Category: Childhood Trauma

“I can’t change,” the 40-year-old man said during a therapy session. “So what that I know and accept that my mother is selfish and ungiving? What good does that do me? Knowing is fine, but so what?”

“You mentioned that you were proud of yourself this last weekend. You were able to force yourself to be a good father, kind and supportive to your children. Plus, you actually had a good time.”

“Yeah. It was hard, but I did it.”

“You described your mother as self-centered, a woman who only cares about herself. Always putting her needs first and ignoring your needs.”

“She is. So?”

“You said she was never warm and giving.”

“She wasn’t.”

“As a child and now as an adult, you became like her and often you act like her — cold and distant. You want to do only what you want to do. Sound familiar?

He just stared.

But last weekend, you overcame that selfish feeling. You acted like the man you want to be, giving and loving. You weren’t acting like her anymore.”

“That’s disgusting that I act like her. It’s terrible.”

Silence.

“Jesus!”

I nod in agreement.

“Doctor. I WANT HER OUT OF ME! Get my mother out of me!” he said forcefully.

“That’s what this therapy is all about. We’re making progress towards doing just that.”

What happened to this man, happened to all of us. When we were little we incorporated parts of our parents into ourselves, the good parts and the bad parts. The way they related — loved, hated, disconnected, abused etc. all became so deeply embedded that being able to distinguish between what is us and what is them becomes almost impossible.

Often, the job of therapy and our personal challenge is to clarify who we are and understand that we don’t have to spend the rest of our lives acting like the dysfunctional parents who raised us.   Thanks!

To hate your parents, really feel it, is against the judeao-christian ethic, society, and our own inbred belief system.

In my psychiatric practice, countless patients have spent many hours “discovering” how they really feel about their mother and father. Even the most obviously abusive, alcoholic, and violent parent often remains immune to justly deserved hateful feelings. The parent who puts up a good front to the world, but in the privacy of the home is critical, distant, unempathic and devaluing is often more complicated to unravel.

How can you hate the person who gave you life and who you were dependent on? It feels immoral. It’s also crazy-making to know on one level that you can’t stand to be in the presence of a parent and at the same time doubt your right to have those feelings. Without our parents we wouldn’t exist. Often a patient or friend says, “I don’t hate my father. I just can’t talk to him, don’t want to be around him, and wish he’d just disappear. If I never saw him again, it would be okay. But…I don’t hate him.”

Well, how about EXTREME DISLIKE, which to me sounds a lot like HATE. If our parents have earned it, we have the right to our feelings.

In Chasing Backwards, Joe Belmont, a 24 y/o medical student who just learned his mother was killed, struggles with these feelings as he’s being interviewed by Detective Barneggi.

I glance back out the window. The light patterns are hypnotic, cars barreling down Vine Street, streaks of yellow and red swirling about in the darkness. Where will I bury her? What the hell do I do for money? I close my eyes and involuntarily shiver. What kind of asshole thinks about money at a time like this? I grip the coffee mug and picture heaving it through the plate-glass window.

A major bonus about getting in touch with hateful feelings is the possibility that when the hate is dealt with, there is the possibility that love still exists.

Thanks!