Family Myths

Excerpts from "Forgiving Our Parents, Forgiving Ourselves" by Drs. Stoop and Masteller.



From pages 68 - 70:

The opposite of family secrets are family myths. Myths are the things we talk about but never do. George Bernard Shaw once said that most history was nothing more than “a lie agreed upon.” Family myths are like that. They represent a silent conspiracy to pretend that things are different than they are. Ask almost anyone about their family, and the first thing you are likely to hear is one of the family’s myths.

The most common of these, perhaps, is the one that says, “Oh, our family was very close.” Time and time again I have asked people in the clinic to tell me about their families, and the first words out of their mouths are, “Well, you know we’re a very close family.” Tehn they go on to tell me about all the problems, hurts and disappointments their family has caused them, describing anything but closeness and warmth. But as they finish their account, they invariably conclude by saing, “But our family is really close.”

There are other common myths. People will say that their family was very loving or caring. People from strong religious backgrounds will often say that their family was very spiritual, even when there is little evidence of it.

Not surprisingly, family myths are frequently connected to family secrets: the one thing in the family is most ashamed of will be the thing they try to cover over with a myth. I remember Anne telling me about her family. In between the various problems she described, she mentioned repeatedly that her family was “very supportive.” “We’re always there for each other,” she would say. But about two weeks later, she exploded. “I thought my family was supportive,” she said. “But here I’ve been in the hospital for two weeks, and not a single one of them has come to see me. They haven’t even called. It’s like they don’t want to admit I’m here...

Where do family myths come from? To some degree, they are simply a social convention, as when someone asks, “How are you doing?” and you answer, “Fine, thanks.” But there is more to it than that. We have all been programmed in various ways as to what a “normal” or “happy” family is like. It is like the families we have seen on television programs, or read about in school books growing up. We know what a family is supposed to look like, and we have a natural reluctance to acknowledge that our family was not like that. Never mind that the images we have in our minds may be absurdly unrealistic. We want to believe that they are true, and that our life compares well with them. To acknowledge otherwise – to others, and even to ourselves – would be too painful.

This, of course, raises the question yet again: What is a “normal” family? And how do we measure deviations from that norm?

Excerpt from
Dr. David Stoop & Dr. James Masteller's
"Forgiving Our Parents, Forgiving Ourselves:
Healing Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families"
Regal/Gospel Light, 1996 (Servant, 1991)

Insightful Quotes

List of Quotes Cited in Dr. David Stoop’s

“Forgiving Our Parents, Forgiving Ourselves”:

Gravitz and Bowden in
“Recovery: A Guide for Adult Children of Alcoholics":

First and foremost, children are taught to disown what their eyes see and what their ears hear. Because of denial in the family, children’s perceptions of what is happening become progressively and systematically negated. Overtly or covertly, explicitly or implicitly, they are told not to believe what their own senses tell them. As a result, the children learn to distrust their own experience. As the same time, they are taught not to trust other people. (pg 19)

Fossum and Mason in
“Facing Shame: Families in Recovery”:

What is common to all such families is the commitment of all family members to maintain the secrets through rigid rules about what may and may not be talked about. These rules prohibit spontaneity in the family relationships; with spontaneity the real feelings and facts might be revealed.

Family members create powerful myths about their histories, often leaving out the painful historical shapers of the shame. The children in these families are loyal through their lack of questioning about the past, thereby colluding in the family’s rules. (pp. 45-46)

Excerpt from
Dr. David Stoop & Dr. James Masteller's
"Forgiving Our Parents, Forgiving Ourselves:
Healing Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families"
Regal/Gospel Light, 1996 (Servant, 1991)

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So Man Secrets

Excerpts from "Forgiving Our Parents, Forgiving Ourselves" by Drs. Stoop and Masteller.



From pages 64 - 68:

Family Secrets


Family secrets are the things that have happened – and may still be happening – that everyone knows about but that no one ever talks about.

As you look back at the various families we have met so far, it is easy, in most cases, to see what the family secrets were. Perhaps as you think back through your own life, you are aware of certain incidents, people, or problems, that no one ever discussed, eve though it was obvious that everyone was aware of them. Perhaps you can recognize the part you played in maintaining the conspiracy of silence.

That conspiracy was a significant factor in Richard’s family. Richard came for therapy with a great amount of reluctance. He was almost overwhelmed by the feeling that he was betraying his family members by talking about their problems to an outsider. “We were taught from an early age that family business stays in the family,” he explained...

Family secrets are like having an elephant in the parlor. You learn at a very young age that the one question you never ask is “Why do we have an elephant in the parlor? If friends or others outside ask about it, the correct answer is, “What elephant?” As the elephant grows, you put a lamp and a lace doily on it and treat it like part of the furniture. In time you have to avoid the parlor entirely. But you never ask about it or comment on it.

Family secrets are one of the main ways that family systems resist change. Everyone keeps doing what they have always done, as if nothing was wrong.

Excerpt from
Dr. David Stoop & Dr. James Masteller's
"Forgiving Our Parents, Forgiving Ourselves: Healing Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families"
Regal/Gospel Light, 1996 (Servant, 1991)

Our Drive to Fix the Past

People who grow up in families where their needs, wants and desires were rigidly controlled carry a great deal of baggage with them into their adult relationships. We are creatures of compulsion, and we tend to seek out the familiarity of our original family. We are also trying to work out the unresolved parts of our past as well -- trying to find the solutions that we were unable to find when we were children. Somehow, if we can make our current situation work out well, it will solve and heal some of the hurts of the past as well.

But we go about it in all the wrong ways! Our minds will pull us back to that which is familiar, but without taking an honest inventory of ourselves and our relationships, we are likely to play out the same old problems.

This is my great concern with Botkin Syndrome. I'm concerned that children that grew up in a Botkin or patriocentric home will seek refuge in marriage but will be highly likely to repeat and replay the problems of their past. Even after emerging from the system, they will have a tremendous amount of work to do.



“Love is a Choice: The Definitive Book on Letting Go of Unhealthy Relationships” by Hemfelt, Minirth and Meier.


From pages 108 - 109:

A woman emerging from an alcoholic family vows to leave that misery behind forever. She marries an alcoholic and may well become an alcoholic herself despite knowing from experience what alcoholism is. A man whose home life was disrupted by several divorces finds himself constantly and repeatedly “unlucky in love.” Claudia Black wrote a landmark book on the problem with the self-explanatory title “It Will Never Happen to Me!” Numerous other sociologists and social workers have recorded the constant phenomenon: adults from dysfunctional families end up with dysfunctional adult relationships, for they have become codependents.

Why? Surely the man or woman who grew up knowing first hand the misery alcoholism or other compulsive behavior causes would know what to avoid. Can’t the sufferer see all those blatant warning signs?

We at the clinic, as well as other counselors, not a sadly intriguing fact: somehow, people who are powerfully codependent literally blind themselves to the red flags other people would flee from. No, they don’t see the warning signs, because they unconsciously choose not to. Unerringly they find themselves attracted to exactly the people they swear they’ll never end up being or joining.

Excerpts from
Robert Hemfelt, Frank Minirth and Paul Meier’s
“Love is a Choice:
The Definitive Book on
Letting Go of Unhealthy Relationships”
Thomas Nelson, 1989

When Children are Made Responsible for Parents

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From “Silently Seduced” by Kenneth Adams. Exploring the dynamics of covert (emotional or non-sexual but gender-related) incest.

From pages 13 -14:

The covertly incestuous relationship system continues to affect one's choice of partners, decisions about separation and divorce, sexuality and all attempted at emotional fulfillment until the truth is faceted and resolved. This is not about blaming or accusing parents. It is about assigning responsibility where it belongs: the parents' relationship with the child. Children do not choose this relationship; it is created for them. Even as adults we do not gain freedom of choice until we see the past clearly and experience our feelings about it. Relationships continue to be dictated by the sense of entrapment, experienced as a surrogate partner to one's parent. Assigning responsibility where it rightfully belongs is the first crucial step in gaining access to one's true feelings, needs and wants.

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I think it's important to understand that parents recreate their own family systems. Most parents are not malicious and are not aware of the effect they have on their children because a part of their own childhood is buried within. Sadly, if one's own childhood is not seen for what it really was, the pain of these incestuous relationships gets passed on from one generation to the next. If parents never recover their own lost childhoods, their grief deepens. They continue to expect their children to be there for them in ways they hoped their parents would have been. When this expectation goes unmet, parents see their children as ungrateful, unloving and ungiving. The result is heightened struggles between adult children and aging parents. Willpower or the right set of moral standards aren't enough to produce lasting, healthy changes. Only by facing one's past can one take responsibility for oneself and reclaim the vitality surrendered by being a parent's surrogate partner.

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From page 19 – 20:

Many men and women have grown up in families where there is no alcoholic or chemically dependent parent, yet the struggles for love and intimacy are similar. In fact, many of these families appear well put together, almost the ideal or perfect family on the outside. This makes it much more difficult to confront the past in the effort to find the roots of one's current struggles to grow and become healthy. These dysfunctional families have been described as co-dependent.

In “Co-Dependency And Family Rules: A Paradoxical Dependency,” Robert Subby and John Friel offer this definition:

Co-dependency is a dysfunctional pattern of living and problem-solving which is kept in place by a set of the rules within the family system. These rules make healthy growth and change very difficult.

These rules are described by Subby and Friel as follows:

1. It's not okay to talk about problems.
2. Feelings should not be expressed openly.
3. Communications is best if indirect, with one person acting as messenger between the other two (triangulation).
4. Be strong, good, right, perfect. Make us proud. (Unrealistic expectations.)
5. Don't be “selfish.”
6. Do as I say, not as I do.
7. It is not good to play or be playful.
8. Don't rock the boat.

Excerpts from

Kenneth Adams

"Silently Seduced:

When Parents Make Their Children Partners

~Understanding Covert Incest"

Health Communications, 1991

Family Rules That Stifle Expression of Feelings and Expression of Needs

-->About Covert Incest from “Silently Seduced” by Kenneth Adams.

From page 20 - 21:

These rules, practice collectively or singly, make it difficult for people to be close or intimate. The desire to share oneself (i.e., feelings, thoughts, preferences, wants and needs) becomes frightening. The family system's mask of perfection and idealism is threatened. These families, with their codes of silence, suffer from chronic tension and anxiety that lurk below the surface.

Remarks such as, “You could have cut the tension with a knife,” are not uncommon. Family members operating in these systems are unusually relieved no one said anything, for fear of what might happen -- “I'm sure glad I got out of there before someone said something.”

Talking about feelings or problems helps to resolve tension. These families believe, however, that if they don't talk about problems, the tension will go away. Any sort of emotional bonding between family members is impossible as long as these rules are observed.

Although there is no clearly absent parent due to alcohol or drug abuse, families operating under co-dependent rules create the potential for covertly incestuous relationship. Co-dependent families originate from marriages which operate in a code of silence. Even though there is no obvious break, healthy intimacy and sexuality have no chance to grow. One or both partners will feel dissatisfied.

-->Trapped by a set of rules which do not permit the healthy expression of feelings and problems, a parent can easily turn to a child to get needs met. The child lessens the parent's loneliness and helps the parent deny the breakdown inherent in a marriage built on co-dependent rules. It is easy to see how a parent can channel his or her passion and energy into the child and how that child can feel like the parent's surrogate partner. 
For the adult child of a dysfunctional family, the task of seeing the family for what it was becomes difficult due to the family's rigid adherence to the idealistic or perfect image. To name the covert incest that went on is much more difficult. Yet to break the walls of silence and denial is far better than to keep the pain and suffering of being a parent's surrogate partner secret for a lifetime.

Excerpts from

Kenneth A. Adams"Silently Seduced:
When Parents Make Their Children Partners
~ Understanding Covert Incest"
Health Communications, 1991

Enmeshment Produces Guilt and Anxiety

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From “The Emotional Incest Syndrome” by Patricia Love with Jo Robinson.

The Guilt and Anxiety of the Chosen Child

(The child within a relationship of enmeshment with a parent.)

From pages 33 – 38:

(BUY THE BOOK if you find this relevant to you!

This is a gross condensing of the main points of the text!)

Guilt

“I feel responsible for everything that happens around me – especially when things go wrong. I feel especially guilty when other people are unhappy. I'm sure I must have done something wrong or failed to do something I was supposed to do.”

For some people, the single world GUILT sums up the negative consequences of growing up with an Invasive Parent. Depending on their circumstances, they can fell guilty for one or more of a number of reasons, including: taking a parent away from a partner, winning out over siblings, failing to live up to a parent's expectations, wanting to break away from an overbearing parent,and participating in a love triangle when they were “old enough to know better.”

Denial and the Fantasy Family [Family Toledoth?]

From “The Emotional Incest Syndrome
” by Patricia Love with Jo Robinson.

From pages 30 -33:

All of us experience denial on some level. It is quite common, for example, to have a distorted or limited view of our childhood. This is understandable given the fact that while we were growing up, we had so little experience outside our homes. Without a basis for comparison, we grew up thinking our families were the norm. Whatever went on in our living rooms became the standard. A client said to me, “I was twenty years old before I realized that my mother was the only one who disinfected new clothes and washed them two times before she'd let them be worn. I thought all mothers did that.”

In most families, this lack of objectivity is further clouded by the creation of a family mythology – a collection of lies, evasions, distortions, and half-truths designed to obscure an unpleasant reality. It's a way to go on with life without being constantly reminded of its painful aspects... I colluded in this fiction, because to be one hundred percent dependent on my mother and to be aware of the fact she was neglecting me would have made me extremely anxious. I blocked out my fear of abandonment with a convenient half-truth.

Most of us have myths in our background... “My parents don't play favorites: they love all their children equally.” “My needs aren't being ignored; I just don't have any.” “My mother isn't angry at me; she just does not know how to show affection.” “My father isn't abandoning us; his job requires that he put in extra hours.” We cling to our family fiction even in adulthood, despite the fact that it's outlived its usefulness, because we don't want to awaken the pain that was blocked by the convenient mythology.

As adults, most of us experience denial on another level as well, which is to be unaware of the coping mechanisms we developed as children to survive a less than ideal childhood. We are blind not only to some aspect of family history but to parts of ourselves...

I often find in my clients this same convoluted path to self-discovery and growth. In order to change a negative trait, they first need to break through their denial and acknowledge that it exists; people don't change what they can't see. And in order to break through their denial, they often have to get a clear picture of what was wrong in their families and the techniques they developed for coping with it. For example, they may discover they coped with an Invasive Parent by erecting barriers to intimacy, by lying, by overeating or not eating, by becoming a parent pleaser, or by becoming a compulsive achiever. One way or another, they developed behaviors that helped them survive childhood and diminish their pain.

Excerpt from
Dr. Patricia Love's The Emotional Incest Syndrome:
What to Do When a Parent's Love Rule's Your Life
Bantam Books, 1990

Self-Love

Excerpts from "Forgiving Our Parents, Forgiving Ourselves" by Drs. Stoop and Masteller.

From pages 303 - 304:


The fact that they came from a home where secrecy was so prevalent makes them feel even worse about themselves. “Don’t talk” is always a cardinal rule in abusive homes...

For those who have been victims or have suffered the pain of growing up in a dysfunctional family, one of the most important truths of life is summed up in this saying of Jesus: “‘Love the Lord your god with all your heard and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Matthew 22:37-39)

Most of us are aware that the Bible commands us to love God and to love our neighbor. But I want you to notice two little words in this passage. Jesus says, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Many people struggle with the idea that we are supposed to “love ourselves.” It sounds so selfish. Actually, Jesus does not so much teach that we should love ourselves as he assumes that we do love ourselves. And why not? Are we not created in the very image and likeness of God? Is our welfare not of such importance to God that “even the hairs on our heads are all numbered? Should we not love the things God loves, including ourselves?”

We are not talking here about the kind of “self-love” that expresses itself in self-glorification, narcissism, despising others, and so on. Rather we are talking about a self-love that acknowledges our worth and dignity as one of God’s sons or daughters and acts accordingly. We have already seen that our duty to love our neighbors includes forgiving them when they do us wrong. Should we not likewise be about to forgive ourselves?

Excerpt from
Dr. David Stoop & Dr. James Masteller's
"Forgiving Our Parents, Forgiving Ourselves:
Healing Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families"
Regal/Gospel Light, 1996 (Servant, 1991)
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The Fantasy Parent

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From “Silently Seduced” by Kenneth Adams. Exploring the dynamics of covert (emotional or non-sexual but gender-related) incest.

From page 46:

[Following a case study of a young woman named “Vickie”]

Vickie had kept [her pain and rage] behind her illusion that her daddy was “all good and loving.” Children who are abused have no choice but to create a false illusory image of the abusing parent. This enables them to believe they are loved. Children need to believe they are loved at any cost, much as they need food and water. For this reason, children who are severely abused are always willing to follow and love the abusing parent.

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From page 56:

Playing the role of a surrogate spouse to both parents is devastating, perhaps the most tormenting of the situations presented so far. The result is a loss of clear identity. One's inner life feels empty and agonized. Awareness of feelings, choices, preferences, wants and desires is lost under a deep sense of worthlessness and inadequacy. Outwardly, these women seem to be able to do it all. They also are capable emotional caretakers of others. They leave the impression that they have few cares of their own, and if they do, they handle them just fine. Yet there is great pain in the experience of self for these women. They have contempt for their own femininity and fear men as well.

Excerpts from

Kenneth A. Adams
"Silently Seduced: When Parents Make Their Children Partners ~ Understanding Covert Incest"
Health Communications, 1991

Intergenerational Enmeshment

Excerpts from "Forgiving Our Parents, Forgiving Ourselves" by Drs. Stoop and Masteller.


From pages 120 - 121:


The main thing we saw was a problem with intergenerational boundaries in both families of origin. In each case, the children had become entangled in the parents’ problems: both Pete and Amy found themselves fused with their mothers in an attempt to survive the negative aspects of life with their fathers. As a result, each of them found themselves locked into the patterns they had learned growing up; it was almost impossible for either of them to break away and develop any other style of marriage or family life...

[Following a discussion of real-life examples of a married couple (“Pete” and “Amy”)]

Pete and Amy learned some common lessons from their families of origin. Both of them learned, for example, that Mother is the source of nurture and that Father, as the material provider, is allowed to be emotionally distant most of the time and openly domineering when on the scene. Both also learned very clearly the rule, “We don’t talk about our problems.”

They also learned some lessons that turned out to be contradictory. For example, Pete learned from his upbringing that a marriage and a family could function with very little shared time. Amy, on the other hand, learned from her family that no mater how bad the problems got, you still got together, did things as a family, and acted as if everything was just fine.


From Paul Meier and Frank Minirth in “Free to Forgive: Daily Devotions for Adult Children of Abuse”:

About 85 percent of us end up marrying someone very similar in personality dynamics to our parent of the opposite sex... We continue what we got used to in childhood. (June 21 devotional)

Excerpt from
Dr. David Stoop & Dr. James Masteller's
"Forgiving Our Parents, Forgiving Ourselves:
Healing Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families"
Regal/Gospel Light, 1996 (Servant, 1991)

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