This kind of black/white, only this/or only that thinking...one of the most reliably common, as well as problematic, features in those with highly stressful/traumatic early life experiences, especially when that stress/trauma happens to have originated in the dynamics of the family of origin, I've found.
In other words...guilty as charged...me too...and in spades. And for the vast, vast majority of my life...I would argue to a standstill, anyone attempting to convince me otherwise...that such was not the only "right" way to see the world.
If something's not right, then it is necessarily wrong, obviously, I would have maintained at the time.
And if I'm not perfect, then I am a failure...as, clearly...it is everyone's responsibility to be perfect at all times, if they have any self-respect, etc. And I was 1000% sincere.
Of course, that's the sort of family I came from, as well. And interestingly...most families from more traditional cultures continue to maintain a very rigid and distinct line in the sand between acceptable, and unacceptable failure, with little room for acceptable shades of grey in between.
Which suggests to me, that this is a function of having adapted to a dangerous environment...wherein emphasis need be placed on always being perfect, on pain of literal death...starvation, serving as dinner to a predatory animal, etc.
I'm sure I seem to be rambling pretty far afield, here...but point being...
That this seems a reflexive posture adapted by a mind conditioned to threat. For example, it's worthy of note that our current "enlightened" perspective rich with relative values...only arose in tandem with the U.S. experiencing such material abundance, and dominance throughout world influence...that such a sense of the universe as threatening, fairly taken for granted as a given, previously...seemed suddenly unnecessary, and even silly, to maintain, with such stringency.
Again, point being...we feel comfortable, finally...to remove the armor of such attitudes and perspectives...when we no longer feel that they are necessary. And this went a great ways towards enabling me to forgive both my father and mother.
After all, they were products of a depression era period, in which this approach to raising children was not only normal, but considered part of a parent's civic duty, towards producing a future citizen worthy to walk the streets with the rest of the populace. If you didn't instill during childhood, a sense of walking on eggshells, with a "my way or the highway" approach to raising children...and teach them that feeling sorry for yourself won't get you anywhere, but with a boot up your behind, for being such a wimp..well...not only would your child grow into an adult without the proper manners, and consideration, and so, be labelled a low-life, and shunned...but if given to bouts of self-pity...would likely just not make it at all, in a world where hard work and little pay off, was all that one could expect.
Now, don't get me wrong. I do realize that even in the midst of such a standard as this harsh, all or nothing/either success or shameful failure...there remained, nonetheless...families and homes which instead did NOT heap hot coals of shame on the heads of their children, at failing to live up to the Golden child standard, at every turn. Of course there were.
But the all/nothing reject imperfection as inadequacy perspective...hardline, shame-oriented approach did easily hold sway. And my parents knew nothing else, themselves. I have no difficulty believe now, that not only did my parents honestly believe they were doing their absolute, determined best, in the name of "making me grateful, someday, for such character building experiences".
However...that said...they were both phenomenally screwed up people, just as individuals, themselves. My father's mother was was a manic depressive alcoholic, who doted on his twin brother, and excoriated an humiliated him, at every opportunity...his absentee father, who supposedly travelled so continuously as part of his employment...that my father remembers seeing him twice, and apparently they never knew at the time where the next meal would originate, or if, in fact it would at all.
My mother was molested/raped by a brother 10 years older than she, throughout her entire childhood, and grew up with nothing, in the middle of nowhere, with a father who didn't seem to even acknowledge her existence.
I say this not to let them off the hook. And this is important. ...the distinction...it was for me, anyway...Throughout my earlier life, I did make a show, even to myself, of very philosophically and generously taking all of the above factors into consideration...and convincing myself that I felt no animosity towards them...whatsoever. After all, that's what an enlightened, healthy, and mature person does, isn't it?
Until it all began coming out, unbidden...stuffed down so far, for so long...that I had no idea what it even was, at the time, and for some time after. I assumed I simply going completely insane, and hadn't the slightest incling that there was a connection.
What I realized, some time later...was that...sure...the fact of the matter was that, statistically, and according to what a court might determine to be the salient evidence...they were no more to blame than many...and had much better excuses than most, even...
...and sure...the mature and even handed thing for me to do would have been to forget it, and not hold anything against them whatsoever.
But we find out later that all of that is stored...only out of sight, out of mind, until it piles up so high that the closet door we'd though we'd successfully hidden it behind...flies open...and then it's EVERYWHERE...or it escapes in little fits and starts...like a steam kettle...and is aimed at people in our lives that do not deserve it in the least...resulting in lost jobs, lost relationsihps, etc. The collateral damage of repression.
Fortunately, I had long been a casual student of mental health, and remembered something
I'd happened to read years ago...that depression is anger turned inward. And one can only turn so much anger inward, I'm convinced. And I think the possibility that one might continue on, in that walking dead state...until one's death...is infinitely more tragic, yet...and so not at qualifying as "a success", in anyway.
And fortunately, as well.I had begun to read sine trauma related materials by this point, as well...and so...when the opportunity was upon me, the closet door burst open, so to speak...I decided I'd might as well get it out of my system then, while I was already in the middle of a breakdown/breakthrough beyond my own control.
So, boy, did I let them have it. Both barrels. And continuously. I lived fairly nearby, and my at this point completely bewildered parents were absolutely convinced that I was simply clinically insane...as none of this had been mentioned, or even intimated before...I'd never suggested that I had the least resentment toward either parent, or displayed any signs or attitude that suggested I might. Why would I? I wasn't aware of it, myself.
And of course, there's no heroes anthem playing at the end...with credits rolling, and the plot tied up neatly into a happy ending...now I do feel guilty over the episode/period what have you...in that it truly did hurt them...and after all...this was some 35 years ago. How would I feel, if someone held me responsible for many of the idiotic things I did 35 years ag, for goodness sake.
But I've come to see it from an entirely clinical, physical symptoms-oriented point of view...as in...sure, if a patient has a supperating and infected boil...it's gotta go...gotta be drained. And if doing so is messy, and results in those in the immediate vicinity being splashed...well...it was necessary to save the patient. Ironically, even at the time I was giving rein to all of this ugliness...I was at the same time perfectly lucid, in my conscious recognition of the fact that I continued to love and be grateful to my parents, for many things...not everything, but many things...even as it was spewing forth. I had realized that I had to see it just that impartially...just as though it was a physical malady...it didn't matter whether it SHOULD be there...or whether it SHOULD be coming...the simple fact was, that it WAS there...and HAD to come out.
Sorry for rambling at such length. Great thread topic. Hope you'll get to the point where you realize that, whatever it would mean to you and your family relations, for you to just really get it out there, and air your grievnances...even if it meant never seeing them again...sometimes there just aren't easy answers. The heart surgeon has to decide whether to operate, when the chances of survival are slim, too.
I'm not suggesting that you immediately show up at the doorstep, with a bullhorn, and rotten eggs, or anything...no doubt your situation is different, as applies to us all. Guess I'm just sending back a note, from the other side, saying...hey, it is possible, anyway...and possible for it to get much better, as a result. Be well
