Guilt, Shame, Lack Of Freedom

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

A newborn baby can only scream when uncomfortable. Mom and Dad will figure out if it's hunger or wet diapers. The child is completely dependent on them. Over time, the child grows, learns to walk, talk, can say what he wants and where it hurts. He studies the world, moves away from his mother and boldly goes forward, gets tired or scared and runs to his mother to hug and listen. The older the child, the further the distance, the more he can stay on his own. School begins, lessons, friends, interest groups. Parents are needed less and less, but they are still important: hug and listen, understand and accept, love such as is, with successes and failures, and what a sin to hide, buy, wash, help. The older, the less often. Now he earns himself, makes decisions himself, chooses and buys himself. What remains? There is no need to wash, feed, buy clothes. It remains to accept and love, even if rarely, listen to stories, share your experience. The years when parents are irreplaceable fly by quickly, and it is worth having time to rejoice.

This is the ideal. And what happens in other cases. A mother who gave birth to a child is filled with her psychological trauma and then she needs a child as support for her unloved part, as the embodiment of what she herself has not achieved.. She fills with communication with the child warmth that she once did not receive from her parents. Children love naively and sincerely, they believe that the actions of their parents are the norm, forgive the aggression directed at them, and still love their parents, because without them children cannot survive. Such a traumatized mother may not be able to love and accept her child, but she is used to receiving love from the child himself, feeling her power over him, and by this filling her emptiness in her soul. But the child grows, matures and gradually separates. His mother did not know how to love him and never learned. What should she do if the child finds acceptance with others? After all, he will not return to her. And then the child is prepared from childhood to be held by others, as a rule, with guilt or shame, a sense of duty. And you can also bribe a child. Make them helpless, unable to make decisions without mom-dad, unable to earn money or create their own separate happy family. (I do not have families created in my youth, according to the scheme: I jumped out in marriage, gave birth, took the child to raise him with my mother, whether there is a husband there or not - it does not matter whether he will be pushed into the background and is not part of a real family). The grown-up child seems to be working, but all the decisions are up to mom-dad. And it seems to this adult child that he is nobody. I learned only thanks to my mom-dad, which means my diploma and career, not his merits, but my parents. And self-esteem is crumbling.

Ksyusha grew up with her mother, grandmother and childless aunt. Parents divorced when she was three years old. Mom is busy with her grandmother, because she is "with character" and you need to calm her down, feed tasty food and be obedient. After school, Ksyusha was assigned to librarianship, "What else does a girl need? It will be warm and calm." Ksyusha works as a librarian, sits in dusty silence among the books until six, reading herself. At six rushes home, grandmother died and you need to console and support mom and aunt. Ksyusha would try something new, but she won't. She firmly learned, "that she lives only thanks to her mother, she owes everything to my mother and is to blame that my mother gave up her personal life for her sake." Her life is an eternal sacrifice to her mother, because "they gave everything for her." She does not have her own life, and most likely will not. She lives the life of a mother: books, stories, views - as if a person is 30 years older.

Lika is a financial director, cold and withdrawn, she manages the holding, doing everything without falling from high heels. Stylish and bright, with a refined image, she perfectly copes with people and a slender lover. And no one knows how shameful and lonely she is inside. Ashamed in front of dad. He is so disappointed, he dreamed of the son of a physics genius. And she? She did not become an oligarch, and the holding is too small, and she is only an employee, the holding does not belong to her. Her parents have a luxurious house, and Lika often visits them. She still believes that she will buy them something and then finally they will praise her, appreciate her work. In the meantime, she rushes on and on to career heights, each time believing that another drop and she will finally not be criticized. But this path is endless, behind each peak there will be a new one and she lives with the eternal voice of her father-critic "You are not enough …".

Karina is talented in her field, but she does not change her job, even though she earns little. She has time to dance and go to the movies, She is in no hurry to go home, at home there is an eternal scandal between her mother and her husband. They live in the same apartment, my mother blames her husband for everything, and her unsuccessful marriage. It would be nice to live separately, but … it's inconvenient. Mom will become sad and still have to pay the rent herself, solve household issues and look after the child. And it's not clear how? Karina is not used to making decisions on her own, she does not know how to pay the rent, arrange a child for school, how to stand in line at the clinic, because there is a mother for this. The husband grumbles more and more and will probably leave soon. He is more comfortable with his mom.

Vadim is a successful programmer, he doesn't care where to work, his tasks are in demand. He could live alone, but he learned from childhood that "he is stupid in everyday life" and "can ruin the washing machine." He dumps dirty clothes in a pile and gets food from the refrigerator. His mother is proud that he will die without her, from hunger or from the dirt in the apartment. He does not know the prices of food, and believes that "all girls are selfish, and only mom loves." But one day he may think that something is wrong with him and go to psychotherapy.

These stories can end happily. Psychotherapy helps to become aware of unresolved feelings, Destructive guilt and shame disappear. The lack of acceptance, self-respect and confidence gradually come into the life of the matured child. Long-term psychotherapy changes character. And then you can accept parents in a new way, stop depending on them, build your own life.