If parents are prone to violence, suffer from alcohol, drug addiction or mental illness, separation from them is largely a matter of survival for children, saving their psyche. What if we feel guilty about it? Read the second article in the Toxic Parents series.
Separation from parents, or separation, is a natural process necessary for our psyches to develop in a natural, healthy way. This process accompanies a number of crises and conflict states, living through which we become adult, mature individuals.
Separating from toxic parents is much more difficult than from mothers and fathers with healthy behavior. This is more difficult to do because of some of the personality traits of the parents: because of their immaturity, addictions or mental illness.
One consequence of this immaturity is the so-called “role reversal,” where children are forced to take responsibility for the physical or emotional well-being of their parents, as if their parents were not adults but helpless babies.
Normally, parent-child relationships have their own clear hierarchy. A child is never responsible for an adult’s problems. He is not able to solve them due to lack of mental and physical resources. But an immature parent cannot assume an adult position in contact with their child. Therefore, in family relationships, he seeks to “turn the tables” and force a son or daughter to take a parental place. Such an unstable adult is unable to find his own interests in life and tries to replace them with all sorts of surrogates.
Guilt also becomes a convenient parental insurance against future attempts by a son or daughter to separate.
Role turnover can be supported by a number of manipulations. For example, by imposing a sense of guilt by imposing the image of a “good child who sacrifices himself for the sake of his parents.” These are two sides of the same coin.
The feeling of guilt arises and does not go away because parents forever remain the most important people for our psyche, because the mother is the first object of love, the person in communication with whom the child is formed as a person.
Phrases like “It’s your fault that I didn’t have a personal life, I wasted my youth on you”, “Our marriage with your mother fell apart because of you”, “I had to work hard to feed you” can strengthen the child has the false feeling that he has done irreparable harm to his parents by the mere fact of his existence.
Merging with guilt can be so deep that our existence is painted in gloomy tones: “I am not worthy to live!” Guilt also becomes a convenient parental «insurance» against future attempts by a son or daughter to separate. Growing up, children do not feel the right to have an independent life — after all, they must sacrifice it for the sake of their parents in order to atone for the «harm» caused to them.
TYPES OF TOXIC GUILT
false guilt
An artificially instilled sense of guilt makes it difficult to adequately evaluate one’s behavior. In some life situations, we are really to blame for what happened (everyone makes mistakes), in others we are not. But toxic parents often make their children feel guilty about things and situations in which they can’t be held accountable.
Exaggerated Guilt
The instilled sense of guilt «for everything in the world» weakens a person’s ability to soberly assess the extent of his responsibility for what is happening. In adult children of toxic parents, guilt is often overwhelming. For example, a shy girl at a friend’s birthday party feels out of place and thinks she ruined the party by dropping a piece of cake on the floor during the toast. In fact, the guests were busy with themselves and entertainment and believe that the holiday was a success. Nobody remembers the cake. But she’s still embarrassed.
Unpaid Guilt
This is a direct consequence of the previous point, because if the guilt is huge, then a huge price must be paid for it — to bring an appropriate sacrifice (reparation). Sometimes exaggerated guilt robs us of the ability to enjoy life. And then we feel like Sisyphus, rolling a stone uphill at the limit of strength and possibility, and the results of our actions are as insignificant as those of a mythical king.
WHAT HAPPENS TO US WHEN WE GET RID OF GUILT?
The energy that was spent on internal conflict begins to be released. The need for sacrifices and self-punishment disappears, we begin to perceive ourselves more adequately. We can use the released resources for creation: invest in relationships, work and career, hobbies, and so on.
HOW TO WORK WITH GUILT
Stage 1. Awareness and processing
You need to feel guilty. Analyze episodes from childhood and see how and when its seeds were sown in the soul: “I was born normal, without this feeling. It was implanted in me, but I remain normal. I need to separate the guilt from myself and live without it.”
Such an analysis can be carried out independently or with the help of a specialist. For independent work, it is useful to use relevant literature (for example, books by Susan Forward), webinars and videos with specialists. Over time, a person develops a more mature view of relationships in the parental family. Thanks to this, he gets the opportunity to get out of the childish “guilty” position and develop a calm, realistic attitude to what is happening.
It is good if the processing of guilt occurs in parallel with the physical separation from the parents, for example, moving. If this is not possible, no big deal. You can work with guilt even if you live with such relatives.
Stage 2. Processing guilt in other aspects of life: in relationships, friendships and work
After analysis, the focus of the work shifts to implicit or unconscious manifestations of guilt. Gradually, a person begins to see them in various situations, for example, at work or in the family.
Example: the department does not have time to complete the work on time. A person with an exaggerated sense of guilt unconsciously castigates himself for the failure of the team and decides to «pay» for it. He volunteers to be a «savior» — to linger and work for everyone to rectify the situation. At the same time, he respects the reasons why other colleagues cannot stay late at work, and disrespects his own — for example, he can cancel important personal matters.
By carefully analyzing the sense of guilt instilled by parents, a person can learn to identify its various manifestations in everyday life. The only difference with the first stage is that now the work is going on at a more subtle level of interpersonal relationships, where manifestations of guilt are not obvious at first glance, but significantly spoil the quality of life.
The first part of the Toxic Parents series: How to get rid of separation anxiety?