Daughter Detox

by Peg Streep

  These scenarios demonstrate the effect on infants and toddlers when a mother is emotionally unavailable; what they don’t address is the dynamic when the conversation between mother and child becomes orally driven. It’s at this juncture—when the child herself speaks and is old enough to understand—that the unloving mother has another weapon at her disposal: words. How she uses her words—by withholding praise and support or by actively undermining, criticizing, or dismissing her daughter—will determine the kind of damage she does to her daughter’s sense of self.

  From her first moments on the planet, the baby is busy making sense of the world around her. If she is responded to regularly and consistently, she begins to understand the world as a fundamentally reliable place, where she can count on love and security and responsiveness. As she grows, what her mother says about her will become the foundation of her sense of self. But if she and her needs are ignored or unmet, the interactions with her mother will diminish her.

  Each of these moments of mother-child synergy alone is feather light but, repeated again and again, these interactions have enough force to transform a child’s inner landscape in ways that are more literal than not. Like a steady stream of single drops of water on soil, they create grooves and channels through which daily events flow, are interpreted, and reacted to. These channels or mental models are unconscious processes that lie below the surface of conscious thought. The words that are said to a daughter—whether they’re supportive and caring or hurtful and critical—are internalized as truths about herself and how connections between humans work.

  Because these mental models form unconscious patterns that motivate and direct a daughter’s behaviors in childhood and later, they cannot be altered without first recognizing them and bringing them to the surface of consciousness. This is why the wounds of childhood are so difficult to repair and why healing from them is complicated. Paradoxically, while the daughter feels unloved, she often can’t see the ways in which she is wounded; additionally, the hardwired need for her mother’s love never abates, even as she seeks to protect herself by withdrawing, just as she did as an infant.

  This is the predicament all unloved daughters face.

  BAD IS STRONGER THAN GOOD

  I do remember that I was three or four, and she dressed me like a doll. I have the photos and she’s holding me like a doll, too—away from her body like an object, not cradling me affectionately. The attention is on how well she’s doing with me, her DIY project. I also remember being punished if I played in those clothes or got them dirty or got my undies wet. Every photo shows her beaming with her prize in hand. And the little girl, me, isn’t smiling. Pictures don’t lie. Now I can see the truth .

  ~Abigail, 52

  It’s a psychological truism that “bad is stronger than good,” meaning that negative events have a much more significant and lasting impact on us than good ones, despite the fact that we have many more days and years that are basically good than bad over the course of a lifetime. Think about how detailed your recall is of a bad encounter or traumatic event, and then compare it to a memory of a day when nothing went wrong; it’s the bad times that stand out. Long after our memories of our beach vacation fade, we still remember the absolute nightmare of the plane ride back and the loud, drunken idiot sitting in front of us, capped by the loss of our luggage when we landed.

  We can thank evolution for our sensitivity to negative experiences, since the most reactive of our forebears were more likely to survive than those who didn’t register possible dangers, as were those who committed untoward events to memory with as much detail as possible. Remembering how someone standing under a tree was struck by lightning and died, for example, or that a certain cave flooded when it rained, could mean the difference between survival and death. Having those specific bad experiences easily retrievable from memory was beneficial; indeed, bad and painful events are stored in a different place in the brain than good ones. This is our evolutionary legacy, and it remains true for all of us, all these millennia later.

  This means that a child’s not getting what she needs has a greater impact on her than actually getting it. While getting love and attention will allow her to thrive, it will not change her. In contrast, deprivation, neglect, and stress all leave their marks on personality, sense of self, the working models of relationships, and the ability to self-regulate.

  As the song goes, if you’re happy and you know it, you clap your hands. That’s pretty much that; happiness or feeling good doesn’t require emotional process. But because bad things have a greater impact, they release negative emotions, which do require processing. Remember the game of peek-a-boo I described or the hair-pulling incident? In both of those cases, an attuned mother works to help the baby regulate her negative emotions—learning to self-soothe when overstimulated, recovering from feeling sad or scared, being able to calm down and to derive comfort from someone else. Anxious and avoidant children of unattuned mothers don’t learn how to deal with their negative feelings. This, as much as anything else, shapes all of their behaviors from childhood through adulthood and is, in many cases, hobbling.

  The fact that bad is stronger than good shows up in research pertaining to family dynamics in many different ways, and should be kept in mind as you read these pages and begin to process your own experience of childhood. Even in healthy and loving families, for example, seeing a brother or sister treated differentially by a parent —getting more attention or love, being treated as special in some way—influences a child’s development and perception more than the love she actually receives from that parent. Poignantly, one group of researchers wondered whether the presence of a reasonably attentive and affectionate parent could offset the damage done by a verbally aggressive one and discovered that, alas, it couldn’t. In fact, the effects of parental verbal aggression and parental verbal affection seem to operate independently of each other. More tellingly, while verbal affection on its own appeared to support healthy development, it didn’t appear to offer any buffer against the ill effects of verbal aggression. So if a father is kind and loving and a mother is verbally abusive to a daughter, Dad’s kindnesses won’t mitigate the damage done by Mom one bit. It turned out, too, that a parent’s showing verbal affection after a display of verbal aggression did nothing to mitigate the damage done or the effect of such aggression.

  That early mother-child interactions create the working models of relationship each of us unconsciously stores in memory is made clear by psychological research. It’s been the contribution of brain science to show that these interactions shape the very structure of the brain and all of its connections.

  THE DEVELOPING BRAIN AND MATERNAL BEHAVIOR

  The last two decades have shone extraordinary new light on the workings and growth of the brain, which, science now knows, doesn’t fully mature until long after childhood has officially ended, somewhere between the ages of 25 and 30. (It was long thought that the maturity of the brain coincided with the end of growth in the skeleton and skull during late adolescence. Nothing could be further from the truth. )

  The human brain develops from the bottom up; infants come into the world with the primitive parts of the brain—those that control the autonomic functions such as breathing—fully developed. It’s the higher brain—the parts that govern emotions, language, and abstract thought—that’s developed over the course of the first three years of life. By the time a child is three, her brain will have achieved 90 percent of its adult size. The growth of synapses is exponential during these years, creating far more connections than the brain actually needs, and therefore “pruning” these connections is part of later childhood.

  There is startling evidence that the brain of a child literally adapts to the environment in which the child finds herself. Yes, that’s what the work of Martin Teicher and his colleagues discovered and the implications are very profound indeed. While our genes provide the foundation and structure of the brain, all of its connections—both neural and how the sepa
rate parts of the brain function alone and together—are shaped by experience. The truth is that the brain reacts as readily to a negative environment as a positive one and, as psychologist Allan Schore writes, both positive and negative experiences shape the brain’s structure equally, either enabling its optimal growth or inhibiting it. Once again, this is not a metaphor but a literal statement. We can “thank” evolution for this adaptability (yes, that’s irony) since, under stress, the brain goes into survival mode, retooling so as to deal with that stress.

  We’ve already seen how a child’s development is shaped by the absence of attuned and consistent maternal behavior, but we also need to turn to the presence of negative behaviors and their effects, especially verbal abuse. Verbal abuse has an especially powerful and lasting effect on the brain. Studies have identified the areas of the brain most affected as the corpus callosum (responsible for transferring motor, sensory, and cognitive information between the two brain hemispheres), the hippocampus (part of the limbic system, which regulates emotions), and the frontal cortex (which controls thought and decision-making). Psychiatrist Akemi Tomoda and others showed correlation between verbal abuse and changes to the gray matter of the brain.

  What this means is that these early interactions can either produce a regulatory system—the brain—that can process emotions, handle stress optimally, and enable close emotional connections, or one that doesn’t. Daughters with insecure attachments generally have trouble regulating emotion, may exhibit maladaptive behaviors, and are more at risk for anxiety, depression, and poorer mental and physical health. If you experienced verbal abuse, there’s no reason to despair. The saving grace is that the brain retains its plasticity—its ability to grow and make new neural connections—throughout the lifespan. We will look at the effect of verbal abuse more closely in the following chapter.

  So while maternal treatment and verbal abuse can change the brain, the effects can be reversed. That’s very good news indeed.

  ATTACHMENT IN ADOLESCENCE AND BEYOND

  Those early childhood attachments—secure or insecure—continue to be unconscious scripts that govern how girls in adolescence and women in adulthood behave in relationships, whether romantic or friendly in nature. In order to better understand the distinct patterns, psychologists have expanded the original types of insecure attachment proposed by Bowlby and Ainsworth through a variety of studies. First, Phillip Shaver and Cindy Hazan proposed a three-part model of insecure attachment that was then expanded by Kim Bartholomew into four.

  As you read the descriptions below, see where you would locate yourself most of the time. (Because these are descriptions of behavior, and behavior may shift according to the situation, they are not as mutually exclusive as they seem. Your goal is to identify how you most often act in situations that are close and intimate.)

  Securely attached: Secure adults have a positive view of themselves and of other people. They have strong feelings of self-worth and they are comfortable expressing closeness. They enjoy knowing others and being known, and feel good when they are connected in love or friendship with others. They’re good at identifying their feelings accurately and manage negative emotion well. They’re flexible in their responses and have a variety of coping mechanisms at their disposal. They are resilient and can handle setbacks, large and small.

  Anxious-preoccupied: These are daughters who were anxious ambivalent in childhood, and their behaviors carry forward. Even though they may be high achieving, they have deep wells of self-doubt and low self-esteem. They seek validation in relationships because they have a positive view of others but they are also volatile, clingy, and then demanding and reactive, by turns. They are on a constant state of high alert, searching for signs that the people they’re intimate with, whether lovers or friends, will leave or reject them and can be triggered by the smallest of slights as a result. Generally, these women are always in one relationship or another, characterized by swings in behavior and highs and lows. Not surprisingly, these daughters often have trouble holding on to lasting friendships with other women.

  Dismissive-avoidant: These daughters think well of themselves and have a low opinion of others, which Bartholomew attributes to coping mechanisms adopted during a childhood with a rejecting mother. On a conscious level, they’re likely to consider themselves independent and self-contained, and not in need of intimate relationships for sustenance. They may come across as aloof or arrogant to others, as well as fiercely independent. Even though avoidants have relationships, they remain shallow because these daughters, deep-down, don’t want close connections or intimacy. Their romantic relationships remain superficial; these women look as though they are involved, but they always maintain their emotional distance from the supposed objects of their affection.

  In a similar way, their friendships tend to be organized around shared interests or hobbies, rather than confidences, closeness, and disclosure. Unlike the anxious-preoccupied daughters, whose volatility guarantees conflicts, these daughters steer away from conflicts, perhaps because they might reveal their true vulnerability.

  Fearful-avoidant: The dominant word here is “fear.” Even though these daughters actually crave intimacy, they don’t trust anyone enough to let them get close. The experiences of childhood have taught these daughters that people are uncaring and unavailable, and that they themselves are unlovable as well. All of this plays out close to the surface, since these women come across as intensely vulnerable, openly worried, insecure, and self-conscious.

  All three of these insecure styles can be seen as defensive postures adopted in childhood in an effort to both self-protect and reduce stress from maternal interactions. Remember how infants and toddlers turned away from their mothers in the “Still Face” experiments? These ways of responding are really no different, but unfortunately, they are unsuccessful strategies to deal with stress and negative emotion.

  How happy we are largely depends on how well or badly we handle stress and the emotions that accompany it, and much of the unloved daughter’s unhappiness in adulthood has to do with her difficulty in handling negative feelings. She has trouble sustaining happiness because it’s so easily interrupted. Under stress, the secure daughter brings up mental representations and conscious thoughts of emotional support and positive experiences that help her manage negative emotions in the moment; she’s inclined to look forward and to realize that resolutions to her problems exist. She’s able to get angry without getting hostile and, even in the midst of an argument, is able to shift her thoughts to how to repair the rift.

  In response to stress, the anxiously attached daughter, in contrast, is more likely to remember dispiriting or painful experiences as well as those times that she needed help and only encountered rejection. These memories arouse more anxiety, which, in turn, amps up whatever stress she is feeling, effectively flooding her with negative emotions. Unable to process them, she’ll end up replaying those bad moments on an endless loop, making her feel hopeless and powerless. Her so-called coping mechanisms only serve to exaggerate her distress. While she may turn to others for support, she’s too anxious to listen and, likely as not, will feel abandoned or unsupported. Her neediness is enormous, and she’s likely to get demanding and then angry that her needs aren’t met by her partner or friends. Additionally, her anxiety prevents her from drawing on positive connections when she needs to keep them in mind.

  The avoidant daughter turns inward and off, denying the stress she’s feeling and effectively walling off her emotions; of course, denying feelings is very different from recognizing and coping with them. By cutting off access to all of her emotions, the avoidant daughter effectively blocks all the positive emotions and experiences that actually would help her manage the stress. By isolating herself in this way, the avoidant daughter prolongs her emotional turmoil with no way out, unable to access her own positive thoughts and to reach out to others for support. In many ways, it is the worst of all possible worlds.

  The inability to manage
stressful situations and to effectively regulate negative emotions is among the most lasting legacies of an unloving mother. Recognizing the myriad ways that then influences now can be a bitter pill to swallow since it seems so unfair. But until you do, the past will govern your future.

  In the chapters that follow, we’ll be looking closely at maternal behaviors and seeing which behaviors spark different kinds of defenses. Please keep in mind that not only can secure attachment be earned—something we’ll address in full later in the book—but also that we can transform these attachment styles when we become conscious of them and the triggers that activate our defenses.

  Conscious awareness is the ultimate weapon at the unloved daughter’s disposal.

  MATERNAL POWER AND A DAUGHTER’S PERSONALITY

  Among the various theories about personality, there’s one that brings real understanding to the effect of the mother-daughter relationship on an individual. Set forth by Andrew J. Elliott and Todd M. Thrash, it posited that individuals could be characterized as being largely motivated by “approach” or “avoidance.” These two tendencies are hardwired into humans as well as every other species; generally, we approach things that are potentially beneficial to us and will make us happy, and we avoid those that might harm us or bring us pain. This is a general trait we have in common with earthworms, elephants, and amoebas. But Elliott and Thrash’s theory goes well beyond the basic hardwiring; it focuses on how people differ in whether they are largely motivated by approach or avoidance. The difference is attributed to childhood experience.

  What motivates one girl to set her sights high, to prepare herself for possible setbacks, and go for it, while another contemplates a challenge and sees nothing but possible failure and humiliation? Why is that some women hear a voice in their heads cheering them on to go for it (approach) while another just hears a repetitive tape that tells her she is lacking, not good enough, and better not even try because she’ll be humiliated and laughed at (avoidance) ?