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- Barriers in the mind keep us from learning new information, putting it to good use, and shedding old, outdated behaviors.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.
My parents were emotionally cold and physically abusive as well … I have long since forgiven them and I understand that they probably didn’t have great role models either growing up.. I did understand how bad it made me feel in my growing years to be treated that way and I tried hard to be the opposite with my daughters… I feel like much more of a best friend to them than a mother figure…Not sure if that is the right way either, but they both have a very high self-esteem quite unlike the struggle I have had with mine all my life …. (which of course led to my way to long relationship with the X-S)
Aloha: I know what you mean about going in to work sick etc. You made me see it was from my childhood… Thanks for all your insightful and wise posts!
God Bless
Oops, miss a couple days and my post is up!
I was whipped as a child. We didn’t call it spanking. We didn’t think of it as hitting or abuse. It was whipping. Either a belt or a fresh switch was used. I remember having to pull my pants down for whippings, because it didn’t hurt enough with my pants or shorts on, my parents said.
It happened because we did something “wrong” like spill the milk or fidget in church. Now it seems crazy, but back then it was “normal.”
As a child, I considered whipping as the “tough” guy’s version of spanking. (Which, since I was a very young girl, was crazy.) Whipping was what my parents did. They took care of us. They made us go to Church. They even sent us to a private religious elementary school. And we got whippings.
So you see how twisted your reality becomes.
The Betrayal Bond puts it something like this:
Children presented with trauma are put into the universal bind. Do not see, hear, sense, fee or address what is real. Instead accept what is unreal in the interest of your survival. Disbelieve the obvious and accept the improbable. The bind is that the child is presented with only two options: (1) be overwhelmed with terror and not able to function, or (2) distort reality to survive.
These defenses are highly adaptive in childhood, because they let the child survive in an abusive family. In adulthood the defenses become maladaptive, because they prevent the survivor from accurately perceiving the presence or absence of abuse (or dishonesty).
I used denial to survive childhood and kept right on using it to deny the actions of my x. I believed what my x said; I didn’t see through his lies.
Is whipping considered “child abuse” ? I’m still not sure about that. My parents were/are misguided and have lots of other problems, but they were just doing the best they knew how.
Do mental health professionals consider whipping bare skin with a belt or switch (not just swatting with the palm of the hand) abuse?
Dear Pear et all,
I would most certainly think that the “whipping” you describe would today be considered child abuse.
Especially with the added humiliation of pulling down your undergarments. You are a strong one and a wise one and a survivor. Jane and Oxy and others , I look for your posts and read them knowing I will learn something all the time. Aloha, aloha to all.
In a recent post on this thread I questioned whether many of the SPN surviviors here were neglected or abused as kids, and these posts are certainly supporting that. I think that the P’s probably sense this or find out early in the relationship that we have been hurt in our early years and it is a terrific tool for them
It is very difficult to really escape the hurt of childhood and not pass any of the disfuntion on to our children.
I have conciously tried and changed almost everything about how I raised my kids, but my daughter who I had when I was 19 struggles with self esteem issues and has two kids with a nasty PSN posing as a starving artist.
My sons who I had when in my thirties, has a glorious childhood, I think, but in truth, the last many years I was not the mom I could or should have been in my struggles with the reality served me by the P and my inability to see a way out.
They are now young adults struglling to find their place as independant and productive adults in a difficult time, and faced with the war between their parents, and the reality of the lies heaped on all of us by their father, and the long term weakness of their mother.
In the end I think the path out of the pain is to try and fathom whether the parent did the best they could. With this comes forgivenesss and healing. But I adhere to the “Toxic Parents” perspective that “foregiveness” like respect must be earned.
In trying to forgive a PSN that has devastated us, what entity do we forgive? The mask, the flase self, the hollow package, the empty interior, the manipulative brain, the public image, the finances, the possible legal consequences, the jail time? The sadist? the mind f…cker? Knowing that even by defending ourselves from their predations we are in the catagory of unforgivable in their twisted minds?
Take a look at the devastation around the planet by socio’s and their way of thinking. It has now been institutionalized as a way of organizing the entire world, codified and written into trade agreements and law.
Are we really well served by the concept of forgiving all this? Certainly not until we have remedied the injustice.
In the final days of our split, my socio, who had heard much from me on these topics (activism) said ” I have learned a lot from you, about how the world works.” very slyly, like laying something slimy at my feet. Of course I had further empowered him, by illuminating that the guys on top of the global system are SPN’s just like him.
Silver lining was, by looking outside my little world to escape the gaslighting, I looked at the bigger picture in great depth, became active in trying to fight it, and awoke to fight what I finally saw as the same abuse at home.
During this period I painted the statue of liberty many times, many ways, surrounded by smoke and ash, tears on her face, anger. It took several years to realize that I was struggling in my public life, to understand and fix my private life.
The subconscious is a marvelous thing.
Peace all.
Justabouthealed— I think that The Betrayal Bond has better information to help change behavior than Alice Miller’s book. It’s helping me to see how the behavior patterns I learned as a very young child are repeated as an adult at an unconscious level. Then, trying to be aware and catch myself in action, and adjust my response—make a thoughtful response, not an automatic response. I recommend checking out the The Betrayal Bond—I’m getting a huge benefit from it.
OxDrover—I thought you’d be familiar with a “switching.” I bet Henry is, too. My parents kept belts and switches on top of the refrigerator, ready for use. However, if the switch was old, it was dry and brittle and would break when they used it on us. So my father would go outside and cut a new one and trim off the little shoots from the switch. I’d wait in terror inside until he came and finished with me. Those freshly cut switches had little nubs on them that really hurt and left little cuts on our legs. Your grandmother’s switching sounds more gentle than the ones my father delivered in his rage.
Matt—did you prefer your father to deliver the punishment because he was “easier” on you than your mother? I wasn’t quite sure that’s what you meant in your post. Either way, reading about what happened to you, it does sound sick. Yet we “normalized” this trauma to survive. The trauma and our survival mechanisms are laid down in our neurological system and become part of our hardwiring. So it’s no wonder we still behave with those same patterns—until we become conscious of the whole cycle and consciously try to change behaviors. (imo)
keriseeo4—I agree that a parent’s endless, controlling lectures and cryptic rules are not abnormal. Compulsive compliance is definitely a survival strategy for a child in your situation. I was fascinated that you wrote that your brothers fought harder and eventually moved out. I have two brothers and my older brother fought harder and longer than I did. I used the compliance method to survive. Also, your point about a spanking delivered in the right state of mind, leaving no marks is a good point. Punishment delivered in rage, or at a time long after the original “offense” of the child, or severe enough to leave marks has a terrible impact on the child.
Stargazer—I agree with your thoughts on the memories remaining in our bodies. Another method to release them that I want to try is Eye Movement Desensitization.
James–I like your ideas about talking to your kids instead of spanking them. What an incredible accomplishment for you to break the cycle of hitting children—you experienced it both from your father and the children’s home and yet were still able to make a different choice with your kids. That’s awesome.
Eyeswideshut—good point about being made to feel shame unjustly or unfairly. When I recently looked back on why my brothers and I were whipped, for the most part, it was because of reasons like we fidgeted on church (we were 3-5 years old, of course children that age can’t participate in an adult service; they don’t even belong there) or I accidently knocked over my glass of milk at supper. However, I never examined these things until now. But I felt the shame and I knew at an early age that I wouldn’t treat my kids like that.
I’m so sorry to read your story of your dog—both your now and the one you had as a child. What a wonderful story of how your dog walked 20 miles to find you. He is a hero and loved you so much.
Wini—I remember when cars had huge bench seats in front! And, of course, no one wore seat belts. Sounds like you were just expressing your sense of unfair treatment of never getting to sit in the front seat, in the best way you knew how at that age. I wonder if your brother got preferential treatment because he was the only son.
Dear Eyes,
On the subject of “forgiveness” I view it as a getting the BITTERNESS against them out of my heart. Not in any way condoning what they did or what they are. It does not restore the relationship or trust at all. It just means that I am no longer BITTER or use their actions as the focus of my life, or have hate toward them. I am working toward acceptance of what they are, acknowledgment of what they are, but in no way approval.
My mother had told me all my life that forgiveness included restoring trust and that without that, andwithout pretending that “none of this ever happened” that I would go to hell fire and brimstone and was a bad person… I struggled with that concept all my life, it kept me from appreciating my own spiritual aspects and thoughts, I struggled and struggled, and then with all this chaos and dysfunction I realized that I don’t have to obtain her approval, that her ideas don’t have to be mine and that I CAN DETERMINE MY OWN DEFNITION OF FORGIVENESS, which I did after reading and rereading the Bible and other texts, and speaking with others who were spiritually minded.
I realized that “pleasing” my mother was not the only way to please my God! What an empowering concept that was, and I was ONLY 61 whenI grasped that. I had spent the first 61 years in a vain attempt to please my mother and win her approval and acceptance. Regardless of how “smart” I may be or how high my IQ is, I am a SLOW LEARNER. LOL
I knew already all these concepts, but I just didn’t apply them to my life…I applied them to other’s lives and could advise them in a reasonable and rational way, but somehow I never applied them to ME. I am not sure if it was an arrogance in me, or what, but I didn’t see the BEAM in my own eye, while I was trying to take the splinter out of my “neighbor’s” eye.
What new and wonderful precepts I find in reading the Bible now that I never saw before. The kind and compassionate teachings of Jesus in contrast to the “hell fire and brimstone” of angry judgment that I was taught and tried to accept as a child. I can even remember as a very young child, maybe age 5 or 6, worrying about going to hell because of impure thoughts or not asking forgiveness the SECOND I died. Worrying that no matter how “good” I tried to be, I would go to hell if I wasn’t fast enough to get forgiveness in that last second before I died. I was programmed well and early into the FEAR of this “god” of my mother’s, this angry, vengeful, hateful, disapproving god who was looking for reasons to burn me, and I knew I could never live up to being perfect, and never would be able to…but I kept on trying to, or I rebelled andsaid “to hell with it” I’m going to hell anyway so might as well have some fun first” (that was about age 15)
Now that I truly SEE, it is all so simple, and spiritually I have finally grasped the idea that GOD IS LOVE.
Pearl,
I work in the realm of Child Protective Services. You can not whip children. You can spank them on their behind with an open hand only and you can not leave marks, meaning bruises, scratches. I see kids all the time with Mom’s hand print on their face. That is too hard!
I think if a parent over uses even the “appropriate” kind of spanking, that can be damaging.
I am sorry that you were whipped. That is not right in my book.
Pearl,
I just realized you addressed your question to mental health professionals… I am not one but I aspire to be. :o) And I read your next note… I can’t imagine whipping a child for spilling milk or fidgeting in church. Isn’t that just childhood? Besides, didn’t I just spill some milk yesterday? I guess I will never learn.. not enough whipping!
You were talking about normalizing your parent’s whipping… I used to think that my neighbor friend’s parents weren’t good parents because they didn’t know how to punish her like my parent punished me. When she got poor grades she wasn’t grounded for eternity like I was. I thought her parents weren’t good at punishing… that’s how I made it okay in my head.. normalizing.
Aloha,
Anyone who works with children like you do, is IN MY OPINION a “professional” in the useful sense of the word. I do hope at some time you can go ahead and go back to college and receive a degree and upgrade your skills and put some “letters” after your name, but you to me ARE what it is all about and I think probably are better than some “lettered” professionals who really “don’t get it.”
When I worked in inpatient psych units, some of the “mental health techs” (designated “non professional staff”) were wiser and better at dealing with the kids than the ones with PhDs.
Under-educated can be fixed, STUPID is forever!!! LOL (((hugs))))
Oxy! HAHAHA! I have seen exactly what you are talking about. We have some awesome children’s counselors at the shelter who do way better with the kids than the Mental Health professionals in the clinic. The kids don’t want to go and talk to the Mental Health people.. they say… I’m not going in there! I’m not mental! Kids! Love ’em!
I do have my Bachelor’s. I will let you know if I get accepted to grad school. Application is in… waiting… waiting… waiting…
Meanwhile.. I have laryngitis today so I am in bed with movies.