Daughter Detox

by Peg Streep

  The critical voice reduces you to a series of negatives that helped your parent marginalize or control you; having self-compassion permits you to add in all the other things her characterizations missed.

  ♦ Make a drawing, create a collage, or build an altar symbolizing your strengths .

  This may sound very New Age-y to some of you, but expressing yourself in another medium can clarify and strengthen your intentions and requires a different kind of thinking and permits you to see yourself in a different way. If you can’t draw, write down words that describe your best you (steadfast, capable, loyal, good cook, expert knitter) and download images or cut out photographs from magazines to create a positive “portrait” of yourself.

  Alternatively, you can create an altar—yes, this is very New Age, but I once wrote a book about it—by assembling objects and images that summon up your gifts or what you love or your favorite pursuits. Gather them on a shelf, table, or windowsill, and use the grouping as a visual reminder of what’s good about you. You can also build an altar to signify your intention by using symbols of growth and possibility (anything green, a butterfly because of its metamorphosis, seeds or pinecones, a photo of a lotus, for example) along with words that inspire you to action.

  ♦ Make self-compassion a goal .

  We will be talking more about goal-setting, but you can work up to being self-compassionate as you would any other goal, such as saving money, cleaning out your closets, or finding a new job. Write your goal down, and come up with steps to accomplish it. Here are some possible statements you could make: “I won’t be as hard on myself when things go wrong. Everyone screws up some of the time.” “I have to put my mistakes in context and have a better perspective on them. They’re not proof I’m worthless.” “When someone criticizes me, I have to ground myself and listen and then ground myself again. Is there something to be learned from what he or she is saying, or should I just discard it?”

  When you find yourself falling into the old default position of self-criticism, call it out and argue with it and then move your mind into a self-compassionate place. Keep notes on the progress you’re making by not reverting to that self-critical point of view, and treat yourself to something you like when you succeed. Yes, it’s called positive reinforcement.

  ♦ Ask yourself: Will I show myself compassion?

  Write the question down and pin it up where you can see it. Remind yourself that this is a step-by-step process and that baby steps are fine but that next time you experience a setback or are down in the dumps about all that you’re not, you will show yourself some compassion instead of joining the old critical chorus.

  GOAL-SETTING AND SELF-INVENTORY

  Rather than simply being hopeful about changing your life, how you connect to others, and how you feel about yourself, you need to stop being vague and set some concrete goals. Science actually knows a lot about goal-setting—there’s been lots of research—and which factors play a role in whether a goal can be met. You can set goals in any area of your life: personal strivings, relationship, or work and career. Here are some useful strategies, many of them adapted from my book Quitting—Why We Fear It and Why We Shouldn’t—in Life, Love, and Work :

  ♦ Write your goals down .

  Studies show that writing them down makes your thinking more concrete and helps motivation, too. (And while you can type your goals, you engage different parts of your brain when you handwrite so grab a pen.) It’s also very helpful to think about your goals in both the short term and the long term because it helps you stay balanced in terms of your realism and your optimism about your progress. For example, your short-term goal might be to reduce your anxiety by exercising, using visualization, and working on managing your emotions more proficiently by paying attention to triggers. Your long-term goal might be to increase the level of intimacy in your relationships by being less anxious about trusting others.

  ♦ Make sure your goals and abilities are in sync .

  Common wisdom has it that “the higher the bar, the better the jump,” but that happens not to be true for everyone. First, make sure the goal you’re setting is feasible. Ask yourself whether it’s something you can actually accomplish in the time frame you’re considering. Do you need to set an interim goal? Or should you lower your expectations, at least to begin with?

  Use writing to clarify both your intentions and your plans. This is very important if you’ve avoided making mistakes or the possibility of failure most of your life; secure people expect glitches to happen and plan for them, which makes them more resilient and able to recover from setbacks faster. So examine your goals carefully.

  The work of Gabriele Oettingen and her colleagues underscored that how you think about achieving goals directly affects your motivation. At one end of the spectrum is what they called “indulging”: painting a totally rosy picture of what your future will be like when you’ve achieved the goal, and returning to it again and again in your imagination, embroidering it with details. An indulging train of thought would sound like this: “I will change myself so much that I’ll be able to find a partner and live happily ever after” or “I will so wow my bosses that they’ll give me a promotion and double my salary” or “I’ll just write a novel and it will become a huge bestseller and I’ll be rich.” At its worst, indulging is no different from pipe-dreaming. At the other end is what they call “dwelling”: being so fixed on your current negative circumstances that you can only come up with visions of defeat if you try to change. Neither of these thought processes motivates you to actually achieve the goal. The solution to effective goal-setting is what Oettingen calls “mental contrasting.”

  USING MENTAL CONTRASTING

  Mental contrasting requires you to keep in mind, at the same time, both your goal and the future you will enjoy if you attain it and the real-life issues that could get in the way of your achieving it. Having both the positive vision and the proactive problem-solving stance in your head simultaneously gets you to a Goldilocks place of “just right”—the correct mix of optimism with healthy realism. Let’s say that your goal is to get closer to someone you like but someone you’re always locking horns with. You realize you’ve been overly reactive so you’re going to focus on modulating your responses, and you can envision how much better the relationship will be. But you balance that positive vision with the recognition that she is pretty reactive herself so you’re going to come up with strategies to keep the conversation going if things go off track. That’s where if/then thinking comes in.

  One caveat about mental contrasting: Researchers using brain imaging have located the parts of the brain in which mental contrasting takes place, specifically those associated with working memory and intention; they are different from those activated by indulging. This led them to surmise that mental contrasting taxes working memory, which is a limited resource, so they suggest you try not to use mental contrasting when you’re thinking about other things or are stressed or tired. Keep that in mind.

  BEING PREPARED: THE POWER OF IF/THEN THINKING

  The Boy Scout motto, “Be Prepared,” is a good one, and while if/then thinking won’t help you determine which way is north and won’t start a camp fire, it is a game-changer nonetheless and needs to be used to bolster mental contrasting. Preparing for the stumble, the glitch, the setback, or even an unanticipated change in the script is an important and empowering skill. Basically, it’s really thinking about Plan B when you’re still focused on Plan A: “If X happens, then I will do Y.” If/then thinking both permits you to plan and enables emotional and intellectual flexibility.

  You can prepare if/then strategies by journaling and planning out on paper if that works better for you than simply thinking about them. Using this approach won’t just increase your flexibility but will also decrease worry and anxiety because it gets you past thinking about just a single Plan A but forward to Plans B and C, thus allowing you to roll with the punches if need be. This is especially useful for those women who worry
excessively about failing or who still struggle with rejection sensitivity.

  SUBSTITUTING APPROACH FOR AVOIDANCE

  Once you’ve recognized that you’re motivated by avoidance—you tend to dodge tough conversations, worry too much about failing so stay in place, default to pleasing or appeasing instead of speaking up—you have to become your own best cheerleader. Once again, concentrate on disarming your default positions by reminding yourself of their origins and how they undermine your true strengths and abilities. Studies show that parents transmit a fear of failure to their children, which is hardly surprising if you think about it. If your parent defines and loves you for what you do and not for who you are, you are going to be filled with terror at letting her or him down and being shut out.

  Remind yourself that while avoidance is safe, it also keeps you stuck in place. Take a leaf out of the securely attached person’s book and remind yourself that a setback or even a failure isn’t proof of your worthlessness; it’s a call to regroup. Use all the tools at your disposal—reappraisal, self-talk, self-compassion, and mental contrasting—if there’s a bump in the road.

  LEARNING TO LET GO

  You’ve heard the saying “Quitters never win and winners never quit,” haven’t you? Well, guess what? It’s not true. It’s ironic that the culture focuses solely on the virtues of grit and persistence because the reality is that humans are far more likely to keep trying and stay long past the expiration date in all manner of situations that are unhealthy and unhappy-making than they are to leave the party too early. That’s generally true of everyone, but it’s especially true for the unloved daughter. Securely attached people acknowledge the possibility of setbacks and even failure when they set goals; because they believe the self is malleable and capable of growth, they don’t see failure as proof positive of some core and immutable flaw in themselves. This isn’t to say that failing doesn’t smart—it does—but they don’t go down for the count .

  The insecurely attached daughter has to work at letting go because until she reclaims her authentic self completely and adopts new goals and ways of managing feelings, she’s likely to revert to the default settings bequeathed by childhood, willing to do anything to avoid looking as though she’s failed in a public way. Even when she’s decided that bailing out is what she needs to do, she may hesitate because she’s plagued by self-doubt and ends up staying the course once again.

  Bring your beliefs and thoughts about failure and the self into full conscious awareness for clarity. Recognize that letting go of what’s not working in your life isn’t a sign of inadequacy but an indication of your willingness to head off in a new direction. You’re just decluttering for a season of rebirth, which isn’t unlike what you do to your closets when the seasons change, only on a larger scale. In this context, the ability to quit without regret and with confidence is a major sign of progress.

  REVISITING VISUALIZATION

  We’ve discussed using visualization and other cognitive techniques to help you tear down the walls that keep you in an avoidant lockstep or, alternatively, to help you stop the emotional flooding that keeps you on an ever-turning carousel without balance. Continue to work on developing and strengthening this skill set as you move toward the next stage of redirecting your life. The more you work at calming yourself down in times of stress, the more these strategies will pay out. Keep in mind that securely attached people do this unconsciously—bringing up images of love and support when they’re anxious, remembering positive experiences when they’re stressed—and over time, this can become a habit for you, too.

  Up next are the steps you’ll need to take to redirect your life, should you choose to. You may find it useful to return to this chapter and review it if some of these old habits are still getting in your way.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  REDIRECTING YOUR LIFE: MAKING CHOICES

  It was only when I realized that I could be free of her influence that I became free and started my life over. Can you imagine? I was 42 and the mother of two boys. I actually considered giving myself a new first name. That’s how reborn I felt .

  ~Christie

  W ith newly recovered personal power and belief in the self comes the hard part: redirecting your intent and energy and deciding what changes you need to make to your life to be happier and more fulfilled. This part of the journey isn’t as painful as the stages of discovery and distinguishing, with their truths to be faced, or as emotionally strenuous as disarming and reclaiming, but it does test your newfound trust in yourself. Redirecting your life requires having faith in your own recognitions, trusting your own perceptions, and believing that growth and change are possible. If you’re wondering whether you’re ready, remind yourself that feeling unsure in the moment is part of the process. Progress remains one baby step at a time and, sometimes, two steps back.

  REDIRECTION AND AGENCY

  One of the psychological shifts you need to make at this stage, if you haven’t before, is seeing yourself as having the agency to effect change and take charge. This will be an important transition for those daughters who have lived their lives listening to others or reacting to situations curated by other people, or who have unwittingly recreated their childhoods in their closest personal relationships and have felt powerless.

  One of the key choices—and inevitably tied to other decisions you feel you need to make—is how to manage your relationship to your mother. On the pages following, we’ll look at the possibilities open to you without giving advice. While there are commonalities, each daughter’s situation is unique and individual to her. Only you can decide what you need to do because only you understand what the situation is from the inside out. You alone will live with the consequences of your decisions, even though their effect will be felt by others.

  This isn’t the only choice you’ll make, of course. But it’s the one that needs to be dealt with first, one way or another.

  ASKING WHETHER THE MATERNAL RELATIONSHIP CAN BE SALVAGED

  As we know, the core conflict isn’t resolved by reaching adulthood. It continues to be a war between the hardwired need for maternal love and support, as well as a sense of belonging, on the one hand and the daughter’s growing rational understanding of how toxic the connection is and her need for some stress-free normalcy on the other. The battle between those two opposed needs can go on for years. In fact, the conflict can continue even if the daughter chooses to divorce her mother. How counterintuitive is that?

  Because the culture sides with the mother—buying into the mythology that all mothers are loving because nurturing the young is instinctual—and puts the daughter on trial, the struggle has a public face in addition to a private one. For the first 18 years of her life, the daughter has no choice but to deal with her mother, no matter what. While getting out of her childhood home is freeing in one sense, it’s not a magic bullet. Her wounding isn’t salved by independence and her longing for the stability and comfort she needs continues.

  In the redirection stage, the daughter has to decide whether to try to save some kind of relationship from the wreckage or to cut bait. Neither choice, by the way, is made in the spur of the moment but is usually preceded by years of thinking about, and going back and forth between, the two alternatives. I call that “going back to the well” because even though the daughter knows intellectually that the well is dry, her impulse is to try just one more time, just in case.

  Having waged this particular battle myself for over two decades when I was a young woman—from my twenties through my thirties, to be exact—I understand how much is at stake. On the one hand, there’s the tantalizing and ever-hopeful possibility of a reconciliation, accompanied by some long-wished-for recognition by the mother that her daughter really is lovable. Yes, cue the violins for the Hollywood ending. Alas, this is almost always a pipe dream. But many daughters, daunted by the cultural onus of going no-contact and the emotional losses involved, are motivated to try to keep the relationship intact in some way, however imperfect
it is. Social pressure is also a factor, as is the daughter’s fear of making a mistake and of denying her children an extended family. Keep in mind that the decision to divorce your mother inevitably leads to estrangement with other members of your family as well. We’ll look at the fallout separately because it’s a huge issue.

  Trying to salvage the relationship for most is like navigating an obstacle course. If you try it and fail, do not blame yourself.

  UNDERSTANDING THE OBSTACLE COURSE

  You have no idea how long I’ve tried to fix this or how many different ways I’ve tried. I’ve tried and tried but I can’t. I just can’t .

  ~Melanie, 45

  Some daughters choose to keep the relationship going even though it involves maintaining the painful status quo; one daughter explained it by saying, “For me, I chose to salvage my relationship with her because I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that my mother tried the best she knew how but she was crippled by the cycle of violence from her mom and her grandmother. I know some daughters don’t have that assurance, though.” But when questioned, she admitted that the going wasn’t smooth: “It depends on the day. There are still unhealthy boundaries, but what helps is having better coping mechanisms. I developed a support system completely outside of my family.” When I asked her whether the exchanges were still hurtful, she replied, “It hurts, but I also worry about regretting not having anything to do with her before she dies. Fear is a terrible motivator. But I choose to keep her at arm’s length. I pity her.”