If You Had Controlling Parents (3 page)

Control and trust are diametrically opposed and inextricably linked. We control to the extent that we mistrust the world. When we trust the world, we can feel safe enough to let go of much of our need to control. Controlling parents, by and large, do not trust. Parental overcontrol is nearly always a generations-old cycle, in place well before you came along. Most controlling parents, in fact, were themselves tremendously misused as children or were traumatized by family deaths, crises, or abuse. If they never got help for their hurts, they may feel alone in an untrustworthy world, and be desperately trying to control life rather than risk being savaged again.

I feel sad for such controlling parents' deep hurt. Yet parents who ignore or hide their wounds may spend their lives running from the ghosts of the past. In the process, their children pay a tremendous price.

Unlike your parents, you have a choice. You can heal your wounds rather than ignore or hide from them. You can transcend the cycle of control rather than perpetuate it.

The Human Face of Unhealthy Control

As part of researching this book I conducted comprehensive interviews with forty adults ages twenty-three to fifty-eight who grew up controlled. Their experiences illustrate many of the points in this book, weaving a rich tapestry of sadness and hurt, wisdom and hope. You may discover that you have commonalities with many of these people's early experiences as well as with the problems they inherited from unhealthy parental control. Participants ranged from:

• An Arkansas preacher's daughter to the California daughter of a Holocaust survivor
  
• The daughter of second-generation working-class Italian immigrants to the adopted son of wealthy New England socialites
  
• The son of Middle Americans whose ancestors fought in the American Revolution to the daughter of Chinese immigrants who barely escaped with their lives in the 1949 Communist revolution
  
• The oldest daughter of seven children from an Irish-Catholic family to the only daughter of an African-American single mother
  
• The gay son of a military officer father and fundamentalist Christian mother to the son of a Latin American father and a sadistic, abusive mother
  
• The daughter whose mother barely survived her childhood in a World War II Japanese concentration camp to the daughter of a schizophrenic mother who could barely negotiate daily life.
  

Despite their different backgrounds, these people showed striking similarities in how they were controlled and how it affected them. You may discover emotional kinships with some of these people—and you may find that reading about their efforts to heal their difficult childhoods will validate the work you are doing to heal.

There Is Much You Can Do

If your parents were controlling, you saw control modeled as a strategy for living—but it's not the only one. The more aware you are of how your parents controlled and of the fallout of their early control in your present life, the more informed the choices you're likely to make about controlling your children, your mate, and yourself.

Despite an uptight upbringing, you can reclaim the most vital parts of your life, emotions, and dreams that may have withered in childhood.

Despite a childhood in which you had little say, you can discover a new richness to your voice in the world.

Despite growing up with unhealthy family ties, you can fashion more nourishing relationships with those close to you.

Despite your own painful childhood, you can significantly increase the chances that your children will not suffer the pains you suffered.

Despite a troubled past with your parents, you can develop a more realistic and satisfying relationship with them as they near the end of their lives, and with their memories after they are gone.

It is possible to be yourself even if you had to be always “on” for your parents. It's possible to use your feelings for your betterment, not against
it. No matter what your age or how restrictive your upbringing, it's possible to fulfill your personal promise and find the contentment that was derailed by parents who may not have known better or couldn't have done things any differently.

All these things are possible by achieving greater
individuation
from a controlling upbringing—and it begins with emotionally separating from the hurtful and problematic habits of your parents and family system. Individuation also includes setting right what was knocked out of balance by overcontrol and redefining yourself and your life in your own terms.

By individuating you can better know the hero or heroine in you: the biggest and strongest parts of you that helped you survive when you were smallest and weakest. Precisely because your parents were so controlling, you had to develop many strengths to survive—resourcefulness, intuition, perseverance, and sensitivity, for example. Luckily, the skills you taught yourself in navigating a difficult childhood are yours to keep and can be quite useful in adulthood. You deserve to feel independent and whole, to have healthy boundaries, to have free speech and open emotional expression. You deserve to heal.

How This Book Is Organized

This book is organized in three parts:

Part One, “Naming the Problem,” will help you
see
the full extent of parental control by describing in detail eight styles of controlling parents. You'll be able to determine which of these types—or combination of types—fits one or both of your parents. When you know your parents' styles, you can better recognize the continuing effects of their early control on you.

Part Two, “Understanding the Problem,” will help you
reckon
with control's lingering costs. You'll begin to understand the complex, powerful process of overcontrol and find answers to major quandaries such as, “How did my parents do it?” and “Why do I feel the way I do?” You'll gain clarity on your feelings as a child and discover connections between those feelings and your present-day problems. By exploring the aspects of yourself you had to disown or distort in childhood, you'll pave the way for reclaiming your total self. And, you'll get a clear sense of why your parents acted as they did, which will hasten your healing.

Part Three, “Solving the Problem,” helps you
let go
of a painful
childhood and the lasting effects of unhealthy control so that you can
emotionally leave home
. We'll explore a broad array of paths to healing, along with exercises you may find helpful. This section will help you design your own healing process, at your own speed, in a way that suits you best.

H
ealthy parenting is simple: Raise children well and set them free. Being a healthy child is also simple: Play, learn, grow up, and leave home.

But while both job descriptions are simple, neither is easy. The primary difference between healthier families and controlling families is that the parents in healthier families allow their children to grow up as persons in their own right.

Controlling parents fail to protect and nurture, robbing their children of playtime by using harsh or erratic discipline. They model unhealthy habits and hamstring their sons' and daughters' efforts to individuate. That's why people who grow up controlled sometimes struggle to emotionally leave home well into their thirties, forties, or fifties.

The following chart shows eight major differences between healthier families and controlling families. You might notice which side of the chart most closely parallels your childhood experience.

Characteristics of Healthier Vs. Controlling Families

Healthier Families

1. Nurturing Love

    • Parental love is relatively constant

    • Children get affection, attention, and nurturing touch

    • Children are told they are wanted and loved

Controlling Families

1. Conditional Love

    • Parental love is given as a reward but withdrawn as punishment

    • Parents feel their children “owe” them

    • Children have to “earn” parental love

Healthier Families

2. Respect

    • Children are seen and valued for who they are

    • Children's choices are accepted

Controlling Families

2. Disrespect

    • Children are treated as parental property

    • Parents use children to satisfy parental needs

Healthier Families

3. Open Communication

    • Expressing honest thought is valued more than saying
      something a certain way

    • Questioning and dissent are allowed

    • Problems are acknowledged and addressed

Controlling Families

3. Stifled Speech

    • Communication is hampered by rules like “Don't ask why” and
      “Don't say no”

    • Questioning and dissent are discouraged

    • Problems are ignored or denied

Healthier Families

4. Emotional Freedom

    • It's okay to feel sadness, fear, anger and joy

    • Feelings are accepted as natural

Controlling Families

4. Emotional Intolerance

    • Strong emotions are discouraged or blocked

    • Feelings are considered dangerous

Healthier Families

5. Encouragement

    • Children's potentials are encouraged

    • Children are praised when they succeed and given compassion
      when they fail

Controlling Families

5. Ridicule

    • Children feel on trial

    • Children are criticized more than praised

Healthier Families

6. Consistent Parenting

    • Parents set appropriate, consistent limits

    • Parents see their role as guides

    • Parents allow children reasonable control over their own bodies
      and activities

Controlling Families

6. Dogmatic or Chaotic Parenting

    • Discipline is often harsh and inflexible

    • Parents see their role as bosses

    • Parents accord children little privacy

Healthier Families

7. Encouragement of an Inner Life

    • Children learn compassion for themselves

    • Parents communicate their values but allow children to develop
      their own values

    • Learning, humor, growth and play are present

Controlling Families

7. Denial of an Inner Life

    • Children don't learn compassion for themselves

    • Being right is more important than learning or being curious

    • Family atmosphere feels stilted or chaotic

Healthier Families

8. Social Connections

    • Connections with others are fostered

    • Parents pass on a broader vision of responsibility to others
      and to society

Controlling Families

8. Social Dysfunction

    • Few genuine connections exist with outsiders

    • Children are told “Everyone's out to get you”

    • Relationships are driven by approval-seeking

The Consequences of Unhealthy Parenting

Healthier parents try, often intuitively and within whatever limits they face, to provide nurturing love, respect, communication, emotional freedom, consistency, encouragement of an inner life, and social connections. By and large they succeed—not all the time, perhaps not even most of the time, but often enough to compensate for normal parental mistakes and difficulties.

Overcontrol, in contrast, throws young lives out of balance: Conditional love, disrespect, stifled speech, emotional intolerance, ridicule, dogmatic parenting, denial of an inner life, and social dysfunction take a cumulative toll.

Controlling families are particularly difficult for sensitive children, who experience emotional blows and limits on their freedom especially acutely. Sensitive children also tend to blame themselves for family problems.

The more your experience mirrored the “Controlling Families” side of the preceding chart, the greater your risk of inheriting distorted views. You might note whether one or more of the following five distortions causes problems in your present life:

1. Distortions of Power and Size

If one or both parents demanded absolute control and dependence or treated you in ways that made you feel small, you may have inherited distortions of power and size. You may automatically view yourself as less capable than others or, alternatively, as so big and powerful that you have to protect others from yourself. You may feel you lack permission to do things that are within your perfect right. You may feel intimidated or, conversely, contemptuous in the presence of authority figures. Distortions of power and size can handicap you at work, as a parent, and in your other intimate relationships.

2. Distortions of Feeling and Wanting

If emotions were banned, inflated, or feared, and your desires shamed or thwarted, you may have inherited distortions of feeling and wanting. You may regard emotions such as anger, fear, sadness—even joy—as life-threatening and overreact to them. You may be unable to tolerate a loved one's strong feelings. You may deprive yourself of legitimate yearnings or live with unrealistic hopes. You may unconsciously expect life to be painful and, as a result, you may automatically become uncomfortable whenever good things happen. Distortions of feeling can lead you to fear or ignore your emotions and misinterpret
the emotions of others. Distortions of wanting can leave you feeling deprived.

3. Distortions of Thinking

If truths were denied, perceptions discounted, or blame and shame heaped on you, you may have inherited distortions of thinking. You may accept overcontrol from others, thinking that it is normal. You may chronically doubt your perceptions. You may leap to conclusions based on all-or-nothing reasoning. Distortions of thinking may lead you to avoid personal responsibility or to assume too much responsibility for others' actions. Distortions of thinking can put you at risk for misreading others and yourself.

4. Distortions of Relating

If closeness was dangerous, or if you were infantilized for too long, or if you were thrust into the caretaker role too soon, you may have inherited distortions of relating. You may be unable to get close to others even when you want to. You may unwisely trust others or be unable to trust at all. You may see others as threats or as saviors—not simply as people. Distortions of relating can rob you of intimacy and pleasure.

5. Distortions of Self and Identity

If your intuition, initiative, or needs were devalued, you may have inherited distortions of self and identity. You may underrate your abilities, undercut your potential, or underplay your strengths. You may banish parts of your personality, present a false front to others, or see yourself as an object instead of a person. Distortions of self leave your primary relationship—that with yourself—underfueled.

But remember:
Knowledge is power
. By recognizing these distortions in your life, you can heal them.

How You Responded to Overcontrol

While you had relatively little power as a child, you were not simply passive. You were a growing, coping being who did your best to survive. Controlled children generally seek one or more of the following coping strategies:

1. Complying
   by doing what parents want
   
2. Rebelling
   by opposing parental wishes
   
3. Distracting
   through clowning around or emotional outbursts
   
4. Dissociating
   by numbing out, escaping into addiction, or becoming virtually invisible
   
5. Outdoing
   by trying to gain parental favor or by being more perfect than their parents
   

Each of these strategies has both payoffs and costs:

• Compliant children avoid some parental wrath but may forfeit autonomy.
  
• Rebellious children gain autonomy but may adopt a negative self-image.
  
• Distracting children avoid negative attention but may lose stature.
  
• Dissociating children escape control but may lose a sense of self.
  
• Outdoing children gain parental approval but may internalize unhealthy values.
  

Continued into adulthood, these coping strategies carry with them both assets and liabilities. For example:

As an adult, you have choices beyond these five coping strategies. Although they helped you survive the emotional minefields of your family, they were reactive. This book will show you how to create a
healthier balance of power between you and your parents, both your actual embodied parents and your internalized parents—those inner critics who shape and shame. A healthier balance of power can help you fashion proactive rather than reactive coping strategies. For example, the following new directions may bring growth:

If you tend to comply, you may want to find more opportunities to go your own way and make independent choices.

If you tend to rebel, you may want to strengthen your ability to more readily accept unpleasant (though not abusive or destructive) people or situations.

If you tend to distract, you may want to practice sticking with and observing uncomfortable (though not abusive or destructive) situations.

If you tend to dissociate, you may want to work harder to focus on the here and now.

If you tend to outdo, you may want to find new ways to ease up and relax.

Controlling Family Loyalties: Ties That Blind

As you read this book, feelings of family loyalties may become triggered. Such feelings, however uncomfortable, are perfectly normal.

Healing from growing up controlled can be hard work. It's troubling to acknowledge shortcomings in your parents and yourself. It's painful to conclude that, if not for your parents' limitations, you might have grown up happier, with healthier relationships and a less troubled life. Guilt, anger, fear, sadness, and love make relationships with our parents among the most complicated in our lives.

The loyalties and inhibitions installed during your preverbal years can make it hard to explore your upbringing, even years later, as an adult. Many of us grew up in black-and-white, all-or-nothing families. The result, black-and-white, all-or-nothing thinking, can be a form of denial, which exists to keep hurt away, at least temporarily. When you start to explore past pains and current problems, you break that denial. In so doing, you may feel sad, mad, disloyal, exhilarated, lonely, and free, in quick succession or simultaneously.

Separating from our parents in order to define our own identities is the chief task of adolescence. It's no surprise that the teenage years are so tumultuous; that goes with the individuation territory. In controlling families, however, individuation rarely takes place in the teens because controlling parents tend to hold on too tightly or push too hard. Many controlled teenagers feel too loyal, confused, afraid, or wounded to make the break. The good news is that individuation in our twenties, thirties, forties, or fifties takes place on a deeper level, with more balance and greater growth, than is possible during adolescence.