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- Barriers in the mind keep us from learning new information, putting it to good use, and shedding old, outdated behaviors.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.
Louise
Revelation:
I don’t know, but I don’t think you should worry about him going postal on you. If he told you it is over and he has moved on, he probably has done just that. Usually men who are stalkers and who are dangerous and will want to hurt you are not going to tell you it’s over. They might, but not usually. They will NEVER tell you it’s over…they’ll stalk and hurt and never leave you alone. He’s 67?? Gosh, don’t people ever grow up???? WOW!!!
Revelation
Thank you Louise. Your comments about stalking are a relief. I don’t trust much of anything right now to tell you the truth. His anger at me is because when we met to talk about getting back together I told him that he’d better tell me the truth about what was going on. His ego is so big that he must have felt he could say anything and I would be ok with it. When I learned what he’d been doing I stayed calm and told him that I was sorry for all the stuff that had happened to him as a child, (molestation stuff) but that he needed to stop hurting people now because what was in the past was just that, in the past. He literally curled up and started mewling and bawling like a baby. That really scared me actually. I’ve often, over the years told him that he needed to “grow up”. He really acts like his emotional development is arrested. So, to answer your question, no…some people never grow up!. That is why he got away with this for so long. I could never believe that he WAS this screwed up. What he doesn’t realize is that after learning his truth and what he is truly all about, I could not ever go back to being with him. No way, no how! I am starting a love affair with me.
Ox Drover
Dear Revelation,
Well, you know when you “sheet in your own mess kit, you get the consequences…” I hope he has all kinds of tooth aches because he can’t afford a dentist. Too bad.
Good for you too for standing up for yourself.
Louise
Revelation:
That’s why they lie…they know if we truly find out the truth, we will not want to be with them. They keep the mask on. In some ways, I think they are terrified of anyone finding them out.
Ox Drover
Louise, Robert Hare sort of goes along the line that the left and right sides of their brain don’t really communicate and they seem to think if they SAY IT, it makes it SO.
Ox Drover
ps Or at least if they say it even in the face of evidence to the contrary that you will believe them instead of your eyes.
Louise
Oxy:
Haha, I believe it! The extent of their lies proves this to be true in my opinion. They really do believe their own lies. Geez…other than being a spath, I wonder what makes a person a LIAR? Someone can be a pathological liar without being a spath, right?
Ox Drover
Louise, most “heavy duty liars” I think are high in P traits. All Ps are liars but not all liars are Ps. My son C is a liar, but I think he lies out of fear more than anything else. He isn’t a P, but I cannot tolerate his lies and so I am essentially NC with him. He knew that if I ever caught him in another lie it would be THE END…and he still chose to lie to me. He’s a poor liar BTW and was easy to catch out.
But I am DONE with liars–ALL! That includes my egg donor and my son C. I love my son, but cannot tolerate the lies. Don’t need a relationshit with anyone who will lie to me.
As for Patrick, he would tell a lie when the truth would fit better, but he is actually a pretty good liar and can convince you black is white.
Louise
Oxy:
Yeah, usually the liars who are pathological are pretty good at it. They are so slick that it’s not always easy to catch them, but once you are onto someone, it becomes so easy to see.
HUGS to you.
Ox Drover
The that took me so long to learn it seems was that you have to draw the line in the sand and stand behind it. Decide just how much lying you will put up with. My tolerance is ZERO. No more second chances, or 22nd chances. DISHONESTY is a NO NO.