If You Had Controlling Parents (15 page)

C
ontrolling families harm for one predominant reason: They are organized to please and protect the parents, not to foster optimal growth or self-expression among family members. Such a skewed structure can distort a child's sense of self in ways that last well into adulthood. This chapter focuses on learning to make connections between early control and your present problems. Remember: Growing up controlled is not a life sentence. What you can see, you can heal. You were not to blame for being controlled nor are you to blame for the consequences of that early control. You may have been
victimized
, but you are
not a victim
. Grasping how early control relates to current life challenges can be the key to mastering many of those challenges.

You aren't responsible for what your parents did to you, they are
.

You are responsible for what you do with your life now, your parents aren't
.

Here are stories from three people interviewed. Each grew up in a very different type of family, but all share a commonality: Early control is linked to many of their adult dilemmas.

Alex

Alex, forty-eight, a bearish man with black curly hair and blue eyes, has been the top seller in his company for seven years running. He owns a stylish home, impeccably furnished and maintained. Despite his financial success, he finds little pleasure in life.

Alex was married briefly in his twenties, but divorced. He lives alone and is not seeing anyone. Alex's romantic relationships have taken one of two paths: He either becomes too demanding, and his partners leave, or his partners want more closeness than Alex can bear, and he leaves: “I want someone to get close to but when someone gets too close, I run.” It's difficult for Alex to laugh or relax and he finds physical contact uncomfortable, stiffening involuntarily when he is hugged.

On the job, Alex is compulsive. “I hate getting phone calls on Friday afternoons at five because there is nothing I can do to take care of it until seven
A.M.
Monday. I want instant response, instant solutions,” he admits. Alex takes as little comfort from his career successes as he does from his financial ones: “I refuse to quit my job but I almost hope I get fired so I can get rid of everything I own and go somewhere and write novels.”

Alex's father died of complications from diabetes. Alex has a weight problem and he suspects that he, too, may have the disease but refuses to get checked: “I do have low energy and low blood sugar shakes at times, but if a doctor told me I had to give myself shots, I'd never do it.”

Alex's Upbringing

As I listened to Alex, I wondered what led to his malaise. It turns out that he grew up in a woefully aloof family with two Depriving parents. Alex does not remember being held, hugged, or told he was loved by his parents. His parents rarely asked his opinions. “One time at dinner a relative asked me my opinion about some world event,” Alex recalls. “I didn't know what to say. Our family never had opinions. We never talked at the dinner table. I went through childhood like a blob. I had learned for years not to rock the boat.” Once, on an overnight high school field trip, Alex was silent the entire time until, he remembers, “One kid asked me, ‘Don't you ever talk?'”

Alex's father rarely spoke to his son: “Some dads tell you that you have to hit a home run each time. My father never even said, ‘Let's play catch.'”

He never recalls seeing his mother laugh or cry, felt she kept him at arm's length, and was mostly concerned that Alex “do the right thing.” His mother died five years prior to our interview. Shortly before her death, Alex visited her and took a walk with her. It was the first and only walk he ever took with her in his life.

Connections Between Alex's Past and Present

The more I heard about Alex's childhood, the more I could make connections with his current struggles.

It's understandable that Alex might find touching difficult when he had little physical affection as a child. It's understandable that he might distrust closeness when he failed to gain his parents' affection no matter what he did. It's understandable that Alex sometimes pushes too hard in relationships since love was so hard to get in his family. After a childhood of never being asked his opinions, it makes sense that Alex feels unattractive to others. It's also understandable that he feels driven in his work life and finds it hard to relax. His family was a place where doing the “right thing” was more important than having healthy feelings.

And it's equally understandable, though tragic, that Alex secretly hopes to be fired and ignores a potentially threatening medical condition. Alex was never taught to love himself. Since he was rarely held or touched, he grew to feel unlovable. Since his interests were devalued, he learned not to value himself. For so many years, try as he might, Alex could not get what he wanted: his parents' approval and demonstrations of love. As an adult, Alex displays the symbols of success but lacks the substance.

Alex's challenge, despite his lack of early healthy models for loving and relating, is to cherish himself and gradually open his heart to others.

Penny

Penny has returned to school at age fifty-three to finish her B.A. in fine arts. She has two grown sons and is in her third marriage. “This time, I finally got it right,” she says about her current marriage.

Penny told me she has lived most of her life behind a “Good Girl, Miss Perfect false front” and finds it hard to assert herself, giving everyone but herself the benefit of the doubt. She has trouble accepting compliments: “I'm amazed when people say I am a good listener.”

Prior to her present marriage, Penny tended to pick men with whom she gave endlessly but who never met her needs. “I'd end up with people who treated me like a thing,” she confesses.

Penny tends to be overly concerned with “shoulds” and “rules.” She is often frightened by strong emotions and is easily startled: “Sometimes I jump when my husband, who is super gentle, comes up behind me to hug me.”

Penny had fixed me tea before our interview and was bustling
around picking up tea bags and wiping the countertops. She caught herself and laughed, then grimaced: “I am so compulsive. That is one thing I got from my parents. I find myself following guests around and cleaning up after them.”

Penny's Upbringing

Penny recalls having little room to be herself around her Smothering mother and Perfectionistic, Cultlike father. When she was twelve, a friend of her parents asked her how she liked school; Penny told the truth: She hated it. Her embarrassed mother quickly contradicted her, “Oh, no, she
loves
school.” Her mother got her to do unpleasant chores by waiting to ask her in front of others, when Penny was too embarrassed to say no.

Even in Penny's teens, her mother insisted on ordering for her in restaurants. When Penny moved to a vegetarian co-op, her mother brought her home-cooked meat dishes and refused to leave until Penny ate them.

In her first semester of college, Penny's mother asked about her major. “I don't know yet,” Penny responded. “You've got to know,” her mother insisted. Within a few weeks, Penny decided to major in journalism, which her mother then demeaned: “She told me I had to do something ‘practical' instead.”

Penny's father, an engineer and ex-marine, insisted on military-style discipline. She and her sister had to sit perfectly still at dinner until their father picked up his fork, which signaled that they could begin eating.

Penny remembers her dad constantly telling her to “Calm down.” The impact of his cautions still haunts her. “Even today,” she says, smiling ruefully, “if I get happy or sexually excited, I hear his ‘Calm down' in my head and I often stop myself.”

Her father could never understand Penny's nonlinear way of reasoning. When she explained that she behaved according to feelings and intuition, he dismissed her reasoning as wrong: “He'd call me an egomaniac who needed therapy.”

“As a kid, my predominant feeling was disappointment in myself,” Penny freely admits. “I always felt that if I tried a little harder, maybe someone would notice and approve. I blamed myself for not being perfect and lovable.”

Connections Between Penny's Past and Present

It's understandable that Penny has lived behind a “Miss Perfect” false front. As a child, her real self wasn't welcomed. It's understand
able that Penny finds it hard to trust her intuition. How can Penny feel spontaneous when her father's “Calm down” still echoes forty years later? How can Penny allow herself even justified anger when her parents seemed so rigid?

Since her parents acted larger than life, it makes sense that Penny questions herself, offers others the benefit of the doubt, and has endlessly given to romantic partners at her own expense. Penny's upbringing left her feeling like a second-class citizen, apologizing for her existence.

After growing up in a “boot camp” atmosphere, it's easy to see why Penny has an exaggerated startle response, even to her husband. Why shouldn't Penny have a compulsive streak and trouble cherishing herself when her models were a mother who left little breathing room and a father she could never please?

Penny's challenges are to give herself enhanced permission to respect herself and to have faith that life can bring positive, not just negative, surprises.

Belinda

Belinda, thirty, is a computer analyst. At work, she feels intimidated by her boss and “extrasensitive” to office politics. Though she has a good job, with seniority, she is “completely mystified” about what she wants to do with her life.

Belinda feels that she's on an emotional roller coaster. She often finds it difficult to define her desires and stick by her decisions. She feels “flawed” and has struggled with eating disorders for much of her life. When she gets stressed, she freezes. “I space out, complete with physical tension and armoring,” she admits. “I turn my hostility on myself, get sloppy, overeat, and then hate myself.” When Belinda gets angry, she often soon feels depressed: “I'll scream a lot, slam things, and then I'll feel such despair.”

Belinda's boyfriend of two years has begun to talk about marriage, but she feels a long way from making such a commitment. In previous relationships, she has picked men who tended to dominate her. Although her current boyfriend is less controlling, Belinda sometimes feels smothered. At other times she worries that he might leave her. “I cling, I get afraid, and then there is no true intimacy. I'm confused over whether I am even able to be intimate.” As with many of those I interviewed, Belinda has strong doubts about having children.

Belinda's Upbringing

Belinda was raised by a Chaotic, Using single mother. Her mother's moods changed wildly and her efforts to discipline Belinda were erratic. Curfews and rules were ignored one day, enforced the next.

Her mother often seemed downright mean. In second grade, Belinda's teacher wrote on her report card, “Belinda is very smart and her reading is way ahead of average. She's a good student, though she does have a tendency to visit with her neighbors.” Ignoring the teacher's praise, her mother wrote back, “Do you want to punish her or should I? The best way to punish her is to humiliate her in front of others.”

When fourteen-year-old Belinda's tennis coach said Belinda showed great promise, her mother stopped the lessons, claiming they were a luxury the family could not afford. When Belinda was fifteen, her parakeet was killed by a neighbor's cat. It was all Belinda's fault, according to her mother, who forbade Belinda from crying about it.

Her mother repeatedly told Belinda she was “ugly,” “fat,” “disgusting,” “smelly,” and a “mistake.” Years later, when Belinda told her mother how much those words had hurt, the older woman brushed her off, claiming, “Oh, you must have known I didn't really mean it.” Equally confusing were her mother's moods. Her mother was frequently depressed and would lie in bed for hours, shades pulled, but when Belinda asked what was wrong, her mother told her, “Nothing's wrong. I'm fine.” Other times, if she asked her mother what she was angry about, she would reply, “Oh, I'm not angry, I'm just sad.” Yet, says Belinda, “People who meet her say she's the angriest person they've ever seen.”

While her mother's changeable behavior left Belinda's head spinning, her Abusing stepfather, who entered the family when Belinda was fourteen, related to his stepdaughter with derision. He regularly told Belinda she was “a tub of lard” and jeered, “You'd even gain weight from drinking a Tab,” yet he made her clean her plate.

Connections Between Belinda's Past and Present

It's understandable that Belinda has difficulty with authority figures and office politics when the authorities and politics in her family were so erratic. It's not surprising that she is mystified about what to do with her life when she grew up baffled by her mother's confusion. It makes sense that Belinda finds it hard to desire things when anything she excelled at was taken away. Because of her mother's unclear rules, Belinda was constantly on the lookout for clues and cues. Rather than
thinking that the rules didn't make sense—which would have put her in violation of controlling parents' number one rule of no dissent—Belinda concluded that she was “flawed.”

No wonder Belinda has trouble knowing her own heart. Her mother's denial of her own obvious emotional difficulties, such as saying she was “fine” when she was depressed, left her daughter doubting her own perceptions. Given the tension in Belinda's early life and the coercive messages around food, it is no wonder she has faced eating disorders.

In her relationships with men, it's not surprising that Belinda has made some unhealthy choices. How could she feel good about being a woman or find a man who would treat her well when her stepfather degraded women? How could she maintain a clear sense of self when her mother flip-flopped on discipline? How could she help but struggle with intimacy when life with her mother was so unpredictable and intimacy was so elusive?