Secrets of parents: how do they affect our lives?

Plots with fatal secrets have been woven into world literature and art since the time of Aeschylus and Shakespeare, who told the world about the mysteries of the families of the Theban king Oedipus and the Danish prince Hamlet. And in our own biographies, there are often skeletons in the closet. Not everyone will have to investigate, like Hamlet, the version of the father’s poisoning, but we often find out that the older members of the family were silent about many things. Why?

“They hid those events and circumstances that they considered dangerous for the well-being of the family, shameful or indecent,” says Gestalt therapist Maria Lekareva. – Relatives who ended up in prison or abroad, or participation in fraud and theft could be dangerous. Extramarital affairs, venereal and mental diseases were considered shameful, in some cases – nationality or religion.

They were silent, as a rule, out of good intentions, in order to protect the child from public censure, from ridicule and gossip, and also to serve as an example for him to follow. But as the years went by, the children grew up, and the silence meant to keep problems away created problems in itself: inexplicable repetitions of events, somatic symptoms…

Pain prohibition

“A secret is not only something that is deliberately hidden, but also something that is not discussed by default,” explains Albina Loktionova, an existential and family psychotherapist. “In particular, it is difficult for us to come into contact again with that which caused pain and suffering. It’s easier to freeze it and live as if nothing happened. But as long as we postpone the meeting with the pain, the problem will not be solved.”

The psychologist tells a case from his practice. Everything was going well for 27-year-old Tatyana: studies, work, plans, and suddenly – a severe and at first glance inexplicable depression. It turns out that her grandmother committed suicide at the age of 30, leaving small children. Why?

“Her relatives did not hear the call for help,” comments Albina Loktionova. – And now the story, repeating itself with the granddaughter, signals to others: look, figure it out! Lost a man last time, don’t lose this one!” As the details of the grandmother’s biography were revealed, the granddaughter’s symptoms of depression gradually disappeared.

Stress zone

Do parental secrets always negatively affect our lives? Not necessarily, Maria Lekareva believes, it depends on how strong the conflict they give rise to within the family: “If a woman frivolously twisted novels and did not know who she gave birth to, and then got married and both parents calmly treated her first child, this could and not affect the child. But if the girl was passionately in love, and the gentleman died or married another, her attitude towards the child is colored by a feeling for his father.

Unrealized love / resentment / hatred affects her expectations, nit-picking, or, conversely, the deification of this “fruit of love”.

Another example: if in some family the father went to a lie or a crime out of good intentions, protecting the family, and does not feel remorse about this, his secret was not a reason for pride, but was internally experienced as an acceptable event and did not cause conflict. But if a family member, having appropriated part of the family property unfairly, felt guilty before his relatives, this topic became emotionally charged for him and the whole family.

Such “skeletons” force the family to communicate less often with relatives and attribute all sorts of sins to them due to the protective mechanism of projection. And if a conversation on this topic accidentally comes up in the house, then it is conducted in raised tones or is abruptly interrupted. How would a child growing up in such a family take it?

Chaining

Francoise Dolto, a classic of French psychoanalysis, said: “In the house, children and dogs always know everything, and especially what we don’t talk about … but feel”¹. A small child is emotionally attuned to the adult to whom he is attached, and, as it were, reads (thanks to mirror neurons) his fear or anger and begins to experience anxiety himself. Later, when he grows up, it does not even occur to him to ask his parents: what is wrong?

“We master the art of not asking, not thinking, not talking about some things even before we begin to think logically,” explains Albina Loktionova. – Having asked in early childhood – “Why is grandmother crying?”, “Where did dad go?”, We heard the categorical: “Does not concern you” or the evasive “He is on a business trip”.

But by the way my mother’s breathing changed, how her eyes widened, we felt: it’s better not to touch, not to look in that direction. This is how an internal prohibition is formed, which remains forever.

Anyone who has had such an experience growing up cannot talk about what hurts. For example, there is an understatement between a husband and wife about his short romance on the side: the woman is embarrassed to ask uncomfortable questions, and the husband feels guilty. He will no longer be able to love his daughter, born in this marriage, as openly and unconditionally as she needs.

The girl, feeling the alienation of her father, tries to understand what is happening, and, by virtue of her childish understanding, thinks out that she is somehow not like that. In the future, this will cause complications in her own attempts to build a relationship. Especially if she, like her mother, avoids dialogue. So broken emotional ties in the family affect new ones in subsequent generations.

body memory

In the memoirs of the five-year-old Lida, the scene was not clearly imprinted: a tall man takes her in his arms and presses her to his chest, he has wide palms and a ticklish mustache.

“Mom, do you remember such a kind uncle, he put me on his shoulders, where is he?” “What an uncle, Lidochka, don’t talk nonsense,” mom waved her off. Linda, confused, fell silent. Maybe she made it up?

“But at times it seemed to me that before living in Moscow with dad and mom there was some other one,” 85-year-old Lydia recalls her childhood. – Only at the age of 17 I found out the truth: my mother admitted that my father was not my own, I was born in another city, in the family of an architect.

And when he left to work in the capital, his close friend fell in love with his mother and took us to Moscow. My father tried to kidnap me, I remember this scene, but he was found and I was returned to my mother.

Years later, Lida’s new dad was unfairly convicted. Her mother, realizing that the mention of a convict father in the questionnaire would interfere with her daughter’s admission to the institute, took out a genuine birth certificate. “At that moment, fragments of memories formed in my mind into a single picture. I understood why I love to draw so much, why I’m eager to go to an art institute, ”Lydia concludes. Her life took on a whole.

“The body of a child knows its biological parent,” Albina Loktionova is convinced. This memory lives in all his cells. Hushing up the truth violates the formation of authenticity in the child, a sense of equality to himself.

Recognizing her father, Lida was able to carry him further in herself. This basic sense of authenticity is rooted in the body. A person who can be himself is calmer, breathes easier and more freely, he has more energy to live and act.

Inherit

“Representatives of the older generations most often did not even think of working through their injuries,” reminds Albina Loktionova. – Then there was one way of healing: “time heals.” But in fact, it does not heal, but only preserves experiences that have not found expression and understanding.

And therefore, everything that parents or ancestors could not or did not have time to clarify and resolve – unforgiven insults, broken ties, hidden pain – turns into work for us, their children.

“In order for an internal or intergenerational conflict to be resolved, nothing better than acceptance and forgiveness has been invented,” confirms Maria Lekareva. – To do this, we can imagine ourselves in the place of our own person, understand why he was silent, whom and from what he tried to protect with this secret. And try to forgive no matter what. After all, even those who stole or killed, obviously, tried to survive and save children, loved ones.

Insights do not always bring peace. But the truth allows us to get to know our parents better, to idealize or devalue them less, to be emotionally independent from them. Their fears and prohibitions become clearer. And then it is easier for us to come to terms with our mistakes and weaknesses, it is easier to accept ourselves.

¹ 1. Цит. по книге Willy Barral “The child’s body is the language of his parents’ story” (PAYOT, 2011).