«We didn’t beat you!» parents sometimes say, implying that they did not harm the child. But emotional or verbal pressure has almost the same effect on the child’s psyche as physical abuse. What consequences does it lead to?
Psychologies: Why do adults scream?
Andrey Vishnyakov, psychodrama therapist: Loud sounds allow you to release accumulated energy, relieve stress. Where does this energy come from? The answer lies in our animal nature. Our distant ancestors did not hold back, behaved naturally. There were much fewer social prohibitions, but there were many dances, singing, shamanistic rituals to release and master powerful energy.
And we, modern city dwellers, have to be polite and restrained. There are few places where you can apply bodily energy — we are at work or school all day. Animal energy accumulates in us. Plus, we have a fighting, military energy, designed to fight enemies or hunt. When this energy is not used up, it can turn to «raising» one’s own child.
Adults yell at children in order to lose energy. Dad came home from work, yelled, everyone was in the corners of fear, and he felt good and joyful. But the child at such a moment «works as a lightning rod.»
What happens to a child who is yelled at?
For a small child, a cry is the roar of a terrible beast. The child feels a message of energy in his address. What if the parent hits? After all, the child does not know what will happen next, he is entirely in the power of the parent, and the parent is angry and unpredictable.
I have had hundreds of clients, and when we went through the scenes of verbal aggression of “parenting” with them, I never heard from them that at that moment the mother or father was yelling out of love. On the contrary, everyone said: «Mom and dad did not like me for what I did.»
Most thought they were to blame for what happened, for the parent yelling
The child is afraid that he “broke” the parent with his actions. And the worst thing — “They don’t like me! I did something, for which they stopped loving me! He doesn’t know if it’s permanent or temporary. Rare exceptions are among older children, when the child understood that the cry was not about him at all, and the mother, for example, was freaking out because of a divorce. Or that dad always acts like that when he’s drunk.
In the worst case, when the child does not know how to analyze the situation at all, to look at his parents from the outside, he is threatened by a constant fear of doing something wrong and further life with the feeling “I am bad”, “why was I born at all?”.
Fortunately, the child’s psyche is very adaptive, adapts to everything, can digest it all, move it aside and find ways to recover. In the belligerent version of the parent’s verbal aggression, the child learns to build strength, defend boundaries, and wait to become physically stronger.
Aggression may not be expressed in a loud cry. Perhaps an adult keeps everything under control, does not raise his voice. His aggression is expressed in the fact that he manipulates the child, suppresses his will, inspires him with a sense of insignificance and inferiority. Or, for example, a child is “educated” by endless conversations. I have had clients, mostly men, who as children would lock themselves in the bathroom or closet while their mother would stand at the door and itchy.
And for some girls, fathers stood over their souls for hours while their daughter was doing her homework. This is real torture!
The reaction to the blow is pain and anger, albeit suppressed, unexpressed. The reaction to screaming and manipulation is fear and helplessness. Both are bad. But there is strength in anger, but there is none in fear. This is evidenced by the phrase, at first glance, paradoxical, which has been heard more than once from customers: “It would be better if they hit!”
How to be an adult who has experienced verbal abuse as a child?
The first step is to realize that I am now an adult. As a child, my father (mother) was physically stronger than me, so I could not leave, I could not yell back, slam the door, send in hell, push or hit. The forces were not equal. Would I let my dad yell at me like that right now?
Most of my clients in such a situation say: «Father, you will continue to yell, I will not come to visit again, I will not bring my grandchildren.» This is not blackmail, this is normal border protection.
The second step is to understand what happened to the parent. Not in order to “understand and forgive”, but in order to learn to notice these psychological states and not automatically reproduce parental behavior.
What happens to a parent who screams?
Scream is loud. And what is it for? Not only to intimidate, but also to convey information to the child. To the one who raises his voice, it often seems that the other does not hear him and that he should speak louder, that it will be “more understandable” this way. And a child, due to age, may not really understand what he is being told. And, of course, screaming only frightens him, not teaches him.
Another reason is the powerlessness of the parent. He does not have the strength to reason with the child, to make his life correct and safe — as the parent sees it. And he may be right: for example, when a child sets fire to something in the game. The parent becomes afraid for the child and for himself. At this moment, he perceives the child not as a younger one who needs to be taught, but as a destroyer of a cozy, calm world.
The child brings something destabilizing to the world that needs to be dealt with.
So the mother yells at the child who stumbled and broke his knee: “Are you a complete moron? Can you look under your feet?!” Isn’t it strange: at the moment when you have to regret, the mother yells? Yes, because the child «blew up» her world, her calm state.
He is just the “aggressor” at this moment, and it takes a lot of patience and love to breathe in, breathe out, accept that this happens, and hug the child. And only when the pain subsides and everything is bandaged, perhaps the time for education will come.
How to work with yourself?
I understand that not everyone will go to therapy, but you can do something on your own. Watch how you raise your children, how you convey information to loved ones. How do you react when they do not understand you or do not accept your position. Explore what got you so hooked that you raised your voice? How did you feel about the person you yelled at? Compare this to how it was in your childhood.
The consequences of verbal aggression in adults are varied: causeless outbursts of rage, low tolerance, inability to endure anything unpleasant. Or vice versa, the habit of enduring everything and where it is necessary, and where it is not necessary.
The main knowledge: whatever conclusions a child makes about himself, they were made in conditions of aggression
They need to be reviewed from the perspective of an adult. You can’t believe what a parent in a state of rage said. Everything needs to be rechecked from your current, calm, holistic position. Even if the parent said the right things and it helped you in life.
Along with the gold of wisdom, rot was probably planted. Shine prevents you from seeing it, but it continues to slowly rot in your life. Do not throw away the gold, but put it aside for a while and deal with the rot so that you do not carry it with you and pass it on to your children.
And you can also say: “I did well, I survived! Thank you for yelling and not beating. You helped me understand better: only what is done and said out of love is good. And love is when you think about another, when you care about how words and actions will affect him. You didn’t have a choice how to act, but I have, I know what it’s like to be yelled at. And I will do my best not to repeat your mistakes!”