by Peg Streep
Ask whether your own impulse is to blame yourself or to attribute failure to your flaws when things go south because this, too, is learned behavior and may be an extension of self-criticism. Alternatively, you may also duck personal responsibility and be unwittingly quick to pin blame on others. Attribution involves finding a cause or reason for the untoward and, sometimes, being content that there’s no reason at all and accepting that stuff just happens. Blaming is about finding someone to pin the bad stuff on. If you were raised in an environment where the blame game was always played, your reaction may be unconscious and automatic.
Let’s say the family car was vandalized one night while it was parked in the driveway and the windshield smashed. Parent #1 is angry about the windshield but writes the incident off as an unlucky encounter with random neighborhood thugs. Incident over. In another household, Parent #2 has to blame someone. It turns out that Nancy was the last kid to come home and she didn’t leave the porch light on so the vandals had the cover of darkness. In the telling, it now becomes Nancy’s fault that the car was vandalized. Does this sound familiar?
Ask yourself the following questions:
♦ When things go wrong, how important is it that someone be blamed or punished?
♦ How sensitive to criticism am I? How often do I overreact?
♦ Am I able to tell the difference between criticism that is meant to be constructive and criticism that is meant to diminish me?
DISARMING THE SELF-CRITICAL VOICE
Recognizing the voice is the very first step, and you move on and out from there. Next, you need to begin to talk back to the voice—and yes, some people actually do this literally, speaking aloud with other explanations for why something has gone awry or failed. (You may not want to do this in a public place. Generally, talking to yourself in this way draws a fair amount of unwelcome attention!) Using your journal to analyze a situation or event—discovering why things went wrong or ended badly if they did, or why your expectations weren’t met—is another way of establishing a different pattern of response.
We’ll examine specific strategies in the next chapter , especially on pages 173 and following .
YOUR PERSONAL DEFAULT SETTINGS
While it’s possible to draw generalizations—valuable ones, as it happens—about our experiences and the effects of an unloving mother’s behaviors, each of our experiences has elements that are unique and individual. Spend time thinking about which of the unconscious processes reviewed in this chapter constitute your own personal default settings. With that information in hand, you’ll be able to develop effective strategies for learning new behaviors. You may well discover that things about yourself that you considered personality traits—the way you hesitate, your fearfulness, even your tendency to procrastinate—are actually responses to your childhood experiences.
In the next chapter , we’ll be looking at precisely how you can reclaim the power to live the best life you possibly can.
CHAPTER SEVEN
RECLAIMING YOUR POWER
For me, the continuing challenges are shutting off the critical voice in my head that stops me from doing anything that seems vaguely challenging because I’m sure I’ll fail and the problem of not trusting anyone. I always think people are out to trip me up .
~Ana, 41
W hile it’s true that all of us felt powerless in our childhoods and many continue to into adulthood, we’re ready to start reclaiming our authentic selves once we have gone through the processes of discovery, discernment, distinguishing, and disarming. We can thank the magical power of the brain—yes, that very same brain that can sometimes lead us down the garden path—because of its changeability, which is more literal than not.
This chapter focuses on the changes you can make, starting now, to how you manage your emotions, use your emotions to inform your thoughts, set goals for yourself, choose the company you keep, and live your life. Every strategy offered on these pages is founded in science, much of it behavioral. Some of what you’ll be reading will run counter to what you’ve read elsewhere—why you should give up on affirmations, for example, or how positive thinking can set you back—but I’d like you to give me the benefit of the doubt and, more important, have what science knows be part of your arsenal going forward. Let’s start with the things you have to stop doing.
THE BIG QUESTION YOU HAVE TO STOP ASKING
If there is a single question that hangs over an unloved daughter’s life, it’s certainly this one: “Why doesn’t my mother love me?” And understandably, for almost all of us, finding the answer becomes a search no different from the knights seeking the Holy Grail. Why is that? Because a definitive answer would help make sense of what happened at your house and to you and, maybe, offer up the magic formula that could allow you to fix everything, as one woman wrote me: “I thought that if I knew why she didn’t love me, I could somehow change the unlovable parts of me and then she would love me. Mind you, I was still thinking this way in my forties, long after I became a mother myself.”
But the impulse to make sense of what’s happened also can easily become another cycle of justification, rationalization, and normalization on the daughter’s part, one that keeps the music ever playing for the dance of denial. Yes, there’s an aha! moment when you read a self-help book or an article and you decide your mother’s a narcissist or has borderline personality disorder, and you breathe a sigh of relief because now you think you know why she shunned or shamed you. Here’s the problem: With that supposed answer in hand, you think you’re getting closer to resolving and understanding your childhood experiences, but the reality is that the answer doesn’t move you forward at all. Why? Because your focus remains on her when it should be on you .
It’s for that reason that I ask that you stop asking the question and stop looking for the answer. You have to stay focused on how you adapted to her treatment and how you can give up the behaviors you unconsciously took on and exchange them for new ones. Why she did what she did isn’t your concern; you are your main concern. Asking the question reinforces your false belief that there’s a definitive answer, which there isn’t; mothers don’t love for many reasons or none at all. But each possible answer only reflects her ; it was never about you. So please stop asking.
I know it’s hard not to ask but it’s something you must do.
SAY NO TO POSITIVE THINKING
I’m not asking you to throw out those inspirational magnets and mugs—the ones that say things like “Every cloud has a silver lining” or “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”—but I do want you to put them away for the moment. Yes, I know the cultural wisdom advocates coping with disappointment and pain by looking at the bright side, but the truth is that positive thinking isn’t actually always good for you. Let me explain why positive thinking should be off the table especially when dealing with the special circumstances an unloved daughter confronts .
♦ Humans are hardwired for over-optimism anyway
It’s called the “optimism bias,” and it basically means that we are inclined to think that bad things will happen to us (and those close to us) less often than they will happen to other people and that, conversely, good things will be more likely to happen to us than to the average person. (This is true even if you are a glass-is-half-empty person and inclined toward pessimism.) First noted by psychologist Neil Weinstein in 1980, it’s been looked at different ways over the years. Needless to say, it feeds right into the dance of denial and other tactics unloved daughters adopt when dealing with the core conflict.
A fascinating experiment, detailed in 2012 by Tali Sharot and others, demonstrated that there is actually a location in the brain for the optimism bias, the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). Negative information, they posited, is processed by the right IFG. When they delivered intercranial magnetic stimulation to the left IFG—thus disabling study participants’ founts of optimism—they were able to demonstrate that people were more apt both to let in negative information and to pa
y attention to it.
Unloved daughters, especially those who are still hopeful that somehow the crisis can be resolved, are very vulnerable to using positive thinking to override the realistic appreciation of the circumstances they find themselves in.
The takeaway: Positive thinking can stop you from being realistic about your circumstances and get in the way of the emotional work you have to do.
♦ Optimism feeds the illusion of control
This one is really interesting and unexpected. Humans are loaded with cognitive biases, including the tendency to credit our successes to our own actions and to attribute our failures to outside sources or situations beyond our control. But did you know that being a bit down in the mouth about our prospects may actually stand us in good stead as an antidote to all that optimism? That’s what a series of experiments conducted by Lauren B. Alloy and Lyn Y. Abramson found. Depressed subjects had a more accurate view of their own agency than nondepressed participants.
When you curb your enthusiasm, along with your optimism, you can recognize that you’re hardwired to connect dots that aren’t actually connected. Inculcate some realism into how you view your actions and the progress you’re making. It’s also important that you become clear about which aspects of your life you can control and which you can’t; yes, the Serenity Prayer is right in calling that wisdom.
♦ Positive thinking can be a distraction from the work at hand
Thinking positively—reaching for that silver-lining script or putting on those rose-colored glasses—not only skews our ability to assess situations critically but also encourages us to avoid or distract ourselves from dealing with negative fallout. Whether your coping skills are largely anxious or avoidant, the last thing you should be doing is looking away from the difficulties at hand.
GIVE UP ON AFFIRMATIONS AND ASK YOURSELF QUESTIONS INSTEAD
I personally have nothing against affirmations, but research shows that asking yourself “Will I…?” is far more effective and motivates you more than repeating “I will do X or Y” again and again. I know it’s contrarian, but please trust me on this. Throughout this chapter, we’ll be using this technique and apply it to goal-setting.
STOP COUNTING YOUR BLESSINGS
You’re probably yelling at me by now, but hear me out. Research shows that subtracting your blessings, rather than counting them, is far more effective when you’re trying to self-regulate and stop yourself from sliding into an ocean of despair, maintain a level of happiness, or feel grateful. Researchers Minkyung Koo, Sara Algoe, Timothy Wilson, and Daniel Gilbert (the latter two are gurus on the subject of happiness) asked a simple question: Was it how people thought about a positive event that affected how happy they were and how happiness could be sustained? They posed a question: What if, instead of counting your blessings, you subtracted them? Guess what? In their fourth study, which examined romantic relationships (all of the participants were in relationships they considered satisfying), the researchers had individuals either write about how they met, how they started dating, and the like or write about how they might not have met or ended up together. It was the second task—the exercise of subtraction—that yielded an increase in positive affect.
The takeaway: If you’re using thinking about the good things in your life to self-regulate, you’ll feel happier and experience more gratitude by thinking about what your life would be like without those things or those people.
LET GO OF PLEASING AND APPEASING
No one wants more drama in her life, but if your coping mechanisms include appeasing difficult or toxic people or continuing to try to please them, you have to put those behaviors on hiatus immediately. Historically, appeasement doesn’t work for countries, and it doesn’t work for people either. This is not a call to start a new world war and to engage in open hostilities with all the difficult people in your life, but it’s a reminder that you must work on setting boundaries if you’re not ready to throw in the towel and simply ban those people from your life.
Boundaries are healthy and shouldn’t look like mini versions of the Great Wall of China. Begin by thinking about your goals and then put them down on paper. For example, one of your goals might be to maintain less contact with more civility or to set forth some rules that would govern your interactions with these folks. Setting boundaries doesn’t have to include aggression or anger—in fact, it shouldn’t—although you should prepare yourself for pushback, especially if you are dealing with people who are used to controlling or manipulating you. (Please note: If you are living with an abusive person who could do you physical harm, please consult a therapist or counselor before attempting to put boundaries in place). You need to stop pleasing and appeasing at this moment because acting in this way disappears you, your needs and wants, your feelings and thoughts. These are unhealthy patterns that can get in the way of your growth and development.
STOP NORMALIZING ABUSIVE OR TOXIC BEHAVIOR
You might not even be aware that you’re reacting to abusive behavior in unhealthy ways, especially if you grew up around abusive people. Take a look at these behaviors that unintentionally fuel the continuation of abuse and see which ones are part of your personal repertoire. The time has come to cull them from your unconscious scripts.
♦ Accepting that you’re “too sensitive”
You’ve heard these words all of your life and whenever someone says something hurtful, you end up taking responsibility for being hurt and your pain becomes your problem, not the person’s who wounded you. Similarly, an intimate tells you that you’re “too serious” or that you “can’t take a joke” after he or she has said something that absolutely withers you, and you accept that statement as accurate. Stop right now.
On the other hand, if you tend to be overreactive, practice the STOP, LOOK, LISTEN technique so that you can get a handle on what you’re bringing to the party. This doesn’t mean that you should believe it’s “your fault,” but you should work on finding balance. Context matters, and as you become more confident about identifying those moments when you actually are being “too sensitive,” it will be much easier to identify the people who are using those words to manipulate and control you.
♦ You still don’t defend yourself when you’re falsely blamed or put down
If you were scapegoated or the daughter of a hypercritical mother, duck and cover may have been your first line of defense during childhood and you may be very sensitive to any kind of criticism at all. But that needs to stop if you’re going to move forward because you need to be able to tell the difference between criticism that’s used as a weapon and critical commentary that is meant to be helpful. Paying attention to a person’s language and tone can help you distinguish one kind of criticism from the other. Criticism that intends to marginalize you is highly personal, often expressed in sentences that begin with “You always” or “You never,” which are then followed by a laundry list of your flaws. The criticism is never limited to something specific but spins out into generalized statements about your character such as “You always forget to do what you’ve been asked to do because you’re selfish and unmotivated by nature.” Criticism that is meant to be constructive is specific, offered as a suggestion, and is usually part of a dialogue: “I think there were ways you might have handled that blowup with him differently such as explaining why it’s so frustrating” or “It would be better if you didn’t get defensive because that leads to escalating the tension.”
♦ You still rationalize when you’re stonewalled
Children who are ignored or made to feel invisible in childhood often have trouble recognizing what psychologists know to be the most toxic pattern in relationships and a sure sign of trouble: demand/withdraw. The unloved daughter tends to tolerate stonewalling precisely because it’s so familiar to her and to rationalize her partner’s behavior by thinking that he’s simply too stressed to talk things through, to blame herself for choosing the wrong time or tone to initiate a discussion, or to castigate herself for makin
g a demand in the first place. This kind of tolerance just adds to an already unhealthy dynamic; stonewalling is never an appropriate response.
♦ You still question your perceptions
Children who are mocked, marginalized, or gaslighted in their families of origin don’t just suffer from low self-esteem; they’re also quick to retreat when challenged because they’re deeply insecure about whether their perceptions are valid and to be trusted. Second-guessing themselves is the default behavior. Gaslighting can make a child deeply fearful, as I was, especially of being “crazy” or damaged in some profound way. This again cedes all power to the narcissist or manipulator who needs to control you.
That ends the list of the behaviors you need to give up. Now we’ll shift our attention to the behaviors and skills you’ll want to master and acquire.
STRATEGIES FOR SKILLFUL EMOTIONAL MANAGEMENT
Whether you cope with negative feelings by pushing off from them or get utterly swept up in them, it’s clear that you will need a new set of skills to finally move out of that childhood bedroom that’s been replicated in your head. Becoming emotionally resilient is the goal here so that you can weather the crises life throws at you—whether a minor setback or something major like a job loss, the illness of a loved one, a breakup or divorce, or anything else disruptive—and become adept at setting new goals for yourself and achieving them. It’s the antidote to being stuck.
These strategies can be used alone or in combination. You will have to see which ones work best for you.
IN THE THICK OF IT: NAMING YOUR FEELINGS
Putting your feelings into words is the basis of talk therapy, of course, and as we’ve already explored, being able to label and identify your emotions precisely is a key component of emotional intelligence. A study conducted by Matthew Lieberman and others showed, via MRI imaging, that naming emotions actually decreased activity in the amygdala—the more primitive part of the brain where emotions are stored and where reactivity begins—and increased activity in the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain where thinking and executive control take place.
