I noticed that my parents wanted the neighbors to see our family like Ozzie and Harriet. Our family went to church every Sunday with all three children dressed alike. In public we were the perfect children, polite, sweet, and well behaved. Everyone played her part. Everyone believed that we were the perfect family, just like those families on TV.
The only difference was that Mommy was an alcoholic. The question I kept asking myself was, “If we were the perfect family and were so happy, why was Mommy drunk every day?” We never addressed these questions; we ignored the obvious, and pretended it wasn’t an issue. We put on the rose-colored glasses and acted as if the imperfections didn’t exist. It was our unspoken contract…we don’t discuss Mommy’s condition. This loyalty to the family system, ignoring the painful realities which stared us in the face every day, was so pervasive that it overrode all other instincts and inclinations. After all, they were our parents and they made the rules.
If your loyalty towards your family has not affected you in any of these ways, and if you are able to look the past squarely in the face with no denial and tell the truth without superlatives, congratulations! You are the exception, and not the norm. You are now ready to pursue the origin of Negaholism.
The Origin of Negaholism
Negaholism is passed on from generation to generation. It is a legacy of unconsciousness and denial that is rarely ever examined but handed down from parents to children and then to grandchildren like a financial inheritance.
The History of Negaholics
Long ago, in the time of cave dwellers, life was simpler: It was about survival. Food, shelter, and water were the main concerns. Staying alive was paramount. Dealing with the elements, the animals, and the hazards of daily living was all consuming.
As civilizations developed, people evolved from solitary cave dwellers to clans, to family dynasties. People became more sophisticated and established social mores and structures. The marriage institution evolved as the socially acceptable and legal way of establishing a civilized society. Prearranged marriages were commonplace among wealthy and royal families in order to ensure that bloodlines were kept intact. The primary motivation for marrying was propagating homogeneous groups: racial, ethnic, and religious. Elitism, maintaining control of power, and merging for political purposes governed the mating ritual.
I’m not saying that the only reasons people coupled were out of economic necessity, political motivation, or social acceptability. It is important to examine history in order to see how you got to be where you are. History has dictated the tradition to which we all fall prey.
Following our time track up to the present…The need for political, religious, and social freedom motivated the pioneers to search and find new worlds. Roles were clearly defined for those who journeyed there. Coupling, was still an economic necessity, as well as the societally acceptable thing to do. The man provided food, shelter, and protection for the family, and the woman provided the homemaking, child raising, and nurturing. On a physical level, this rate of exchange worked as an interdependent system. There was sufficient reason for coupling: to create a complete synergistic unit in which everyone’s needs would be met.
The underlying belief, at least for our ancestors, was that each person is incomplete by himself. This may have been the case with your parents, but somewhere between the generations an emotional as well as a physical and economic need for coupling emerged.
On an emotional level, partnering with another person made each person more whole, complete, and provided companionship. Each person looked to the other to fill deficiencies and make each one okay. The giving/getting relationship was motivated by “needing” the other person, much the same way the economic relationship was motivated.
Women experienced pressure to get married so that they would be taken care of and protected. Economic dependence was critical to women, who had no means of supporting themselves and were totally dependent upon men. Women automatically compared themselves with one another because there was real competition for the men, the breadwinners. Men, on the other hand, completed with one another for the most desirable female. If a woman could attract the most suitable bachelor it meant that she was desirable.
The inner dialogue might have sounded like this:
“If I can get you to love me, then I can’t be all bad, at least someone wants me. Maybe your love will prove that I am lovable after all!” This thought bolsters the person’s feeling of desirability.
On the other hand, the “I can’t have” selves are vying for center stage, saying: “I’ve been successful in selves conning this person into thinking that I’m something I’m not. I really pulled the wool over his/her eyes. What kind of a jerk is s/he anyway that s/he would choose me to love. There’s got to be something wrong with this person because he chose me.”
Frequently there are underlying and unconscious motives which drive the motivation for coupling beyond love companionship, and simple economics.
In examining how people end up together, and why they choose each other, let’s return to Karen’s situation.
The Roots of the Tree
During our session, Karen described her grandparents:
“My grandmother was Dutch and her thinking was from the old country. She died before my mother was twelve, and my father was an orphan with limited experience of parenting. When my grandfather died of a heart attack, she was alone in the world. She looked at my dad as her last chance to get married, have children, and be taken care of. “Under the guise of discipline, my mother was abused both physically and mentally as a young girl. It stands to reason that she probably thought such abuse was normal. I think she thought that beating us kids was the way to make us better people. Whether Mom liked the way her mother treated her or not, she believed that this was the right way to do her job. She associated abuse with parental responsibility. Come to think of it, she probably never thought about it at all, but just did what was done to her. Mom’s childhood home was chaotic and disorganized, so she believed that maintaining a clean, neat, and quiet home was providing a stable environment which would be the best possible world for her children.”
“Dad believed that if he could at least maintain peace in the home, then he could hold the family together. If he could hold the family together, then the children wouldn’t have to go to an orphanage, which would mean that he would be a success as a father. Both my parents thought that they were doing a good job, since their lives were an improvement over their childhood circumstances. And in fact they were!” Karen said honestly.
Don’t Leave Me!
Karen’s parents stayed together for any one of the following reasons:
• To have their emotional needs met for the first time
• To feel whole, complete, and sufficient
• To feel valid, deserving, and worthy of being loved
• To prove to the world that they are lovable (to someone)
• To avoid being alone
• To avoid abandonment
What About Me?
Perhaps your parents, like Karen’s, had to come to terms with the reality that they probably never would get their emotional needs met. At the same time their mate was expected to meet their unfulfilled emotional needs. This compounded the anxiety and pressure to be adequate, and perform up to the expectations. The double bind your parents faced was the inability for each of them to get what they needed while simultaneously being expected to fulfill the emotional needs of their partner. Both of your parents continued the legacy that had been handed down to them.
The Honeymoon is Over
There was a point in time when your parents might have felt that the honeymoon was over. Their perceptions began to change. Mannerisms, behaviors, and attitudes that once were appealing became a source of annoyance and turned into irritations. The picking on each other started and continued.
“If she could drop just a few pounds.” “That laugh is so shrill.” “Those socks are too short,” and “I ca
n’t stand the way he drives.” “He watches way too much TV.” “She is so uptight about money,” your parents might have secretly harbored these resentments.
Turning Princes into Frogs
Negaholics are champions at turning a would-be prince or princess into a frog. If one of your parents believed deep down that he deserved to be with a frog, then even if his princess demonstrated love for him, he would have transformed her into a frog. If his self-concept could not allow a princess to really love him, then he would constantly be searching for the frog within. He would have had his magnifying glass raised in search of the tragic flaw. If it were not readily apparent, then he would have caused one to appear in order to make himself right.
“Ah-ha! There it is, I knew it all the time. Why would I want to be with someone who would choose me as a mate?” After all, if his self-fulfilling prophecy was “I only end up with frogs anyway,” then he would make his prophecy come true regardless of whether his princess was a genuine frog or merely in disguise.
In Search of the Tragic Flaw
If anyone searches hard enough, he is likely to uncover the other person’s vulnerabilities or “I can’ts.” If you unearth enough “I can’ts,” then the result is a full-blow frog!
Picture your parents both searching for each other’s flaws with a magnifying glass. The objective is to camouflage their own shortcomings and expose their mate’s. The more limitations you perceive the greater the need to expose their partner’s” to even the score. This is a vicious cycle that can never be won.
If his mate has no tragic flaws, then he needs to make her look bad by comparison; on the other hand, if she is replete with tragic flaws then he’s stuck with a loser or a giant frog.
Do You Really Love Me? Prove It
Your parents may have spent an inordinate amount of time testing their relationship, to determine whether their mate was a prince or princess, a frog, or whether she or he really did love them. They may have done everything in their power to drive their spouse away, to cause their partner to remove his or her love in order to prove that she or he was truly unlovable.
Many secret insecurities and hidden inadequacies may have come to the surface in an attempt to chase away what they had searched for their entire Lives.
If you get to be right about the fact that “nobody loves you, and nobody will ever love you,” you have successfully confirmed your secret suspicions, validated your negative internal voice, and reinforced your Negaholism. This is justifiable misery! While part of him is driving her away the other part is drawing her closer, desperate to have her love him. This sounds like, “Come a little closer, but not too close; give me some space, but not too much!”
Co-Creation: The Cure-All
Unable to meet their own needs and incapable of meeting each other’s, the couple, (possibly your parents), look outside themselves to a third possible alternative, what about a baby! A baby would give them a joint focus, something to create together, and a tangible way to partner that is as normal as life itself. The way out of the power struggles is to have a baby. The new hope, the new ray of light, is perceived as parenting a child together. This will address the unmet emotional needs and satisfy both partners by focusing on a third and innocent party to make everything all right…or so they hope.
Welcome to Your Dysfunctional Home
A child is born (you) to two people who are disillusioned about their prince/princess and their real-life fairy tale that hasn’t turned out the way did in the children’s books. Your parents are looking to the child to meet their emotional needs, and the newborn has only needs.
As a tiny infant, you cannot differentiate between yourself and your environment. You haven’t any boundaries, and so you are a part of everything that happens to you. And this is where it all begins.
You Are to Blame!
You feel everything, and since you are completely “self-centered” you experience being both the cause and the effect of all that goes on around you. The baby, unknowingly takes the blame for everything that transpires in the relationship between the two parents. In the dysfunctional family, the child takes on all the problems as his fault. When the child believes that she is the cause of the discord within the home, she then becomes a Negaholic. Since she is loyal toward her parents and family, she has internalized the shame and idolized her family.
Gershen Kaufman, author of Shame writes, “Shame differs greatly from the feeling of guilt. Guilt says I’ve done something wrong; shame says there is something wrong with me. Guilt says I’ve made a mistake; shame says I am a mistake. Guilt says what I did was not good; shame says I am no good.”
The Layers of the Onion Skin
As a developing Negaholic, the child believes that he is essentially not good. The unconscious belief that the child is unworthy, unlovable, and inadequate, is the root cause of Negaholism.” Since these feelings are denied, discounted, and diminished, the child can’t come to terms with her innermost feelings. Instead she must adapt a false self in order to cope with her world. This is a coping mechanism or façade. The compulsive drive to feel whole, complete, adequate, and euphoric in any form comes from the innate emptiness or void inside. The pursuit of inner peace or wholeness takes any possible substance or process in order to:
• Numb the pain, to cease the torment temporarily
• Feel euphoric and experience pleasure
• Avoid being disloyal
• Abandon yourself
The Puzzle of Parenting
Parenting is one of the most important roles a person can fulfill as an adult in our society. For the most part, we parent the way we were parented. “They did the best they could, and it seemed to work out okay so I’ll follow in their footsteps” is one approach. Or, conversely, “They did everything wrong, so I’m going to do the exact opposite, because they really messed me up!” Either way the child is acting out of reaction mode, and not from a place of choice.
Babette, a tall strawberry-blonde restaurateur who was in partnership with her husband, came to talk to me about her teenage daughter. Both parents were being driven crazy by her lack of cooperation within the family. “She stays out all night, her room’s a mess, and she is never here for meals. She doesn’t want to talk to either one of us, I’m fed up and I want to throw her out, but I feel so guilty for feeling this way. I feel powerless and helpless around my own child. I heard words coming out of my mouth that sound just like my mother, and I swore I’d never be like my mother.”
I asked Babette how she would want the relationship to be with her daughter. We looked at a series of alternatives: yelling and screaming just like her mother did; sitting down and talking it through calmly at a time other than in the middle of the fury; calling in a family friend whom the daughter respected; or having a session with me as a neutral fair witness. Babette was caught between being exactly like her mother, and not knowing any other way to behave as a parent. She had no choice except to be just like her mother.
The problem is that when you have learned how to parent, the child is grown and the good as well as the damage is already done. The legacy has been passed on to the next generation. And so the cycle repeats itself, again.
Jill wanted to talk about her challenges with her son, Scott. When Scott would displease her, she wouldn’t raise her voice, get angry, or yell at him, but rather would turn stone-cold. “Every time Scott forgets to leave the dog outside, or when he leaves his wet towels on my best chintz upholstery, I get furious and then freeze; it feels as if my blood runs cold and I can’t utter a word. Something happens when I get angry, and for the life of me, I can’t figure it out.
I asked Jill when this started.
“It’s becoming worse the older he gets. Now it’s gotten to the point where I’m seriously concerned. It’s not that I want to explode at him, but I get so blocked that I can’t even talk,” Jill said, dismayed.
I asked her more questions, “What did your parents do when you displeased them?” “Well, f
irst my mother would scream and yell.” Upon saying those words, Jill’s face flushed and her eyes widened. She continued, “And then she would go stone-cold. She would run what I used to call her ‘Frosty the Snow-woman,’ which would go on for days. I’d have to beg her to talk to me. It felt like she’d stopped loving me.”
Jill’s behavior patterning edited out her mother’s yelling, but through the moth-eaten veil popped the “frostiness,” which remained with her unconsciously. Jill then revealed her memory of her grandmother: a woman who would stay in her room for days and refused to speak to anyone.
The Seven Characteristics of a
Dysfunctional Family
The proper function of the family is to provide a healthy and supportive environment in which the members are encouraged to grow and develop individually and interpersonally into healthy, productive, and fully functional adults.
A dysfunctional family fails to fulfill its function. There are seven conditions that characterize a dysfunctional family.
LOVE IS CONDITIONAL
Diane had long, black, curly hair, with large green eyes, and a warm wide smile. She was a Comparing Contestant.
She said, “No matter what I achieve in my department in the hospital, I’m always comparing myself with the other nurses. I’m the head of the entire department, so why am I comparing myself with my staff? Not only do I compare myself with my colleagues, I’m brutal with myself at the gym. Heck, I can be walking down the street, and I hear this voice comparing myself to everyone around me. ‘Look at her, she’s so petite. You’re so huge; you’re at least twice her size. You might not be so bad if you eliminated fifteen pounds. Look at those thighs. I can’t believe that someone would wear a skirt that is so incredibly short. You could never wear a miniskirt like that. You’d look like a hippopotamus!”
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