Contents
Were you not loved or respected as a child? Have you experienced abuse or violence? You probably have toxic parents. The psychological and physical separation from them is not an easy process. We will tell you how to do it correctly in a new series of articles together with an expert psychoanalyst.
It is common to call toxic parents behaving inappropriately, manipulating, having a chemical addiction, rude and aggressive, sexually anxious (secretly or openly) and mentally unhealthy.
Such parents carry out explicit and covert mental and physical abuse of their children, and therefore, sooner or later, children ask themselves the question of separating from them in order to save their psyche and their future.
Often people whose childhood was similar have difficulty separating from abusive parents and, even clearly understanding the need for separation, cannot decide on it. Separation anxiety often becomes a hindrance to separation, which is a fusion of difficult feelings: guilt, fear, shame, a sense of one’s “badness”.
Separation anxiety at separation from the mother is rooted in childhood and is unconsciously felt by us as the loss of the most important person (in the language of psychotherapy — the «support object»), even if the mother mocked us.
This is how we are arranged: prenatal and postnatal periods of development connect us with the mother, she is the first “not I” object in our psyche, the first attempts to build relationships are made with her, our first need for love was directed to her.
DILEMMA
In the process of growing up, each person goes through the resolution of an internal conflict: separation from parents is necessary for everyone, this is a necessary condition for the formation of an independent and mature personality, but this extremely important separation causes great anxiety.
The psyche is a system that is in dynamic equilibrium. Anxiety of separation (separation), which radically violates the current situation, launches response defense processes in the mental mechanism in order to block frightening changes.
You need to see the composition of separation anxiety and work through the feelings included in it.
Heavy experiences are accompanied by both moving forward and rejecting it. As a result, there is a desire to change nothing. But, unfortunately or fortunately, it is not feasible: the body changes over the years and, accordingly, the psyche, which controls the bodily functioning, also changes. Changes are “prescribed” to us by our very nature.
Separation is usually accompanied by intense anxiety, but in the case of toxic parents it is even more difficult. What to do to cope with difficult feelings during separation? How to act so that the psyche does not have to launch «emergency» defense mechanisms?
To do this, you need to see the composition of separation anxiety and work through the feelings that make it up.
FALSE DUTY
Toxic parents often convince children that, having matured, they should take care of them all their lives, indulge their weaknesses, because the mother and father are old and need full financial support for their needs and whims.
They often also require emotional support — the kind that a baby needs, but not an adult: come to them every day, call often, inform about everything, even about intimate life, provide parents with psychological comfort. In other words, there is a role reversal: parents and children change places.
Frightening fantasies: without me, the parent will die or go crazy from loneliness; the parent will constantly remind of himself; tormented by my conscience, I will not be able to live separately and fully.
Decision: look at the situation from the outside in order to separate the real needs of the parents from the imposed whims. Often, toxic parents want to appear sick and weak. Their goal is to get the care and resources of children, their strength, money, attention.
FALSE SHAME FOR YOUR ATTRACTIVENESS, TALENTS, TASTES, SEXUALITY
A person may feel shame for actions that are not approved by their parents: for choosing the “wrong” profession, for the manner of dressing, for vacations, for dyeing their hair, and so on.
Phrases of toxic parents that provoke these experiences: “Fool made up, aren’t you ashamed to disobey your own father / mother?”, “You go out with the guys, you disgrace the whole family!”, “You are stupid, this job is not for you!”.
Frightening fantasies: “I’m ridiculous”, “I won’t succeed”, “My acquaintances will turn away from me if they find out what I really am”, “Any pleasure of mine harms my parents”, and so on. Parental attempts to devalue, take away self-confidence reinforce these fantasies and interfere with the normal process of growing up and separating from parents.
Decision: to see the mechanism of manipulation launched in the past — where similar situations occurred in childhood, and common sense was replaced by false attitudes. Re-experience the situation, not from the vulnerable and emotional position of a child, but from the position of an adult observing the situation from the side.
This new experience of living will gradually give our psyche and our body the opportunity to get out of the manipulative trap. If in childhood we could not notice substitutions and manipulations, now we can see them, experience them from the position of an adult and refuse to follow their logic.
A FALSE FEELING OF YOUR OWN BAD
This feeling that a person is not worthy of love, a good relationship, a good salary and career, the right to his opinion among colleagues and stuff like that.
Frightening fantasies: “I will speak at the meeting, and colleagues will see how funny I am”; “It’s better not to express your ideas to the boss, they will fire me”; «You should not get acquainted with a man / woman, I will not interest him / her.»
Decision: you can look at how parents imposed this feeling through humiliation and depreciation. Fix inside yourself the moment of “turning on” the feeling of your own badness: “That’s when I was a normal child, but here are the situations in which, because of my parents, I began to feel bad.”
Returning to earlier situations allows you to see yourself from the position of an adult watching what is happening from the side, and give yourself the opportunity to experience the situation again and adequately.
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Working through these and other feelings that make up separation anxiety can help reduce your overall level of anxiety. As a result, the psyche will release energy, which is now being spent on fighting with itself.
This energy can be channeled into separating from your parents and improving your quality of life.