Article by Maxine Harley
We may have left our parent’s home in our 20s but some of us might as well still be living under their roof – because of the influence and power they have over our self-esteem, moods, choices and relationships.
For those of us who’ve had a ‘troubled’ childhood – which can also be a euphemism for having been emotionally and psychologically squashed by trauma and abuse, and of having to endure the torment of toxic parents – our past experiences still relentlessly invade the present day.
Most (apparently about 90%) of our behaviour is sub-consciously driven, and so it isn’t available for our objective scrutiny, evaluation or updating.
None of us really knows why we are the way we are, or why we react, speak and behave as we do.
Each day of our lives we are automatically replaying the drama script that has been ingrained in our minds since childhood.
Our lives are running on auto-pilot and we aren’t even aware of it!
Did you have an unhappy or abusive childhood?
For those of us who have endured a difficult, unhappy or abusive childhood, we just can’t seem to cleanse that stained and grubby script we read from and play out each day. Nor can we change those habitual relationship patterns which we compulsively re-enact – despite their familiar and agonising conclusions.
We search in vain for the glimpse of a different ending to our painful dramas… and for a way to create a new script of our own making, with different characters and a happy outcome.
Other people may be able to see more clearly than us just how stuck we are in our repeating patterns of unhappy and conditional relationships and friendships. They may even mention it to us – but unfortunately we probably won’t listen or trust their motives.
We are then left wondering why these people back away from us and seem to only tolerate us from a distance.
Our fear of emotional vulnerability and intimacy prevent us from allowing them into our lives. We reject the very thing we need the most.
As adults we still run old programming and conditioning from childhood
The underlying problem is that as adults we are still running the old programming and conditioning from our childhood. We are still constrained by the lies we believed about ourselves and what we deserved in life.
We have learnt from our family what is OK to feel and what isn’t, and what we should do to remain acceptable – and where that rigid boundary lies. We felt the acute pain of emotional rejection or physical punishment if we dared to step outside those family boundaries.
We were emotional prisoners back then, and we are still living inside our safe emotionally padded cell – even though there is no lock on the door. We don’t know how to live ‘outside’.
Happy families and loving relationships seem alien to us, we don’t know how to ‘do’ them. We feel further shame at having to admit to ourselves that we are ‘different’ – the damaged goods that just don’t fit in.
As a compliant child prisoner we had to wear a mask of obedience – maybe one with a happy smile on it to trick our teachers and peers that everything was fine at home. The masks were essential for our survival in those days.
That mask then feels like a ‘natural’ part of us, and either we forget that we are even wearing a mask, or we are too afraid to peek beneath it and see what and who hides there. We are raw and naked without the mask… we dread exposing our defects.
Toxic parents
For those of us who had not only a difficult childhood but also a toxic parent emotional turmoil is even greater. The life-script now has pages missing, and has been overwritten with contradictory scribbled notes and confusing plot twists.
Toxic parents use, confuse and abuse their innocent and vulnerable children. As their children we knew no different. We had to believe ourselves ‘bad’ so as to keep them ‘good’.
That psychological split stays with us as adults, and brings us inappropriate guilt and shame for no apparent reason. Our shame is that we are bad at the core. Our guilt is that we are a misfit and a burden to others.
As adults we are still dutifully obeying our early programming, and we can be oblivious to the real reasons for our deep sense of echoing emptiness, aching sadness or bitter anger.
We know from research studies carried out since 1997 into the impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences (or A.C.E. ), that our early experiences and traumas set us up to have problems later in life with our physical and mental health, our emotional intelligence, our social skills and the types of relationships we attract.
Our lifespan is also reduced in correlation to the higher the number of ‘points’ on the A.C.E score we have out of the 10 which were researched. 67% of us have at least one out of 10 and 25% have at least 4.
I have 6 which is regarded as high – and helps to explain my own past ‘mistakes’ in all areas of my life. I now ensure that I keep myself physically and emotionally healthy. We can beat the odds when we know what we are up against!
Becoming a parent, and later a grandparent can give us a spotlight of contrast – between how it was for us and how we want it to be for our own children.
We have a choice albeit restrained by our sub-consciously driven beliefs and bad habits.
I know all to well the mistakes I made with my daughter in her early years – until I started to learn a different way of being a parent. I had to take one painful step of awareness at a time. I wish I’d been as good a mother in my daughter’s early years as time has allowed me to be a grandmother more recently.
If you are one of the very fortunate minority who had a good childhood with loving parents then what I’ve written here may seem alien to you.
Negative friends
But please do still spare a thought for the wounded little girl inside that awkward friend of yours – the one who usually seems to have a negative comment for every occasion; the one who seems like the perennial victim who is almost asking to be kicked up the backside; the one whose heart bleeds every time she sees a loving Mother’s Day or Father’s Day card or message on social media. Those are like vinegar poured onto her open wound.
It isn’t really ‘her’ who reacts as she does – it’s her wound. Her pain. Her profound disappointment at not having had reliable loving parents who wanted and valued her. Her chest and throat are tight from years of stifled tears.
She may be a pain in the proverbial sometimes, but she needs you to see beyond that – and to very sensitively let her know how she affects you, and that you accept her nonetheless. By sticking by her (and holding boundaries around any unacceptable behaviours) you will help to release her from that emotional prison of her past where she has been trapped in her old painful and default ‘childhood core emotions’.
She isn’t easy to befriend. She may react to innocent comments ‘as-if’ there was a malevolent intention behind them. She may lash out verbally in a nano-second if she perceives a threat of agonising shame that she is somehow not good enough. She may manipulate situations to make herself look and feel better. She may be replaying the ‘it’s not fair’ or ‘it’s all my fault’ programmes.
Her inner child needs her to do these things as protection from the wound. It’s not a personal attack on you, but an attempt at defending her own ego and soul. She doesn’t know why she’s doing it, let alone how to stop it!
Sounding like a broken record
She may sound like a broken record repeating itself – she awaits someone to sensitively lift up the stylus and stop the turntable.
If you or any of your female friends and colleagues are still stuck in their childhood dramas then there is now something you can do about it.
A system to move on from dysfunctional childhood
I have created my own system of the steps needed to move on from dysfunctional childhood programming into becoming an authentic autonomous adult.
It allows you to S.E.L.E.C.T. Your Life (c) – and not passively accept the one handed down to you, or that other people prefer you to have.
Self-awareness
Education
Learning new skills
Emotional intelligence & balance
Control, clarity & choice
Transformation
The first step towards change is Self-awareness – of our own patterns and the impact we have upon other people.
We can become Educated about why we are the way we are; and then Learn new skills to make actual changes to our inner and outer lives.
Then comes creating Emotional intelligence and balance – and being able to self-regulate our emotional responses.
With this comes Control, clarity and choice about how to write a new script that better serves us, and with a new cast of characters of our own choice.
Finally Transformation – and recovering from our childhood and/or toxic parents, healing our emotional wounds and making peace with the past so that we can create a calmer happier future.
I have FREE e-booklets, videos, blogs and articles to help with ‘childhood and toxic parent recovery’ on my website – www.maxineharley.com/free-resources
There you will also find the first step of my two therapeutic coaching programmes called Recover From Your Mother, and Cast Off Your Father’s Shadow – the first step is called The S.H.I.E.L.D. and you can get it FREE here www.maxineharley.com/coaching
A troubled childhood can be overcome whether the parents are still alive – and perhaps now elderly and frail – or if they have died.
What matters most is changing the internalised relationship with them… the one that still drives that wounded imprisoned inner child’s thinking feeling and behaviour.
Maxine Harley (MSc Psychotherapy) MIND HEALER & MENTOR
Helping women to understand and manage their emotions, boundaries and behaviours…to FEEL better, so they can BE, DO and HAVE better in their lives.
www.maxineharleymentoring.com