Understanding and Healing the Personal Legacy of Childhood Emotional Abuse
Years ago, I thought I would work with children, but I quickly learned that this wasn’t a good fit because: a) I could not get over the rage and agony associated with the things adults do to kids; and b) I had to work too damned hard. Kids didn’t know me. They weren’t just going to tell me what was really going on. I had to work for it. Sometimes, they couldn’t find the words to tell me, and I had to find creative ways to help them. I knew my limits.
Instead, I work with the kids once they grow up. Even as adults, people have a hard time fully expressing childhood pain. The longer I do this work the more I am feeling the agony return. It’s painful to see really good people suffer as they struggle to understand why a parent failed so miserably to do some very basic things.
Childhood is a critical period in development. Kids learn who they are, what makes them special, what they can do, and what life is all about. When parents or caregivers fail in some very basic ways — like failing to show love — it can be haunting across the lifespan. It’s weird. If a child is beaten or sexually assaulted, we all recognize that as abuse. People whose parents failed to show love don’t seem to recognize this as abuse. It’s like they live for years with a sense of shame — somehow feeling they weren’t deserving of parental love; that their parents were justified in not giving it; and they’re just hoping no one finds out that they’re unworthy.
This is the fundamental question these folks have: What is so wrong with me that even my parent didn’t love me…. that a parent couldn’t love me? They don’t seem to entertain the fact that the parents were the ones who were fucked up.
Let me explain the science. Evolution dictates that humans are driven to survive. Humans are wired to love their children so much that they would die so that the children might live. We are wired to fall in love with the faces of our children. When that doesn’t happen, it is a sign that something has gone terribly wrong with the parent (either because the parent has a flaw in hard wiring or the parent had an early life experience that created a flaw in the wiring). In the end, though, the flaw is with the parent.
The consequences of parents not giving love are enormous. On a weekly basis, I see people who are tormented by memories of being ignored, belittled, betrayed, and cast aside. How does a child, with no life experience otherwise make sense of being treated this way? The science of brain development dictates — kids feel overly responsible for events because they have limited ability to see beyond themselves. Kids explain the lack of love by reasoning that they aren’t lovable, aren’t acceptable, aren’t valid, aren’t worthy.
Here is more science. Humans don’t just desire nurturance and warmth, they require it to thrive. Harry Harlow did a classic study on rhesus monkeys (Alert: This is distressing too.) Harlow took two wire figures of monkeys about the size of a mommy rhesus monkey. He paired one of the wire monkeys with food, and the other wire monkey was wrapped in a fuzzy cloth but had no food. The baby monkey was only exposed to these two wire models and not a real parental monkey. The baby would go to the wire monkey for food but would go back to the cloth monkey for comfort, to cling and just to hang out.
Children (and every damned one of us) want comfort and safety, especially when we feel hurt, afraid, vulnerable. We want to be held. We want to be accepted and validated. That is not too much to ask.
I see adults who had one or both parents who could not or would not provide this essential, crucial message in childhood: “You are amazing. You are, in fact, the most amazing person I’ve met. I am so in love with you, and you don’t have to do anything to deserve it. You are worthy of everything I have before you are even capable of lifting a finger.”
I see adults who only had the wire parent or the occasional/unpredictable fuzzy parent. As adults, what is done is done, but it is hard to emotionally transcend these early life experiences.
I can’t go back and re-write the story for folks. The adults I see can’t go back and have this mind-blowing conversation with an emotionally incapable person who will somehow understand and apologize resulting in healing. In fact, such conversations with emotionally impaired people leads to more pain. Healing can feel impossible.
What I try to remind people who have these early life experiences is that if you are able to recognize the importance of love and how much not having it hurt you, your wiring is seemingly intact. You were spared the missing link. There is hope.
Here is what I try to convey:
I am so very sorry. What was done to you was wrong. I wish I could fix it. I do. I would if it were within my power. I want you to know that the way you were treated was abuse. There was nothing in the world you could have done to deserve love being withheld. Nothing. It is not possible. The problem is that the adult did not have the capacity to consistently provide healthy love and acceptance. It wasn’t about deserving. Unfortunately, no matter how many hours we talk about it, the legacy of hurt and pain will likely not go away. Sometimes it lessens. Sometimes it subsides for a while only to return when triggered. However, there is one huge part that you control. The part of you — the child who never got the love — can become acquainted with the other part of you -the adult who now knows this was wrong and who knows you deserved better. The adult in you is fully capable of giving the inner child the message I conveyed above. That part is under your control. You are worthy. The feelings of shame, sadness, and “not good enough” will likely linger, but you will know they are scars of the past that hold no deeper meaning. The painful feelings are telling you that your inner child needs unconditional love, which you are able to give. (The inner child needs the warm and fuzzy stuff that you are now able to give because you are whole.) While I get that it is not as satisfying as receiving it from a parent, it is something you can provide — something real — something deserved. It is a skill, and the most amazing thing is that you are able (despite what was done to you) to recognize the need and possess the ability to meet it. You are a survivor. You are worthy.
I like to add that my zone is bullshit free. I base my opinion on science, and I’m hard wired to love. If you or someone you know is struggling, find a therapist. It’s scientifically proven to help. (Find a therapist: APA.org; ABPP.org; PsychologyToday.com; Helpstartshere.org; local state psychological association; or your insurance company has a list)
I have a new book coming in November-available now for pre-order. https://www.amazon.com/Move-Motherf-cker-Live-Laugh/dp/1684034868/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=jodie+eckleberryhunt&qid=1597161861&sprefix=jodie+ec&sr=8-1
