Why punishing authenic protest makes us co-dependent.

I have a post on being instinct injured backed up in drafts I have been working on for some time and today reading through the chapter Recovering from Trauma Based Codependency in Pete Walker’s book that post came to mind when I was reading about the fawn-freeze reaction to parental invalidation of self assertion and legitimate protest of the child.  Walker deals in that chapter with how certain forms of punishment or silencing of protest contributes to learned helplessness..reading that I could not help but think of the description instinct injured, which is something Jungian therapist Clarissa Pinkola Estes dealt with a lot in her book Women Who Run With the Wolves and occurs to those of us whose valid needs may have lain unrecognised or been actively shamed or punished in childhood.

Fawn-freeze is one of several codependent sub types Walker explains in this chapter, those are the ones who become family scapegoats or scapegoat identified individuals, “prone to extreme self denial… suffer(ing) the most punishment or rejection for asserting themselves in the toddler stage”.  These are the ones who tend to become doormats and are attracted to narcissistic types being “forced to abandon their self protective instincts… (and becoming trapped in) learned helplessness.”  In childhood they were punished for protest or complaining.

I find in my own life often when I write a protest post about something I felt or suffered I am then tempted to follow it up with one about being more loving and not complaining as much, saying how I need to learn to accept such things or treatment.  While on one level I do need to accept certain realities, to deny or to minimise that something hurt me, even if I unwittingly allowed myself to be pulled into that old pattern, one I had to adopt as a survival strategy in a home where all attention was focused on the needs of parents and older siblings, is not fair.  This is something I noticed over the weekend and somethign I was trying to address in the unposted post that still sits in drafts about identifying with the fairytale covered by Estes in her book about the Handless Maiden.   That post is to follow soon.

The need for legimate protest is also covered in depth in therapist Robert Karan in his book The Forgiving Self, in particular the chapter The Failure of Protest and Repair.  Injustices served upon children by adults can harden into resentment that can be deeply internalised at a somatic level and may never have been permitted to come to mind but bug us for years afterwards unconsciously.  We may have learned to deny the pain and injustice, make excuses, minimise or just feel powerless out of control and helpless as a result and as therapist Alice Miller has pointed out in many of her book parents can act their own rage against such injustices suffered at the hands of their own parents onto their children, often without ever becoming fully conscious of them.  Then the child is both hurt and shamed for protesting or responding to that hurt and learns it is unsafe to do so.

Later in life they become either the fawn – freeze type or alternatively fawn-flight escaping memories of abandonment by being there compulsively for others who are hurting, developing OCD, projecting fears or imperfection or collapsing under the weight of an unconscious perfectionism.

Healing according to Walker involves a period of intense grieving for what we lost in childhood, access to healthy instincts, protest, boundaries and self assertion.

Typically this entails many tears about the loss and pain of being so long without healthy self interest and self protection.  Grieving also unlocks healthy anger about a life lived with such a diminished sense of self.

This anger can then be used to build a healthy fight (protest) response.  Once again, the fight response is the basis of the instinct of self protection, of balanced assertiveness and of the courage that is needed to make relationships equal and reciprocal.

Further healing involves being able to bear with the disapproval of others when we refuse to fawn, play dead or ignore our genuine feelings in response to their behaviour, once we have internalised a good sense of healthy boundaries and a regaining of necessary self protective instincts.  It involves the need to protest unfairness and fight for our own right to psychological health and separation rather than being endlessly victim of our fear of abandonment which was the hidden psychological legacy of such a damaged childhood.