A Painful Tangle Of Criticism And Dislike

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

From birth, a baby needs care. The child is fed, held in his arms, smiled, soothed if he cries. Fell down - the child will be comforted, hugged, listened to, treated. I learned a new thing - they will be proud, they will embrace. If you are in trouble, they will listen and help. Love and care make the world around you understandable and calm. Such a person, having matured, will repeat the same love and care for his children.

What if the other way around? If a child lives in dislike, if success is the "norm", and for failures is criticized? Yes, and it is difficult to understand that there is a failure because they always criticize. And they teach that love must be earned. And they try and try … they roll the Sisyphean stone and make themselves into perfectionists against their will. High school students, winners of the Olympics, wash floors and prepare meals for the whole family, but still, this is not enough for parents. Five in literature - why not physics ?, prepared a cake - and why condensed milk cream? I washed the floor - why is the linen not washed? And it is impossible to understand that there is no bar - how much love you need to deserve. There is no stop word when the child was told, "Yes, she deserves it, go rejoice, let me hug you!"

Such ex-children grow up hungry for praise, they strive to earn the love and care they once did not receive. And then there is no criterion when you can allow yourself to rejoice. And then talented work, brilliant careers - everything is not a joy. More and more is needed, endlessly … Because there is emptiness inside where you never put love, did not embrace, did not take pride in success. And then they try to fill this void, some with what: some with food and purchases, some with wine, some with three jobs, so that there is no strength to think from fatigue.

And if they also criticized? The little man grows and makes mistakes. Otherwise, it will not learn in any way, until you try, until you fall. They were still allowed to fall, but during those wonderful school years, it also happened like this: "Well, what kind of ugly are you, did you write your English test for three? Yes, I didn't sleep at night for you, did you?" They criticize a lot and tastefully, they put their own failures in the scream. They tie together the idea that the child ruined the life and figure of the parents. "If it were not for the child, then the mother would be awesome! - thin, eternally young and with a career.

They also criticize for their appearance, especially if there is a mother-daughter. The child grows - matures, it is difficult for a mother to accept her extinction, if a daughter in the brightness of her youth blooms next to her like a princess in a fairy tale. And then the appearance is also devalued. "What kind of nose do you have ?! We have beautiful noses in our family, but what is that beak?" "Where have you grown so fat?" And the growing child sees himself just like that with a beak, fat, ugly and unacceptable. There is a lot of dislike in this, but how can a little man understand this? The emptiness in the soul grows and hurts. Shame unfolds in her. It is a shame to be the way it is, because the parents do not like what is there.

They can also hit, just like that, because their own anger hurts inside. Hit because there is no love, because the child happened on the aisle, because he sits in the room and is silent, it's not about the child, it's about the parents' dislike. What if he hits back? The child can gather strength and respond, snap back, block the blow. It's good if that stops the parents. But sometimes it doesn't. It happens that he is more angry and in response to self-defense, the child receives such a flurry of blows and punishments that in later life he does not even try to defend himself. Then fear is added to shame. It's scary to defend yourself, scared to do something and draw attention to yourself. better hide and not breathe.

Shame, fear and emptiness in the soul are twisted into one sore ball. The ball settles in the soul. A person who has survived such criticism, depreciation and dislike is hiding. Outside, it can be a successful careerist, with a well-groomed body (it was necessary to remove the oppression of maternal comments) or a completely inconspicuous person, but inside there lives a little disliked child full of fear and shame. Such people hardly know how to defend their interests: from a place in transport, to refusal to work for free in excess of the norm. Such people are looking for someone who will fill the void in the soul, will love and support, and will accept them as they are with shame and fear. The problem is that grown-up children are looking for someone familiar, similar in temperament to their parents, in order to still earn love, care and approval. And … they often end up in the nets of toxic people. To those who will also criticize, devalue, give the opportunity to earn love. A toxic partner can alternate between caring and devaluation, and the disliked adult will also deserve and deserve, live with endless hope and gradually burn out, losing strength in an endless race.

What can you do?

Stop this race after another. Find Yourself. This is exactly what psychotherapy helps to do. It helps to accept yourself as you are and see your beauty and your personal talents. Helps to realize that love and care cannot be deserved. Realize that childhood and adolescence were depreciated. Be in grief from this realization and learn how to live non-toxic, how to take care of yourself and how to ask for the support of others, how to find those non-toxic others. Then there is a gradual change in personality. It is very joyful and trembling for me to see how people who have filled this void-wound are changing: there is a new favorite work in life that brings income, lightness appears, new relationships begin, love comes into life.