2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43
Ksenia Wittenberg, psychologist, trauma therapist.
Emotional separation from parents sometimes requires serious work on oneself in adulthood
Relationship with parents is a problem for most
About a third of all client inquiries are about relationships with parents.
Strength to endure this truth, agree with your drama and accept it as part of your story. And stop demanding lost love and care or compensation for the suffering experienced. This is a separation process.
It usually starts with the following topics:
After my mother's call, I walk for half a day in despondency, digesting.
Why should she let me down as soon as I feel better?
I would have left a long time ago, but how can I leave my parents? They are completely dependent.
As soon as my mother says, "What about me?"
I didn't have a father. That is, he was, but he did nothing for us, as people who have not separated from their parents say.
Gathering the courage and deciding to see the unpleasant truth about yourself in the parental family is the first step to getting out and gaining the strength to solve the problem.
This is what people who are not separated from their parents say.
What does "not separate" mean?
Separation from parents is not about separating with them and becoming economically independent (most of them more or less cope with this).
Separation is about becoming emotionally independent. Stop proving, revel in doing the opposite, get annoyed, take offense at parents, be afraid of their assessment and their actions, wait or demand help and take it for granted.
But not to avoid them, ignore, patronize, interfere in their life, solve their problems, postpone dreams and plans because of them, see them as the reason for their failed life.
"Separation from parents or a partner is the ability of an individual to make autonomously direct (non-manipulative) independent choices, while remaining emotionally connected with the system of meaningful relationships."
Quote from Mark Yarhouse's Lecture on Family Therapy.
Autonomously and remaining in an emotional connection, but we are not talking about one-time or emergency situations. At a critical moment, it's okay to drop everything and rush to help.
Your parents are just people, good and bad at the same time, like all people on earth, with human capabilities and handicaps.
That they are not the omnipotent gods that they were for us in infancy. Not the source of all blessings and pleasures, as they were for us in early childhood. Not someone to whom you need to make excuses, wait for permission, approval and try not to upset, as it was in elementary school.
Not stupid and limited creatures, oppressing and not letting live, as they (perhaps) were perceived in adolescence.
They are what they are. What life has made them and they are themselves. They can be ignoble, indifferent, uninterested, selfish. They can solve their problems at your expense. And yes, they may not love you.
Becoming autonomous is to admit it
To agree that the parents did not know how to do something - to admit it, to stop demanding and wanting to receive. This is what it means to separate.
Agree that you could not be loved, that you could be used, that they could act out their traumas on you and involve you in their destructive processes. Agree that your parents behaved with you as best they could, and stop demanding your "tribute for 12 years."
To see not the ideal (and, in fact, unattainable!), But the real image of the parents, agree with it and begin to get everything "unfinished" for oneself.
Maybe cook. Maybe sing. Maybe love. Maybe take care. Maybe control myself. Maybe communicate. Maybe keep order. Maybe rejoice. Maybe deal with the difficulties.
If your mom doesn't know how to cook, will you expect culinary delights from her? No, most likely, even if you really like to eat. You will become a regular at your favorite cafes / restaurants or finish culinary school.
See also: Mom does not have to (memo for adult children) (ed.)
Then why do you demand love for yourself from a dad who does not know how to love? Or warmth from a mom who can't feel? Demanding, waiting, being offended, not receiving, getting angry, wanting to prove or revenge are signs that you have not yet separated.
Becoming autonomous also means accepting parental autonomy by giving up the childish arrogance that tells us that mom / dad can't do it without us. Or from the fear that makes you serve your parents in order not to be a bad daughter or son.
Becoming autonomous means accepting that parents may not live the way we like: not taking care of our health, behaving ugly, quarreling among ourselves, saying what we don’t want to listen to, wanting from us what we don’t want to give.
You can really agree with this only by showing respect. Deep respect for their choice of how to live. Then we separate.
Begin to respect parental choices
Respect is complete agreement with everything that parents do, without emotion or desire to save, run away, retaliate or correct.
If you say to yourself "yes, I respect their way of living!", And you yourself feel shame, irritation, desire to correct, or guilt, the desire to please and "repay the debt", or prove, defend, argue, protest - you do not respect and you do not separated.
If it seems to you that your parents cannot cope without you, they will disappear, you have no respect. And you are confusing custody and care, which are two different things.
Stop patronizing your parents
Caring is understanding the needs and helping (not to the detriment of oneself and others) in meeting them. Guardianship is the appointment of a person to be incapacitated and doing for him what he can and should do himself.
In caring there is respect, in guardianship it is not. Taking care of, you rise above your parents, you feel your strength and power. While caring, you interact by taking your comfortable seat next to mom or dad. When you care, you feel comfortable. If it is uncomfortable, then you are guardians or serve. The guardianship and the service say you haven't separated yet.
"If a child thinks:" Mom needs me, mom can't do without me "- this is a child in the service. Children often believe that they can and should save their mother or father, how to make their fate less than it is on Fate has dignity. To stop interfering in the life of parents and save them, you need to step back and see their fate. Then respectfully accept their fate. This is called growing up."
Marianne Franke-Griksch.
A little more about guilt
It is so arranged in this world that parents give (give) life to children. Children do not return what they have received to their parents, but give a "debt" to their children.
Children can never achieve equality in their relationship with their parents. What equivalent can a child give to parents for the life received?
Own life? They don't need it. So nothing. He will give life to his children. Or their "spiritual children" - ideas, projects, achievements. This contributes to his separation from his parental family when he becomes an adult.
Guilt in children occurs when they grow up (cannot repay the debt). This guilt is a normal part of growing up. We simply live through it, realizing that this is separation from our parents.
Complete separation from parents is impossible without complete rapprochement. First you need to get closer. Come to your parents if you distance yourself or ignore / avoid them.
Get a good fight if you're angry. State boundaries if you are afraid and allow interference in your life. Then look at them with adult eyes - as people, in some way bad and in some way good. Accept that they will not be different. Hear in yourself respect for their way of life. Agree that everything has already been given to you and will not be given any more.
Then believe that you yourself are now the only person who can give you whatever you want. This is growing up.
Recommended:
I Don't Want Him Anymore. And I Don't Want Anyone At All. The Cycle Of Sexual Contact And Its Breakdowns
The area of intimacy and sexuality is filled with so many myths, dogmas and taboos that on the one hand, it will not interfere with the scientific, on the other hand, the human, adult look. Women often come to my sessions with inquiries on the topic of relationships, and in the process of work, one way or another, questions arise of dissatisfaction with their sex life.
Why Don't Men Meet Me On The Street And In Public Places? Why Men Don't Come Up To You On The Street
Why don't men meet me on the street and in public places? Why don't men come up to you on the street? One of the most frequent questions to a relationship expert from girls is: “Why don't men meet me on the street and in public places? On the street, at some events or concerts, in parks, in shopping and entertainment centers, in the office, etc.
Don't Live Or Why You Don't Want To Wake Up
The parental message "don't live" affects the child's psyche and his future life very strongly. Don’t live, it’s not manifest, and don’t stand out, and don’t be yourself and exist so that you seem to be, but it seems that you are not.
“I Don't Want Him Anymore. And I Don’t Want Anyone At All.” The Cycle Of Sexual Contact And Its Breakdowns
The area of intimacy and sexuality is filled with so many myths, dogmas and taboos that on the one hand, it will not interfere with the scientific, on the other hand, the human, adult look. Women often come to my sessions with inquiries on the topic of relationships, and in the process of work, one way or another, questions arise of dissatisfaction with their sex life.
“I Don’t Like My Name And I Want To Change It!” Is There Any Other Way Out?
Once in school, in a psychology class, a teacher told us that the sweetest words for a person are his name, first name and patronymic. I looked at her not as a psychologist, but as a psycho. Because I hated my name. And from some of its forms I wanted either to disappear, or to turn inside out.
