by Peg Streep
That said, never thinking about your mother in the day-to-day as I do is the ultimate disengagement.
MOVING FORWARD: EARNED SECURITY
I’m not the same person I was ten years ago. Therapy has helped enormously and so has living mindfully. Checking my responses and reactions has become a habit of mind. Sure, there are lapses, but my life is so much better, happier, now .
~April, 4 7
While there’s no magic eraser to wipe the chalkboard of childhood clean, your attachment style isn’t set in stone, as many studies show; we can thank the brain, that ever-plastic piece of equipment lodged in our skull, for this gift. By making sense of your childhood experiences, you can actually begin to see the world of relationship as a securely attached person does. This is what psychologists call “earned security.” All the work you have done and continue to do in terms of making the narrative of your childhood experiences coherent, bringing your unconscious patterns of behavior into consciousness and disarming them, and learning to change your behavior moves you in the direction of earned security.
But for earned security to become your new default setting, an attuned relationship—with a therapist, a mentor, a close friend, a spouse—appears to be necessary for the reset to happen fully. In an article called “The Verdict Is In,” Alan Sroufe and Daniel Siegel write, “the brain continues to remodel itself in response to experience throughout our lives and emerging understanding of neuroplasticity is showing us how relationships can stimulate neuronal activity and even remove the synaptic legacy of early social experience.” In other words, the unconscious mental representations formed in childhood can be overwritten and edited on a neural level by relationships in adulthood. The authors also point out that, even with a largely negative history, there are “islands” of positive relational history that can be cultivated and grown through therapy. That’s precisely what two studies conducted by Maria Zaccagnino, Martina Cussino, Rachel Saunders, and others showed when they measured the effect of alternative caregiving figures on adult attachment styles. Yes, participants were able to move to earned-secure status.
An interesting perspective is offered by Judith R. Schore and Allan N. Schore, which may be of use as you move forward in recovery. They rightly point out that attachment theory is really a regulation theory since the child learns to self-regulate through dyadic interaction with her mother, which is largely communicated by and through bodily gestures such as eye contact, touching, and smiling; words are not the primary form of communication. The authors assert that this dynamic of the expressed but unspoken is also key to successful therapeutic treatment. I suspect it’s equally true of any relationship that can make the daughter rewrite her emotional history.
Think about the “islands” both past and present in your life—those relationships that have made you feel cared about, listened to, and heard, and that allowed you to give voice to yourself—and use them as springboards into the future. These relationships could be ones you had with a cousin, an aunt, or grandparent; a teacher, a camp counselor, or spiritual guide; a close friend; a spouse; or anyone who has truly heard and seen you and “gotten” who you really are in the course of your life. Since your goal is to move away from the older attachment styles, spend some time thinking about how physically receptive you are to other people’s gestures and eye contact so as to become more aware of how others perceive you. Do you look away when you’re talking to someone or avoid eye contact? Pay attention to your body language: Do you look open to communication (smiling, arms and hands relaxed, making eye contact) or closed (arms tight again the body, fingers clenched, tense in the face, looking away)? Again, becoming consciously aware of how you appear to others can only move you in the direction of closer, more intimate connections.
BREAKING THE SILENCE
One of the best things you can do to support your recovery is to begin letting go of the shame of being unloved by breaking your silence and beginning to talk to people you trust about your experiences. This isn’t easy; the cultural mythologies and taboos about motherhood make speaking honestly very difficult. Still, breaking your silence is another way of owning your story fully, of validating your experiences and feelings, and no longer participating in the papered-over public version preferred by polite society. Again, share your experiences carefully and judiciously, especially if you are still maintaining a relationship with your mother and other relatives.
MUSINGS ON RECOVERY
The process of healing from childhood isn’t altogether different from the way you felt sitting in a car on a family road trip when you were little; the question that kept rising to the top was “Are we there yet?” You must keep in mind that your behaviors and reactions were formed in response to literally thousands of interactions, large and small, most of which are beyond conscious recall, and that it’s going to take time, patience, and the repetition of new behaviors to replace those old ones. You’re basically retraining your brain and your emotional responses.
Keep the image of kintsugi in your mind as you move forward so as to keep your expectations realistic without losing any of your hopefulness. The scars we bear can, in time, be seen as emblems of our victories, large and small, over the tyranny of the past.
Understandably enough, I’m often asked whether I consider myself “fully recovered.” My answer is “pretty much” because the older woman I am today is nothing like the girl or young woman I once was. Certain things have eluded me, such as a sustaining life-partnership, but I’m not sure I can attribute that to my childhood. I know people who had lousy childhoods and who have marriages they’ve made work; I know people who had loving parents and great sibling relationships and who still struggle with maintaining close connection. The truth is that life is hard even if you had a loving mother or a good-enough one, and that setbacks, disappointments, failures, and real tragedies befall us all.
Whether we were loved in childhood or not, all of us are by definition works in progress. We continue to grow and change throughout the lifespan, marked and shaped by experiences good and bad. Be kind to yourself in times of stress because it’s these moments that will test your newly found behaviors and responses the most.
In the last chapter, you’ll find exercises to help you on the journey. In the meantime: Godspeed.
CHAPTER TEN
ENGAGED DETOX
T his very last chapter offers the opportunity to put what you’ve learned by reading into action through thinking and journaling exercises. These are meant to be provocative—to allow you to continue to make sense of your childhood experiences with your mother and family of origin, understand how they affect you in the present, identify the unconscious motivations that drive your behavior today, clarify your thinking, and build up your skill set of managing emotions. They will help you create a coherent narrative of your life and experiences.
While most of these exercises involve writing in your journal, they will work best if you spend some time thinking about the questions posed first, unless you’re asked to jot down what comes to mind immediately. Reread the section about journaling in the Introduction (pages 13 -14 ) and heed the admonition about cool processing.
A reminder: If you are in therapy, please discuss these exercises with your therapist before doing them. If any exercise triggers anxiety or other symptoms, stop immediately.
The exercises are organized by chapter and stage but since recovery isn’t a linear process, you may want to return to earlier exercises if you find yourself stuck or stymied. You may also want to date your journal entries so that you can compare and contrast how your responses to certain questions have changed over time. Remember that taking baby steps is fine. They eventually become strides.
DISCOVERY STAGE: CHAPTER ONE
Please consider these questions and think about them rather than writing them down. This is an opportunity to begin to discover your feelings and situate your thoughts calmly.
THINKING EXERCISE ON ATTACHMENT
Which style bes
t describes you? Remember that these distinctions aren’t carved in stone and that you are trying to figure out how you relate and react most of the time.
Secure: Needs and wants intimacy, trusts that people will be responsive, in touch with and aware of her feelings and thoughts.
Able to self regulate in times of stress.
Anxious-preoccupied: Characterized by wanting intimacy but being consumed by worry about rejection and abandonment.
Prone to anger and jealousy and emotional flooding.
Avoidant-fearful: Shies away from connection because she believes people are untrustworthy and unreliable and doesn’t want to feel vulnerable.
Has a low opinion of self.
Avoidant-dismissive: Has a high opinion of self and a low opinion of others.
Believes people are too needy and dependent and prides herself on her self-reliance and independence, and not needing intimacy.
THINKING EXERCISE ON MOTIVATION
Are you generally more motivated by approach or avoidance? Are you willing to risk failure if you see an opportunity, or do you back off from risking failure at all costs? If you’re in a relationship that’s going through a rough patch, are you more likely to initiate a discussion, no matter how difficult, that might fix the problems you’re having, or are you more likely to avoid talking about them directly and let sleeping dogs lie? Focus on what drives your behavior most of the time.
THINKING EXERCISE ON EXPERIENCE
Begin to cool-process by recalling a specific incident either from your childhood or any other point in your life that involves your interacting with your mother. Again, do not relive the moment in a blow-by-blow way because that will just have you re-experience your feelings and won’t do anything to increase your understanding. Recall the incident as though you are seeing it from a distance and as though it happened to someone else. Focus on why you felt as you did. What do you see now in the pattern of interaction that you might not have before? How would you describe your own demeanor? Were you frightened or defensive? Did you flood with feeling, or did you force yourself to go numb? How, if at all, did you defend yourself?
DISCOVERY STAGE: CHAPTER TWO
THINKING ABOUT AND WRITING ON MATERNAL PATTERNS
Of the eight toxic patterns—dismissive, controlling, unavailable, unreliable, self-involved, combative, enmeshed, role-reversed—which most accurately describes how your mother treated you most of the time in childhood and adolescence? Spend some time thinking, jot down the descriptions, and then write down whatever words and thoughts come to mind. Yes, it’s meant to be spontaneous and not thought out or orchestrated, so please write off the top of your head! If it makes you anxious, stop. And take a break.
WRITING ON PAST INTERACTION
Go back to the “Thinking Exercise on Experience” (page 236 ). This time, prepare yourself to write about it in as much detail as possible, focusing on why you felt as you did. For example: “I got angry because it was clear that she wasn’t listening and kept saying that she had better things to do.” “She kept denying that she’d written me that email, even after I handed her a printed copy, and it made me feel as frustrated and crazy as I felt when I was ten.” “I felt scared because she used her physical size to intimidate me all the time.” Describe your reactions, homing in on why you acted and felt as you did.
THINKING EXERCISE ON BOUNDARIES
Understanding the balance between independence and interdependence is key to having successful and intimate relationships. Take some time to explore your own worries and concerns about boundaries; are you someone who needs her own space and feels encroached upon easily, or are you someone who feels shut out when a close friend or partner needs time and space alone? This is a thinking exercise, but you may also want to tackle the question in your journal as well.
WRITING ON SELF-IMAGE
This activity has three parts and is meant to be done over the course of several days, not all at once.
Part 1: Describe yourself as a close friend might, beginning with a physical description and then going on to detail your personality, your talents and gifts, your strengths and weaknesses. Make your description as detailed as possible.
Part 2: Wait a few days, and then go back to what you wrote and answer the following questions:
♦ How accurate or inaccurate is the description? Why?
♦ Did taking the perspective of a friend permit you to see things about yourself that you might not have if you had written the description from a first-person perspective?
♦ How would your first-person description be different?
Part 3: Choose ten words that you think describe you most accurately and explain in your journal why these words capture who you are as a person; feel free to include both strengths and weaknesses as long as you don’t self-criticize. These words can describe character traits (“diligent,” “careful”), personality traits (“outgoing,” “reserved”), behaviors (“impulsive,” “cautious”), talents and gifts (“musical,” “artistic,” “intelligent,” “athletic”), or physical characteristics (“strong,” “coordinated” “pretty,” “clumsy”).
DISCERNMENT STAGE: CHAPTER THREE
WRITING ON SIBLINGS
Describe as concretely as you can how your mother’s treatment of you and your siblings was different or alike. Think about whether how she treated each of you was a function of the child’s personality, maternal goodness of fit, or something else, and write down your thoughts, illustrating each with a cool recall of an incident that exemplifies the treatment.
CREATING A FAMILY POWER CHART
You can do this as a drawing, or you can use words to describe as accurately as you can how power worked in your family, beginning with your mother and including your father and siblings. You should include yourself as well. This is an important exercise, and you may want to do it over the course of several days or sittings. The point of the exercise is to be able to see the dynamics on the page objectively. This fictional example is done in words, but it could be visualized as a pyramid (with Mom at the top with Dad just above her, with arrows pointing to each of the children to indicate interaction among the children) or a series of overlapping circles.
DAD: King but largely absentee. Always on Ben’s case but uninvolved with me and David. Very proud of how well he provided for us, especially proud of Mom, a trophy wife. Everyone, including Mom, tiptoed around him. Ben was the punching bag .
MOM: Vain, controlling, and really insecure at heart. Very worried about what people thought of her and terrified of somehow failing. Always worried that Dad would leave her. David, the middle kid, was her favorite. She picked on Ben in solidarity with Dad and ignored me .
BEN: The oldest. Angry young kid, even angrier adolescent and adult. A lousy student and athlete, the weak link in the family’s public face. Bullied me but hated David .
DAVID: The ultimate obedient child. Did everything Mom asked and curried favor as he got older so he could get all the goodies, which he did: best room, went on trips, got a car, which Ben was denied. A mediocre student but popular, which counted a lot in my parents’ eyes. He ignored me and tattled on Ben as much as he could .
ME: The afterthought. Not pretty enough to warrant Mom’s attention or popular enough either. A good student, but neither parent cared much about that. Unheard and unseen except by Ben, the bully. I had no sense of myself as being part of the family .
WRITING ON EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
Look at the list of words below and pick the ones that best describe 1) how you felt when you were alone with your mother, 2) how you felt when you were alone with your father, 3) how you felt when you were with your siblings, if you had them, and 4) how you felt when the family was all together. Write them down in your journal and expand on your perceptions of the family dynamic as you experienced it.
upset
disconnected
afraid
angry
tense
bewildered
fractious
tense
on edge
alone
isolated
belligerent
worried
sad
depressed
relaxed
empty
unfeeling
walled off
armored
happy
uncomfortable
calm
adrift
hopeful
defensive
frustrate d
WRITING ON PAST INTERACTION
Describe an incident from your family life—it can be recent or drawn from childhood—that captures the dynamics and interactions of family members. Be as descriptive and objective as you can, especially when writing about yourself.
DISCERNMENT STAGE: CHAPTER FOUR
WRITING ON LABELING EMOTIONS
Describe in as much detail as possible a situation that you found stressful; it could be an argument you had with someone, a situation in which you felt challenged, or anything else that acted as an emotional trigger. Reread what you wrote and then describe the emotions you experienced in words—trying hard to distinguish them with some precision—and explain why you felt as you did.
Here’s a slightly fictionalized example to use as a guide:
We were all leaving an event and I handed my iPhone to my close friend so I could put my coat on. He put the phone on a side table instead of holding it as I thought he would and put his own phone next to it. Someone else knocked my phone down and it shattered. I was upset, and we got into a heated argument about whose fault it was. He defended himself—he thought the phones would be safe or he wouldn’t have put his there—and the guy who knocked it off by accident said the phones shouldn’t have been lying on a low table in a coat room .
Feelings: Anger. Upset and disappointment with my friend not taking responsibility. Embarrassed at losing my temper in a public place in front of colleagues. Worried about the unbudgeted cost of a new phone. Insecure and uncertain about how to deal with my friend now. Distressed at cost to friendship .