If You Had Controlling Parents (19 page)

Hypotheses

1. Lucy must have grown up feeling illegitimate in many ways. Her father had vanished; she was not only an outsider in her new family, but was also labeled a “thief,” then banished. Perhaps Lucy thought, being not legitimate, that she had no rights and deserved nothing good. Perhaps she covered her feelings of illegitimacy by seeking a stronger spouse who would make decisions for her, even if it entailed the abuse of her children.
   
2. Perhaps she sought a stronger spouse as a father figure to replace the father who had left her. She may have been too terrified to question her husband's abusive behavior for fear she would lose him also.
   
3. Given how much pain Lucy faced early in life, perhaps she assumed that suffering was just a part of growing up.
   
4. Perhaps she was depressed and overwhelmed and simply couldn't cope with parental responsibilities.
   
5. Perhaps she never overcame the rejections of her youth and remained an emotionally abandoned little girl, looking for others to care for her in ways she'd never experienced as a child.
   
6. Perhaps Lucy overcompensated for her mother's lack of interest in her by becoming intensely interested in her children, right down to their bodily functions.
   
7. Perhaps she felt ostracized because she felt somehow bad or flawed. Her obsessive attention to her children's cleanliness may have been a misguided attempt to fix or cleanse herself.
   
8. Perhaps Lucy felt anger at her mother but could never express it directly; her children thus became unwilling substitute targets for her anger.
   

Lloyd: Perfectionistic Parent

Lloyd's Trauma: Death of a Mother

Remember Chip, whose adoptive father, Lloyd, “dropped him” when he was found to have learning disabilities? Lloyd's mother died giving birth to him after doctors had warned her that childbirth could be life-threatening. Saddled with the legacy that his mother had died so he could be born, Lloyd was raised by a domineering, stoic father and became an aloof, Perfectionistic father himself.

Hypotheses

1. How could Lloyd forget that his mother had died so he could be born? As a result, he may have felt guilty, bad, or cursed. Perhaps seeing his son's “flaws” reminded him of his deepest fears about himself. Being close to his “flawed” son may have been too hard for Lloyd to tolerate.
   
2. Perhaps he felt at fault for his son's learning disabilities just as he felt at fault for his mother's death. He may have pulled away from his son rather than confront self-blame.
   
3. Lloyd's life began with a catastrophe and proceeded with little warmth. Perhaps he was so afraid of losing another loved one that he couldn't allow himself to get close to anybody in case they, too, left him.
   
4. Having grown up with little warmth from a manipulative father, Lloyd may not have known how to attach emotionally to another human being, especially a male.
   

Compassion

I can't help but feel compassion for these anguished children who became controlling parents. Their little souls suffered stunning pain and loss. As misguided as their adult overcontrol became, it reflected deficits in their own childhoods.

Of course, it's too easy to assume that traumatized children will inevitably become controlling parents. In fact, some controlling parents of the men and women I interviewed had no apparent notable childhood traumas. In addition, no parent is affected every minute of his or her life by childhood trauma. Traumatic effects wax and wane; they may be evident in some parts of a parent's life and virtually invisible in others. While a parent may be a controlling tyrant in the family, he or she may show little overcontrol at work or at play, in some situations or at certain times. The Perfectionistic, Cultlike, or Smothering parent may be a model worker. The Abusive or Using parent may be a fierce competitor in sports or business. The Childlike or Depriving parent may be a brilliant researcher or bookkeeper. The Chaotic parent may be an artistic genius.

Furthermore, most parents, no matter how controlling, have moments of caring, grace, and a desire to see their children happy. Controlling parents may want to stop their children's suffering, along with their own, but just don't know how.

The long-term effects of trauma tend to be most prominent when people are stressed, in new situations, or in situations that remind them of the circumstances of their traumas. Unfortunately, being a parent is all three: stressful, new, and almost always the trigger for memories of their own childhood traumas. An intimate relationship like parenting is a fertile arena for control because intimate relationships are the settings for most traumas. In intimate relationships, we are most vulnerable, and vulnerability is unwelcome to children of trauma.

Exercise for Understanding Your Parents' Roots

Think about what you know about your parents' early lives. Did they face the loss of a parent, an attack, a family crisis, or long-term stress as listed earlier in this chapter (see page 130)? If so, did they get help? How might their traumas have colored their world views and affected their emotional lives? You might develop at least three possible hypotheses, then see how each fits. (The section “50 Reasons People Control in Unhealthy Ways” in the next chapter may help spark your hypothesizing.)

If you don't know much about your parents' early lives, you might want to get them talking about them. This can be a win-win situation: Your parents can validate their early existence and you can gain insight into your family's roots. In addition, if your parents tend to focus attention on you in negative ways, asking them to tell their stories allows you to step into observing mode, shift the focus away from yourself, and feel less reactive to what your parents might say and do. Of course, you may not want to ask about your parents' roots if you feel they'd become abusive during such conversations. If that's the case, relatives can be extremely helpful in filling in the blanks about your parents' early lives.

T
rauma engenders fear—a key commonality among controlling parents. Knowing the needs and fears your controlling parents carry within them, you'll begin to understand why they controlled as they do or did. You'll also be better able to grasp the source of the negative messages from your internalized parents. Both your actual parents' behavior and your internalized parents' critical messages, no matter how mystifying, are driven by five fears:

1. Fear of being seen as flawed
   
2. Fear of feeling powerless
   
3. Fear of feeling invalidated
   
4. Fear of feeling vulnerable
   
5. Fear of losing emotional control
   

One of the fascinating aspects of human behavior is that it often compensates in reverse. Someone who feels particularly small may strut around acting larger than life. Someone who feels adrift in an emotional rapids may become a stoic. Someone who fears rejection may reject others first.

In the case of controlling parents, these defensive actions become maladaptive. Feeling flawed, controlling parents pretend they are perfect. Feeling small, they act big. Feeling afraid, they frighten others.
Feeling bad about themselves, they shame others. Feeling wrong, they insist on being right. Feeling doubt, they confuse. Feeling deprived, they withhold.

Controlling parents compensate in ways that cost both child and parent dearly. The need to feel powerful and worthy becomes a life-or-death crisis for such parents. Avoiding vulnerability is suddenly a matter of survival. Why? Because powerlessness, vulnerability, and unworthiness remind them of their desperate childhood days, when they felt flawed, full of doubt, helpless, out of control, and afraid for their lives. Controlling parents (and, for that matter, your internalized parents) will do anything to avoid recognitions we all must face:

There are forces and people more powerful than I am
.

There are people who don't need me or fear me
.

Time, death, and illness will humble me; this is the price of being human
.

Rather than face these realizations, many controlling parents chose childlike coping behaviors: denial, tantrums, bullying, running away, and/or playing take away. They become, as Elan Golomb wrote, “psychologically hard of hearing” (152). Unconsciously, they adopt myths about themselves: the self-made man, the perfect mom, the good provider, the in-control dad, the biggest son of a bitch in the jungle. These myths give parents the illusion that they are in total control of their destinies, masters of the universe after a childhood of feeling little mastery. To admit anything different would once more leave controlling parents feeling powerless. This may explain why some of them seem disconnected from the present, often unaware of their surroundings and feelings. Living in the moment risks loss of control and lacks guarantees—exactly how controlling parents felt as children.

Controlling parents are often unaware of why they act as they do. If they realized what lay underneath their maladaptive behavior, they'd have to face their painful childhoods, their dependency on others for their feelings of self-worth, and their desperate hunger for the symbols of success. They'd have to face the fact that they are as controlled as anyone else.

Controlling parents rarely learned as children that facing their feelings or admitting their limits can be healing. Because they try to control everything, they tend to think that others, including their children, are doing the same. Since most controllers want to be sure they are never dominated, they move to control others first.

In short, being a controlling parent is a defensive action. A combination of factors—how the controlling parent was raised, lack of
knowing better, external events, internal needs, and the footprints of trauma—leave controlling parents, unless they get help, playing out a lifelong defensive drama. Even as adults no longer at the mercy of childhood trauma, most controlling parents dare not acknowledge how powerless they once felt. They may even deny that the trauma occurred. They may fear that exploring their memories will make them reexperience feelings as real and frightening as they were when the trauma occurred.

There is a certain logic to this behavior—the distorted reasoning of traumatized children whose sense of self splintered at an early age. Controlling parents are wounded children whose life was warped by dramas they didn't create.

Because as children they didn't get sufficient help, attention, and love, controlling parents generally feel that they are not adequate—though they may act in quite the opposite way. As adults, they may seek assurances of self-worth through watertight rules, beliefs, and practices. Their overcontrol is a futile effort to secure guarantees that they will be loved and safe rather than powerless, invalidated, or out of control. Yet it is costly because:

• Parents who fear being judged as flawed can never let others see them as they truly are.
  
• Parents who need to feel powerful must always be on guard against threats to their power.
  
• Parents who fear invalidation cannot tolerate questions or uncertainty.
  
• Parents who fear vulnerability view everything and everyone as potentially threatening.
  
• Parents who must avoid feeling out of control are likely to miss out on joy, spontaneity, and love.
  

Parental Control Is Not Personal

Because they were frightened, your parents may have taken personally much of what happened in their lives. You don't have to. If you take nothing else from this chapter, I hope you come away with the realization that your parents' control wasn't personal. They didn't dominate you because you were bad, inadequate, did something wrong, or were cursed by God. The reasons had to do with them, not you.

Ironically, no matter how domineering they are, most controlling parents think they don't dominate enough; when you're terrified of the world, you can never do enough to protect yourself. A further irony is that, while many of us spent thousands of hours trying to figure out how to make our parents more accepting and less controlling, they would have controlled no matter what we did. There's no way you could have stopped them.

Overcontrol isn't personal, it's generational—until someone breaks the cycle, it's a white-knuckle response to trauma. You can be that someone. Part Three of this book will show you how.

50 Reasons People Control in Unhealthy Ways

While control is necessary for living, dysfunctional control is not. We can never know absolutely why others act as they do, but we can make educated guesses that lead to greater understanding and compassion for parents, other people, and ourselves. Here are fifty reasons why people control in unhealthy ways. Notice any reasons that strike a chord in explaining why either your actual parents or your internalized parents control.

Then, you might review the list and ask yourself if any of these reasons explain why you sometimes control yourself or others in unhealthy ways.

Cognitive Reasons: People Overcontrol Because They Believe

1. Others will take advantage of them.
   
2. Total control of others is possible and that they are controlling for others' good.
   
3. The world is unsafe and control can ward off danger.
   
4. Disagreements can destroy people and being criticized is life-threatening.
   
5. Values and lifestyles differing from theirs are wrong.
   
6. They are superior to other people.
   
7. Situations are a zero-sum game in which there is always a winner and a loser.
   

Intergenerational Reasons: People Overcontrol Because They

1. Were raised with excess control and did not fully or healthily separate from their parents.
   
2. Grew up feeling abandoned or smothered and came to see others as potential abandoners or smotherers.
   
3. Felt overridden and deprived as children and are terrified of being overridden and deprived as adults.
   
4. Never felt
   seen
   as children and now insist on being the center of attention.
   
5. Had misguided models of how to treat people.
   

Emotional Reasons: People Overcontrol Because They

1. Fear their needs for safety and dependency and consequently intellectualize instead of facing their feelings.
   
2. Attempt to avoid a huge reservoir of grief, anger, or regret and see others' emotions as unsettling reminders.
   
3. Are convinced they won't get gratification so they remain aloof.
   
4. Have poor body images or conflicts about sexuality and are jealous of others' healthier or younger bodies.
   
5. Possess poor emotional coping skills and cannot teach others how to deal with feelings.
   
6. Envy others' good fortune.
   
7. Are depressed, anxious, addicted, and/or have poor impulse control.
   

Power/Gratification Reasons: People Overcontrol Because They

1. Feed off the energy of others.
   
2. Personalize others' actions.
   
3. Need to feel grandiose because they are petrified of feeling weak or powerless.
   
4. Are addicted to control, which, like a drug or a drink, brings on a rush.
   
5. Need to channel their desire for revenge and to feel others are dependent on them.
   
6. Are just plain mean.
   

Unconscious/Existential Reasons: People Overcontrol Because They

1. Are unwilling to admit they have weaknesses or fears.
   
2. Are angry with themselves, a spouse, a boss, or their own parents, but displace their anger onto others who are not as threatening.
   
3. Act in ways that mirror their fears (e.g., a father who grew up in a chaotic home may be obsessed with order; a mother who was treated as stupid in childhood may exhort her children to be “smart”).
   
4. Are in denial about their control and the pain they cause others.
   
5. See others as the cause of their problems and are overly suspicious about what others are doing.
   
6. Become inflictors of pain to avoid feeling like helpless, passive victims.
   
7. Disown weak aspects of their selves and can't tolerate anything small, helpless, and weak around them—like children.
   
8. Fear accepting the humbling reality that few people like, but most of us eventually accept:
   We all have some power, but events are often dangerous and random and there will always be things outside our control
   .
   
9. Need coercive rules and rigid beliefs to maintain the status quo and tidy up life's messy questions.
   
10. Need to outlaw dissent to prevent anyone from pointing out that perhaps they are not as perfect or as in control as they would like to believe.
    
11. Are trying to distract themselves from their own problems, flaws, or feelings.
    
12. Resent others' hobbies or close relationships because they feel their influence shrinks and fear that others will come to love someone or something else more than they love them.
    

Self-Esteem Reasons: People Overcontrol Because They

1. Feel they cannot stand up for themselves and don't deserve anything any better than what they have.
   
2. Need others' approval and want to be seen as perfect.
   
3. Hope another's accomplishments will accord them status, as in “My son the doctor.”
   
4. Cannot cope with the demands of parenthood or adulthood.
   
5. Excessively value beauty, fame, power, or money.
   

Interpersonal Reasons: People Overcontrol Because They

1. Assign people to a limited range of roles, such as those of servants, masters, or objects, and respond to them as such.
   
2. Never integrated the realization that others can be both nurturing and rejecting, so they keep others at a “safe” distance.
   
3. Felt like “things” around their parents, so view other people as objects.
   
4. Are inept at distinguishing their own needs or fears from those of others.
   
5. See others' bodies as extensions of themselves (one man said his Perfectionistic father saw him as a “walking, talking, stuffed animal sprung from his loins”).
   
6. Feel defeated in reaching their goals or regret not following their dreams and want to save others from making the same mistake.
   

Circumstantial/Societal Reasons: People Overcontrol Because They

1. Are overwhelmed by their unmet needs and/or face financial, social, work, physical, or marital crises.
   
2. Do not make healthy relationships a priority or subscribe to societal and cultural values that foster overcontrol.
   

Exercise for Discovering Why People Control

Think of an incident in which someone tried to control you in unhealthy ways. Which of the above reasons might best describe why they acted as they did? How does understanding why someone else controls affect how you feel about them and about control in general?

Part Two—A Summary

It's hard to acknowledge that you had little choice and control in your early life. It may feel demeaning to admit that you're still struggling with problems spawned by your parents decades ago. Yet acknowledging your lack of choice and control in early life can spark a freeing recognition:

Given your upbringing, many of your problems make sense—and they are not your fault.

Yes, your problems are yours to solve. But they do not reflect innate character flaws, the lack of the ability to love or be loved, or a lack of competence. Many of your adult-life problems may stem from early situations which you had no power to alter. Blaming yourself can only hurt. Healing is not about blaming yourself or others. Healing involves:

1. Seeing the controlling-family brainwashing in your past.
   
2. Seeing the “trances” that are induced by the internalized parents in your present.
   
3. Seeing when you are controlling yourself or those around you just as your parents controlled you.
   
4. Learning to appropriately trust rather than automatically control.
   

The final section of this book will explore many of the healing strengths you possess, including ones you may not even realize you have.