Theres lots of reasons why I struggle with this time of the year. Quite apart from this year in which I’m navigating a new job, a new home and living in a new area between January and March.
This time of the year, has too many other reminders.
Some days fluctuate, so its not a set date, like mothers day.
But others are fixed.
For two of my friends on facebook I note that today has been a day to remember significant life-health events, memories that have feelings. Feelings of relief, of process, of accomplishment, of gratitude of being alive- so so good to read, and look back in this way.
I think I accepted a while ago that I didnt actually have parents. They do exist and are alive. But they don’t exist as parents. They weren’t ever parents, in the actual sense. Not parents who cared, loved, protected or nurtured. Not parents who educated, supported or empathised. Not parents who you tell everything to, felt safe or warm with or know that they would be there, or that they would give everything for their children. They exist orbiting their own toxic emotional world.
And I can accept that, and I choose not to have anything to do with them.
It’s been a very long long process to get to.
As many of you may have read, in the previous blogs on this site. The journey of me coming to terms with, and dealing appropriately with them, for my own well being and sake has been significant.
But todays date loomed a bit in the calendar.
And I kind of knew it might do.
However much, and its probably only the second year that I have had to deal with this day as a difficult day – last year I was in the process of the dealing with, my emotional place was in a different.
So today from a place of acceptance, I was expecting the feelings.
April 8th is one of parents birthdays, its also the day I remember on which my lovely grandad died 23 years ago.
A double ‘memory-feel’ day.
I used to not think about these kind of days. Growing up avoiding emotions, with a survival mentality and closed, all I would do on days like thins was do everything I could to pretend it wasnt today, avoid it. Do everything to distract.
The feelings lying lurking in the corner as I was scared of feeling them, and not in a safe place to do so. Avoid. Fear.
Some triggers hit you unawares, and I think I’m fortunate on that regard, very few things in my daily life have any reminder of my parents – well until last weekend when I used an electric drill for the first time in 3 years – but not normally – there’s no favourite foods, smells, music, cultural references that remind me of them in day to day.
So im left largely with dates. Significant dates – memory-feel dates. Birthdays, Mothers/Fathers days, those kind of thing.
Before I might have tried to avoid all of this, because I always thought the pain of all the emotions would be significant.
Today, theres been a mixture of pain, grief, anger, relief, and also sense of growing up and standing up to them – defending and protecting myself.
I knew id have a reaction today. Some of those feelings have welled up a bit. Its caused me to think of my own children, to think about being a dad, to think about having to be my own parent to myself and my own inner child – to reparent myself.
It was ok to cry a bit today. On my couch, in my nice new flat. No need to hold back the moment of the feelings. Just let them come out. Crying is good. Didn’t need to be for long, just enough to let what was welling up come out, release a bit. Let them out.
It didnt hurt anyone by feeling my emotions, the ones so far today anyway.
And I wrote a bit in my therapy journal.
Acceptance of the situation of today, its memories also acceptance that the emotions may just come out. Acceptance that the day may have moments. Acceptance that I am human, raw and vulnerable. That I dint just need to try and survive by avoidance.
Theres been happy feelings today too, as its days like this when Christelle just knows how to make me laugh and cry at the same time.
Awareness that the present of today might include recurrence and residues of the past.
An all the feels kind of day.
One of the slightly raw ones.
Thats its absolutely ok to have.
Accepting the ‘Memory-feel’ days.
Giving myself the opportunity to tell myself, again, of the truth of myself, and loving myself, that I am ok, and I am safe and loved.
I write this as I’m on the train to London from my new home in Darlington, having moved in 6 days ago. Today I say goodbye (professionally) to my FYT colleagues on a first team day in over 2 years.
But yesterday I realised that I could breathe.
It was the first time I could breathe and let my body relax since at least 9th December. 3 months of feeling the underlying ache of anxiety and having to respond well to it.
It was on 9th December that I got the news I was being made redundant from a job I loved. The rest of the month was spent dealing with that.
It was also spent looking forward to spending Christmas with away in the USA and dealing with all the flight paperwork, permission, covid tests and travel. The time away was glorious by the way, and the break I needed, and I got engaged to my beautiful love Christelle.
But I knew whilst I was away what I was coming back to, looking for work.
Nope. Not quite.
For, on 9th January my letting agent called, I thought it wasn’t a normal time for them to call, to say that the landlord was selling the flat I was in,I had two months to move out. Yes, I know it was longer notice than usual , but it was nice that the date of my birthday this year was also written large on my eviction notice.
So, now I had to find somewhere to live and somewhere to work. Breathing took on a whole new dimension. Breathing to cope. Breathing to stay regulated.
Trying to respond well in the midst, meant living it, not necessarily writing about it. It meant accessing the therapy homework, journalling feelings, breathing.
My rational brain said that my flat was just bricks and mortar, but given the role it has played in my healing, recovery and rebuilding, it had become so much more. I went through feelings of betrayal when I saw new flats. Even though I knew I had no choice but to move, I still didn’t want to.
My rational brain also wondered how I’d find a new flat in a competitive market without a job that was more than a few hours per week. Thats a rational thought..isn’t it?
I kept reminding myself that through all these life circumstances that they were just that, life circumstances, they weren’t all of life. I tried to tell myself that I am the sky, not the clouds. Life is bigger and I am more than these circumstances..even if these circumstances are challenging. They will pass.
Even if the Sky/cloud thing is a good metaphor, doesn’t mean that I didn’t struggle with dealing with the emotions of everything. I could sense myself trying to say ‘Im ok’ when I wasn’t, and avoiding wanting to face the emotions of frustration, shock, grief and loss. I could say that I was a model patient of myself , noting my emotions and being present to them. But that wouldnt be true. Even after sitting in the emotion, noting it, breathing and working through it was a good thing each time. Didn’t always mean that I wanted to face them every time.
And everything I didn’t it lurked in the background a little bit longer, chipping away as I avoided it.
I may have re read Eckhart Tolle during these last three months on being present and learning acceptance, but I had to do it. Accepting, going with the flow, offering less resistance. Opportunities may be waiting, but feeling acceptance, trusting the present was a hard gig. By the way also read both of Kishimi and Koga’s books on courage during this time. Maybe life circumstances like this are a good time to read Adlerian psychology. Or to do a counselling course at college. Maybe pain is where more is revealed. Maybe pain and change is a time for learning and digging deep. Or maybe just self help books are my current drug. Then again, as I remember, Richard Rohrs book Falling Upwards started all of this 4 years ago and that was read as I was made homeless and jobless then too.
Just heading through Doncaster. If anyone is here for the travel update. Talking of trains, they, and nature have been places of calm in the gaps. Being mesmerised looking at life through binoculars forced the present to be more aware.
Looking at nature in its pattern, regular trips to cowpen bewley woodland park to watch kingfishers, swans, and owls have been hugely grounding.
The space that was my safe grounding place was now a place of tension, as the boxes began to be filled, as shedding happened, as the date loomed. Outside breathing space was more required.
But then I’d see sunsets and nature changing, and it remind me of my own situation. I would be my own metaphor. Yet I was trying to stay present an see what I could see for what it was. Then I’d remember to breathe again.
Positive news of changes emerged, new job and flat were found, I had been accepted and affirmed by others. Now I needed to continue to accept the changes, to accept and make the move into new things. It is now a week since I said goodbye to my old flat and I’ll write more about that soon. But as the removal men left having unpacked my stuff, at 4pm Thursday I clenched my fists and exclaimed ‘Yes’ I did it…I’m home.
I did two hard things at once. More than that, it was a myriad of many tiny hard things, making choices, viewing flats, interviews, travel, whilst also staying alive, cooking, resting, shopping, self care during it all.
And saying goodbyes. Which I hate doing. This was also something revealed to me. One of many things.
I’m now nearly at Peterborough, and the WiFi signal on the train is fluid and maybe a sign to end this piece. Reflecting on my last 3 months. Noting how the last 3 days have felt peaceful and calm in comparison. Noting how practicing breathing in the cloud gaps is different to when the sky is clearer.
As for metaphors this piece might be a cork piece. I was dealing with too many things to write much here, writing this piece and now that I’ve moved, I’ll have more head/emotional space to do more writing. There’s at least 10 drafts started in the last 3 months that didn’t get written. I’m grateful too for those who have offered presence during this time, sitting , listening, and understanding as Ive worked through all this change, especially to my love Christelle.
Breathing clean calm air after facing and doing hard things. I feel light again, I can breathe…
Imagine a cold house that’s meant to be your home. Imagine that it is a place where there is no genuine love. Imagine that it isnt safe to express an opinion. Imagine that it is a place where you are used to being told off, and the rules keep changing. Imagine that its a place where you have to grow up fast. Imagine its a place where you avoid. Imagine that its a place of emotional confusion, having to be responsible for the person who you watch abuse others. Imagine growing up where love is false, where smiles are fake or pretend – just for the cameras. Imagine a house in which you feel completely and utterly alone. Imagine having your every movement watched, either from the school playground, with flying monkeys – or have them lead in safe places, as Sunday school leaders, because….
Now imagine what growing up in this type of ‘home’ is like – and these ‘parents’ are devout Christians.
Imagine.
Imagine that these parents don’t protect you from each other, believe their own lies, and justify their actions, punishments, lack of love and emotional neglect with Bible verses. Imagine the extensively of shame and guilt growing up.
Imagine what this does to your ‘spiritual side’?
Imagine if home isnt safe – yet these parents do everything to display to others being christians?
Imagine that shame and guilt, as well as conformity, people pleasing and ‘being mature for my age’ – being contributors to staying, and finding an identity in the same evangelical tradition. Imagine what view I might have of God as result?
To give the church, I went to, credit – it was a safe place spiritually, and to some extent emotionally in my late teens – and they, well some of them, weren’t to know (though also – everyone knew). It wasn’t the church’s fault that the ‘hole’ in my life was an emotional neglect that was impossible for me to describe at the time, and that most of my behaviour then, and up until recently, emanated from my early years.
For me, Spiritual Abuse started in the home.
How could it not be considered spiritual abuse?
….as well as emotional and psychological abuse – by someone who is measuring high on any ‘dark triad’ scale (Psychopathy/Sociopathy/Narcissm)
In their excellent book ‘Escaping the Maze of Spiritual Abuse’ , Dr Lisa Oakley and Justin Humphreys make an attempt to define Spiritual Abuse. They say that:
Spiritual abuse is a form of emotional and psychological abuse. It is characterised by a systematic pattern of coercive and controlling behaviour in a religious context. Spiritual abuse can have a deeply damaging impact on those who experience it. This abuse may include: manipulation and exploitation, enforced accountability, censorship of decision making, requirements for secrecy and silence, coercion to conform, control through use of sacred texts or teaching, requirement to obedience to the abuser, the suggestion that the abuser has a divine position, isolation as a means of punishment and superiority and elitism’
(Oakley, 2018)
They also say that defining Spiritual abuse is notoriously difficult and go on to affirm that many people dont realise that what they have experienced is Spiritual Abuse; then again, its also true to say that most people dont realise that they are in an emotionally abusive relationship until they can see it, and have it pointed out to them… however, I digress, they affirm that
Spiritual Abuse is a form of emotional and psychological abuse…..(and)… that Spiritual abuse can happen outside of places that might be considered ‘spiritual’ contexts (like churches, organisations etc)
(Oakley, Humphreys, 2019)
My ‘home’ growing up – was a spiritual context. There were ‘evangelical’ phrases around on the walls, such as this one:
The Bible was read aloud every breakfast time. Prayers were made to accompany it. As was a reading from the ‘Daily bread’. Prayers said each night. Church went to each Sunday, and each Sunday even on holidays – and ‘they were leaders’ in the church (one of them still is).
It was definitely the intention of the parents that the home was a spiritual place, or at least a religious one, in fact, Christian culture was everywhere, from Larry Norman LP’s (no ‘secular music’), few fiction books visible (aside from on my own children bookshelves), and considerable time was given to the life of the church – from building it, hospitality, services, hosting and baking. Church was actually the only identity my parents had.
It was definitely a spiritual context then – would you agree?
But as Oakley says, Spiritual Abuse needn’t just happen in a spiritual context.
They describe in accessible detail the markers of Spiritual abuse and what it can look like, here I try and paraphrase them, with a few examples and direct quotes from their chapters:
Coercive Control ; ‘Domination and controlling others – using ‘God’/Scripture/principles as a tool for coercion
Under pressure: ‘feeling pressured or manipulated into service’
Birds of a feather stick together: ‘ Demanding that persons agree with them, conformity’ including bullying them to conformity, victimisation and gossip.
Give an account of yourself : ‘Having an undue coercion to be accountable to people’ – where this for scrutinous purposes
Shifting Sands;
One of the most challenging and psychologically difficult aspects of spiritual abuse is shifting perceptions of reality. When people experience controlling behaviour, this can be followed by either a denial of the incident or a retelling or twisting of the story which suggests that the behaviour was actually positive or for the persons own benefit
(Oakley, Humphreys 2019)
They do not use the term DARVO in the book – but this is what they are explaining above, as well as selective amnesia and defensive projecting, and – (and may distort so that they project themselves as the victim). Spiritual abuse this can look like ‘The devil made me do it’ or ‘ you wouldn’t be accusing a vicar of doing such a thing..would you?’
Silence is Golden ; ‘ Where people either in a congregation or elsewhere, leadership…are manipulated into..silence..’ – at the point of disagreeing, confronting or raising a concern. Especially to protect ‘the church’, the ‘name of God’ and the reputation.
You’ve tried the best – why bother with the rest ; ‘dont mix with ‘other christians’ they are _______- insert the word ‘liberal’ or ‘not as holy’ or ‘dont believe in ____ like we do’
Its based on Fear ; ‘ When people told us their stories of spiritual abuse, there was a strong sense of fear’ Spiritual abuse is often accompanied by fear – fear of being rejected by the system, fear of ‘eternal’ or present punishment, fear of being judged.
Because the Bible tells us so ; ‘ When the Bible is used to manipulate, control , to beat you over the head, to pressurise’
What of this kind of scenario; it was said to her that “the Bible says children are to obey their parents” while staring down at you in absolute disgust and not allowing you to speak because of you speak you are talking back but if you don’t respond you are disrespecting and never pay attention
A second was to be told that,.“The Bible says you are not to be unequally yoked” was used to get a child to break up with boyfriends not white…
(just hold this thought before moving on- how horrific is this?)
Did you get the message :’ obedience’ – self sacrifice.. ‘unity’ (for the sake of conformity) are also key aspects
‘Touch not the anointed’ – When folks are told that a person is a ‘spiritual’ person and is elevated above the ‘normal’ rules. Where that person was the only person able to hear from or speak to God – and this was a view perpetuated. Spiritual entitlement and exclusive access to the divine are one of the reasons that ‘Religious leader’ is one of the top ten jobs that psychopaths inhabit. (Eriksen, 2018)
‘Is God in it’?
As we have said, Examples of spiritual abuse include coercion and control, but what can be really damaging is the suggestion that God is behind or in agreement with the damaging behaviour.
(Oakley, Humphreys 2019)
because……
When people experience coercive and controlling behaviour in the name of God, it can significantly damage their personal faith and belief in God.
I look at the above list in the book – and recognise so much of this in what I experienced growing up – that the blurred distinction between emotional abuse and spiritual abuse is irreverent, It was nearly all there and in the home – it didn’t look like loyalty and control from a person acting in their role as a spiritual leader – but by someone who claimed authority as a person adhering to a religion in the home.
I look at the above list and realise how easy it would be to fall into the trap of being abused spiritually and emotionally in the home, and then receive the same treatment in future relationships and also spiritual settings. I think thats what’s known as trauma bonding. I wonder the extent to which I was trauma bonded to the church. Maybe thats for a part 2. What effect did this all have on me? What God was represented to me in the actions of the abusive ones?
What was God like for me?
One of the features of Spiritual Abuse, and any is that its not realised often until many weeks and months later. It requires awareness of what it is, as well as emotional and psychological abuse to spot it, and then raise it to the relevant authorities. Trusting in your feelings about someone, and being brave to raise a concern. It shouldn’t just be people like me interested in this issue because of my own experience, nor should it just be leaders in churches who go on safeguarding courses.
We need to talk about Spiritual Abuse – and how, with emotionally abusive christian parents, it starts from the home.
If you feel that this is something that you have experienced, or experiencing do seek help from a professional, a therapist, 31;8 have a helpline, or do call other free helplines in the UK on this subject or any in regard to domestic or emotional abuse.
I need to treat myself, like I do my sourdough starter.
That fresh flour, clean new green grapes and warm water all combined
Stirred in a bottle
Waiting for the reaction.
Excitement builds as the bubbles emerge
as its kept in a warm place.
Is it ready , is it ready to be used?
And turned into bread
Warm fresh sourdough
like a new shiny toy
Yummy bread that takes hours to make
But I did it. With my own yeast – that I grew
It took time
It couldn’t be rushed
It needed the right conditions.
Yummy tasty bread. Deep glow.
Bread for three days, busy for more
Sourdough inactive. Stuck in the fridge. Cold. Inactive.
My Cold inactive starter…
Isnt that how we treat ourselves sometimes?
Leaving ourselves in the fridge like an inactive sourdough
Avoiding what the smell might be like if we look inside?
Cold
Filling the fridge with other things, trying to bury it at the back
Too much rush, no time to look inside.
How long have we been left?
Isnt it time?
to awaken ?
What about you? What about me?
and let that inner you free?
Cant rush it, even when its out the fridge though.
All those dormant bacteria, killed immediately with boiling water.
Too quick, too much, too hot
Cant rush this. It needs time.
Wake them up
gently.
Our inner self might require time to awake
get out of bed,
safety, to breathe again
warmth , to be active
food, to feast on and grow
Like sourdough in the jar.
Slow.
Our inner child, our inner self – cold, hiding in the fridge.
Yet inside its bubbles of goodness
Bubbles of life
Bubbles that make bread, that tastes good.
Nurture ourselves, take time for ourselves
Not starve ourselves, or keep ourselves dormant,
or pour on the boiling water of self hatred, or give other people the kettle
Inner healing is like a sourdough starter
There is life, from inside, waiting to be , waiting to grow, waiting to play with the flour…and herbs and everything else..waiting to be the you. Waiting to be me.
I realised this week that I’ve been able to breathe for 2 years now, these were the first two years I’d been able to breathe in my whole life
I remember when I walked into the flat 25 months ago and being emotional in front of the estate agent. Realising that this was going to be my space, my space to look after, my space to look after myself in, my space , haven, calm
My space, to make home. To light candles, listen to music, read, and enjoy life in my own pace.
My space to determine boundaries of what I listen to, read or who I allow in
My space to look forward to coming home to after leaving it
My safe space
I can breathe
Stop and slow down
41 years of emotionally abusive home space, with 2 in-between of working/living in houses with gap year teams, with me being the ‘responsible’ one
2 years of being able to breathe
2 years of being enough, 2 years of listening to my heart, 2 years of not having to revolve around the often crazy unpredictable needs of others, 2 years of being just me.
2 years of healing from the 41 years previously
2 years of starting to see
Healing requires time, safety and connection, and in the process, self determination to make decisions, take control, for me about putting myself first, making decisions for my own good.
It makes me stop and realise quite how unhealthy places are when breathing isn’t possible. When eggshells are the only floor covering and avoiding fighting or fawning conflict is the only reality. That’s not to mention lies and gaslighting, and trying to constantly work out who the crazy one is.
It’s worth saying here, if you’re the one creating eggshells for others in your relationships, or family, through manipulation, control, bullying and neediness then maybe decide to give it up. You can change. Problem is, that you’re unlikely to read this. But…
If you’re not breathing you’re not living, you’re just surviving. I was just surviving all my life. Ignoring every attempt of my heart to make itself known. Just surviving. Bouncing from one crisis to another. Fawning over the needy anger of toxicity.
Breathing for 2 years, learning to be me. Realising who ‘me’ is.
As I write I’m on holiday, camping in the rain, and up to now, my few holidays have been busy ones, climbing, walking, city breaks, and I’ve filled my days. Today I’ve tried to do what I am learning to do in my home. To stop and enjoy a ‘doing nothing’ day.
Yes I’ve walked a short distance,but no rushing for trains , or climbing hills, just a short meander to the village a walk by the river and now just time reflecting on it as I write this, in a tent in the rain.
In the past I realised that I struggle to slow down, in the last two years I’ve realised quite how much I’m able to slow down.
Business was my ongoing distraction. Busy work, busy hobbies, busy. It’s no wonder that I’d wait to get ill during Christmas holidays only, when I had the time and my body relaxed. This was the pattern since childhood.
Learning to slow down
2 years of being in and feeling like being home.
Safe
Rest
Breathe
I’m sure I have more healing to do, as more layers are uncovered, as I listen more to my inner child, as I draw, write and play. But for now, a mark to note two years of being able to breathe, and feel new life, growth and change.
Thank you to all friends and family alike in their support and encouragement to me in these last 2-3 years, and to Christelle whose healing, loving kindness is a joy
Or at least, thats what I often kept telling myself, when I pondered things as I walked home from school or time in my bedroom. Im nothing like my parents, I think different, I am different. I cant be theirs.
I think I even asked them once, only for the cruel blow to be taken away from me, the next time they did an annual ‘slide show’ evening, those baby photos were there.
Often the worst parents want to convince you that you are like them. It excuses them.
So I wondered at the time if I was adopted.
Survival self talk enabled me to get through most of my childhood
Its only a few more years of this until I leave home
I know that God is with me, I think
If I stay in my room, and only appear for meals, then that reduces time with her
Actually I can stay out late, its light till 9 or 10
I would talk these things to myself over and over, most days
And I really did think I was adopted. It was the only way that I made sense.
Personal identity self talk, because it couldn’t be that I was actually like them. That would be crushing.
Other survival self talk went like this
Stay out of the way
Dont make a mess
Dont give her a reason to punish you
The problem with growing up in an abusive household, is that even if you think you are doing the right thing, they will find a way, or reason to be critical.
Homework being done, was being done messy.
Keeping out of their way, was interpreted as ‘treating the house like a hotel’
They had rules that kept changing to ensure that they couldn’t be worked out.
Their, actually her, inconsistency that made eggshell walking a daily sport.
So even if I thought I was self talking a survival strategy – the rug was pulled.
My other self talk that I told myself was that
Say what you like, I dont think what you’re saying is true
Im not these things, but carry on shouting them anyway
Ill take the punishment, but im hardening up
I know that im actually ok, and no one else I know thinks of me as bad as you do.
So I learned to take the blows, because I also knew that that was what home was like, what was normal.
Outside of which no one thought of me as anything like what she did.
So I knew I was ok.
And if anyone knew of me a few years ago in the midst of the recent breakdown. I knew then I was ok too.
Survival self talk, managing to claim an identity and knowledge of myself despite what happened.
Im no hero, but I resolved to ignore them, and knowing myself, despite them, from such an early age. I didn’t have survival on my mind, but I was calculating how to navigate eggshells. So I guess it was.
One thing I had to do to Survive psychopathic parenting was positive survival self talk.
Ok……… FUCK…… (in the tiniest of calmest of maturest voices)
YAY..well done!
Learning to say fuck was one of my healing moments.
Saying it, with my voice.
Allowing the word to bubble up, and be out of my mouth before my head tried to stop it. Maybe not the first time. The first time was the excruciating torture I describe above.
Do it, do it, do it.. Being taught to swear, was like everything I hadn’t been allowed to do since I was born. And definately something I stopped doing since I had to grow up and be the responsible one, the morally good one, the leader…
Writing it didn’t count. Because often what I can type, is my head playing with words, its not my heart, my feelings actually making themselves felt in my body.
Paralysed by politeness, inhibited by responsibility, fearing consequences. Thinking it was shameful.
I was inhibited.
Anger dormant.. (and it still is being worked on)
Uptight
Needing to loosen up.
The ‘always responsible’ needing to let himself go.
Relax.
Saying F**K was a beginning.
and trying not to give a F**K about it either.
Enjoying it.
It felt good.
Saying it.
Talking of inhibitions, I realised too that being the responsible one had meant I had never got drunk in my life. And especially not drank when I knew that emotionally unsafe people were drinking. Though also not because of the same reasons as above too.
Not wanting to let myself go. Worrying about what I might find.
Saying F**K was part of my healing process.
I needed to say it, to bring out to the surface all the ‘F**K’s I had held in, all there built up rage, anger, frustration, hurt, pain inside.
Sometimes F**K is completely and utterly appropriate. Because it described how you feel when you have been treated appallingly and abusively.
It may not be the ‘release’ for you that it was for me, it may be something else.
Maybe its to do something spontaneous, fun, silly, and let yourself go. Maybe we all need to do a lot more of that anyway.
Part of my healing and recovery in those first few months was actually trying to toughen up a bit. To care less. To worry about others less. To give more of a F about myself.
Its not ‘I want’ its ‘I would like’ or ‘Please may I have’
Said my parents on a regular basis, for most of my early childhood.
I was a spoiled toddler, thats what I was told.
A couple of my previous posts refer to how I hid or suppressed my anger as a child to survive with the parents I had.
Which I undoubtedly did.
But im beginning to realise that it was much more subtle that just suppressing anger, which was inevitable as there was no space to be emotional, to have needs, let alone wants, when it was about emotional eggshell navigation.
It wasnt just anger I hid away.
It was the bit of me that made demands of people, the bit of me that stomped, or screamed, the bit of me that made a mess, for others to clear up, the bit of me that hollered until it got what it wanted.
In short, it wasnt just that I suppressed anger.
I suppressed the ‘spoilt child’ / ‘inner brat’ part of me
The bit of me that says ‘I want’
The bit of me that says ‘I dont want’
The bit that shoves and pushes to get its own way.
Because ‘I want’ doesnt get – and ‘please may I have’ is far too much effort to stay, and Im not doing that. I want doesnt get.
Dont be demanding. Dont have demands
Dont ‘want’ – thats selfish
I have an ‘under realised inner brat.’
Maybe its about politeness, but not being able to want, (only able to ‘need’ that encouraged codependency around emotionally immature parent, and reinforced my codependent/false self)
Not having wants meant , not knowing what I wanted.
Not wanting what I wanted to do in my life
I want doesnt get – so why want for anything?
Why want for degree, career, choice- why want?
An inner spoiled child, or brat, that could make demands, ‘I dont want’/ ‘I do want’ might be able to make decisions, set boundaries, protect, raise an alarm.
An under realised ‘selfishness’ that doesnt know what it wants.
And struggled to even know what it needs.
An under realised ‘selfish brat’ shut down in ‘becoming responsible’ , codependent, caring self – clearing up the mess of others, and not demanding anything.
If we are unaware of our bratty impulses and choose to cover them up or block them off entirely, we run the risk of making ourselves sick
Capacchione, 1991
But Ive also noticed something, and thanks to Lucia Cappaciones book (Recovery of your Inner child, 1991) , there are many people who it might be said have the opposite.
Those with an over realised ‘selfish brat’ the adults who are still children. They have tantrums, denying responsibility – and who’s involvement in the world is where others revolve around their utter needs, all the time. Im thinking Boris, and Trump. Those whose over realised ‘selfish brat’ is the mess that everyone else has to clear up. They are those who scatter eggshells everywhere.
Part of surviving Psychopathic parenting, the growing up quickly process and becoming the little adult, meant of course ‘leaving childish ways’ behind me. Yet, in subconsciously growing up, becoming self dependent, meant suppressing the ‘I want’ part of me.
And if ‘I wanted’ id be made to feel guilty for doing so.
I want to have a quiet birthday – I said for my 18th – but no ‘they did what they wanted’ instead.
What might it mean to have a ‘healthier’ awareness , acknowledgment, and be able to act out the ‘inner brat’ im beginning to realise?
I think in the last few years I have began to want, and follow through with the wants especially to take care of myself, to purchase items, to make decisions, beginning, because alot of the time I still can feel being indecisive, or delaying, or wondering what others might think. Coming to terms with ‘wanting things’ for my own sake, because I am valuable (and so are you) , has been part of my healing Journey. But I was never going to survive in such a childhood and retain that part of me. In fact, as I said above, they enjoyed the process of removing it.
Saying I want, for my own good.
Supressing that part of me that stood up for myself – not just others
Made demands for something I might have wanted – that was ok to want
Was deeply unhealthy, and culminated in so many learned behaviours that I had to adopt to survive the first years of my life.
Survival meant suppressing it. Others needs and wants, always more important..
James Ballantyne 