Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Progressive Christian
Women in Abusive Relationships: Wave Goodbye to Your Parents

Women in Abusive Relationships: Wave Goodbye to Your Parents

Last updated on: March 19, 2009 at 1:02 pm by John Shore

Women in Abusive Relationships: Wave Goodbye to Your Parents 2009-03-19T13:02:47-08:00 John Shore

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

(Update: All the posts of this series have been collected into one piece, Seven Reasons Women Stay in Abusive Relationships, and How to Defeat Each One of Them.)

Last time we talked about … well, snarky rhyming leprechauns, actually. But pursuant to my series 7 Reasons Women Stay in Bad Relationships (and just before Christian Leaders: For God’s Sake, Stop Empowering Wife Abusers), we talked, in Women in Abusive Relationships: Like Everyone Else, You’re Guilty of Love, about the truth that if we are living in an unhappy or dysfunctional way, we can be sure it’s because, in one way or another, we are being as loyal as we possibly can to the ideas and values that our parents taught us about ourselves, the world, and how those two just “naturally” interact.

So let’s talk about that just a little more, because in the course of our lives there is no more important a subject for us to deal with. (As to the relationship between religion/God and our psychological well-being, it’s true, as I said in Women in Abusive Relationships: The Good Daughter Syndrome, that what stands between us and our psychological health also stands between us and the healing power of God.)

Our present and future is necessarily defined by our past. You can’t be who you want to be without understanding how you got to be the way you are. No one gets around that.

And how did you begin your journey toward the person you are today? As a fully dependent child.

Now, let’s say that as a child you had emotionally dysfunctional parents. (Phffft. Like anyone didn’t. But I digest ….) What do emotionally dysfunctional parents do? They constantly teach their children all kinds of crazy, wrong, and eminently unhelpful things about themselves, others, and the world in general. They can’t help it. They do what they are.

And how do children respond to the Toxic Life Lessons taught them by their emotionally dysfunctional parents? They believe them, that’s what. They absorb them as absolute truths. They accept them before the conscious process of “acceptance” at all. What our parents teach us, especially and particularly about who we are (since that’s the information we’re most voracious about collecting), becomes, right off the bat, so deeply interwoven into our most foundational and bedrock conceptions of ourselves and the world that unless later in our lives we work very, very hard to discern between larger, healthier truths and the little, tweaked “truths” that our parents downloaded directly into our (so to speak) motherboards, then we end up stuck in the little, broken boat our parents fashioned for us, which can never do anything but float around in the same old limited loop their boat is forever stuck in.

Worse than all this: The real message dysfunctional parents send their children is that their children are in danger. That is the primary message received by children in messed-up families: You could die here. Things are crazy here. You are not loved here. Your survival is at risk here.

That’s not an exaggeration: it’s how kids feel if the primary message they’re getting from their parents is, “My craziness is more important to me than properly loving you is.” How else can they respond to that message? They’re totally dependent upon their parents’ well-being and love. And that’s not something they’re unaware of. They’re not. They know it. They know that if their parents are erratic, or hostile, or out of control, or crazy in any real way, they’re in trouble. On the most basic, animal level, they understand that means their safety is endangered.

They’re scared, man.

And here’s what scared kids in crazy families tell themselves about their parents: They really love me. Kids tell themselves what they must in order to secure for themselves the emotional security they need just to survive in their house, which is that underneath it all—underneath their anger, their selfishness, their fear, their passivity, their physical or emotional abuse—their parents really love them.

Sure, Dad hit us. But he loved us. Sure, Mom drank too much. But she loved us. Sure, Dad was never home. But he loved us. Sure, Mom refused to stand up to Dad. But she loved us.

We all do it. We all hold dear to the myth that as children we had to create for ourselves, which is that our parents are deeper, nobler, kinder, more thoughtful—that they’re just better people—than the people whom we in fact know them to be.

And besides that for our survival we must, do you know why else we cling so mightily to the Good Parent myth? Because we love our parents with a furious, instinctive devotion the power of which is unmatched in the human experience.

And there’s the package of our lives: We love our parents, and as children we must believe that underneath it all our parents are wonderful, enlightened people who always have and always will love us.

And then as adults we find ourselves allowing ourselves to be abused. Or we habitually abuse ourselves, with alcohol or drugs. Or we eat too much. Or we don’t allow ourselves to eat enough. Or we’re the ones hurting and abusing the people we’re supposed to love and protect.

And when your personal life has for too long gone too awry, you finally reach the point where you realize that you have to start reassessing knowledge that’s as core to who you are as your skin and your teeth.

That’s when it’s time to start that process by which, ultimately, you decide that it’s more important that you stand up straight and let your parents fall off your back than it is for you to continue your life hunched over from the weight of carrying them.

In the next post of this series I’ll suggest some practical tips for gaining objective perspective on your childhood and parents.

Related post o’ mine: Unhappy? Reject Your Parents.

Please forward this to anyone whom you think it might help.

Subscribe to my rss feed and/or join my Facebook group

Uncategorized

7 Reasons Women Stay in Bad Relationships

absusive relationship

Previous Post

March 18, 2009

Threatening Leprechauns Respond!

Next Post

March 20, 2009 Tommorow's My Birthday! I'm Still Not Dead!

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Christian Issues Christian Spirituality Dear John En Espanol Everywhere She's Not Humor Look See Pastor Bob's Corner Personal Portuguese Relationships Russian Short-short story Smith Family Chronicles Uncategorized

Select a Month March 2024 August 2022 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 February 2020 December 2019 June 2019 December 2018 May 2018 May 2017 January 2017 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What is the teaching in "Let your yes be yes and your no, no"?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Lie if needed Be vague Never speak Be honest and straightforward

Books by This Author Books by John Shore

See All Titles »