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- Barriers in the mind keep us from learning new information, putting it to good use, and shedding old, outdated behaviors.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.
there are a couple of articles i want to respond to this am – let’s see if i can.
i pulled this one up last week because the content spoke to me. there are so many pieces in this puzzle.
I wrote this to a friend yesterday (who thought i should ‘meet’ someone online who she knew. umm. no.)
“…..the kinda trust you are talking about and what was affected for me with the spath are two diff things – on XXXX webiste we were working whether or not to trust other peoples judgment and medical knowledge – isn’t that the case? i may be wrong, if i am let me know.
you see – there was something WRONG with my trust to begin with. the bitch just made it really obvious.
i don’t need any more leaps at anything, over anything around anything. i am inherently a risk taker – but it is somehow not quite right – something is just a bit off- if i can learn about that in my time – that will stand me in good stead when i want to try again. but that work is where i want to go. i want myself more than i want anyone else.”
Trust – and my ability to bond where it is good and corporal punishment, shame:
my mom was an enraged woman. i felt this from an early age. when i was really little i remember her showing me things – how to do things and she had a good feel for being in nature. but she was also very distant. at a really young age, my most remembered image is of her reading the newspaper.
she grew up in a highly dysfunctional home. her dad – who she is delusionally enamored of till this day – was an abusive alcoholic. beat her mother and brother. infidelity after infidelity. i don’t know much about him. think he was a self medicating depressive – but he and his actions are a legacy in my family. my mom told me this story when i was about 10 or 11:
my mom had a breakdown at 16 – and was hospitalized far from her family (she doesn’t cop to the breakdown, says it was some other illness) and she went away to school at 17.
and while she was gone – in the first month, her father tried to kill her mother. and her brother, protecting their mother, shot and killed their father.
she told me this story when i was 10 or 11 – with little inflection and no context for his actions or those of my beloved uncle. it never made me afraid of my uncle – it was not real to me, it was not rooted in feelings or real life or ANYTHING to me. Mu grandma had remarried and that man, was always my grnadfather and although when i was young i found him alien (BIG dude with aviator shades…and we musn’t have seen them much when i was really little as my mom was still taking a lot of space from her mom), he was a good man, who my grandmother had a very good life with.
there is a real emotional disconnect around this story; and not until about 5 years ago did my gram (alive and only slightly demented @93) and i talk about the details of that day – and the emotional connect was made for me. it is in the image of him having her neck in the crook of his arm, ready to snap her neck. i have been in a hold that was threatening, and have done enough martial art training – i can FEEL this and I understand the story now.
my mom still blames my grandmother for her dad’s actions. amazing. still. and as she has lost more and more cognitive ability she lives in this land of missing and loving her father – and my dad’s incestuous prick of a father- oh, yes NORMALIZE THE ODD AND ABUSIVE AND BOUNDARY DESTROYING AND YOU NEVER HAVE TO OVERTLY ABUSE YOUR CHILDREN TO INJURE THEIR COMPASS.
she used to slam doors and the like when she was angry with my dad. she lived with chronic physical pain by the time i was 8, and THAT functioned like alcoholism in my family.
she was gone for a while – over a year – injured in an accident (almost every moment that i write my personal details here i am aware that the spath may find her way here and know me. i sure would like to hear from others how they handle this fear. i keep seeing a change of screen names every month -)
when mom came back …i can’t write the details of this. too much for one day.
she was intrusive, raging, in pain, out of control, and medicated to the eyeballs. and we had been alone, fending for ourselves with our emotionally corrupt father. (corrupt as in corrupt hard drive – whole sectors non fucntional) and she stayed that way for years and years.
when i did stuff as a teen that were out of order she punished me in ways that were out of order and NEVER was there conversation – never could i bring something to her. i remember her asking me if i was a virgin. i lied. i no stupid. she asked again. i told the truth. i had no boundaries. she looked at me, said, ‘i thought so’ and got up and left the room.
????? the ONLY time i felt that i had their ‘ear’ as a teen was when i ran awya from home, and was gone for a month – the NC was VERY good for me.
and here i am going NC again – at 49.
i felt very unsafe with my mom. i got tough ‘ish’ early on – figured out how to survive in that mess of a family. WHICH MEANT I HAD TO TURN MYSELF INSIDE OUT. she was horribly intrusive in creepy ways. wanting to know private details, never really talking to me. was like she just needed the info to feel ‘right’ and safe…but she didn’t know what to do with it or me.
she didn’t talke to her own mother…and still doens’t. she was all about keepign the lid on an dhiding htings. she didn’t know what to do with children. she loved us – i felt lots of loving moments with her – but i had no defence against her as a child and teen – she was so fearful, so emotionally retarded and distorted that she was raging and rigid most of the time. and stoned. waaaay stoned.
i survived by running away, doing drugs to create a skin for my ‘self’ – a barrier to ‘protect’ me from the constant boundary assualts-, and by distorting myself…and by leaving home and moving 3500 miles away.
my dad was of better humor, but no more functional…especially now.
okay, all for now for this one.
geminigirl: I enjoyed the additional quotes and literary humor from the Wilde man — you earned an “Oscar” for that zany list! LOL
reading the above i see huge gaps and unexplained and diminished things. all up in the head and running from. 🙁 but that’s okay, i gave it a shot and i will be able to do more another day.
and i see my ex gf N in my description of my mom as:’ i felt lots of loving moments with her ”“ but i had no defense against her as a child and teen ”“ she was so fearful, so emotionally retarded and distorted that she was raging and rigid most of the time.’
one step
Thank you so much for this article, Donna and this site!
I have just been the victim (emotionally only, thank god) of someone who I feel is a sociopath and everything that I’ve just read has been amazing (if painful) for me! I am going to rush out and get the books mentioned.
Anyway, like someone who posted here said (not sure who) I was ripe for the picking and it is ironic that meeting this man has lead me to really look at my dysfunctions! So, in a way, he was a blessing! Albeit, now I HAVE to start to heal myself, and at 48, it just seems so hard!
I, too, had a very bleak childhood. Sexually molested at 5, beaten almost every day by a rage filled father. No real affection at all. Shame and guilt were all I knew. I also learned to “deny” the pain and defy my parents. Which only led to more pain, believe me. I, now, cannot have a healthy long term relationship, nor hold down a job! I barely make ends meet and just feel so worthless! This man came along and had money etc…and I thought he was my knight in shining armor!
But I digress. I want to thank everyone on this site! I now am going to move forward to try to get some healing done! If for no other reason to no longer be a victim!
Oh, and another thing some of you may want to look into regarding childhood trauma (if you haven’t already) is attachment disorders. I also just found out about this and realize I have a definite disorder due to my childhood. This is very helpful for me in getting help and knowing what my issues are.
May we all find peace!
Thanks!
‘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 hope so.
I think I have hit a bit of a hiatus after the epiphany of this realisation… although I am sure I will get through it.x
Oxy what you wrote above on the 8th of January 1.13 was uncomfortable for me. (don’t you dare appologise!x I am glad you share so honestly and openly – kay?) My sister and I learnt at an age that is too young to remember that if you give a good performance of screaming and crying and pleading when beaten and being quiet and passive when abused they are satisfied sooner and leave you alone. so we did. Sick. I cant stand it. I hate that I am like that: a pretender, a performer, to appease and placate…
I have been wrestling with the fall out from meeting the sociopath more than the man himself. Looking at ‘the source’ of my behaviour and the rational I used to make his okay has opened a can of worms for me that I probably needed to but am struggling with.
At the moment cant (and try not to) speak about the woman who gave birth to me without feeling anger that I have NEVER before experienced. Its terrible.
I’ve read great books and great blogs and theory’s and self helps and I have gained loads of brilliant information and insight not least from you guys and I am not obsessing all the time, can banish the toxics from occupying my daily thoughts,enjoying my new job, trying to be mindful of my reactions and choices, and my everyday life gets a little bit better, really. but if I go down the road of thinking or speaking about it my reaction is big, off the chart, and nothing like it was before… even when she was in my life.
I havent been here for ages and I am sorry if this sounds a bit dark, and horrible.x
Off to read posts:)x
Thanks for being here LF:)
Wow.
So this one got me.
The root of it all is the blinding subconcious memories of shame and humiliation and of not being given a chance to develop healthily as a child.
OOOWCH.
Yeah, I get it.
Its how the animal found me. He coud see that particular fear and longing for the protection and validation.
Made me a perfect candidate for you and me against the world and a siren courtship.
Women fall with their ears and I heard everything I’d ever wished for.
How easy was it to fall hard, and fast?
Well, there it is.
He didn’t take my power by lying. He will in the end have given me his because the truth will out and the one who lies, becomes a slave to they he has lied to. My strength is increased by all this. Maybe not the way I would have asked for it, but it is the truth of the result.
The accounting will be on his side of the ledger.
This changed everything for me.
Now, I get it.
Wow.
I think I can hand away the skillet, I just found my power.
Ever read Don Miguel Ruiz’s Four Agreements? There is a part in the back called the Angel of Death Test. It asks if you were going to die in a week, what would you do before that?
Six weeks ago when a certain someone got hauled out of my living room, I could not answer that Angel’s Question. I was stunned, frightened, shocked and frozen in anguish.
Now, I would tell that Angel I would live as a woman in touch with her own power who as of the very moment has released the insecurity that blindness creates and enjoy the next few mentally healthy days of my life as though they were the first in many,many years.
Wow.
Dear Silver Moon!!!
Wonderful!! TOWANDA for you!!! KNOWLEDGE=POWER!!! You are on your way my dear!@....... (((hugs)))) And you stay on that road to healing and power or I’ll get the skillet after you!!! xoxox Oxy
OX,
The first step of healing is to commit yourself that is what you choose.
Its different to want to find help for a problem than to want sympathy for having it- NO?
So I know what hit me. I understand what I saw that was attractive and I understand why I didn’t see the loose ends the way other people did.
How does trauma therapy work for recovery- anythng like it does for people who fall off horses?
What if I want to restructure body memory? Anyone ever try that?
Silvermoon
Hello Blueskies – Your above post had some comments that sounded like they came from me. about meeting the sociopath more than the man himself. and your inability too speak of your mother. and you seem so grounded now and stronger and more confidant..good post. henry
I was whipped/spanked as a child for punishment-always on bare skin with my pants pulled down. Mom let me have it with a “switch” that she broke off a tree in the yard. Dad let me have it with his belt. I can still winch when I flash back to those moments as child. The thing that was so horrible to me was going into full blown puberty at age 10-with breasts and menstruation and everything. Do you know what it feels like then, to have your father pull down your pants and then hit the hell out of you? That stage in my life was when I was the most self conscious and modesty was extremely important. It hurt me SO bad emotionally. I don’t know how it connects to me being a target for sociopaths but I guess it can.