Unheard Children Are Unhappy Adults. How To Get Out Of The Trauma Cycle

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

Every family and every clan has its own drama or even tragedy. Small or big, explicit or secret, hushed up. But it is there. It can last for a long time, be passed down from generation to generation. For example, once in a family all the men died in the war, and the women became "strong." Or all the property they acquired was taken away, and the feeling of "irrelevance" in this world is constantly haunted and passed on from generation to generation in the background.

The grandson has already bought a second apartment, the son has built a house, and the brother has registered the ownership of the land. And the feeling that “everything will be taken away” or “this is still not enough” is present somewhere. It is, perhaps, completely unconscious and is experienced only as a poorly recognizable discomfort or anxiety, from which it is difficult to fall asleep. Or that accompany the same dream all the time.

Get rid of experiences and feelings

But we are used to avoiding the experience of feelings. In thoughts, decisions, actions, conversations. Once upon a time our ancestors were saved by this. There was no time to worry, there was no time to use your sensory experience for good. It was necessary to give something rational "to the mountain" in order to calm both oneself and others. And they gave it out. And the experiences were stuffed inside like old clothes in the far corner of the closet or put away like unnecessary trash in the pantry.

And, perhaps, now we have time to "unpack" this baggage of experiences. After all, it cannot be eradicated, it makes itself felt from within with inveterate methodicality. But there are no mechanisms. And there is no skill. Everything we were taught was quite the opposite: suppress the experience.

"Traumatic" education

In many cases, the human psyche is traumatized by something completely different from what we at first glance think about. For example, we want to protect the child from some kind of adult conflicts or difficult events - when someone dies. We think this is what traumatizes him the most.

But often we inflict incredible damage on children (or our parents) on ordinary days, when nothing special happens and everything seems to be “calm”. When we cannot hear the experiences of the child and reflect them.

It is on such ordinary "everyday days", when we are simply deaf (and to ourselves as well) to those who ask us for such attention, that we inflict severe trauma.

And if we do this, it means only one thing: with us, in due time, they did the same.

The most important thing for a person is his holistic image of his own I

The way we feel ourselves inside, what we know about ourselves and think that we allow ourselves, how we relate to ourselves, constitutes the general experience of "happiness" or "unhappiness" of being. It is not even that important whether we have a lot or little money, we live in a family or on our own, what our profession is, how many friends or connections we have. It is not so important. After all, if the image of the Self is not formed - or only partially formed - we will suffer from this every day and every minute. And no external events will be able to close up holes in him - that is, holes in our own soul.

What is the image of I

This is the entire "database" that answers the question "who am I?" These are millions of meanings, concepts, statements, patterns. A whole library. We accumulate it in childhood and grow it in adulthood.

In theory, by adulthood, the image of I must be fully formed so that a person can psychologically live autonomously and not need a parent to take care of him.

But, as you know, this happens very rarely. Traumatized parents cannot raise and properly reflect a child so that he becomes mature and psychologically autonomous.

They are able to give him only what they themselves have: if their psychological age is 5 years, then the child “cannot jump higher”.

For example, how can a dad or mom, who have been accustomed to suppressing or “pushing back” their own anxiety or impotence, to repel a child who is anxious in front of an important test, by processing and returning his feelings? No way. Can they say: "Yes, son, you are now worried, worried, because you are not sure if you can successfully answer all the questions and get the ball you are counting on?" Can not. They simply will not be able to notice that their son is going through all this, since they do not notice this in themselves. What will mom or dad say to the child? Of course: "stop whining, go repeat algebra again!" Or “I told you that you had to do all your homework on time! And now - get it! " And there are a lot of such examples of answers from adults, and you can recall them from your own experience, I am sure, a large number. And the most interesting thing is that if you still remember your childhood feeling after such words of parents, then, most likely, they will be a feeling of deep loneliness, resentment, guilt and shame.

But why do parents answer that way? After all, they do not want to deliberately drive their own child into this complex of unpleasant experiences. Of course they don’t want to. They just have no time for a child at this moment! They want to cope with their anxiety. After all, they themselves do not know how to find it, do not know how to withstand, to worry, do not know how to "unpack".

And the most common way not to worry themselves is to force the child to hide his feelings from them, so that he does not "fondle" them with this and does not disturb their own little-tolerated and little-perceived feelings.

And so it can be in many, many cases, when a child has to face the fact that no one in this world, even the closest and most authoritative people, can endure his feelings and explain what is happening to him. This is how a “hole” is formed in the image of I. Because there is now a “blind spot” for me, where I have no access. I can’t, and I can’t now either survive or realize it.

It is precisely with such "holes" in the image of the client's self that psychotherapists deal with, to a large extent, in individual psychotherapy, when they come across a detailed history of the development of a man or woman who came to the consultation. Subsequently, our work will consist in “completing”, in a sense, the work of the client's parents - to hear and reflect the experience squeezed out and removed from the zone of experience and awareness.

How can we "close up" the holes in the image of I

The psyche tries to "patch up" the holes in the image of the I - because, one way or another, it seeks to restore its integrity. With holes "on the pants", even if these pants are in the head, it is difficult to live.

This is what Gestalt therapy works with directly.

1. With a merger. The "hole" in the image of I is bleeding, it is important to somehow moderate this suffering. In merging with suffering, we are looking for someone who can calm this pain at least a little. Usually, this is an object of future dependency. We begin, for example, to overeat or smoke as soon as we feel our "blind spot". Or we “merge” in the image of I with another person in order to somehow balance our emotional state about him. In childhood, it could manifest itself like this. Example: a boy runs to his mother and cries: he was pushed in the kindergarten. Mom quickly gives him a tasty candy or a lot of delicious sweets. Or buys something in the store, a toy. Of course, this is how she deals with her feelings about her son and his situation. As a result, our future client, who came to therapy, cannot deal with difficult experiences - he seizes them, drinks down, suffers from shopaholism or is in a codependent relationship. Or maybe all this together is present in his life!

2. With introjects. This is a complex word that in another way means "attitudes, stereotypes." For example, our situation: a boy runs to his mother and cries: he was pushed in the kindergarten. Mom, for example, is not sensitive to her son's resentment and cannot reflect it to him. Instead, she gives him an introject: don't cry, you're a boy! (that is, "boys shouldn't cry"). A child has such a chain in his soul: the mother cannot help to deal with feelings - a "hole" is formed in the image of I - the hole needs to be closed up with the "do not cry" statement. If such an educational reception of the mother is repeated regularly, the child develops a skill (which will then become unconscious) that if you want to cry, then the tears and, in fact, the feelings that they cause, can neither be experienced nor shown.

Then clients come to therapy who, for example, endure grievances all their lives and do not allow themselves to feel (and at the same time make the right decision to stop tolerating and try something different).

3. With retroflection. This word means "turning towards oneself." Our situation: the boy runs to his mother and cries: he was pushed in the kindergarten. Mom, for example, does not pay attention to his condition at all - as if there were no such tears (or reacts as in the case of introjects). With repeated repetition of such a reaction, the boy no longer cries, but begins to fall ill, for example, if he was offended. Or complain about something that hurts. Then the mother turns on and begins to notice him, take care of him, treat him. Such a client in therapy is a psychosomatic one. His body reacts sharply to repressed emotions. He has a headache, possibly even migraines, colitis in his heart, pinching his back. He often catches cold. Right in the session - blushes, turns pale, freezes, holds his breath, etc.

4. With deflection. Redirecting the energy of contact with the need in a different direction. Our situation: the boy runs to his mother and cries, he was pushed in the kindergarten. Mom: “Oh, look what an interesting cartoon they are showing! Your favorite! And dad and I bought you a plane yesterday! There are changes in the boy's psyche. He stops crying and goes to watch a cartoon, is interested in the plane and “forgets” that he was pushed. But the body doesn't forget. In therapy, such clients cannot stay in one topic - as soon as they feel uncomfortable, they jump to another “chatter” or some story so as not to experience pain and “unpack” the need behind it (this skill has not been formed).

I have described only some of the mechanisms by which the psyche is trying to somehow restore its integrity, using the mechanisms of interrupting contact with a need. The description is simplified enough for understanding, these mechanisms can intertwine, work all at once and in one place, or separately - in different ones.

You probably already understood: in order to stop the transmission of traumatic experience from generation to generation, it is necessary, first of all, to engage in recognition and refinement of one's own "blind spots" or unfinished parts of identity. And then you will not have to injure the children, and they will not have to injure their children.

In this sense, psychotherapy is the way in which you can finish building yourself, finally be heard and reflected by the psychotherapist in those places where this experience was not enough. And then the picture of the self-image will become more harmonious and integral.