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- Barriers in the mind keep us from learning new information, putting it to good use, and shedding old, outdated behaviors.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.
James: Grounded should have been my middle name. (LOL). I was always grounded for kicking my feet under the front seat where my brother sat in between my parents while we were driving in the car. He got to sit in the front seat with my parents, and the 3 girls sat in the back. I felt that since I was the youngest, I should have the front seat and he should be in the back seat with the other 2 older siblings. No! I had to sit in the back seat …so I was always kicking my feet under my brother who was sitting in front of me (go figure, I was always stuck in the middle of the back seat … no window seat – ever! Of course my parents would just talk in the air … saying over and over again “you better stop that fusing in the back seat, we’re driving on the road here! I’d stop for a while, but I just couldn’t get it in my head that I should be in the front seat with my parents … so kick my feet under my brothers seat I would. My father would talk to the air again …”if I have to pull this car over … someone is gong to be grounded! Yeah, right, like I’m invisible … well, he never mentioned who that someone was who was going to be grounded (LOL) … there was 3 of us in the backseat. I’d stop, then start up again, stop, start up again. My father would pull to the side of the road and turn around and say “Wini, that’s a week in your room”. I’d look at him dumbfounded … like, how did you know it was me, there are 3 of us sitting back here? Daaaaaaa … My 2 sisters would sit there and smile … like you dummy, you never learn.
I had more friends standing below my bedroom window … telling me they were about to play baseball or do this or do that … and how long are you grounded for this time Wini? They’d stand there for a half hour or so, just having conversations with me … until my mom would talk into the air again “who are you talking with Wini, there better not be anyone in that room with you”. Of course my friends would say “well, we gotta go”.
I must have been 5 or 6 at the time.
Ghee, I knew every square inch of my room by the time I was 6.
eyeswideshut
There is a really good book about this topic “Shame” called:
No Place to Hide
Facing Shame so we can find self-respect
by Michael P. Nichols Ph.D.
Shame is something we all have because we are taught shame. It’s unavoidable in fact it’s part of being human. The book tries to explain how to understand and live with ours shame. I am not finish reading the book yet but from what I have read it makes a lot of sense and answers so many questions I had about my own shame and how to deal with it..
One insight from this book was when the author wrote the different between guilt and shame.
He wrote:
“Guilt is what we have done but shame is who we are“.
I remember reading this and never forgot it! It help me understand that my shame is part of me unlike guilt which is forgotten over a period of time..
Good blog. An energy healer I know says that the eyes are part of the brain matter. Check out this picture. Does it remind you of someone else? What did this person have locked into his brain?
http://www.mtexpress.com/index2.php?ID=2005124282
And then, what happend because of the patterns locked into his brain.
Justabouthealed and all,
Doll, there wasn’t any love to win back now was there?
If you’ve read enough on LF you should realize by now that PDIs DON’T love anyone, not even themselves. Oh, they are self serving, self absorbed but I consider that a primitive survival instinct, not necessarily real respect and love for oneself.
I don’t think we should be so stubborn, so intent on yearning for the fantasy, an empty hollow fantasy at that but instead directing our focus on reality.
Being a die-hard reality oriented woman has saved my butt tremendous heartache. Keeps me grounded, sane and alert to any bullchit aimed towards me.
I will say it again for me as well as you folks, but learning to self validate yourself, to appreciate your own opinions, ideas/ideals and beliefs without seeking confirmation from any other human being, is absolutely fundamental in reaching that excellent plateau of undeniable confidence and self-possession.
I’m not spouting literature I’ve read or giving you lip service; I truly live my life according to what I say here on LF.
Yes, it’s taken years of constant introspective work, deprogramming myself from the damage of childhood, past destructive involvements with friends, family and lovers, the whole kit and kaboodle.
I’m also at a wonderful age where I simply don’t give a crap what others think or feel about me. Who cares? No time or energy for brooding over such nonsense. I like me though thankfully I have enough emotional, psychological, and spiritual depth to not fall in love with myself. Will never happen.
Right on Janie, isn’t it wonderful to be at an age where you don’t worry if your “hemline is straight” or if there is a curl out of place or your lipstick is on straight? LOL I can remember when I stood in front of the mirror for an hour or two a day just doing the hair and make up…JUST SO…before I would take out the trash! LOL
There’s a cute little book by an older female MD (can’t remember her name) called “Crones Don’t Whine” and is for JUICY older women who have earned the title “Crones”–which means “wiser older woman” and we should be PROUD to wear the title! Until recently I think I just got the older part right, now I am working on the WISER part! LOL Life is good, P-FREE AND GREAT!!!
Oxybodacious,
Yes! Aint’ it the truth!?…haha.
Though I can’t survive without my Burt Bees slightly pinkly colored lip protectant. Jupiter’s Moons do I go through tubes of that stuff! 😛
And, sweetheart, you are much more wiser than you give yourself credit for. Don’t you read all the glowing, appreciative comments written to you?
So humble and so endearing you are, my lovely padawan crone! *I love the yoda speak, can’t ya tell?*
Dear Janie,
Yes, I love the positive feed back and it helps me on those days I feel pretty dumbo! There are people on here to whom I feel very bonded—In the Betrayal Bond (book) it talks about how we are more bonded to people who have been through trauma with us—llike soldiers bond to each other in combat and stay connected for their entire lives. I had noticed that I felt closer to people that had been “through the fire” with me in times of crisis, at deaths in the family and other bad times…more so than those that I had “partied” with in happier times, and that book explained my feelings and the whys.
Yes, I love being a crone and not having to worry about being “on stage” any more, just being me—a slightly daffy crone! Okaaaaay, I admit, a VERY DAFFY crone!
Yes, Oxydarling, there are many wonderful bonds that have been created on this most essential website.
Why do you think I keep coming back? Well, I never really left just kept up to date on the articles and comments.
And there ain’t no way in heathers that you could ever be called a dumbo or daffy. EVER!
Ok….where’s my skillet at?!
**BOINK on Oxy’s gorgeous, highly intelligent, wise, loving, kind, compassionate and generous head**
Ouch!!! You’re pretty handy with the skillet, Janie! LOL xoxoxox
Pearl,
I can relate to “a parent being insensitive to suffering.” I was raised by my Dad that I adore, I guess out of loyalty, and my Step Mom (since I was 3.5 yrs) whom I can’t recall ever nuturing me as a human being… no praise, no kisses for Boo-boos… the standard answer was “you’ll live” and when I really cracked emotionally, she would say, “Oh. let’s all feel sorry for E now!” We have a relationship now but it requires that I pretend that it wasn’t how it was. You know what I mean?
I am dating an old friend now and I noticed that more than anything, I crave to be held… and the attraction is that I feel safe and when I am sick, he takes my temperature 15 times… (He’s a Doctor so I think he’s actually having a bit of fun looking in my ears and all that.. haha.) But when I was a kid, no one paid much attention when I was sick. My Step-Mom tried to send me to school with Chicken Pocks when I stared feeling sick EXACTLY to the day of the incubation period (my little sister had them first). It was really stupid because I never tried to get out of school. I was not that kind of kid. It wasn’t until the end of the day when my parents came home and I was covered from head to toe with the tell tale pocks that it was acknowledged that I was sick.
As an adult, I have noticed that I have difficulty taking care of myself when I am sick. I don’t do much and I keep going to work and feel really torn about calling in sick when necessary. At the same time, I recall demanding my Dad go to the store and get me cough medicine once when I was a teen. I kept telling him I was in pain and he kept telling me to gargle with salt water. I finally said, “Dad, GO TO THE STORE AND GET ME COUGH MEDICINE… PLEEEEAASE!” This was unlike me to act like that but I think he realized he was being lazy. It’s sad to me that I had to make a DEMAND that they take care of me.
However, I am still a very nurturing person. You can’t supress what just IS.
:o)
Aloha