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- Barriers in the mind keep us from learning new information, putting it to good use, and shedding old, outdated behaviors.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.
I know. Sounds wonderful to me too. I’m grateful for this place, but wish we could come down the wires to meet each other and gab over a cup of coffee. Wouldn’t it be fun if we could teleport?
KH: The closest thing I’ve found to teleportation lately is at http://www.dimdim.com. An interesting medium.
I like your vision of your daily life. Thank you for articulating it.
Kathleen Hawk-
Just quickly read thru some posts. Your World of Warcraft guy sounds exactly like mine. Please just be careful.. Do not fall for the pity party or “You don’t listen to me.” It is a way of controlling you. Manipulating you. His life is the way it is because of how he mistreats people and then does not take responsibility for it. Someone is being dependable or not– don’t listen to his words and personal probs. All a way of controlling you and getting away with behaviour that would get the rest of us fired.
Kathleen–
I was a music therapist in an assisted living (unfortunately that’s how he spotted me!)– anyway– I used to get my residents together and put on little dances and play piano and sing for them and then ask them to critique it. It was wonderful!!!! Esp with my artistic residents– a blast! We would talk about old movie stars/musicals- and I used to wish that I would have an assisted living for just such residents.
Love your idea too!
Okay guys–
How do I forgive my Catholic parents who thirty something years ago were ridiculous in their discipline with me- which obviously set me up to be with a damned P??????
you know– I love my dad– he is wonderful, but I think that the only time he touched me was when he hit me!!!! How sick is that? Can anyone else relate?
akitameg–
My father never touched me after about age 5 except to whip me. (he used to swing me around when I was a toddler, which I loved) I never thought about it that way, but when you put like that, it is sick–never touched his only daughter (or his sons) except to hit them. It’s also sick how we come to believe in the normalcy of our childhood and we become blind to how it impacts us.
DEar Akitameg,
Question?: “How do I forgive my Catholic parents……..?”
I am assuming that your parents are not Ps and were simply parenting the way they had been told was the “right” way to parent, but that they loved you. IMHO I would “accept” that they did what they THOUGHT was right, i.e. they made a MISTAKE because they acted on “bad information” that they got from THEIR parents.
By ACCEPTING that they acted on bad information, but their intentions were good, I would be able to feel some empathy for them and actually not be angry at or distrusting of them in the future.
We all act at times on “bad information” that we have accepted as TRUE information. When we do this, we make mistakes. TRUE MISTAKES, not INTENTIONAL BAD ACTIONS.
I can draw a line between true mistakes (acting with good intentions, but with flawed concepts or bad information) and the INTENTIONAL BAD ACTIONS, where the person acts, knowing it is WRONG and they are INTENDING to hurt someone, or they may not specifically be intending to hurt, but they KNOW it WILL HURT and DONT CARE.
Forgiving true mistakes for me is not a big problem. My son C, did some things that were very hurtful to me, but he was acting on BAD INFORMATION, he was collateral damage to the P wife of his, and my enabling mother, and his “Friend” the Trojan Horse P, and his brother my P-son—-so when he SAW THE LIGHT and apologized to me for his actions, I totally forgave him, accepted why he had acted like he had (bad information) and my trust was restored to him. I have no doubt that he will ever mistrust me again or behave in any way that is deliberately wrong. He may again behave in a way that shows he has “bad information” but he will discuss it with me rather than withdraw.
We all make mistakes and act on “bad information”–God knows I have, we believe the LIES, and act on it. Look at Eve in the garden of Eden, she believed the LIE, acted on it, and the “fall of mankind” resulted.
I acted on “bad information” when I fell for the X-BF-P, I believed his lies and brushed away the truth (the red flags) as long as I could. Now, I know the truth, and I am acting on the truth (at least were he is concerned).
Sure, I am 100% responsible for what happens to me, because even if I act on “bad information” it is my choice to do so. That does not, however, take away the BLAME from the person who gave me the bad information (the lies). I am responsible, and they are to blame. If that makes any sense. I do not deserve to be lied to and/or abused, but I allowed it.
I will do my best to seek and act on GOOD INFORMATION in the future. My choices for information will become more discriminating. I will not just take someone’s word for the quality of the information.
I realize that people with GOOD intentions can act on bad information and still be very damaging to my life. People with BAD intentions ARE always damaging to my life. My task is to delete all the peopole with bad intentions OUT of my life, and pick and choose those with Good intentions and BAD INFORMATION and decide if I want them in my life either.
In the case of your parents, I would go with how they treat you NOW, forgive them (get the bitterness out of your heart against their behavior acting on bad information) and just love them. I wish I could do that with my mother, because in many ways she was acting on bad information, but she has come to the point that though she is a victim (dupe) of my P son herself, she was/is actively TRYING TO HURT ME (in order to “defend” him).
Molly–how are you? What’s going on with you?
Oxy–I like your phrase: “delete all the people with bad intentions OUT of my life, and pick and choose those with Good intentions and Bad Information and decide if I want them in my life”
That’s good advice!!
Pearl and akitameg:
My parents also never touched me except to beat me. I got so conditioned to the abuse that if they even made a gesture to touch me I’d flinch and pull back.
These days I know that they can’t hurt me physically. I do the air-kiss thing quite nicely.
But forgive them? Not in this lifetime. I’m not willing to give them the chance to cause any more destruction in my life.