Reinventing Your Life: The Breakthrough Program to End Negative Behavior and Feel Great Again (27 page)

Despite all his father’s attention, by the time he entered junior high school, William was only an average student. He did well on work done at home, such as papers and projects, but he did not do well on tests. He had tremendous test anxiety. Tests were the one thing that he had to face alone. Even though his father spent hours with him the night before, coaching him, and even though he was intelligent, he did poorly on tests. His poor test-taking ability was probably the result of being so
anxious.
As time went on, his grades suffered. William developed a view of himself as a poor student who only did as well as he did because of his father’s help.

WILLIAM: I secretly thought of myself as lazy. Why else would I let my father do so much of my work?

His father was deeply involved in far more than his schoolwork. He was involved in William’s social life, athletics, leisure time, and day-to-day activities. His father’s presence
permeated
William’s life. He made William’s decisions. He gave guidance and direction. In almost every area of life, William’s ability to function on his own was impaired.

The second dimension of overprotectiveness occurs when the parent
undermines
the child’s efforts to act independently. The parent is critical of the child’s judgment and belittles the decisions the child makes.

MARGARET: The statement I heard most often from my mother was, „If only you had listened to me“ She was really into, „I told you so’s“ To this day I still feel that if I don’t take her advice, I’m going to fail.

William remembers telling his father once that he wanted to write a history essay alone. His father pushed his chair back abruptly from the table and said, „Fine. Just don’t come crying to me when you can’t think of anything good to say.“

William’s father blatantly undermined him. This was painful for William; even today, he is hypersensitive to any hint of criticism, particularly from authority figures. However, with most parents who foster dependence, the undermining process is more subtle. Margaret’s mother rarely criticized her. On the contrary, she was supportive and loving. But she herself was a fearful woman and became anxious whenever Margaret left her side. Margaret would sense her mother’s anxiety and become anxious herself. Like her mother, she became afraid of the world.

Many of our dependent patients view the world as unsafe because a parent was excessively worried about danger. In forming her daughter’s dependence, Margaret’s mother also passed down her Vulnerability lifetrap. „Don’t go!“ she would say. „Don’t go out, it’s too cold. You’ll get sick. Don’t go out, it’s too dangerous. Don’t go out, it’s too dark.“

As Margaret’s mother illustrates, parents who foster dependence in their children are not usually emotionally depriving. Their problem is not providing too little love or affection. Quite the opposite, overprotective parents are often very loving and affectionate. But typically they are also frightened, nervous, anxious, or agoraphobic. They may keep the child near them as protection from their own fears of abandonment; in doing so, they undermine the child’s autonomy. They are frequently too insecure to give their children a sense of security. They often give love, but not the specific kind of support and freedom that is necessary for a child to become independent.

We have found that Dependence differs from other lifetraps in an interesting way when the origin is overprotectiveness. Generally, overprotected patients do not have painful memories. Often, their images are of an extremely safe, secure family environment. Many dependent people were fine as children, until they had to leave that secure family environment and deal with the adversity, rejection, and loneliness of the real world.

Sometimes these patients’ early memories are of being held back, particularly if the Dependence was combined with the Vulnerability lifetrap.

MARGARET: I remember once going to the beach at Ocean City, and I wanted to stay out and swim. I was swimming in the ocean in water over my head, and suddenly my mother was there, looking really scared and saying, „Come on back, it’s too deep.“

I remember telling her, „No, I’m having fun, let me swim,“ but she kept insisting, „You’re going to drown, it’s too deep, „ until finally I got scared too and swam back in. Afterwards, I remember I felt depressed.

This memory conveys the sense of what Margaret felt as a child. She felt constricted, with her mother always looming to protect her: „There were so many times that I wanted to do something on my own, but my mom wouldn’t let me, so I gave up and felt depressed afterwards.“

When patients who were overprotected as children generate images in therapy, often they are images of a small child in a big world of adults. Margaret saw an image of herself as „little, surrounded by all these tall people, all these grown-ups.“ William generated an image of himself as a child, „sitting on a tiny chair, with my father pacing back and forth with giant steps.“

Often the images convey a sense of passivity. In William’s image of himself in the chair, he is writing down what his father is saying. Another prominent theme is the anxiety of trying new things. These images convey more pain, as each time the person starts something new, he or she feels dependent and incompetent.

Often the Dependence and Subjugation lifetraps go together. Subjugation is an effective way to keep a person dependent. William’s father subjugated him. The parent who is overprotective is often overcontrolling.

WILLIAM: Sometimes I feel like I never should have been an accountant. It was my father who wanted it, not me. He wanted me to be like him.

William’s father forced his own image onto his child, and forced William to fit it, no matter what his natural inclinations might have been. What William wanted was of no importance, and he gradually lost his sense of self. He once described himself as an empty hole inside. If you have no sense of self, you are totally dependent. There is an emptiness inside, and the only way to fill it is to rely on someone else, someone who has a sense of self.

Enmeshment often accompanies overprotectiveness. „Enmeshment“ and „fusion“ refer to the sense that you and another person have become like one. It is hard to tell where your identity starts and the other person’s begins. Both William and Margaret are enmeshed in their families of origin, with William the more dramatic example. Because William believes that he cannot function in the world, he has trouble separating from his family for even short periods of time. He cannot grow up and leave home. He has, a fused self.

There are many dependent people, most in their twenties, who are at the point in their lives when they should be breaking away from home. But they are still too enmeshed and dependent on their mother and father to leave. Their friends have all gone off into separate lives, and they are still at home. Their situation is usually more difficult because their parents continue to encourage their dependence. Their parents still give advice about everything, still improve upon all their decisions, still undermine their judgment. One might expect more women than men to have this kind of dependence. In our culture, women are protected more as children. But, in our experiences with patients, this has not been true. We see as many dependent men as women.

Underprotectiveness is the other origin of the lifetrap. This is the origin of the Counterdependent person. Because these parents are so weak and ineffectual, beset with their own problems, or simply absent and neglectful, they fail to provide adequate guidance or protection for their children. These patients have a combination of the Dependence and Emotional Deprivation lifetraps. From very early, the child senses the lack of protection and feels unsafe. The child never stops longing for that dependent role.

THE ORIGINS OF DEPENDENCE IN UNDERPROTECTIVENESS

1. You do not get enough practical guidance or direction from your parents.
   
2. You have to make decisions alone beyond your years.
   
3. You have to be like an adult in your family, even when underneath you still feel like a child.
   
4. You are expected to do things and know things that are over your head.
   

This was the origin for Christine.

CHRISTINE: My mother was addicted to alcohol and prescription tranquilizers. She could not take care of herself, let alone take care of me. And my father was never around. He had his buddies, his clubs.

There was no one to give Christine the sense of guidance and protection that she needed. Her mother was not strong enough to take care of her, and her father did not care enough.

Christine’s mother was anxious, lacked confidence, and was very dependent herself. She made her child into her parent. Christine was a „parentified child.“ She had to become self-sufficient to take care of herself
and
her mother, so she became competent and independent. But underneath she did not feel secure and wished for the normal dependence of a child.

Christine grew up making decisions that were too much for a child to handle. She did not have the judgment or experience that were necessary.

CHRISTINE: I always had the feeling that I was swimming out of my depth. I always had the feeling that my decisions weren’t good ones, that I wished there was someone I could ask.

Children such as this long for someone upon whom they can depend, to relieve the weight of responsibility. They question their decisions, feel a lot of anxiety about their competence, and yet have no choice but to continue making them.

Often this yearning is totally out of awareness. The child is only aware of chronic anxiety, pressure, or fatigue—when the number of responsibilities gets too great or when the child feels fraudulent while undertaking a difficult new task.

The people upon whom you depend can include parents, brothers, sisters, friends, lovers, spouses, mentors, bosses, therapists, or others. The person upon whom you depend might even be a child. You might be the dependent parent who makes your child into your parent. Margaret is this way with her five-year-old daughter, Jill.

MARGARET: I know it sounds strange, but my daughter is one of my safe people. I can do a tot of things with Jill that I can’t do atone, like go to the supermarket. I don Y know what it is I think Jill could do if something happened, but I still feel safer with her there.

One reason Margaret started therapy is that Jill started kindergarten, leaving Margaret stranded at home.

Your Dependence lifetrap is bound to appear in your romantic relationships. You are drawn to lovers who foster your dependence. This ensures that you will continue reenacting your childhood situation. Here are some warning signs that your partner is triggering your Dependence lifetrap:

DANGER SIGNALS IN POTENTIAL PARTNERS

1. Your partner is like a father/mother figure, who seems strong and protective.
   
2. He/She seems to enjoy taking care of you and treats you like a child.
   
3. You trust his/her judgment much more than your own. He/She makes most of the decisions.
   
4. You find that you lose your sense of self around him/her—and that your life goes on hold when he/she is not around.
   
5. He/She pays for almost everything, and takes care of most financial records.
   
6. He/She criticizes your opinions, taste, and competence in everyday tasks.
   
7. When you have a new task to undertake, you almost always ask his/her advice, even if he/she has no special expertise in that realm.
   
8. He/She does almost everything for you—you have almost no responsibility.
   
9. He/She almost never seems frightened, insecure, or vulnerable about him/herself.
   

If this list describes your relationship, then you are still living in the dependent state of your childhood. You might note that all the characteristics of your partner, listed above, are characteristics of your parents also.

Nothing has changed for you. You have managed to prolong your dependence into your adult life. You have few responsibilities, few worries, few challenges. Although this may seem to be a satisfactory arrangement for you, it is time for you to consider the price you pay to maintain your dependence. It costs you your will, your freedom, and your pride. It costs you your very
self.

Even if you find a partner who would like to support your autonomy, there are pitfalls to avoid. You can twist a healthy partner until he or she fits the shape of your Dependence lifetrap.

In fact, you tend to twist almost all your relationships to fit your lifetrap. To a lesser extent, are you not also dependent on your friends? Do you not make yourself dependent on
strangers
in certain situations, where strangers are all that are available?

THERAPIST: Tell me what happened once you got to the grocery store.

MARGARET: Well, the first thing I did was look for someone I could turn to if I needed help. There was this woman shopping a little ahead of me, and I thought she looked nice, and would maybe take care of me if things got really bad.

THERAPIST: Is that usually the first thing you do, look for someone to take care of you?

MARGARET: Yes. I make sure someone is there who might help me.

THERAPIST: Have you ever used such a person to help you? MARGARET: No. Never. I have never had to yet. But you never know.

The Dependence lifetrap can also influence the way you approach your job. It leads you to avoid taking the responsibility and initiative you need to get ahead.

Here are the ways you maintain your Dependence lifetrap in work and in love.

DEPENDENCE LIFETRAPS