by John Friel
We deny our feelings, which are our reality. Then we deny the objective reality around us (Dad doesn’t get angry very often, really). And then we build a tidy shell around us so that on the outside we’re looking great and on the inside we’re suffocating. We humans are extremely clever, not like bears at all.
Triangulation
This refers to communication patterns within a family. Families who do this use one family member as a messenger or go-between, rather than speaking directly to the person with whom they want to communicate.
For example, Mom and Dad just had a fight. Dad thinks that he’ll be able to get to Mom if he works through 10-year-old Bobby, so he says, “Bobby, will you go ask your mother if she’s still mad at me? Tell her I really didn’t mean what I said, and ask her if she wants to go to dinner with us.” Being a good little trooper, Bobby does what he is asked. Mom says, “Bobby, you tell your father I wouldn’t go to dinner with him if he was the last person on earth. And then you get upstairs and clean your room like I told you to do an hour ago.”
Bobby was trying to be a good boy. He was trying to help get Mom and Dad back together, but he wound up with Mom taking out her anger toward Dad on him, and he was left feeling that part of their marital problem was his. He had failed in his mission. He had let down Dad. He had made a mess of things. Or so Bobby felt. How Bobby felt is all that matters. When triangulation becomes a regular fixture in a family system, communication becomes blurred, people become enmeshed in problems that are not theirs, and children, especially, become pawns in their parents’ power struggles. And when you are made a pawn in someone else’s game long enough, you become just a pawn to yourself, too. You become an object. You take on other people’s feelings and guilts and sense of worthlessness.
Children who grow up with lots of triangulation going on at home between them and adults, and between adults and other adults, come to feel and believe that this is “normal,” and so they repeat the pattern in their own adult lives. Because it feels “normal,” they also gravitate to other adults who communicate this way.
In fact, when they encounter an adult who does not communicate this way, they think something is wrong. Thus, they shy away from people who communicate in healthy ways, and in so doing, manage to recreate the dysfunctional system they grew up in. This is true of all dysfunctional family patterns, this one included.
Double Messages/Double Binds
Tommy runs up to Dad when he gets home from work and asks, “Do you love me, Dad?”
“Sure, son,” says Dad, as he buries his head in the newspaper, eats dinner, turns on the television set, sits there for three hours and then goes to bed.
Betsy runs up to Mom at bedtime, throws her arms around Mom and says, “I love you.” Mom’s back stiffens and her body gets tense because no one ever hugged in her family when she was growing up, “I love you, too, honey.” Because Mom’s double reaction was so subtle, Betsy doesn’t appear to notice, but she does unconsciously.
Double messages are of the kind, “I love you/go away.” “I need you/I don’t need you.” “We are proud of you/We are ashamed of you.” “Sure, we like you/why can’t you be more like your brother?” More often than not, these double messages are extremely subtle; and the more subtle they are, the harder it is to identify that they were ever there in the first place.
In one family that we worked with, Mom and Dad were always talking about how democratic they were and how hard they tried to treat each child equally. What they couldn’t see because they had such a closed family system was that they were really doing just the opposite of what they said they were doing. Oldest brother was the “star.” Middle sister was a quiet, shy girl who earned good grades in school but who had a heck of a time connecting with anyone else in the family or outside of it. And little brother, who was “the problem,” was acting out in school and causing trouble at home. Oldest brother sat next to Dad, who appeared to wield most of the power in the family. Mom and Dad spoke in glowing terms about all of his accomplishments. Middle sister sat off to the side a bit, and Mom and Dad talked less enthusiastically about her. She was “the quiet one,” they said. Little brother was more or less bouncing off the walls of our office, and everyone else spoke with humor and a touch of condescension about him. “He’s the charmer in the family,” they all chimed in, “but he’s trouble, too,” they laughed. “We’re proud of our parenting skills,” said Dad. “We treat each one just the same.”
What really happened in this family is that oldest brother had been treated all along just like Dad. He had all the power and all the glory. Middle sister was treated just like Mom. She was quiet, shy and had no power at all. Little brother was treated like a toy, and wound up acting out all of the real dysfunction in the family and all of the real tension in the family that was being suppressed by Dad’s unfair balance of power. The double message here, of course, is “We treat you all the same. We treat none of you the same.”
It is true that no two children will be alike in any given family, and that each child will develop his or her own personality, as well they should. But it is dysfunctional when one child gathers up all of the power and attention in a family, or when one spouse in a partnership has all of the power. In this family, the notion of equality was a pipedream perpetrated by an authoritarian husband and father, and a mother who went along with it.
Inability to Play and Have Fun
This is one of the key characteristics of adult children of dysfunctional families. Many of us who became alcoholic, for example, are often seen as too “fun-loving and irresponsible,” but the fact is that when we grow up in compulsive or addictive families the world is a very serious place to be. We are always on the edge of burnout. We are always trying to prove our worth by what we do, rather than accepting simply who we are.
Even Frank had a problem in this area. He “worked hard and played hard,” but the play that he engaged in was highly structured and competitive. To be able to play means to be able to “let go.” To be able to let go means to be able to trust, to be able to trust that we are okay even if we make a fool of ourselves now and then. It’s pretty tough to truly play and not risk making a fool of ourselves.
Spontaneous laughter and humor is almost difficult for those children who, like Anita, took on the role of “the little parent” while growing up. Or who, like Sandy, used so much energy to appear “respectable” while at school, despite the horrible violence and chaos that was going on at home. In healthy families we can truly play and feel safe. We know that if things get out of hand, someone will get us back on course firmly but gently. In unhealthy families, play begins in a healthy way, but almost always ends up with someone getting damaged physically or emotionally. Nobody knows when to quit. Enough is never enough. Humor is used to hurt as often as it is used in Fun. “Letting go” escalates into chaos. Boundaries and limits are nonexistent. “Let’s ‘play’ football” turns into “Let’s prove who’s better than everyone else.” “Let’s ‘wrestle’” turns into “Let’s hurt someone.” “It’s okay to flirt,” turns into “I want to have an affair.”
Again, as with other issues already discussed, the issue of play and spontaneity becomes one of extremes in dysfunctional families. It’s either nothing at all, with everyone beinng deadly serious and morose, or total chaos and damage. As trite as it may sound, finding that middle path is the hardest accomplishment for an adult who grew up in an unhealthy family.
High Tolerance For
Inappropriate Behavior/Pain
This tells you how we become saints and martyrs as children, and how we then go out into the adult world and try to remain saints and martyrs. It comes from learning to deny our feelings when we are little, to protect ourselves from boundary violations and emotional or physical abuse. It comes from seeing one or both of our parents repeatedly refuse to take care of their own needs. It comes from religious or cultural rules that say others must always come first. It comes from watching self-destructive patterns of l
iving in our parents who work too much, drink too much, take care of others too much, eat too much, yell too much, lie too much, jog too much and even play too much.
Through years and years of putting everyone else first and years of self-denial and denial of feelings, we come to pride ourselves in just how much we can put up with before we say “Ouch!”
“Doesn’t it bother you that your mother is always so critical of you?” a healthy friend asks you. “Well, no,” you say with hesitation, “she’s had such a hard life and all. I understand why she does it.” It’s fine that you understand why she does it. But is it healthy for you to subject yourself to such abuse, day in and day out? What does that do to a person over the years? It’s quite simple, really. It teaches us to discount ourselves and to abuse ourselves.
In many families, it’s not only tolerance for inappropriate behavior that we learn. We also learn to put up with a lot of physical pain. A friend of ours had chronic ear infections when he was a little child, but his family was in such chaos that he rarely got to a doctor to have it treated. Dad was a particularly “macho” guy, and most of the time he would say, “Oh, come on now, Billy. It isn’t that bad. Tough it out, boy.” Mom was more sympathetic, but she was under such stress all the time that she simply couldn’t get around to getting it taken care of properly. She spent most of her time fighting with Dad about “intimacy,” as she called it.
So Billy learned to put up with a lot of pain: and slowly came to take pride in that “strength” he had. A lot of people were impressed with his pain tolerance as he gew into physical adulthood, as a matter of fact. It wasn’t until Bill died of cancer at the age of 36 that anyone thought it was unhealthy.
You see, Bill had had painful symptoms for 18 months before he decided to consult with his doctor, and by then it was way too late. He died three months later.
As adults who have learned to tolerate lots of inappropriate behavior from others, we find ourselves replaying our childhoods in our current relationships. We get in abusive or manipulative relationships where our partners lie to us repeatedly, or hurt us physically, or criticize us unmercifully, and we just stay with that person. We make lots of excuses for their behavior. We pride ourselves in how tolerant and patient we are. We begin to believe that we are better than everyone else, because the only people we let into our lives are abusive people.
The popular saying, “Life’s A Bitch And Then You Die,” becomes our credo. We pray a lot, but we don’t do anything to get out of the destructive relationship. We try to reform the other person, always hoping that today will be the day that she or he will change. But change rarely happens by itself.
What would someone with a full cup do when faced with an abusive or manipulative relationship? Our nine-year-old son said it best. We took him and our two daughters to see the film version of The Color Purple when it was first released. As we discussed the film in the kitchen that evening, David stood silent for a moment, and then thoughtfully asked, “Why didn’t she just leave?” That, of course, is what someone with a full cup would do. They’d simply leave.
Enmeshment
Enmeshment is a term from family systems theory and is actually a problem in boundary definition. It is such a commonly used term nowadays that we also feel it deserves discussion on its own.
Put simply, enmeshment is a tangled mess. When people are enmeshed with each other, it is nearly impossible for them to see where their identities end and someone else’s identity begins. My problems become your problems and your problems become my problems. I blame you for my unhappiness and you blame me for yours. I can’t make a move without you knowing it and/or commenting on it, and vice versa.
In an enmeshed family, everyone is “into” everyone else’s business. You can’t go to the bathroom in an enmeshed family without someone taking note of it. Triangulation runs rampant in enmeshed families. Everyone is running around like chickens with their heads cut off, going from one person to the next, “spreading the news,” trying to fix everyone else’s problems, telling them how to live their lives, and so on.
No one has an identity of their own. There is no separateness. There is no clarity of boundaries. There is a lot of emotional incest. No one takes responsibility for their own lives. No one is allowed to live in peace. No one is allowed to make their own mistakes and learn from them with dignity. Everyone is so tangled up with everyone else that when one family member gets depressed, eventually every family member gets depressed; or everyone becomes manic to compensate for it. When one person goes on the upswing, everyone else goes on the upswing; or they get moody and depressed.
It’s as if we’re all in a life raft together at the mercy of constantly changing seas. Up and down, back and forth we go, one big happy family, caught in an endless web of emotions and problems.
NOTE
As we said earlier, there are many ways to describe family traits that lead to unhappy adulthood. We hope that our categories give you the basic idea. Perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind is that you have to live in your own body with your own feelings and with your own family history.
While it is extremely important to share your experience with others, it is also extremely important to avoid the “one up, one down” syndrome. It may be true that your childhood was a disaster when compared with your friend’s. But it is also true that just around the corner awaits someone whose life is a disaster when compared to yours. The paradox of all of this is that we need to share our lives >with other people and we need to define ourselves as individuals, separate from other people. In the world of family history and emotional development, all people are not created equal. On the surface, at least, life is not fair. Take your own inventory. And let your friends take theirs.
Interlude
9
The Goose
Once upon a time in a far away land called Northern Minnesota, there was a family of geese who lived on a quiet little pond on the outskirts of a small town. Mr. Gander and Mrs. Goose and their three goslings spent a lot of time in the pond, and they enjoyed their neighbors, Mr. Beaver and Mr. and Mrs. Loon.
On sunny afternoons after the wind had died down, they would congregate near Mr. Beaver’s house and talk about their families and their plans for the winter. Like all normal Minnesotans, the weather was always at the top of the list for conversation.
“Hot enough for you, Mrs. Goose?” asked Mr. Loon.
“Land sakes, yes!” replied Mrs. Goose, with a mock sigh of consternation in her voice.
“Well, I don’t know,” piped in Mr. Beaver. “I sort of like this weather.”
Mr. Gander listened out of one ear as he gazed out over the pond and thought about what a wonderful life they had all made for themselves. His goslings were growing up faster than he had ever imagined, and he was thinking ahead to the trip south that they’d all be taking in a few months. He was even thinking beyond that, to the time when they could return to this pond again after the long, cold Minnesota winter was over. He loved this place.
While all this adult conversation was going on, the three goslings were out in the middle of the pond skimming across the top of the water, feet paddling fast as they tried to get themselves airborne for the first time. None of them were to accomplish it today, but they would soon enough. As they stopped to rest, the Littlest Gosling spoke to his brother and sister. “You know, I haven’t been feeling so great the past few days. My stomach has been a little queasy, and my head hurts just a bit.”
“Well,” his sister replied, “you’re probably just anxious about the big trip south this winter. After all, it is a long way from home.”
“Yes,” his brother added, “and you’ve been working awfully hard to learn how to fly. Why don’t you just go over by Mom and Dad and take a breather.”
The Littlest Gosling frowned. “I don’t know. It just feels like something’s wrong. I can’t quite put my wingtip on it, but something tells me things aren’t right.”
“You Silly Goos
e!” his brother and sister echoed in unison.
The Littlest Gosling began swimming toward the spot on the edge of the pond where his parents were. Before he reached them, he veered off to the left into a small cove lined with cattails and water lilies. He noticed a peculiar odor and spotted two dead fish floating bellies up on the surface of the water. He wondered if there was something wrong with his pond; and he wondered if that was why he was feeling a little sick.
He paddled out of the cove and around to his parents, Mr. Beaver, and Mr. and Mrs. Loon.
“Mom, Dad,” he began, “I think there’s something wrong with this pond. I think there’s something in it that’s making me sick.” He gazed up into their eyes, awaiting that glimmer of pride and recognition in their expressions that would say they were interested in his discovery.
Instead, Mrs. Goose snapped, “Oh, you Silly Goose! Whatever gave you that idea? Land sakes, son, you come up with the silliest notions sometimes.”
Disappointed but still holding out hope, he looked toward his father. “Yes, son, you do come up with the oddest ideas sometimes.”
“Silly Goose,” clucked Mr. Beaver and the Loons in unison.
Well, that was just about all that the Littlest Gosling could bear. His feelings were hurt, but he wanted to be like a gander, so he simply held his head up high, turned around slowly, and said, “I suppose so.” And then he swam away.
