We've now considered the two primary
ways that a damaged or immature parent takes from their child
(unloading shame and by siphoning back nurture) which we understand
results from a parent's disrespect for the child's characteristics
(and needs). With that background, we can now better understand how
adults, both parents and grown children, cope with the sense of
emptiness that they face. As we've noted in the most recent posts,
the parent has two drives and needs of their own. They need to both
purge shame and gain their own worth, and they pass this
“multigenerational faithfulness” down to their children because
the have nothing else to give to them. The immature adult must then
look to other sources to find worth, peace, safety and soothing
elements so that they can cope with the pressures and problems of
life.
As we've discussed, the parent uses
their child to meet their inner needs. In the diagram, note that the
parent holds a part of the child hostage through the dependency the
have on the child, and the child draws worth from the relationship.
But what happens when the parent disappears or the child becomes
separated from the parent?
The child is left with their own sense of
emptiness, and they must try to find ways to function. They must do
what their parents have done, and they will opportunistically find
ways to fill their inner emptiness. The child learns to draw worth
form their performance (caring for others as they cared for the
parent, through good opinions that others have of them, and through
outward things like their appearance, or good circumstances. All
people tend to do this to build up their optimism, they have a full
hearts and an intact sense of self. The do not depend on these
outward things as their sole source of good experience.
The immature, empty, and shamed parent
operates only external sources of good feelings. They work very hard
to avoid the shame they feel as well as the emptiness, and they
become rigid and tired in this process. They tend to become
intolerant and demanding because they avoid facing their unpleasant
emotions by controlling whatever they can in their world. As
mentioned before, the parent avoids shame by punishing the
imperfection of their child because they cannot tolerate their own
emotions. When successful, they believe that they've conquered the
emotion, but they've only managed to avoid it. It becomes a reward
for their attempt to control, creating the illusion that they are
powerful and free. They learn how to manipulate others so that their
behavior works to help them feel better and helps them avoid their
internal pain.
The other ways that an immature adult
avoids their inner pain comes through performance, basing their worth
and peace on their successes. This is often why certain people
become very driven to accomplish and why they work so hard in their
vocations, as they have learned to find their worth and peace outside
of themselves through their own effort. They trick themselves into
believing that they are controlling things that are well outside of
their influence. Though people can be responsible with money, it is
possible to end up in circumstances beyond their control where they
can owe more or need more money than they can obtain or earn. People
can take impeccable care of their home, but in the event of an
earthquake or a flood, that person's efforts to prevent harm to their
home cannot protect them. We can do all we can to have good health,
but quite often, we can end up developing diseases that are far
beyond our ability to control. Or a person can be the very best at
their profession, but kind of work that they do can become obsolete.
So this system of looking outside of one's self to find worth and
peace works well only when a person can perform well and only when
circumstances are very good. But what happens on rainy days?
As we all well know when depending on
peace and worth from things outside of ourselves, we are destined for
heartache. Life is full of a great many things that are well-beyond
our sphere of control. When the people from whom a person derives
worth dies or becomes parted from them, and when they experience the
the painful processes of life, they go right back to the beginning of
the process. When they fail or when the illusion of control falls
apart (as it does in life at some point), the person is left to again
face their sense of shame and their lack of worth which feels like
worthlessness. Some people appear to do well in the process, but
they mask the pain of the rainy day.
Of course, for the Christian, the
solution to the problem should be rather simple through realizing
that human beings are imperfect and limited but finding one's
identity in Christ will fill our hearts and our emptiness. He heals
us of our toxic shame which Jesus bore on the Cross for us that we
might have no condemnation. We can put our faith and trust in Him to
heal us and fill us up, and then on the rainy days in life, we can
have worth in Him and enduring peace in the storm. At its root, the
reliance on external things to find peace and worth is no different
than original sin. Man tricks himself into the idea of believing
that he can control his life, powerful enough and strong enough to
build up his own sense of peace and worth. But we can only get so
far when we do this.
In my own life and in my own journey
out of shame, performance, and low worth because I derived my worth
from the esteem of others, I think that a good bit of my life has
been the “fear and trembling” of repenting of all of the ways
I've tried to deal with shame and low worth on my own instead. Many
religious people do the same thing with their attempts to accomplish
things in Jesus' Name to accomplish great things for Him. They
determine what they think they need to do, then go about doing those
things in their own strength through their own effort. We all get
tricked into thinking that we are more powerful than we are,
forgetting that without Him, we can do nothing. There is no switch
that flips that releases us from the trappings of being parented by
an immature person, and in fact, that plight is very much the same
plight that all mankind suffers – the illusion and desire to be
powerful enough that we do not need God. We must spend our lives
learning that.
It is sad to realize that many
Christian systems teach others to be limited and dependent and that
their only sense of self worth and self esteem can come from
following the rules that they develop. It is our human tendency to
believe, also, that we must merit the goodness that God shows to us
in abundance because of His loving kindness and disposition of grace
toward us. In unhealthy parenting, the parent primes the child to
accept only outside sources of love and worth. This creates a great
foothold for manipulators to be able to hurt and use the adult who is
empty and full of shame. Religious systems can exploit that toxic
level of undeserved shame that we feel, making it quite easy to grab
and use as a handle to twist us through condemnation and legalism.
I believe that for the girls who found
their way to Hephzibah
House, the abuse they suffered there only added to the shame and
emptiness that many had before they ever arrived there. It primed
them to become the victims of Ron and Patti Williams (the
proprietors), as they used the Hephzibah
Girls to bolster their own illusion of control so that they could
ward off the darkness of shame and emptiness in their own hearts. In
that sense, Ron Williams is far more pathetic than anyone who has
ever been in his care, as he used people as objects to ward off his
own pain. How much pain and emptiness must be in his heart to drive
him to go to such extreme lengths to avoid his own negative feelings?
But sadly, he chose to make victims of the girls there, teaching
them to become even more powerless and greater victims of
circumstance.
Upcoming posts will focus on powerlessness, failure to self-protect
and the specifics about the compulsion to repeat or reenact trauma
as well as additional information about PTSD.
