, but I can look back and realize that I saw some BIG cracks in several of my Ps that I trivalized and got out the “superglue” or the “paint” to cover up—not for them, but for myself because I didn’t want to admit my “pot was cracked.”
Dear JAH,
Losing a parent, even one to whom you are not close, does bring back some difficult thoughts. Assuming the Lord lets me live past my mother’s death, I have thought much about how I will react, but I won’t know really what it will do until I get there. God bless you and help you through the emotions her death will illicit.
Kathleen, Rune and OxDrover,First no apologies needed Kathleen. And thank you all for your support. Life seems to throw things at us in batches at times, I’m just going to rest today. Thank goodness for all of you.
If anything at all were possible, quickly, easily and now, what would your life look like?
Who would be in it?
What would you be doing?
Where would you be living?
The more we can imagine our lives to be how we truly desire them to be, the more likely we are to progress toward those desires. These questions help me to think outside of the box.
Thank you to everyone posting on this thread. I am you 🙂
Thanks for asking this question, Pearl. It may provide more of the future visions I’d hoped to find when I ask about goals in healing.
Here is what my life would look like.
It would be a writer’s life, spending maybe four hours a day working on a current project, another couple of hours compiling and editing poetry, and another hour or two dealing with correspondence and calls.
In addition to regular book projects, I’d have one or two magazines that regularly accepted reviews or thought pieces from me.
I’d live in an open space with big windows in a mid-sized city with a university and surrounded by some beautiful countryside. Not a lot of furniture or clothes. But a lot of book cases, files and good electronic equipment. I’d have a decent-sized kitchen with a couple of apothecary cabinets for vitamins, spices and remedies.
I’d have writer friends, as well as friends who are academics, activists and political people. We’d celebrate each other’s triumphs and support each other’s projects. I’d throw great dinner parties, and be invited to others. There would be a regular group of us who went to the theater, movies and readings together.
I’d get rid of the cars, and walk and bicycle everywhere (so it would have to be a pretty flat city).
Occasionally I’d travel to give seminars, or be one of the trainers in a weekend event on communication or personal development. Maybe, if I had the time, I’d have a few personal clients or a weekly group of people interested in personal development.
I’d have a smart and funny man who I saw once a week, and occasionally travelled with.
I’d dedicate at least two or three days a month to helping out a non-profit with work in the city, and I’d contribute money to a half a dozen others.
I’d find a church that agreed with me. (They do exist.)
At least once a year, I’d travel to somewhere I’ve never been before and spend at least a couple of weeks there.
I’d help to organize an assisted living community for aging writers, so I’d have someplace to go when it was too hard to live alone.
I guess that’s enough. I can’t believe how close some of this is, and how far away other parts are.
Just writing it makes one thing clear. I have to get more organized about this.
Thanks for asking.
Kathleen–I love your ideas on what your life will look like. I am inspired by your ideas to be sure to include more people in my future. (like you said– a regular group of us….) Sounds wonderful!