Being Who Our Parents Need Us To Be

"Beyond Survival:
The New Testament Solution
for Adult Children of Alcoholics"
by Nancy Curtis

As children, we tend to mold our personalities to adapt to our environment. If our environment is supportive, nurturing, and flexible, we are freed to express our own individuality. If our environment is rigid, demanding and conditional, however, we are forced to shape our behavior to fit the needs of others. We substitute our true self for a false self that is more acceptable to our parents, whose love and approval we need desperately. In essence, we compromise who we really are, and become what our parents need us to be.

(p. 53)

Family Balance and How All Members Help Keep It Afloat

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

From pages 12 – 13:

All families function as a system in which one person's actions affect another and vice versa. Although each member functions independently, that member also affects and is affected by the whole. Salvador Minuchin, in “Families and Family Therapy,” says the family system has a function or purpose of seeking to bring itself back into balance or stability when disrupted. So in the case of a marriage not bonded in a healthy way, the parents' unmet dependency, intimacy and emotional needs will be met by the rest of the system – the children...

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The child becomes the parent's confidant. Loneliness, bitterness and dissatisfaction with the marriage and sex life are common topics in these discussion. The child feels “icky” about it but quickly comes to the parent's rescue and begins to serve as the surrogate spouse the system is lacking. Both parents are active participants in this covertly incestuous relationship. One is getting some needs met through the child and the other is relived at not having to deal with the reality of the dissatisfied partner. Covert incest victims often report that the same-sex parent encouraged them to comfort the opposite-sex parent after a marital fight or in their absence, for example, “You take care of your mother while I'm gone; I'm counting on you.” The child, hoping to get some of his or her own needs met, readily obliges.

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Once the boundary between parents and child is crossed in a covertly incestuous relationship, potential for more victimization exists. For example, if the oldest boy is in a psychological marriage with his mother, he may act out the covert sexualized energy with a younger sister in an overt sexual way. What started out as a spillover of unmet intimate needs from the marriage to the oldest boy in a covert way works its way into the overt incest between siblings. This example clearly demonstrates how one person's behavior in a family affects the family system as a whole.

The family system works to seek balance and tries to correct itself even in adulthood. As long as the abuse or neglect experienced in childhood remains buried within, we recreate our family all over again in adult relationships. This is an effort to work our and resolve that childhood pain. Yes, the family system continues to affect one's life even when one is no longer living at home and has dismissed childhood as gone and best forgotten.

Excerpts from

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

Types of Trauma Children Suffer in Dysfunctional Families

From the teachings of Pia Mellody

Trauma Descriptions

Enmeshment Trauma

1. Physical: (Use of implement s, face slapping, hair pulling, having a child physically nurture a parent and intrusive procedures.)
   
   
2. Physical SEXUAL: (Sex acts, sexual touching, sexual kissing and hugging, voyerism, exhibitionism, verbal sexual trauma, failure to have sexual boundary in the presence of a child, and child as a witness to sexual trauma.)
   
   
3. Emotional SEXUAL: (Involving emotional enmeshment by the parent or major caregiver.)
   
   
4. Intellectual: (Attacks to the shaming of or over control of the child's expression of thought)
   
   
5. Emotional: (Shaming of a child's expression of emotion. Refusal to let child express feelings or improper expression of feelings by the parent or major caregiver.)
   
   
6. Spiritual: (Religious addiction of the parent or major caregiver, trauma at the hands of a religious caregiver, parent acting like he/she is a god or goddess of the family, indulgence or false empowerment of the child, and moral perfection and obedience demanded from the child.

Abandonment Trauma

Failure to provide adequate:

• food, clothing and/or shelter
• physical nurturing
• emotional nurturing
• sexual information
• medical/dental care
• financial support or information
• education
• spiritual nurturing
  

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

The "Sweet Side" of Enmeshment (Success at a Price)

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

From pages 28 – 30:

When I work with adults who were enmeshed with their parents, I am continually reminded of the “sweet side” of the syndrome. By and large, the people I've counseled were attractive and successful in some aspect of their lives. A significant number have had an unusual amount of talent and charisma and have made outstanding achievements in life. For example, I've worked with highly paid executives, nationally recognized artists, successful entrepreneurs – even a Pulitzer Prize nominee. 

In a few instances, these achievements seemed to be the result of in born trials such as physical beauty or unusual intelligence. But for the majority of my clients, their accomplishments appeared to be the direct result of enmeshment. Some had a “Stage Mom or Dad” who pushed them into stardom: their parents badgered or seduced them into abandoning their own goals and adopting the higher standards of an adult. Others succeeded for a less obvious reason: being linked with a parent resulted in a heady sense of entitlement. After all, they had won out in the only competition in life that really mattered: the competition for a parent's love and attention. As a result, they felt destined for success. The seized opportunities others passed by and attracted people to them with their winning ways.

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But what was so confusing to my clients was that these positive qualities were always offset by negative ones. Strangely, they felt both privileged and victimized, both talented and worthless, both blessed and cursed. For every positive trait, they expressed it's polar opposite...

Why this contradictory mix of emotions? Typically, there are several factors involved. Part of my clients' confusion could be traced to the fact that many of their fundamental needs had been ignored. Their parents' need for intimacy and companionship had taken precedence over their need for nurturing and independence. Paradoxically, their parents' excessive interest in them had created lifelong feelings of deprivation: “No one is taking care of me!”

Another factor was that while my clients may have been delighted in all the parental attention, on a deeper level they felt exposed and confined. They didn't feel free to be who they were or to develop at their own pace. They felt manipulated and controlled.

Finally, many clients discovered that for every privilege bestowed by a parent, there had been a jealous reaction from someone else. The thrill of being “mama's little man” or “daddy's girl” was eroded by the jealousy of a left-out sibling. The status that came from being a parent's surrogate spouse was offset by the resentment of the displaced husband or wife. The alliance with a parent had thrown the whole family out of balance, and the Chosen Child was often the target of the resulting anger.

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

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

Perfection Problems and the Effects of Enmeshment

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

The Perfectionism of the Chosen Child

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

From pages 43 – 46:

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

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

Denial of Needs

“It's really strange, but I didn't realize I had any fears or problems until I was twenty years old. I did have them, of course, but I blanked them out. It's almost as if I were two people – one who was always on top of things, and then an inner one that was terrifyingly needy. I didn't let that inner one see the light of day.”

It's normal for children to be “trouble” from time to time. They need you when you're busy; they ask questions for which you have no answers...they are a constant reminder that you do not have a solution to all of life's problems.

The Chosen Child often has to repress these needs. A client nicknamed Sunny told me that she'd gotten her nickname from her mother, who elected her to be her perfect well-adjusted child. “You're always happy,” she would tell her daughter. “You're always smiling.” The hidden message was, “Don't be unhappy or have any problems.”

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Compulsive Need to Succeed

“I'm one of the most driven people I know. I once dreamed that I was going to be killed unless I was promoted to vice president of my firm. I woke up in a cold sweat. But that nightmare was just an exaggerated version of what I feel every moment of the day.”

Many Chosen Children are burdened by the belief that they count only if they are superior...It took me many years to get a handle on this embarrassing episode. What I eventually realized what that my compulsive drive to succeed was a direct consequence of my mother's high expectations and of my secret fear of inadequacy. I felt I had no choice but to live up to her unrealistic vision of me... [P]art of my legacy as a Chosen Child was the belief that to be average or ordinary is to fail.

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

Introduction to Love Addiction and Love Avoidance

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From Pia Mellody's writings and lectures, and my professional training with "The Meadows" treatment facility.

INTRODUCTION

Love Addiction and Avoidance are not about love at all. It is all about trauma reactions inside a relationship. Love starts with thought which requires an awareness of self or others that allows you to hold both in warm regard. Those who are “hard to love” require “heaving lifting” for the other party because the respect and love are not reciprocated or done so evenly. Respect is a willingness to tolerate others violations, even when you really don't have to do so. All this requires self esteem.

Note that we have three basic human needs that are God given and easily compared: love, sex and food. Just as with any need, we can manage any one of these inappropriately or to extreme. In terms of extremes, we can seek out fulfillment compulsively (like an addiction) or we can avoid and deny our needs compulsively. Both of these unbalanced extremes are self-destructive.

We all face disappointment and shame which Mellody calls “experiencing our humanity.” For the Christian, this would be experiencing our sin nature and the shame and disappointment in our failure to overcome our natural desires that have not yet been transformed to be like Christ. Until our degree and process of becoming like Jesus and our level of sanctification grows, we tend to fall into the same human trappings as everyone else. We tend to confuse love with caretaking. We tend to go about this in predictable pattern.

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Two Patterns

Pattern 1: Love Addiction

All about making up a fantasy about another person and falling in love with the fantasy

The fantasy involves

• seeing the other person as god-like
• capable of saving the love addict from his/her fear of not being able to make it on his/her own
• and loving him/her forever.
• They are someone who will “love you into loving yourself.”
• The fantasy objectifies the partner or the counter part in the unhealthy relationship (reducing them to an object of fantasy).
• This actually means that the partner is not acceptable to the love addict, therefore the love addict objectifies them by seeing them in terms of their own fantasy and not as the partner really is.
  

Pattern 2: Love Avoidance

Compulsive relational cycle that appears to be intimate but actually avoids intimacy and vulnerability

The love avoidant

• gets a sense of value from (compulsive) caretaking
• the partner confuses this with love
• They are “allergic to vulnerability”
• Their sense of value comes from caretaking and is a means of avoiding guilt.
  

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Relational Connections in Childhood

Type I: Healthy Relationship

• A relationship of Functional Bonding: Caregiver takes appropriate car of the child (affirming, nurturing, and limit setting)
• Caregiver takes care of the child and uses personal boundaries which protect the child appropriately.
• The care and responsibility for the child rests completely upon the adult caregiver.
  

Type II: Caregiver Uses the Child

• A relationship of Enmeshment: Caregiver uses the child to take care of himself/herself (affirming and nurturing must be earned by the child and must provide these to the parent as well)
• Caregiver is without personal boundaries
• The care and responsibility is partly provided by the parent, but the child is also required to reciprocate for the benefit of the parent)
• Produces a Love Avoidant type adult because the child resents the usury on some level. (Demanded sacrifice as a duty or obligation will always produce some degree of resentment.)
  

Type III: Caregiver Abandons the Child

• A relationship of Neglect/Rejection (Can be a partial neglect or inconsistent abandonment and neglect, or complete abandonment)
• Caregiver is detatched and "walled-in"
• The parent provides no care and bears no responsibility for the child and has no functional relationship with the child at all.
• Produces a Love Avoidant type adult because the child is always seeking the fantasy of love and attention.
  

From Pia Mellody's writings and lectures,

and professional training with "The Meadows" treatment facility.

And from

“Facing Love Addiction”

by Mellody, Miller and Miller

HarperOne, 1992.

How Love Addiction and Love Avoidance Develops and Affects Perception of Gender

-->From the writings of Pia Mellody on Love Addiction and Love Avoidance (The dynamics of non-sexual incest)

Note: The child who experiences this abnormal parenting will associate the issues with people of the same sex as the parent. If a child experiences neglect and abandonment with a female parent, they likely will develop love addiction in their relationships with women. If the child experiences enmeshment with a female parent, they will be live avoidant with women. It is the same with a male parent (or caregiver). The association need not relate to sex but it carries with it an association with gender.

You can also have a combination of the two issues. I had a parent varied greatly based upon the level of depression they felt and the degree of threat that they felt in the relationship with me. For the most part, I was enmeshed with this parent, but when they were in an emotional fugue and withdrawn, I was neglected. So I have both issues with my parent. The enmeshment was most disturbing, but now that I am older, the abandonment implications have presented themselves (for healing).

Neglect and Abandonment

• Neglect or abandonment by a parent sets up a love addiction.
  
• The abuse is about the parent failing to provide the love and support the child needs.
• The parent is essentially "walled in" and distant.
• The parent is giving priority to other people and other issues as opposed to making the child a priority.
• The parent's behavior covertly shames the child causing the child to believe he/she is worthless and unimportant.
• In adult relationships, the person will see himself/herself as “one down” and the
  
  other person “one up.”
• Because the child's needs are neglected, the child experiences a lot of fear about being able to self-care and make it on his/her own.
  

What a child learns from neglect and abandonment:

• As a result, in adult relationships, this person will believe that he/she cannot ma
  
  ke it alone and needs someone to care for them.
• If this is triggered prior to three years of age, the child will be haunted with a sense of disaster.
• Neglect also produces an internalized sense of worthlessness, a lack of learning about relationships and and lack of learning about self care because of a “shame-existence bind.”
• Shame -existence bind: Their existence requires them to care for self but this requires the consumption of resources and they believe that they are not worthy of them and are ashamed of their God-given human need. The shame-existence bind is one of the more problematic issues to heal from after neglect and abandonment.
  
• The child will spend a lot of time daydreaming, reading and being alone.
  

Adulthood:

• As a result, in adult relationships, this person will also associate any distancing on the part of the partner (or friend, etc.) as a threat to his/her survival.
• All relationships become fear-based as well as shame-based.
  

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Enmeshment:

• Enmeshment established by the parent creates love avoidance in the child.
• Enmeshment happens when a parent is without boundaries and without boundaries in the presence of the child.
  
• The child will get “used” in some way.
• He/she will learn that value comes from taking care of needy people and if he/she does not do that, he/she will feel guilty and believe that being relational is suffocating and abusive.
• The person will base his/her sense of self-esteem on care-taking of needy people.
• This will confuse love with duty.
• This person will be “loving” to others to avoid guilt and will be allergic to being relational or being vulnerable.
  
• Resentments will likely develop from being the caretaker
• The love avoidant develops a capacity for aggression, if they served as a “scapegoat” for the parent with whom they were enmeshed.
  

What a child learns from enmeshment:

• Relationships are all about duty and deadness.
  
• Requires a shutting down of spontaneity.
  
• Identity comes from focus on the needy instead of understanding self.
• Identity and value come from focus on the needs/wants of others instead of own needs/wants.
• Life's purpose is to do what makes others happy rather than on what satisfies self or provides self with happiness.
  

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As an adult:

• This person will need to create a lot of intensity outside of the relationship.
• They do this by “risk-taking,” addictions, extreme sports, risky business style, professions involving heroic care-taking, etc.
• They create intensity to feel alive as opposed to the deadness that they feel in relationships.
• They can become antagonistic or aggressive both inside and outside of relationships, especially if they were “scapegoated.”
  

From Pia Mellody's writings and lectures,

and professional training with "The Meadows" treatment facility.

And from

“Facing Love Addiction”

by Mellody, Miller and Miller

HarperOne, 1992.

Why Do Parents Do It in the First Place?

From “The Emotional Incest Syndrome” by Patricia Love with Jo Robinson.. Exploring the dynamics of covert (emotional or non-sexual but gender-related) incest.

How and why do parents get over involved in the first place?

From pages 73 – 82:

At some point in the recovery process, nearly all of my clients ask the same question: “Why did my parent do this to me?” They've come to realize that much of the pain of their childhoods can be traced to one source – growing up with an Invasive Parent – and they want to know why it happened... Few parents who are guilty of emotional incest realize they are harming their children. In fact, many of them see themselves as devoted, self-sacrificing parents acting in their children's best interests. What they don't realize is that in addition to giving their children love and attention, they are using the relationships to satisfy their own unmet needs. Unconsciously, they're allowing their natural love of their children to swell until it fills the empty spaces in their lives.

Exactly when does a parent's natural affection for a child turn into emotional incest?

It's hard to say, because all parents derive some degree of comfort and satisfaction from their children. Parenting is never a totally thankless task.

Acknowledging the Pleasures of Parenting

One of the hidden joys of parenting is a simple one: increased physical contact. There is no feeling that can compare to that of your newborn lying warm and content in your arms...They baby thrives on physical contact, and so do you...

Another benefit of parenting is increased intimacy...Being a parent has stretched your ability to be intimate, increased your safe harbor from the world, deepened your vital connection with other human beings.

Something else parents gain from their children – and this may seem a bit self-serving – is unconditional love. Children love their parents regardless of what they do. Their need for attachment is so great that they can make a banquet out of crumbs.

Children can also be a source of pride. I am always pleased when people tell me my children are attractive ore well-behaved or talented. Whether I like to admit it or not, there are times when I perceive them as a reflection of my self-worth. This mirroring phenomenon is universal. At any student recital, the spotlight may be on the children, but the faces of the parents are lit up with reflected glory.

Keeping Parental Love within Bounds

When you add to the many pleasures of parenting our inherent drive to nurture our young, the parent-child bond becomes a very strong one indeed. Marriages crumble. Friendships wither. But children are with you for life. This love is so intense, in fact, that it takes offsetting forces to keep it in line. It is only when parents have sources of love and intimacy and other interests in life that their love for their children stays within bounds.

[Following a case study of a career woman who became pregnant, giving up her career to stay home with her child.] I see nothing wrong with Helena's infatuation with Theresa. In fact, it gives me a lot of pleasure to see her so taken with motherhood. The reason I'm not worried is that Helena has a good relationship with her husband, and her husband has a strong interest in in the baby; love moves freely among all three members of the family. Also, Helena has a lot of interests other than parenting... Finally, Helena's background in family therapy gives her a definite advantage: she knows that a strong marriage relationship is the foundation for a healthy family, so she is careful to nurture her marriage as well her child. I doubt that Helena will ever turn to Theresa for emotional support.

A Lack of Love, Information and Role Models

Many parents have a lot fewer resources than my friend Helena. The are single or are trapped in unfulfilling marriages, and the go through their lives feeling lonely and unloved. The intimacy they share with their children may be the one bright spot in their lives...

Furthermore, few parents have much information about healthy family functioning. They aren't clear about the emotional needs of children, and they haven't learned the all-important difference between parenting and partnering. When I lecture on the roles and responsibilities of marriage partners – discussed in detail in chapter 7 – people always pay close attention. They pick up their pens and take notes, because what I am telling them is new information. Somehow, the facts about healthy love relationships have been left out of our curriculum.

A Lack of Self Awareness

Many people become enmeshed with their children because they fail to see their own lives objectively. They don't see to what extent they are siphoning off their energy to their children. Oh, how clearly they see the mistakes other people are making! But when the curtains are drawn around their own living rooms, they suddenly lose perspective. Ways of relating that seem way out of line to others feel normal – even desirable – to them. It they were able to penetrate their denial and see exactly what they are doing, they might make some immediate changes...

After a few sessions Helen was able to see what had eluded her for twelve years: she was completely reliant on Matthew for emotional stability. She had no close friends and few outside interests to minimize her intense bound with her son. Over the years, he had become her sole source of emotional support.

Toward the end of our first year of working together, Helem deepened her insight. She began to see that the ferocity of her mothering was in part an attempt to make up for the loneliness of her own upbringing. During one session she said, “My mother was a distant, cool woman. I wasn't going to make the same mistake with Matthew.” But Helen realized there was more to it than that. Another day she told me, “In a way, I felt as if I were the baby soaking up my own mothering. I didn't feel lonely or abandoned when I was with him. Every moment I spent with Matthew was a convoluted way to mother myself.” What looked to the outside world like devoted parenting was in reality a way to satisfy her own unmet needs for attachment. “I was so blind, so totally blind to what I was doing,” she cried in anguish. “Where were the warning signs?”

Helen was not a bad person. She did not knowingly become overinvolved with her son. She just didn't have enough information or objectivity.

The same could be said for most parents who are over invovled with their children ~~

They wouldn't rely so heavily on a son or a daughter if:

1. They knew how harmful it was to the child
   and
2. They had some awareness of what they were doing.

I reassure victims of emotional incest who are just beginning to come to terms with the past that they don't have to think ill of their parents. It's possible to understand what happened to them without apportioning blame. Their parents, like all parents, were doing the best they could given the information they had and the options they saw. The root cause of their over reliance on them was not maliciousness or selfishness, but a simple and understandable desire to parent their children and satisfy unmet needs for love and companionship.

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

How to Deal With the Guilt While Looking Into the Past

From “The Emotional Incest Syndrome” by Patricia Love with Jo Robinson.. Exploring the dynamics of covert (emotional or non-sexual but gender-related) incest.

From pages 136 -139:

For some Chosen Children, guilt, not anxiety, keeps them from gaining a more accurate view of their childhood. This is often true of those who grew up worshiping a parent. How can they go from thinking a parent was the most wonderful mother or father on earth to seeing the parent as the source of their misery? How can they be angry at a parent who sacrificed so much for them? How can a relationship that usually felt so good be classified as bad? ...

...If you feel guilty for seeing the negative side of a parent, removing this barrier will hasten your recovery. But how do you do this? It's been my experience that learning more about the complicated psychology of guilt helps reduce its impact. In it's simplest form, guilt is a painful but short-lived phenomenon designed to jolt you into awareness that your behavior is not consistent with your beliefs. [Blog host note: This is much like the definition of cognitive dissonance, and guilt could well be an indicator of cognitive dissonance at work.] It's a voice from your conscience advising you to either (1) reexamine your beliefs or (2) alter your behavior so that the two of them line up...

[I]t's the adult who creates the parent-child alliance. A child can't be blamed for wanting preferential treatment from a parent; it's a survival mechanism built into all children: in times of scarcity, being first in line can mean the difference between life and death. A wise parent ignores the child's plea for a place of prominence and keeps all children on the same plane. No child is given preferential treatment or is asked to play the role of surrogate spouse. Ultimately, it's the parent's responsibility to create a balanced family system, not the child's responsibility to suppress a natural and understandable desire to be a Chosen Child.

Ironically, many Chosen Children discover that letting go of this misplaced sense of guilt for what went on in the family makes them feel anxious; it's a Catch-22. Once they place the responsibility where it really belongs – squarely in the lap of the parent – they may experience a surge of anxiety for having “bad thoughts” about the caretaker. Here's the internal logic: “If I was not responsible for being the Chosen Child, then my mother and father were to blame. It makes me feel anxious to see my parents in a negative light, however, because my unconscious mind assumes they are still responsible for my well-being. Even though I am 20 or 40 or even 70 years old and have outlived both my parents, I am still fearful of abandonment. It may be better to accept the guilt for what went wrong in my family than to blame my parents and stir up my anxiety.”

For many people, this complicated and erroneous belief system stands in the way of recovery. Understanding the way the unconscious mind operates is a first step to letting go of the unnecessary burden. Here, once again, is the faulty train of logic:

1. When children are young, they feel responsible for the tension in the family because of the false belief that they are in control of the situation.
2. In later years, if they try to change this belief and assign full responsibility to their parents, they feel anxious.
3. The underlying cause of this anxiety is the erroneous belief in their adult years.

If the thought of identifying the mistakes your parents made in raising you makes you feel guilty or anxious, you need to revise your belief system. You were not to blame for what went on in the family, and you have nothing to fear for placing the responsibility for where it really belongs. You are now capable of taking care of yourself. And remember that you don't have to confront your parents or disassociate from them to recover from emotional incest. You just need to remove some of the mythology that keeps you from seeing and experiencing the truth.

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