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The Nature of Codependency

My analogy of co-dependency which is people pleasing is being like X-Men character Mystique. In the sense not that one takes or can take the physical shape and appearance of another but in the sense that as co-dependents we shift ourselves to accommodate others, we base our identities on mirroring others, on being who they want us to be or we think they want us to be.

We create and live through a false self because we allow others to define us, we shift ourselves for approval. If I’m who someone wants me to be or like them, I don’t risk rejection and abandonment. I can be loved; I will be seen as enough. I can only be seen this way; I can only be heard if I don’t speak my truth but agree with others. I can only be accepted if I’m everything but me.

Codependency is the reliance on other people for approval and a sense of identity. The need to be perfect and defined by others. It’s a loss of control and giving away our power. It’s a loss of our authenticity, our potential, our values, our morals, our boundaries… In fact, the absence of boundaries plays a pivotal role and the fear of setting them, this is why co-dependent people later in life are at risk of ending up being taken advantage off and further abused, not because it’s their fault but because others chose to abuse them by exploiting these very vulnerabilities. In addition, co-dependents fear that having boundaries make them bad or selfish because many times as children they were shamed for having their needs or denied their rights.

Gabor Mate said children need two things; authenticity and attachment.

What happens in codependency is that authenticity is sacrificed for attachment.

In the fear of being abandoned by others, the result is that we sacrifice our own needs and self-love and abandon ourselves.

Co-dependent people don’t have a solid sense of who they are, because co-dependency is a natural reaction to trauma that develops in the formative years and childhood and is due to having experienced developmental trauma. Trauma or abuse robs us of our sense of self amongst other things. Many times it wasn’t okay to be ourselves, to be a child with needs and curiosity and test boundaries and be dependent and needing of nurture, the messages we received were; you are not okay as you are, you are too much, you are not enough, you cannot be accepted or loved for being you, you are not valuable, you’re not lovable…these messages can be subtle and don’t even need to be verbally made. When a child fears these things, they feel rejected and fear being abandoned. For a child abandonment is like murder. Co-dependency develops as a survival strategy, because children are dependent on survival by the adults. These patterns don’t just automatically vanish when someone turns of age. Being an adult is more than just about age.

These patterns follow us into adult relationships, many times seeing us end up in abusive relationships. The trauma response that co-dependency falls into is the fawn response.

The ‘please‘ or ‘fawn‘ response is an often overlooked survival mechanism to a traumatic situation, experience or circumstance. As any survival response; like flight, fight or freeze, a please or fawn response is to manage a state of danger or potential danger.

We may have learned that if as children we utilised the fight response and challenged our parents or protested their mistreatment of us, it only led us to being or feeling punished. This robs us of our assertive skills and silences us into subservience and submission. It also does one of the most destructive things ever that others utilise later in life to hurt us and that’s it deletes our ability to say no, to the point the word no loses all existence. This is why it’s hard for co-dependents to say no, to set boundaries and why they fear doing so will occur a negative action or response. Flight really isn’t much of an option since children depend on the adults in their lives and can’t just easily run away and some go into the freeze response where they dissociate from their toxic environment or people around them.

Many co-dependents were parentified in childhood. Parentification is also linked to childhood trauma and often made invisible just like the child may feel. It occurs when the roles are reversed between a child and a parent, where the child has to step up as the caretaker, mediator, or protector of the family. It is a form of mental abuse and boundary violation.  Again, we see that a codependent has grown up in a dysfunctional family setting where lack of boundaries were to be found. 

This sense of becoming a carer was damaging yet made the child feel they were needed and had a purpose and that if they gave of themselves, they could finally be accepted and loved.

‘Love’ very often came with conditions of worth. Conditions of worth were coined by Carl Rogers, the founder of the Person-Centred approach which is a way of being not doing. Rogers said that conditions of worth are what we develop when we take on board other people’s values and ideas about how we should be. When we are children, we learn what pleases those around us (parents, relatives…) and what gains us approval. This is what sets the stage later to people pleasing and why I mentioned at the start of the article why we become like chameleons or Mystique in X-men.

We also learn what gains us disapproval, for some this can be as simple as making mistakes and the reason why perfectionism is also linked to co-dependency and the child becoming the ‘perfect’ child who is always obedient and polite. Co-dependents are extremely loyal to those that are toxic and can allow mistreatment without seeing it as this because of their past history and conditioning.

It is a need for any child to feel wanted, enough, loved, seen, heard, accepted and to feel they belong and nurtured and it is as much of a requirement as food, shelter, water…Because as children we rely on these for survival we end up doing what is needed to get them (please).

What can add to not feeling enough or unwanted and linked with conditions of worth in later life is also society and how in order to feel like we belong, we are expected and told to be a certain way or act a certain way.

Boys and men don’t cry. Girls and women are not ladylike if they do certain things, gender stereotypes are good at this, advertisements that label certain aspects as flaws in order to make business and work on our self-esteem or create and generate this lack of low self-esteem. Women need to look a certain way to be attractive to men, men need to be macho and have a six pack, success is seen as wealth…This can open the original wound and create added layers making one never feel accepted, wanted, loved or enough as they are or it can create codependency from adolescents and adulthood only. The danger of placing value on these things and believing these conditioned lies, is that if we don’t have these things (if we are not ‘perfect’) then our worth can feel challenged.

 Pete walker defines trauma-based co-dependency as:

‘a syndrome of self-abandonment and self-abnegation’.

He also explains the implicit code of the fawn type is that it is:

  • To listen rather than talk
  • To agree than to dissent
  • To offer care than to ask for help
  • To elicit the other than to express self
  • To leave choices to the other rather than express preferences.

It is only with learning how to apply and carry out boundaries, when we find our voice, are able to offer ourselves our own love and acceptance can we break free of co-dependency and start to become our authentic selves and learn who we truly are or set free the person we always were but that was prisoned.

Further reading of interest:

Abuse victims are not codependent: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/abuse-victims-are-not-codependent-theyre-trauma-bonded_b_581cfc1de4b0334571e09b49?ncid=engmodushpmg00000006

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The truth behind suicide and the suicidal mind

Edwin. S. Shneidman states:

“In almost every case, suicide is caused by pain, a certain kind of pain – psychological pain, which I call psychache. Furthermore, this psychache stems from thwarted or distorted psychological needs’ (The Suicidal Mind, 1996, p.4)

Suicidal death is an escape from overwhelming pain.

The question we should be asking is “Where does it hurt? And “How can I help you?”

Shneidman also looks at some common truths and factors about suicide. These are:

  • The common purpose of suicide is to seek a solution to end the pain.
  • The common goal of suicide is cessation of consciousness. Dissociating from the painful reality.
  • The common stimulus in suicide is psychological pain. Pain is at the core of suicide.
  • The common stressor in suicide is frustrated psychological needs. These cause the pain and push the person into suicide.
  • The common emotion in suicide is hopelessness-helplessness. It feels like there is nothing the person can do (except end their pain via death) and nobody that can help them (with the pain they feel).
  • The common cognitive state in suicide is ambivalence. This is the tug war between life and death. Not wanting to live, not wanting to die but wanting to end the pain and death feeling like the only solution. Suicidal people feel forced into this, it is not a want but stemming from the need to end the pain. When the need becomes greater than the want, suicide wins. This is the result of great distress and great desperation.
  • The common perceptual state in suicide is constriction. Black or white thinking. All or nothing.

Shneidman states:

“Suicide is not best understood as a psychosis, a neurosis, or a character disorder. It is a transient psychological constriction, involving our emotions and intellect”. “There was nothing else to do.’ “The only way out was death’. “The only thing I could do was this’.

  • The common action in suicide is escape or egression.
  • The common interpersonal act in suicide is communication of intention
  • The common pattern in suicide is consistent with life-long styles of coping. Individuals who have lost their lives to suicide, have been fighting for far longer than we realise, it’s an accumulation of unprocessed life events that can trigger the final act. Those more prone to automatically use the flee survival response are made vulnerable.

What doesn’t help people who are suffering is the myths that surround suicide that need to be eliminated and based on lack of empathy and total ignorance.

Suicidal people are not selfish, cowards, weak or attention seeking, not only are they in great psychological pain, but did you know that the part involved with empathy is shut down? When overwhelmed our nervous system shuts down and parts of our brain become inactive. In that moment, suicidal people are not thinking, this ability is disabled, they are trying to end their pain.

Also children and adolescents commit suicide, do we think of them as weak, cowards…or do we see them as dsyregulated individuals in great distress unable to regulate and soothe selves?

Suicidal idealisation and suicide itself is common and normal, we need a relational approach to this not a pathological approach. We need to stop pathologising human experiences. We need to stop shaming people who open up to us and label them attention seeking, let’s substitute attention seeking with connection seeking. Suicide can escalate when individuals are made to feel unsupported and isolated.

If someone brings our attention to the fact they are hurting, we ask where are you hurting? We don’t say people are seeking attention when they have had an accident and are injured, the doctor or paramedic may ask, can you tell me where it hurts? Can you show me where you are hurting? and assistance will immediately be given. We also don’t leave an individual who is bleeding profoundly to bleed alone so why do we emotionally? why is the waiting list and support for people in distress so long, requiring them to have to wait years even for assistance? Why are children being dismissed because they are told they are not suicidal enough for help?

Myths not only are callous, judgmental and inaccurate but also contribute in making others feel further unsupported, misunderstood, stigmatised, punished, isolated and alone, increasing the pain and risk. This is the root of the problem and this rises suicidal feelings and the risks of suicide.

We see in films the kind act of putting an animal in pain out of its misery and suicidal people feel like they are doing the same for themselves as well as a kind act to those they love in the way of removing the burden they feel they are. They don’t want their loved ones to see them in pain and have to experience that pain every day and feel that death would give them freedom from this. They know that their death would also cause pain, but they don’t see this as worse of a pain than to see a loved one dead inside and in pain whilst alive. It is excruciatingly painful and difficult for someone to end their life, and an indication of how bad that psycheache is. Nobody likes pain, think of what we do, when we have a toothache, we reach for medication to help alleviate the pain, when we are in severe psychological pain such as deep injuries and needing surgery we are given anaesthetic to take away the pain, imagine living with this pain with no anaesthetic day after day. For a suicidal person living can feel like being burned alive each day.

Not every suicidal person wants to end life, it’s not that they don’t want to live but they fear living or life more than death. For others they may feel trapped in limbo where they fear living and they feel dying just as equally. These individuals may find themselves experiencing suicidal ideation but not making plans. This is a torment in its own right. Suicide is trying to find a solution to a problem, it is the trauma response of flight mode. Attempts are ways to self soothe when one is emotionally dysregulated and overwhelmed by so much emotional and psychological pain within. One doesn’t need to suffer from a mental illness, even if mental illness is a high risk and many lose their lives to a mental illness far too many times, this is why we must have the support we need to help those in need but the support for mental health as always been scarce and the world has long not be trauma informed.

What also doesn’t help is that we live in a world that causes systematic trauma alone through oppression and exploitation such as racism, capitalism, misogyny…and one that doesn’t meet human needs. A world where emotions are frowned upon and vulnerability which is courage seen as weakness, victim blaming is engrained in our culture and all these things woven into the fabric of our society alone is enough to make any strong, healthy or mentally healthy person, emotionally bleed.

Not all people that are suicidal are necessarily depressed because many times what is pathologically labelled as a disease is in effect an emotional reaction and therefore rather a dis-ease (as Peter Levine states) and also if we look at the word depression it means to press down, push down and this is what we are asked to do with our feelings and emotions. Many times, what we feel is dismissed with phrases such as: “just think positive”, “It could be worse”, “things happen for a reason” …making one feel alone and misunderstood and their pain further silenced. We further create more distress to an already distressed individual through hospitalisation where they can be forced by police into an ambulance, sedated and treated like dangerous violent criminals. In past, mental illness treatments were barbaric and abusive to the point they would make you suicidal.

When our survival is threatened and pain overwhelming the real aim is to end the pain, it’s to find a solution. Suicide isn’t primarily in my view about self destruction although the act itself has this element, but rather it is a form of self protection. It’s a reaction to a threat so great, the threat of never being the same, the threat caused by overwhelming fear for our life or our reputation, the overwhelming of shame. It can be a different threat to different people as all of us are individuals with individual circumstances. I believe it’s the threat that leads to what distressed individuals come to see as the only solution. It is not intentional and rational, it is determined by various social and biological forces. Like us humans it is complex and needs to be given the attention it deserves and victims and survivors of suicide or attempted suicide(s), need to be given the dignity and justice they deserve.

If something so heavy is falling on us and it threatens to crush us, chances are without support we cannot free ourselves and the weight of something we cannot possible hold alone will come crashing and potentially kill us. Something has happened or happens that has metaphorically ended a person’s life before suicide ends it physically as in kills the body. Many times, we fail to see that the person who we have lost to the world, was trying to survive, wanted to survive and intended to survive and had been strong for so long and yet we fail to see this is the case in a lot of suicides. We just label them cowards just like soldiers in wars who developed PTSD and could no longer bring themselves to function or fight. We cannot judge anyone or ourselves even by the same standards when we are faced with a threat or when we are in great distress. When are needs are not met and we are starved and deprived of these needs or need to survive.

An example is, if we are safe and regulated and have security and resources and say we are thirsty, we will drink something that is drinkable, if we were in a desert for days and the threat of death by dehydration was looking us in the eye, in despair we would drink poison just to quench the thirst, this would lead to death but our intention was not death, it was to ease the discomfort, to find a solution even if it came with repercussions. Our choices, our behaviours, our actions, our thoughts, all change when faced with things.

So we can’t judge and compare, victims of suicide with someone who feels safe and in a calm state because of this. Another example is seen even in animals, scorpion suicide was long featured in Iberian folklore, but George Bryron’s 1813 poem: The Giaour, brought attention to it. When ringed with fire and faced with no means of escape, the scorpion was said to end the threat by thrusting its sting into its own back which would see it dying. A bee will sacrifice their life to string to protect itself from threat. Suicide is an act to protect self from the threat of overwhelming emotional and mental pain.

We can also consider the IFS (internal Family system) modality, which is an approach that doesn’t pathologise rather normalises aspects within ourselves and looks into them with a lens of compassion and curiosity not judgement. It is of the belief that our mind is made up of sub-personalities, this is why we can experience conflicting emotions, because there is more to us than just one part. We are made up of many parts. That is why many suicidal individuals may have a part of them that wants to live and a part of them that wants to die with the latter taking over.

IFS claims that these parts are divided into exiles (parts of us that are wounded, vulnerable, traumatised), protectors (these are pro-active and try to protect the exile parts from becoming wounded again and experiencing emotional flooding which overwhelms us), and finally the firefighters (these parts are reactive and try to end the pain, these are the parts that can have us feel suicidal or act on suicide). So what we see, is that suicide is an act of self protection, an attempt to protect self from pain and like a firefighter the goal is to put out the fire (pain), everything else isn’t important and will get destroyed, just like suicide ends the pain but destroys the body in order to do this which results in a life lost.

I have aimed to argue and present my argument that suicide has absolutely nothing to do with a character deficit and as Aphrodite Matsakis states when talking of trauma:

“At some point in your life you have probably cut your finger with a knife. If the blade was dull, you may have suffered only a little nick. If the blade was sharp, you may have bled all over. If the blade was very sharp and the force behind it was great enough, you might even have lost part of your finger. The extent of your injury depended more on the sharpness of the blade and the power behind it than on the toughness of your skin. Given enough force, even extremely tough skin would not protect you from the knife, and anyone else in the same situation would also be injured, even if they had the toughest skin in the world. The same holds true on a psychological level. There are events in life that would almost make anyone ‘bleed all over’.

What I mean by trauma is anything that affects our ability to function, what happens inside us. Even the things like losing a job, a breakup/divorce, the loss of security, loneliness…

In addition, we need to change our language around suicide. Don’t say: They committed suicide, they had a failed attempt, they are attention seeking. Alternatives and the truth are, they died by suicide, they were in psychological pain, they are asking for support and help. People don’t commit suicide, they are driven to suicide. Let’s end the stigma and stop hurting those that are already hurt and in pain by words, myths and ignorance.

Let’s get educated and spread the love! Let’s remember those that have made attempts and survived along with those who have lost a loved one and those that have lost their lives to psycheache.

Reference: Edwin. S. Shneidman, The Suicidal Mind (1996

Copywrite: Antonella Zottola

This article is copywrite protected and no content may be reproduced or used for any purpose without the permission of the author.

 

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Why Christmas may be a dangerous time for victims of domestic violence

Christmas is a time that can intensify the loneliness that one may feel or has been battling with. Add to this that abusers use a tactic called isolation, which is a means to isolate the victim so that the victim becomes dependent on the abuser who is the only person they may have. The abuser tries to isolate the victim from friends and family so that these relationships can be lost, and the victim is left vulnerable and the power and control of the abuser tightens. If this support system is lost, the victim may feel more compelled to return to the abuser. Financial difficulties may also come into play. Christmas can highlight the shame of not having a loving relationship in one’s life, or company and someone to share the magic with.

Abusers are opportunists, and what better time to seize an opportunity than at Christmas when loneliness can be a killer and emotions may be overwhelming for those who feel alone, unloved, unwanted, abandoned and rejected, or who may have no family and friends? This is why abusers may try to, and many times do, entice a victim to return to them around this time. When an abuser returns it’s not because they wish to change, not because they miss the victim, not because they love the victim, not because they are interested in a romantic relationship, but because they want that power and control, and to prove they have this to the victim; to demonstrate that they can always be accepted back, that the victim needs them: “I have power over you”. They are missing having what they see as a privilege, using the victim as a supply, that they see the privilege to treat someone badly and see how the victim has traumatically bonded to them.

Abusers are masters of manipulation and know exactly what they do. It is very tempting for the victim to return, to soothe the pain of loneliness, to have to be in denial because the truth is scary. The pull of the chains of traumatic bonding is very powerful.

The no contact rule the victim has put in place can be hard to do, as the toxicity of an abusive relationship can feel like an addiction; you know it’s bad, dangerous even, but you need a fix to believe the reality is different, to numb the pain even temporarily; the addiction from the positive rewards the abuser uses and then again abuses. All these are tactics that are not separate but part of the game. Knowing that the victim will crave those “happier” days, moments and experiences, believing it means that there is a better side to the abuser, that this means they can be changed and that love will lead to this change. It’s a dangerous myth and lie sold to victims by the abuser who promises to change, by messages given by society, especially to females.

It can be so tempting to go back, but an abuser becomes more dangerous after a break-up and sometimes wishes to return to gain revenge upon what they see as an act of defiance from the victim. How dare they think they can leave? That they are better than me? How dare they demand respect or see through the games, deceit, lies and techniques? The victim must be taught a lesson so they don’t step out of place again. This can be what an abuser may be feeling and thinking, and highlights the danger of returning.

The more a victim stays or the more they return the tighter the grip, the harder it gets, the more dangerous it can become and the consequences can and have been fatal.

Please make sure that you have a strong support system in place around times that can make you more vulnerable. Please stay strong knowing you deserve so much more; please know that the pain of loneliness can be a killer but being with an abuser who is an empty human being can make you, in the end, feel more alone than you ever felt before. Please know that you are not alone. Please pour that energy and love unto yourself, give yourself the love that you feel you need to get from others. Please be safe, know that it’s not your fault for feeling the way you do, for feeling that temptation, know that someone understands but, if you can, please don’t return – one can’t find happiness in the same place that has destroyed them and made them unhappy.

We all want a happy ending but many times it can and has resulted in a tragic ending, and if an abuser ever were to change, the only person who can make this happen is themselves, because they and they alone choose to, but you cannot place yourself in danger waiting for this, and even then you deserve to be free from abuse and have your time and space to heal.

Merry Christmas to all victims who have gotten out, who may be trying to, who have and may feel compelled to return and all those that may be reminded of the trauma experienced around this time. You are not alone.

For more information on domestic violence and abuse, check out my eBook – Shattering the myths of abuse: Validating the pain; Changing the culture –https://www.amazon.co.uk/Shattering-Myths-Abuse-Validating-Changing-ebook/dp/B07PSCF9B5

https://www.counselling-directory.org.uk/memberarticles/why-christmas-may-be-a-dangerous-time-for-victims-of-domestic-violence

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The Hurt and Pain behind Christmas

While Christmas is seen as a jubilant occasion that embodies the theme of family, friends and happiness, the reality is that many are plagued by deep sadness, loneliness and even despair. Christmas can bring with it painful memories and make people feel more isolated and alone.

Let’s imagine some realities; the elderly that may be forgotten or with no family, the victim of domestic abuse who may be tempted to go back to abuse because it feels better than the pain of loneliness, the child whose parents cannot afford much, the homeless on the street, the one’s who may have lost a loved one or experienced trauma around this time, those who have no family or who have removed themselves from toxic ‘family’. The one’s forever struggling of which Christmas may feel like just a day like any other.

Many of these painful feelings can make people suicidal even around this time, especially when the pressures to be and appear happy are placed upon them, when they are seen as Scrouge’s and ruining it for everyone else if they are not.

This pressure can often lead some to smile, and so a smile can been seen but the inner torment often remains hidden.

Christmas highlights what is lacking in people’s life and magnifies it, bringing feelings of shame, inferiority, a sense of failure and then feeling like one is bad if they are not in the mood to celebrate, feel happy or like the very season that seems the most painful as there is no escape from this theme. These happy images are painful reminders that can be torturous to those who have no contacts or family, suffer from mental illness, are being abused and whose life is not the epitome of joy. Where tears are to be found instead of laughter, where the tinsel may not sparkle, where there may be nobody to pull a cracker with, where loneliness and pain engulfs them even when surrounded by others.

Many clients may indeed feel like this and need counselling and support at a time which can be seen as the most painful as it forces so many happy images and so many images of family, security and happiness that remind others of all they may have lost or all they don’t have. It can also remind them of all that can make them feel guilty for not being happy, shame at all that they might lack in life at that moment and loneliness at the reminder of not having the happy family or close ones to share it with.

If family members are depressed, or things happen at Christmas, the association made will not be positive. Many hurts can be thrown in peoples faces and many expectations and pressures placed on this sense of being happy whilst the truth is for many that they could be hurting inside.

It’s important to realise how sensitive and painful this season and time can be for many others out there that may need support, understanding and validation. Let’s not forget   that Christmas isn’t always a happy day for everyone and that’s okay.

Let someone know you care, not only at Christmas but during the rest of the calendar year. Be understanding and accept that Christmas isn’t the best time of year for all out there.

https://www.counselling-directory.org.uk/memberarticles/the-hurt-and-pain-behind-christmas

https://www.thecounsellorscafe.co.uk/single-post/2017/12/18/the-hurt-and-pain-behind-christmas

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Understanding our Inner Child

Many times when we have had a difficult childhood or trauma, we develop certain coping strategies and survival techniques that later in life no longer serve us. We are not always conscious that the hurt and wounded child within us is still very much at the forefront and requires our immediate attention. This makes sense if we consider that only an estimated 12% of our life and our knowledge is in our conscious awareness, in contrast to 88% that is in our unconscious awareness.

We may have denied or not been aware of how much our childhoods have had an impact on us. We may dismiss it because we believe it ‘wasn’t that bad’, ‘others have had it worse’, ‘I was never hit’, ‘I wasn’t sexually abused’… we may still be that child that in order to survive cannot see our parents as they were and not wish to see them in a bad light.

This isn’t about blame, this is about owning the fact that something has had an impact and that everything results in consequences. This isn’t about comparing but acknowledging that we all have a right to feel the way we feel and that many things can be damaging. Everyone feels and reacts and experiences things in different ways, all are valid.

Childhood difficulties occur due to many diverse reasons:

  • Bad experiences at school.
  • A single event trauma.
  • Cultural shame.
  • Emotional neglect.
  • Emotional abuse.
  • Sexual abuse.
  • Physical abuse.
  • Psychological abuse.
  • Living with domestic violence.
  • Having to grow up with absent parents.
  • Living with a parent who is ill.
  • Losing a parent… and any situation that causes wounding.

Sometimes, we can come to believe that if we survived and it’s in the past then it no longer is relevant but burying it doesn’t resolve it.

What happens is that the wounded inner child never leaves us, our bodies change and transform regardless of whether we are ready for that psychologically and emotionally. Our bodies will develop into an adult body and time waits for nobody. This means that we can feel like children trapped in an adult’s body. We don’t instantly wake up the next day having turned 18 and 21 and become adults, by law only. When we have had a difficult, traumatic and painful childhood our development and growth gets compromised. Therefore, those stages of development have not been completed. Adulthood like anything is a process. So that lost, afraid and lonely child can be found within and at times wounded parts of us are frozen at the age we got hurt.

Imagine a five year old or a 10 year old thrown into adulthood, having to be an adult in the world, form adult and romantic relationships, take on a job and all the responsibilities that come with being an adult? How frightening must that be and seem? Can a child deal with this all? With the adult world all alone, having to fend for self?

So it is any wonder that things may go wrong? That the inner child may look for partners to meet their unmet and unresolved needs, that they become more vulnerable to predators? That they may develop self-sabotaging or self-destructive behaviours? We act out because it has never been worked out.

These wounds can then manifest in psychological conditions such a:

  • depression
  • anxiety
  • low self-esteem
  • addictions…

Self-care may be hard to do due to the fact that as children, we may not have learnt how to comfort and soothe our own emotions or learned healthy ways around this. We may have not had our sense of self and feelings reflected back to us. What happens is that the hurt inner child within creates havoc in our adult life and takes the driver’s seat.

The inner child is calling for attention, for compassion, for resolution, for the love and nurture it craves for. Yet many times as the child-adult we have learned to dismiss, ignore, and abandon this part of self. We can end up doing to ourselves what was done to us.

We may have a hard time loving self, being comfortable within our own skin, accepting praise, knowing our boundaries and rights. We develop low self-worth, low self-esteem, lack of self-confidence. We seek these from others unable and not knowing how to give to self. Yet all these, have the prefix ‘self’ in front of them because only we can give ourselves these gifts.

Yet like the child, there can still be that sense of dependency on others, or independence so great that we don’t let anyone help us or let them in. Just like we can trust people all too easily or not at all and push others away. Both resulting in desperation later for all that has been deprived and all we have deprived ourselves off. Our needs can become greater than our wants; leading us to accept the crumbs.

Other issues that develop are many, amongst these:  

  • All or nothing thinking.
  • Control issues.
  • Anger.
  • Being over-responsible.
  • Neglecting our needs.
  • High tolerance of inappropriate behaviour.
  • Soft or rigid boundaries.
  • Fear of abandonment.
  • Difficulty handling and resolving conflicts.
  • Straying away from the actual core issue.

What also can happen is that our self of ‘I am’ is lost. We are made to live as a false self. This is due to the fact that nobody was there to reflect feelings, identity and thoughts back to us. We may have been parentified (when a child is expected to take on the role of a parent). In cases like this, as John Brandshaw states: “no one gets to be who they are. All are put in service to the needs of the system”. Use is abuse and the child is being used.

One technique that the inner child and the child uses as a coping strategy is called ‘magical thinking’. We hope and believe that if we prove we are good enough, pretty enough, the perfect partner, successful enough, obedient enough, that we will be finally noticed and loved and protected. This can be seen from the social conditioning in particular with females of a prince charming saving them from their own helplessness and misfortune. Yet, we need to find the hero inside ourselves. Know that we have the power within us.

As Carl Rogers stated, conditions of worth are placed on us as children.

‘Conditions of worth are transmitted to the child, who learns that s/he is acceptable or lovable if s/he behaves, thinks and feels in certain ways’ (Tolan, 2003: 4).

What these do is put pressure on us as individuals to feel and behave in particular ways, even when contrary to how we feel. This can be found to still haunt us by societal expectations later in adult life. Where society tells us to be who we are and expects us to be anything but ourselves in order to feel valued. This is seen by beauty standards, competition in workplace etc.

Recovery and healing of our inner child requires us to integrate the inner child part and our adult part. To learn to be that healthy role model and protective, loving and nurturing parent to self. To develop our own self-love and compassion. To listen, hear, validate, comfort, nurture, love and give attention to that part of us; that wounded inner child who needs us to reclaim it. It needs to feel valued. We must also grieve our lost childhoods and our unfulfilled developmental needs. We must embrace our original pain by embracing the child within us. It also requires us to start from scratch and learn who we are (our authentic selves), to take those baby steps all over and support ourselves as we do to that journey of healing and self-discovery.

As Ron Kurtz said: “The child wants simple things. It wants to be listened to. It wants to be loved… It may not even know the words, but it wants its rights protected and its self-respect unviolated. It needs you to be there”.

Healing is a process not an event. An exercise you can try out is to draw or write about how you feel. Connect to your inner child by either drawing with the opposite hand to the one you draw with, like a child not thinking about how it should look or be or producing a great picture. This is not about being an artist. Just owe the drawing. Let that inner child communicate with you.

With writing again, use the opposite hand to the one you write with, this is to feel like a child would and write a letter to your inner child expressing what you would like it to know. You can also ask a question by writing it down as an inner dialogue. Use the dominant hand to write as an adult and the other hand as the child responding. This can take time, as the inner child needs to feel safe. If we criticise it or feel hostile to that part of ourselves it may not want to be there or come out.

Here is an example of a love letter to your inner child:

Dear beautiful inner child of mine,

You are so lovable, so full of beans and light and love. You radiate and your empathy and wisdom are the gifts you offer to the world. Such a gentle and sweet soul you are.

I’m sorry that your original wound was that of abandonment. So, sorry that you felt invisible, not valued, unloved and engulfed for so many years by loneliness due to lack of connection with self and others.

How so many didn’t deserve you, they didn’t value or care. You had to protect yourself and felt so alone, carrying burdens on your small shoulders that crushed your very psyche. The unbearable pain and weight of so much, no child has the tools to handle. How you became so depressed, withdrawn and socially anxious due to the unpredictable, chaotic and unsafe environment that was to be home. The rejection of so many, and adults around you that constantly failed you and were no role models. How you were never loved unconditionally, there saving everyone and who saved you? Who was ever there for you?

The humiliation and bullying you suffered at the dinner table, the freedom you lacked. The never feeling enough and the inner cries of why me? The anger that could never be expressed and burned you from the inside. The tears that were silenced and not allowed to flow, the pain that had no outlet, the identity that was forbidden, learning you couldn’t be accepted or loved for you. That nobody would love you. You soul screaming to be noticed, you pain aching to be soothed, your heart crying for connection, protection and to be understood.

I see you; I hear you; I’ve got your back; I will fight for you. I will nurture you, I will hold you and your pain, cry it all out as you fall into my loving and accepting arms. Don’t be afraid, I’m here making the commitment never to abandon you again in the same way others have or hurt you. It’s time you were set free, I see how tired you are, the toll the years have taken on you. I want to lay you at rest, save you from under the rubble of rocks such as shame, abuse, parentification, being used that crushed you.

Please come home, please trust me, I want you to be cared for and experience my love. I want you to know that I am proud of you. You didn’t deserve the adversities you were faced with, to have to survive in the wilderness.

Don’t compare yourself to other’s who had it worse, you matter and your pain matters and is valid. You don’t have to go through worse to be deserving of love or have your pain be legit.

Forgive yourself for the things you hold remorse for and have changed and corrected. You don’t need to be perfect.

Let me allow you to be the child you never got the chance of being, let me give you back a sense of wonder, playfulness and celebrate all these precious qualities that are a part of you. I love, appreciate and adore you. You are not alone, I’m here from now on.

Loving you always.

Adult me xx

Another example can find here: Healing letter to self

Healing our childhood wounds

These stages can be applied to other areas and experiences of childhood and healing. Adapted from Amazon book: Daughter Detox from an Unloving Mother and Reclaiming your life. Writer Peg Streep lays out seven distinct but interconnected stages on the path to reclaim your life from the effects of a toxic childhood:

DISCOVERY, DISCERNMENT, DISTNGUISH, DISARM, RECLAIM, REDIRECT, and RECOVER

DISCOVERY = opening up your understanding of how you have been wounded and influenced. Example for children of toxic mothers. Recognising the eight-toxic maternal behaviours—dismissive, controlling, emotionally unavailable, unreliable, self-involved or narcissistic, combative, enmeshed, or role-reversed—lays the foundation for the child’s awareness of how their way of looking at the world, connecting to others, and ability to manage stress were affected.

DISCERNMENT = delves into the patterns of relationship in your family of origin and

how these played a part in your development, and then looking closely at how you

adapted to the treatment, either silencing or losing your true self in the process.

DISTINGUISH = seeing how the behavioural patterns we learned in childhood animate all of our relationships in the present with lovers and spouses, relatives, friends, neighbours, and colleagues. The act of distinguishing allows us to see why so many of us end up in unsatisfying relationships, chose the wrong partners, or are unable to develop close friendships.

DISARM = leads to active recovery, learning how to disconnect unconscious patterns of reaction and behaviour and substitute actions that will foster the growth of self-esteem. Understanding the triggers that set us off, the cues that put us on the defensive, and the default positions of blaming ourselves and making excuses for other people’s toxic behaviour are addressed, as are unhealthy behaviours such as rumination, rejection sensitivity, and more.

RECLAIM = is the stage at which we begin to actively make new choices, preparing ourselves so that we can live the life we desire by seeing ourselves as having agency and being empowered. Making new choices.

REDIRECT =Turning self-criticism to self-compassion, using a journal as a tool of self- discovery and growth, and goal setting.

Finally, RECOVER = become the best, most authentic version of ourselves.

Uncovering childhood wounds – The following questions are about symptoms which are associated with the kind of childhood wounds which tend to fester with unacknowledged or unexpressed anger. (Managing anger by Gael Lindenfield)

  • Do you find it hard to trust others?
  • Do you have a tendency to neglect or abuse your body?
  • Are you afraid of loneliness and does fear or rejection or being abandoned hold you back in any way?
  • Are you often concerned about what people think of you?
  • Do you spend large amounts of time criticising yourself and putting yourself down?
  • Are you frightened of taking risks and making mistakes, and always feeling compelled to go the safe option and get things, exactly right?
  • Are you always looking for someone to tell you what to do, especially in difficult situations?
  • Do you find authority figures difficult to relate to?
  • Do you find yourself often taking the role of rebel?
  • Do you want to always keep the peace?
  • Do you sometimes ‘blow your top’ unexpectedly and then feel guilty afterwards?
  • When anything goes wrong, do you automatically think ‘What have I done?’
  • Do you often feel that the world is against you, that however hard you try you are unlikely to succeed?
  • Do you often get sad for no apparent reason?
  • Do you find it often hard to make up your mind and know what you want?
  • Is it difficult for you to ‘let your hair down’ and have fun?
  • Do you find success hard to cope with and tend to play down your achievements?
  • Do you find yourself continually attracted to people who let you down?
  • Do you feel that there are very few people who know the ‘real’ you?
  • Do you feel drawn to sexual practises which you or your partners feel uncomfortable about?
  • Do you cry when you are angry?
  • Do you get angry when in fact you are frightened?
  • Do you feel that you have never found your ‘niche’ or ‘quest’ in life and that you probably never will?
  • Do you alter your behaviour or plans to gain the approval of your parents?
  • Do you often wonder if you have any real friends and secretly think that no one could ever really understand or help you?
  • Do you often find yourself experiencing intense emotions after being with your parents?
  • Do you feel that you are responsible for your parents’ sadness or happiness?
  • Do you still feel like a child in the presence of your parents?
  • Do you still often wish your parents would change?

Processing emotional triggers – What triggered your inner child?

  • I felt disrespected
  • I felt excluded
  • I felt unheard
  • I felt scolded
  • I felt judged
  • I felt blamed
  • I felt lack of affection
  • I felt lonely
  • I felt ignored
  • I felt I couldn’t be honest
  • I felt like the bad guy
  • I felt forgotten
  • I felt unsafe
  • I felt unloved
  • I felt it was unfair
  • I felt rejected
  • I felt abandoned
  • I felt trapped
  • I felt frustrated
  • I felt lack of passion
  • I felt uncared for
  • I felt disconnected
  • I felt manipulated
  • I felt controlled
  • I felt coerced/pressured/forced
  • I felt used/exploited

Inner child positive affirmations 

  • I love you
  • You are safe
  • You are lovable
  • You are worthy
  • You are enough
  • I see you
  • I hear you
  • You are valued
  • I respect you
  • It wasn’t your fault
  • You are not to blame
  • It’s okay to be you
  • You are beautiful
  • You are special
  • I am here for you
  • You make a difference

Remember that when we harshly punish self or criticise self we are doing this to our inner child and if we wouldn’t say nasty or hurtful things to a child, we need to recognise that we too matter, we too deserve our love and our inner child is asking us not to abandon it but to finally put it at peace. Only when it feels safe that our adult part can look after it, love it, and will protect it, will it start to take a back seat and heal.

Your inner child needs you. It is precious and lovable.

“Healing old wounds can only begin when the children we once were feel safe enough to speak their hearts to the adults we are now” – L.R. Knost

https://www.counselling-directory.org.uk/memberarticles/understanding-our-inner-child

Further resources: 

Inner-child-healing-booklet

Nate Postlewait – https://natewrites.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/journaling_guide.pdf

Reading: Homecoming: Reclaiming and Championing your inner child by John Bradshaw.

Online: https://nightdawndays.wordpress.com/2019/10/04/a-love-letter-to-my-inner-child/

The window of tolerance animated by Beacon House
Meditation to connect and heal the wounds of our inner child
Meditation For Inner Child Healing
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Invisible Scars – Emotional Neglect

When looking at our childhoods we can often miss pivotal clues as to how emotional neglect can contribute to later difficulties in adult life. As a society we often focus on abuse in terms of what was done to us as children and yet what actions our parents may have failed to take can be just as damaging. If parents failed to act to meet our emotional needs, reflected things back to us so that we had a mirror to understand our feelings, emotions and needs and reflect back positive parts of self, then growing up it is likely that we become adults unable to express ourselves or be in tuned with our feelings. This can leave us unable to recognise our needs or emotions, have problems knowing what we need and how to express ourselves. We may have difficulties calming ourselves down and soothing ourselves from painful emotions which can lead us to escape them through compulsive behaviours. We might have difficulties with emotional regulation, expression and ways to articulate our feelings. We may even have difficulties asking for what we need.

Developing a positive sense of self becomes challenging as children. Our sense of identity and self tends to get lost if emotional neglect has taken place in our childhood, and this leads to feelings of emptiness, feeling disconnected, unfulfilled and not being able to know why. As adults, we may then not be able to trust our own emotions. Individuals who have experienced this may therefore have problems taking care of themselves and knowing how to nurture themselves and their wounded inner child. They can remain unaware of the impact of what has happened to them and in the process neglect themselves.

Emotional neglect renders the person invisible, it’s a failure to notice, attend to or respond appropriately to a child’s feelings. It remains invisible as it goes unrecognised and so the child’s experience feels invalidated. It remains an overlooked issue and children themselves remain unaware until symptoms manifest in early adulthood. Even then confusion is to be found due to the fact this is an invisible scar and hidden pain.

There are a few parenting styles that can result in emotional neglect:

  • Absent parents – Reasons could be due to family break ups such as divorce or separation, a parent absent due to illness or addiction or mental health, a parent that may be serving time in jail, a deceased parent or a parent that has left the home and family.

Some situations are not the result of bad parenting, however the impact remains:

  • Authoritarian parents – those who cut off and silence a child and by this silencing their feelings and needs
  • Permissive parents – who leave the child to fend for themselves, so that the child is never shown how to recognise their own feelings by never having them recognised
  • Narcissistic parents – where the child is used to cater the needs of the parent alone, never being able to have their own and theirs met
  • Perfectionist parents – who project their own need for perfection on a child and the child never feels good enough.

All these behaviours ignore a child’s needs and feelings and require the child to sacrifice their own needs and feelings to accommodate others.

Like everything in life, the things that are not visible to us tend to get ignored, yet they are just as damaging and the damage is being done. Let’s take the example of drugs, alcohol, refined sugars and tobacco. These damage our bodies – we cannot see the damage that goes on within our bodies but these toxic substances are doing just that. After much abuse, we see symptoms and start to notice the effects; this is much like the invisibility of emotional neglect and the fact that just because it cannot be seen doesn’t mean the damage hasn’t or isn’t occurring.

Psychologist, Dr. Jonice Webb states: “Childhood emotional neglect is often subtle, invisible and unmemorable”. Emotional neglect can be at the root of emotional disorders and mental illness such as depression and anxiety. Its symptoms include:

  • Sensitivity to feelings of rejection
  • Pervasive feelings of emptiness
  • Sense of not feeling fulfilled
  • Unhappiness
  • Perfectionism
  • Need to people please
  • Feeling like a fraud
  • Disconnection from self
  • Excessive fears and worries
  • Dissatisfaction
  • Difficulty identifying or expressing feelings
  • Being seen as aloof, arrogant or distant.

Children may develop ‘toxic stress response’ and this makes the process of growing up an extremely challenging one. Parents who have experienced emotional neglect themselves may emotionally neglect their own children, not knowing any better as not having experienced any other way of being themselves.

Emotional neglect however is not limited to childhood and is just as damaging in adult life. This can happen within intimate relationships; it feels like rejection and rejection can be painful. In fact feelings of rejection and abandonment are said to send a signal to the part of our brains known as the amygdala, which the triggers intense fear. This is the fear that we are not good enough, unacceptable or unlovable. We then can no longer feel safe and secure.

To heal these wounds as counsellors, we need to not only be aware of what has happened in our clients childhood but what has been missing in it and the gaps created. We need to offer our client’s unconditional positive regard so that they can learn to nurture themselves, through self love and self compassion, and connect to their self so that they become aware of their own needs and feelings and how to nourish these. Clients need to find their own empathy to reconnect to the self, for empathy drives connection and through our empathy to clients this can help drive that connection. Many inner conflicts and addictions or mental health problems, or emotional disorders can be the result of being disconnection from ourselves and life.

As professionals we need to help spread light into the hidden corners that often go unnoticed.

https://www.counselling-directory.org.uk/memberarticles/invisible-scars-emotional-neglect

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The Truth Behind DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder)

All mental illnesses are surrounded by a lack of understanding as to what causes them and a lot of stigma and myths. One form of complex psychological condition which is often incredibly misrepresented and misunderstood yet draws much fascination is DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder), formerly known as and recognised by the term Multiple Personality Disorder.

The misrepresentation of this is often seen with the ignorant and negative and rather insulting portrayal of it by the media who uses it more often than not in horror films. It rarely depicts a true and accurate representation and rarely places individuals who suffer from it in a positive light, but rather a dark light where they tend to be the ones that commit the crimes in horror stories.

This invalidates the pain and experience of survivors and that feeling of being invalidated hurts in a way that cannot be erased. These negative labels and representations are not only inaccurate but painful to see and hurtful to sufferers.

The real truth and real horror lies within what happened to those who suffer from this. It is not a sign of madness, badness or criminality. It is a perfectly normal reaction to abnormal events; it’s a creative way of survival, of surviving horrors done to those who suffer from it. These horrors commence in early childhood when the individual was young, often experiencing repetitive and extreme abuse and unable to cope, too overwhelmed by indescribable and incomprehensible traumas and who developed DID as a means of survival.

The definition of dissociation is the disruption of the normal integrative processes of consciousness, perception, memory, and identity that define selfhood.

This copying mechanism tends to then become reinforced and conditioned and part of a normal way of being in order to keep surviving. It is a highly creative way where the child learns to adapt to the horrors it cannot escape. The child cannot escape the trauma physically so they find a creative way that allows them to “get away” by doing so mentally, emotionally, psychologically (through their heads).

What the child is trying to achieve is an extremely effective defence against severe physical and emotional pain, or the anxious anticipation that follows that pain. This process is thereby created by the child so that the child’s thoughts, feelings, memories and perceptions of the traumatic experiences can be separated off psychologically, allowing them to function as if the trauma had not occurred. Blocking the painful trauma allows survival of unspeakable mistreatment to escape and in doing so also allowing the escape from powerful emotions such as pain and fear/terror.

The result is a split in parts of self and fragmented memories. Each protector created by the splitting process becomes a different identify in itself yet all form part of the same person. In fact we all play different roles in life and act differently in each context. We may act differently with parents than we do alone with friends and act differently at work than at home even if our parts of self (unlike DID sufferers) are integrated.

We all dissociate at some level. In a mild form of dissociation where we may lose touch with conscious awareness of our immediate surroundings; examples include getting lost in a film or book, or when we forget where we placed our keys, or when we may have had a traumatic experience. As we can see dissociating is normal. DID is dissociating at a higher level and is therefore an extreme example and form of dissociating. The person with DID experiences memory loss that is too great to be explained by ordinary forgetfulness.

As we have seen, DID is a consequence of extreme abuse in early childhood. The genesis of DID therefore occurred due to the most typically extreme, repeated forms of neglect, physical, sexual and/or emotional abuse. Children that have been witnesses or subjected to different traumas such as war, torture, accidents, natural disasters, medical trauma, terrorism, sexual exploitation and abuse in other ways, such as but not limited to human trafficking, or sadistic ritual abuse have also developed DID.

90% of cases are believed to be linked with a history of abuse. The child doesn’t have the capacity to deal with such trauma and therefore the mind finds a way to cope and survive this, resulting in DID.

Many people can have more than two protectors – the average can go up to 14-15 and some can have up to 40. Each protector represents an event where abuse took place and each protector is given a job or purpose, such as the protector, the fighter, the child, the parent. Each one has different personality aspects and can be of any gender or age, regardless the gender of the person or their actual age.

The person experiencing DID isn’t always aware of the splitting process. The protector that manifests may be aware of another’s existence, but not vice versa. The protectors may be triggered by stressors. The various protectors may refuse each other, conflict with one another, be hostile to one another or not want to acknowledge the others existence. Depersonalisation can occur, which is defined as a state in which one’s thoughts and feelings seem unreal or not to belong to oneself. It is important to keep in mind that although these alternate personality states may appear to be very different, they are all manifestations of a single person. The condition involves identity fragmentation rather than a creation of separate personalities. Hence why the name Multiple Personality Disorder was changed in 1994, to a more accurate reflection of the condition and now referred to as Dissociative Identity Disorder.

Some individuals with DID may experience amnesia in the form of what is known as “dissociative fugues” which is a case where the person with DID travels and does not remember doing so.

People with dissociative disorders may experience any of the following: depression, sleeping disorders, addictions, panic attacks and anxiety, mood swings, phobias, PTSD, suicidal ideation, self harm, psychotic symptoms and eating disorders, along with physical ailments such as headaches, time loss, amnesia, spacing out and out of body experiences.

Unlike the media portrays, many people that suffer from DID are not evil or criminals – they have been victims of indescribable cruelty. They are good and normal people that deserve our understanding, respect and who are inspirational in their courage and strength.

It is important to highlight the the goal of therapy is not to eliminate a person’s protectors, but to embrace them and incorporate them into the person’s sense of oneness. There are ways that people can do the healing without being re-traumatised, in fact doing so in certain cases can prove damaging and dangerous. We need to go at the clients pace and respect this and respect that trauma can be healed without the need for details of the events. Other therapies that help are creative forms and cognitive treatment.

DID is a creative tool that the mind creates to survive; it is a normal response and reaction to abnormal events. Better understanding and representations are needed to help those with this condition and recognising the normality of this considering the events that led to it, we see how extraordinary the mind is, how it helps us survive and how extraordinary these people are who deserve our love and respect and for their condition to be portrayed accurately, and for this to be seen not as a defect but as the manifestation to trauma. Let us not ask what’s wrong with people who have mental illnesses but rather what happened. Many of these conditions are the result of human pain, not human deficits or madness. Let us give justice to this pain.

https://www.counselling-directory.org.uk/memberarticles/the-truth-behind-did-dissociative-identity-disorder