CHILDREN OF HEARTLESS MOTHERS

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Mother's love is an unconditional affirmation of the life and needs of the child. A mother's love is just as "contagious" as a mother's dislike. A woman who is incapable of showing love for her own children is spoken of as a heartless mother.

The metaphor of "heartlessness" describes the violation of relationships, which determines the formation of distance, coldness, formality, loneliness, lack of true psychological closeness, etc.

For the first time, a child learns that he is loved and is of unconditional value in the mirror, which for him is his mother. The loving face of the mother tells the child that he is worthy of love and attention, that he is seen and heard. All this gives him the strength to grow, develop and become an independent person. Children of a heartless mother - emotionally cold, or changeable, or too critical and cruel - receive completely different messages from the mirror in which they look. This internalized “veto” on one's own identity and autonomy further leads to incomplete use of primary activity, both in its strength and in the direction, methods or circumstances of manifestation and the complex interpersonal space of human relations.

With a heartless mother, the child has no idea what will happen in the next moment, what kind of mother will be with him in a few minutes - affectionate or cruel. A small child is looking for mother's love, but is in eternal fear, what kind of reaction to the call for attention and love will follow this time, and does not know how to deserve them. The closeness of the child to the mother is under a strict taboo, and attempts to get warm feelings from her are associated with a range of negative emotions such as anger, fear, despair and pain.

The attitude of such a mother teaches the child to think that relationships with people are generally unreliable, that people cannot be trusted. A terrible conflict settles in the souls of children between the child's need for love and care and the psychological and physical violence that he receives in return.

The child's need for maternal love does not disappear even after he realizes that it is impossible to receive it. This need continues to live in his soul, along with the painful realization of the fact that a person who must love him unconditionally, simply because he lives in this world, does not.

Children who grow up realizing that they are not loved are left with psychological wounds that go a long way toward determining their relationship and emotional well-being in adulthood. Sometimes these people do not know about the true causes of mental discomfort and believe that they themselves are to blame for all the problems. Some of them, who decided on psychotherapy, recall with horror the vicious circle of unbearable feelings that drove them to exhaustion.

Children of heartless mothers cannot believe that in fact they are worthy of attention and love, there is not a trace in their memory that the mother is attentive, affectionate and kind to them. Such a child could grow up, from day to day forming a habit only of not being heard, not seen, or, even worse, constantly being watched, criticizing his every step. Even if the child has obvious abilities and achievements, they do not give him any confidence in himself. If his character is soft and docile, his mother’s angry voice continues to sound in his head, which he perceives as his own: “What an ungrateful pig you are!”, “How can you be such a fool!”, “You have nothing with your disgusting character will not work!.

Many already adults say that they have a feeling that they are misleading other people, and their abilities and character traits have some kind of defect that others simply do not suspect, since they have learned some inexplicable a way to hide it. One client of mine had a tendency, after every praise from her superiors, to go to the toilet and hit herself in the face, punishing herself for allegedly twisting him around her finger.

Such people say that they find it amazing and do not trust someone's desire to be friends with them, that they can cause disinterested interest and sympathy and sincere human feelings. This distrust arises from a total sense of the insecurity of the world, which was formed due to an insecure attachment to the mother. These people need constant confirmation that the relationship can be trusted, that it is truly reliable. One client of mine, who has a similar experience with her mother, undergoing therapy with the intensity of meetings twice a week on a clearly drawn up schedule that did not change, from time to time at the end of the meeting for about eight months of therapy, asked the question: “Then we can meet on monday / friday?"

Many of those who grew up in an environment of cold distancing or eternal criticism and maternal imbalance say that they constantly felt the need for maternal tenderness and attention, but at the same time realized that they did not know any way to receive them. What caused the mother's favor today could be viciously rejected tomorrow:

“I said, 'Mommy, what a beautiful hairstyle you have,' and she hugged me back. The next day I went up and told her the same thing, and she hit me in the face and told me to get out of her sight."

And already becoming adults, they continue to look for a way to appease, please, bribe their friends or partners, to avoid repeating that motherly coldness in any, sometimes the most humiliating way for them, without thinking about the "cost of the issue."

“Now I understand how many parasites I have brought around me. But I didn’t care before, I was afraid that if I refused them money, my apartment, a car, they would leave me. And that would be unbearably painful. Sometimes the thought came to me that all this is somehow abnormal, but it's better that way than turn away from me."

“My former psychologist asked me to come to his house, most often late, around nine or ten in the evening. I came and waited 15-20 minutes for him to finish with another client. As a result, I left him very late, I had to take a taxi, which is a little expensive for me, but all the two years of my visits I was afraid that I was a bad client, that he would leave me. When he said that now he would not be able to receive me at his home, and that it would be better for him to come to me, I replied that I would not be able to meet with him at my place. Then he was very offended. I was going through our separation for about two years, considering that I had lost the best psychologist in the world."

According to Calabrese M. L., Farber B. A., adult attachment styles determine the characteristics of building relationships with representatives of the opposite sex and the characteristics of interaction with their own children. Blatt and Levy found that there is a relationship between the type of attachment (attachment) in adults and their psychopathology. For example, people belonging to the frightened, avoidant type of attachment, inclination to avoidant and schizoid personality disorders and the self-critical type of depression. There is a link between attachment type and psychopathological depressive symptoms. In addition, it has been shown that people who are addicted to chemicals have a higher level of insecure attachment, a lower level of reliable attachment and differentiation, than in a group of people who do not have such addictions.

This is how such unloved children say during psychotherapy: “As a child, I was brought up, mainly focusing on the shortcomings, and trying to eradicate them with criticism, but they did not talk about the merits, they never praised or encouraged. Now, no matter what I do, I lack initiative, and I do not strive to advance. Many report that it was a big surprise for them to be able to achieve something in life and to succeed in something.

“Sometimes, when there is no one else in the office, I go down the stairs, and I am stunned by a sudden thought:“Is it really me, this is my job, where I am respected and appreciated, did it all end so well?”.

Many of these children endlessly postpone the moments of making new acquaintances, looking for better working conditions in order to avoid disappointment and mental pain. A fiasco in this case will mean for them absolute rejection and remind them of the despair they experienced in childhood when they were rejected by their mother.

The mother's indifference to the manifestations of the child's cognitive activity, her lack of support in her attempts to master the world at play, leads to a feeling of its insurmountable complexity, refusal to realize and not use the primary potential of activity, which blocks activity in the development of an already adult space.

Children who have not received love from their mother are often unable to make efforts to achieve their own goals, realize their plans, defend their interests and satisfy needs. Most often, they tend to avoid any situations of "rivalry", confrontation, conflicts, are prone to quick concessions; it is difficult for them to openly express their feelings, express thoughts, claims and preferences. Often these people are distinguished by a narrowed range of interests and passive solitude, that is, the inability to establish productive interpersonal contacts.

The cause of various kinds of psychosomatic problems (somatic diseases, chronic muscle tension, weight problems, sexual dysfunctions) can be a pronounced deficit of positive, bodily pleasure, gentle tactile contact and the mother's indifference to the bodily needs of the child in the early period of his development. Such a situation of early development causes a deficit in recognition of one's value (narcissistic confirmation) and an intense unconscious fear of abandonment and forms a feeling of rejection of one's physicality, which can manifest itself in various pathological bodily sensations.

Literature

Calabrese ML The Relationship of Adult Attachment Constructs to Object Relational Patterns of Representing Self and Others / Calabrese ML, Farber BA, Westen D. // Journal of The American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry, 33 (3) 2005.- P. 513 -530.

Reis S. Fear of Intimacy in Women: Relationship between Attachment Styles and Depressive Symptoms Psychopathology / Reis S., Grenyer B. F. S..// [electronic resource] - Access mode: 2004; 37: 299-303 (DOI: 10.1159 / 000082268)

Thorberg F. A. Attachment, Fear of Intimacy and Differentiation of Self among Clients in Substance Disorder Treatment Facilities / Thorberg F. A., Lyvers M..