How to Break Out of the Perplexing Parenting Trap

Melissa frequently screamed at her children. This impulsive, angry behavior would occur over the tiniest of infractions – spilling things, making messes, and forgetting chores. She felt guilty for mistreating her children, but was incapable of changing her perplexing parental pattern.

Parenting is an art. The role comes with no manuals. Often, adults have no perspective on how to raise their kids. Melissa had no role models or prior emotional experience to prepare her with the tool chest of strategies to use in addressing the needs of her children. She felt alone in her new responsibility.

Melissa’s own childhood was troubled. Her father was emotionally vacant and her mother was aggressive, harsh and critical. She recalled her mother calling her out when she came home with less than an A on her report card. Melissa was a superior student who outperformed other family members, completing her MBA and working as a corporate manager. She was an anxious achiever, who performed to please, hoping to get the admiration and validation of her emotionally unavailable parents. As Melissa worked harder without gaining parental recognition and support, she turned her thoughts and feelings inward, believing that she was defective. Her disappointment fueled her to try even harder to win her parents’ approval.

By the time Melissa came to counseling, she was exhausted. She was tired of pleasing others, being aggressive with her kids and mistrustful of disclosing her feelings with friends and family. When Melissa attempted to confide in her mother, the conversation got flipped as her self-absorbed mom proceeded to explore her drama from everyday living. Melissa learned to keep her distance.

In the search for adulthood, children from troubled families must give up the illusion that someday their parents will morph and become the loving, caring adults they always yearned for. After much soul-searching, emotional upheaval and grieving, Melissa would need to swallow the bitter pill, recognizing that her parents would never meet her needs. Only then, could she let go of her perplexing dilemma of internalizing her parents’ negative energy. Through processing, forgiving and releasing her past, Melissa was prepared to undertake a journey to learn new, more adaptive thinking and behaving in the here-and-now.

Melissa no longer allowed her parents to have power over her present experience. She was now capable of listening to the inter-critic, a representation of her mother’s complex of thoughts and feelings. She learned to detach from the contents of the critic by rationally responding with positive self-talk that was genuine.

No one emerges from a troubled childhood without the battle scars to prove it. Melissa confronted her wounds and found healing and new hope for the future. She became aware of childhood interpretations that haunted her, and no longer allowed them to get activated with significant others. Here are a few core beliefs that got triggered:

• I must perform admirably at all times.
• I must always try harder to please others.
• If I share my honest feelings, people can’t be trusted to listen without judgment and maintain confidentiality.

Instead, she learned to reinterpret these childhood scripts with more adaptive assumptions:

• It’s okay to slack at times. I can be less than perfect.
• I don’t always need the approval of other people in order to feel good about myself.
• I can selectively choose friends to confide in. I need to allow others to experience the essence of my true self.

Adults tend to replicate the past, unless they process it. Melissa left the magical illusions of childhood behind in search for authentic adulthood. She developed more patience with her children and learned more effective parenting skills by:

• Creating more emotional involvement
• Setting consistent consequences for positive and negative behavior
• Establishing better boundaries
• Learning to take care of her own needs as a parent
• Becoming more supportive and encouraging to her children.

Melissa broke the perplexing parenting trap. Adverse childhood experiences had affected her ability to cope appropriately with her children and family. No longer believing she was at fault for what had happened to her as a child, she was released to devote more positive energy to parenting her children with success.

Note: This case is a composite drawn from my practice as a psychotherapist. It has been altered to protect the individual’s right to confidentiality and privacy.

James P. Krehbiel, Ed.S., LPC, CCBT is an educator, writer, licensed professional counselor and nationally certified cognitive-behavioral therapist practicing in Scottsdale, Arizona. He specializes in treating anxiety and depression for adults and children. He served as a teacher and guidance counselor for 30 years and has taught graduate-level counselor education courses for Chapman University. In 2005, he self-published Stepping Out of the Bubble: Reflections on the Pilgrimage of Counseling Therapy (Booklocker.com). His latest book, Troubled Childhood, Triumphant Life: Healing from the Battle Scars of Youth (New Horizon Press) is about the impact of adverse childhood experiences on adult functioning. He offers solution-focused strategies to assist adults in overcoming the perils of the past.

Leaving Behind the Love Affair with Misery

Sadness can represent more than a feeling. It often signifies a way of thinking and behaving that leads us down a self-defeating path. Our familiarity with a depressive mood becomes a way of being and a style of relating. Sadness becomes a companion symptom that we carry around as our false self – it is not authentic.

My patient Anna was enveloped by a melancholy mood. Her husband had recently declared that the relationship was devoid of passion and he wanted out. His feelings caught my patient off guard. How could Bob be willing to throw away 10 years of marriage? What was behind this erratic edict?

There was no exploration of Bob’s pronouncement that his marriage was over – and there was no exit strategy. In response to his decree, he became anxiously avoidant and hid in his work and his night classes. He was stressed by the emptiness of his life.

Anna internalized Bob’s projected frustration and began taking self-inventory to assess where she’d gone wrong. She had always been supportive of her husband but had noticed his recent unhappiness. She began contemplating, “What did I do to create this wreckage? How could Bob arrive at this disturbing, unilateral conclusion?” The more Anna ruminated about her marital woes, the more despondent she became. She was immersed in the feelings of her husband and carried the burden with her. At no time did she inquire, “What’s this convoluted conduct all about? As an equal partner, do I have any say in this?” Instead, she perseverated about her husband’s unhappiness and her role in disappointing him.

As is often the case, Anna’s pattern of getting hooked by the feelings of other men was embedded in an adverse childhood experience. Her father was in the military and served during World War II. She had strong recollections of a strained relationship between her father and mother. Her home was thick with negative energy. The air was sterile and stale. Her father stayed to himself, rarely interacting with family members in a warm and caring manner. Anna viewed him as “troubled” and stayed clear of his path for fear of aggravating him. At an early age, she knew her father’s behavior was not normal and viewed him as being an emotionally detached, unfulfilled man. He was always “into his head,” rarely demonstrating any emotional connection with others.

One time, Anna had watched a History Channel segment about the Holocaust experience. Anna was fascinated by the plight of the Jews and told her father about her newly acquired knowledge. She was taken back as her father came alive for the first and only time in their relationship. He was able to provide her with a first-hand portrait of the way in which he and his comrades had made valiant efforts to protect Jewish families from the Nazi’s. Although the connection at that moment was profound, she realized for the first time how the ravages of war had blunted her father’s emotional experience.

Anna felt sorry for her father. She felt obligated as a daughter to wear her father’s depressive feelings as her own. She viewed it as a responsibility to protect him by sinking into the “dusty corners” of his sadness.

As Anna and I continued our therapy, a core interpretation derived from adverse childhood experience began to crystallize. Anna’s coping strategy as a child was, “I must take responsibility for others’ feelings in order to protect them.” As a kid, Anna performed to please, in a valiant effort to try to wish her father’s pain away. As she realized that she was incapable of impacting his mood, she unknowingly took on his sadness and branded herself as defective for not being able to make her father feel better.

Anna’s dysfunctional, interpretive script would come back to haunt her during adulthood – she would maintain her love affair with misery. In response to her husband’s abrupt declaration of dissatisfaction with his marriage, Anna easily latched onto her self-defeating childhood coping script. In treatment, our approach was to make Anna aware of her negative interpretations related to taking on the burden of significant other’s feelings. As she learned to acknowledge and be conscious of this maladaptive way of relating, she learned new skills to refute the pattern and respond more rationally. Anna worked to establish the following self-nurturing patterns:

• To make more realistic self-appraisals of her thinking and behavior
• To learn emotional detachment from the burden of others’ feelings
• To give up the need to please others as a means of trying to fix their feelings and behavior
• To get in touch with the kind of transformative anger that leads to self-empowerment – “I deserve better than this!”
• To set appropriate boundaries
• To learn assertiveness skills as a style of relating – “I can tell others what I need and want”

Anna began detaching herself from her husband’s burdensome feelings. She appropriately confronted him about his marital dissatisfaction. In order to maintain power and control, he dismissed her request to explore his marital unhappiness. With that in mind, Anna began working to protect and support herself by not playing into the verbal antics of her husband. Like it was as a child, Anna learned that other people’s responses and feelings are not her fault. While experiencing significant relief, she will continue her journey to leave behind her love affair with misery.

Note: This case is a composite drawn from my practice as a psychotherapist. It has been altered to protect the individual’s right to confidentiality and privacy.

Recovery is Possible from Adverse Childhood Experiences

 

Tales of a Troubled Childhood

One afternoon I received a telephone call from an anxious young man in his mid-20s.  He wanted to see me for counseling regarding a relationship problem.  I asked him the typical scheduling question – “Tell me what might work for you in terms of availability?”  His response was “How about in an hour?”

Fortunately, his urgent request worked for me.  Alex was a massive-sized former Big-10 football player who came for the first time to therapy to find answers to his problems.  After getting comfortable in my office, he said, “I’m so upset because my partner just broke it off with me; “She says I’m too intense – she’s probably right.”

I never had a chance to respond to his presenting problem.  Without taking another breath, he continued – “And my father died suddenly.” –  “I’m sorry to hear about your losses – “How long ago was your dad’s death?”  “He died of a heart attack 15 years ago and it was devastating.”  The tears started flowing.  “Do you think there’s some connection between my two losses?”  

 Is there a Relationship between a Perilous Past and the Present?

Such wondering about one’s troubled past and the present was validation of what I had discovered from other patients.  That is, that troubled childhood experiences have a significant impact on adult functioning, including relationship wreckage.

Many adults from troubled childhoods want to know, “Why do some adults remain mired in the turbulence of adverse childhood experiences, whereas others are able to navigate the problems of family history and lead productive lives?”  Through my clinical practice and writings, I have sought to answer this question in a meaningful, hopeful manner.

After the death of Alex’s father, the dynamics and energy within the family system dramatically shifted.  There was no mourning, grieving and no exploration of the family’s loss.  His mother turned inward, becoming self-absorbed and avoidant and compulsively buried herself in work – she never grieved.  All three children took their cues from mom, and chose to suppress their feelings, creating a conspiracy of silence.  Alex learned to care-take for his emotionally absent mother by being compliant, trying to make her happy, and seeking to minimize the significance of everyone’s grief.

What is the Magical Illusion of Childhood?

 This is how many kids cope in response to adverse childhood experiences.  After his father’s death, Alex began performing to please in order to gain the validation and love of his emotionally frozen mother.  Ultimately, when his mother’s emotional availability was not forthcoming, and his needs were unmet, he unknowingly came to a conclusion – “I guess there’s something wrong with me, I must be unlovable.”  By internalizing the dilemma, Alex could assume the blame and let his mother off the hook.  Alex began to feel defective.  Kids from troubled families typically carry a magical illusion and believe that somehow, in some way their parent will morph and become the loving, nurturing person they have always yearned for.  Alex longed to have his family back the way he once envisioned it.

What are some Unwritten Family Interpretations?

It was my responsibility to help Alex to process his past so that he could make sense out of his present troubled relationship.  After his father’s death, there were a number of unwritten rules that governed his dysfunctional family system.  These interpretations were:

1. I must behave admirably at all times
2. It is my obligation to take care of my mother
3. The family appearance that all is well is more important than my feelings
4. I must avoid conflict at all times
5. Life must always be taken seriously
6. If I deny my grief and loss, it’ll go away
7. If I don’t watch my step, someone or something could hurt me

These underlying assumptions derived from childhood adverse experiences affected Alex’s closest relationship – an intimate three-year connection with his partner.

What are some Personal Qualities, Borne out of a Troubled Past that create problems in the here and now?

Here are some personal characteristics that led to Alex’s relationship wreckage that were fostered by adverse childhood experiences:

1. The inability to be assertive
2. The need to take life too seriously
3. Emotional mood swings due to unresolved grief
4. A lack of emotional expressiveness
5. Trying to fix others problems
6. Self-preoccupation
7. Poor boundary setting
8. Social anxiety
9. Idealizing a relationship
10. Being overly-responsible for problems

What is the Backdrop of the Patient’s Problem?

Alex and his partner lived together in an apartment that he was renting and paying for.  Alex had moved to Arizona from the Midwest to commit himself to Tammy. Frustrated and shocked, he was faced with a mate who suddenly confronted him and said she was finished.  However, she wanted to remain friends with Alex, stay in his apartment indefinitely until she could find a new place.  She was reluctant to move in with her parents, because it was inconvenient for her.  She invited Alex to Thanksgiving dinner with her parents in order to maintain civility and reduce her guilt.  Alex was devastated by the loss of Tammy and was conflicted about continuing to share living space with her in his apartment.  He put up with it because he was still hoping that he could win her back – the worse she treated him, the more he was determined to change her mind – he kept trying to please her, maintaining an illusion that she would go back to the way things were.

The Key to Change is processing the Past

In order to change our adverse childhood experiences and the impact on current behavior, we must process the past.  Most people with troubled childhoods either avoid the past through mechanisms such as intellectualizing, by keeping overly-busy schedules, or numbing out through self-medicating.  Others choose to deal with the past by victim-posturing through self-pity and blaming others rather than taking responsibility for their own behavior.

Processing adverse child experiences is the key to a hopeful, productive life – processing entails facing the full emotional impact of the way things were and the way things are.  Courage is a quality that Alex needed to address his issues.  After all, he had three losses to grieve – the finality of the death of his father, his mother as he once knew her, and the woman he dearly loved.

With much support and encouragement, he accomplished this task.  He did what was necessary – he learned to accept life they way things were – he grieved and mourned his losses – he released them and began to reframe his thinking in the here-and-now – his grief work helped him come to terms with all that had gone wrong.  As he felt more empowered, he began making other changes:

1. He set more appropriate boundaries with his mother- more emotional detachment from her distressful feelings.
2. He let go of false hope for his partnership and gave her an ultimatum to leave
3. He began asserting himself with others, and quit allowing others to control and manipulate him
4. He began listening to his own voice and gave up the burden of owning other people’s feelings
5. As he reinvented himself he began looking to the future with hope and confidence
6. He became more emotionally expressive with others, learning to feel empowered yet vulnerable when appropriate

 Specific Strategies used to Assist Alex

Alex and I worked on specific strategies to modify his thinking and behavior in the present. We worked on cultivating unexpressed emotion, reframing negative thinking and modifying underlying interpretations.  Some examples of strategies we used are: 

1. Cultivating unexpressed grief.  Write a letter that you do not deliver.
2. Teaching assertiveness skills – Exploring styles of relating, including passivity, aggressiveness and his right to express his needs and wants
3. Identifying cognitive distortions – Are you personalizing events?  Do you accentuate the negative and minimize the positive?  Do you “catatrophize” about difficult situations?
4. Reframing underlying assumptions/thoughts.  “I must perform admirably at all times. – It’s okay to be less than perfect. I must avoid conflict at all costs.  Confronting conflict is empowering and necessary to managing relationships.
5. Rationally responding to distortions with a reasonable appraisal – “Where is the evidence that this problem is so awful?  What’s the worst thing that can happen?”
6. Providing homework assignments with accountability

 “It’s not your Fault”

In my practice, when I tell a patient that their traumatic childhood experience was not their fault, it is powerful.  When I tell them they had no control over what happened to them as a child, the healing begins:

1. It never was Alex’s fault that his father died of a heart attack
2. It never was his fault that he was shielded from the details of the death
3. It never was his fault that his mother insulated herself in response to her loss
4. It never was his fault for not having the guidance and support of a father during childhood
5. It never was his fault for having a mother who need to be nurtured
6. It never was his fault for the emptiness, depression and anxiety he experienced within his home
7. It never was his fault that he was unable to take the risk to share his feelings

  With the relief that it never was about them, comes the reality and responsibility for adult victims to process the past, picking up the pieces toward a more meaningful, productive life.  This is the hopeful message we must provide in helping individuals release their troubled past, finding more adaptive ways of living in the present.

Note:  This case is a composite drawn from my practice as a psychotherapist. It has been altered to protect the individual’s right to confidentiality and privacy.

Americans’ Problem with Troubled Childhoods

According to a recent collaborative health officials report conducted by an Adverse Childhood Experience Team from the Center for Disease Control and Kaiser Permanente, almost 60% of American adults have been affected by troubled childhoods. Problems ranged from various forms of parental abuse and neglect.

My recent release, Troubled Childhood, Triumphant Life: Healing from the Battle Scars of Youth was written to underscore Americans’ problems associated with the impact of troubled childhoods on adult functioning. I offer solution-focused strategies, based on the principles of cognitive therapy, to assist adults in overcoming the perils of their past.

It is interesting to note that most adults affected by troubled childhoods believe that they were responsible for creating their own childhood misery. When adults feel emotionally frozen due to a history of childhood troubles, I urge them to give up the interpretation that they held any responsibility for what happened to them as children.

Kids who endure troubled childhoods tend to perform to please in order to gain the love and validation of their parents. When emotional affirmation is not forthcoming, children become disappointed and turn their anger inward, holding themselves accountable for the parent’s neglectful behavior. By owning their parents problems, kids can maintain the magical illusion that their parents behavior is adaptive, thus minimizing the pain of their dilemma.

As troubled children enter into adulthood, they typically maintain the illusion that someday their parents will morph and become the loving caregivers they’ve always wanted. When adults finally grasp the concept that a troubled childhood was not their fault, there is usually an emotional reaction. This realization often leads to a flood of feelings about the unfairness of what they experienced. Sadness, hurt, disappointment, loss and anger follow. As adults grieve the loss associated with a troubled childhood, they are forced to “swallow the bitter pill” and begin a process of reframing and rebuilding their life. Through learning to accept, grieve, process and release a troubled past, adults can move forward and lead a productive life by reframing the past and rationally responding to life in the present.