I often heard in the rooms of AA the saying ‘hurt people, hurt people’ its something I am thinking about while listening to Stan Grants’s wonderful book on suffering, judgement, blame, identity, resentment a grievance as well as a newly started autobiography by Rupert Thomson, This Party’s Got To Stop, which covers a month long period which commenced with the death of his father when Rupert was only 28 and explores some of his complex family history which included a fair amount of emotional breakdown and mental illness.
In the chapter I just read he goes with his cousin to visit his Uncle, the brother of Rupert’s mother who died when he was only 8 years old and the Uncle has converted to Islam after a very long complex history of problems and challenges. In the scene that Rupert narrates on the visit his Uncle abuses and rails at his son, (Rupert’s cousin) while the other men in the home raise their eyes and try to get him to see some sense. I have compassion for the Uncle in one way if you know the history of Rupert’s mother, he doesn’t explore what happened in the life of grand parents but the Uncle and mother’s generation survived depression and war and I see how the Uncle tries to keep himself separate seeing himself as above a world that is toxic and threatening because his early experiences obviously damaged his ability to relate to others emotionally in any way, the full force of his upset falls on his son and the son actually takes it on board, which distresses Rupert.
These sense of separation, blame and attack are subjects that Ferrini deal with in his book, The Wounded Child’s Journey into Love’s Embrace. In the book Paul explores how our early ego defences formed as children function to keep love, human connection and vulnerability at bay in real life. We can see these forces out there in the world at large when people attack each other or even accuse them of personality disorders without any empathy for the family history. That said its up to each of us grow up into loving responsible individuals even if we choose a path of ‘irresponsibility in the eyes of others. We can also see it in which we attack our own selves with perfectionism while treating ourselves with lack of compassion (not all of us, though!)
The defended ego can thrive on grievance, a feeling of being a perpetual victim or by projecting or fearing shame, guilt and vulnerability. This reached the height of madness during the rise of Nazism in Germany following the end of a war in which the German nation was humiliated and the figure head that rose up, Adolf Hitler was himself an illegitimate child. I read a very good book on the Pluto Moon many years ago in which the author showed how Hitler was able to manipulate and make use of the sense of vulnerability and anger of a large group of Germans and convince them of their so called ‘supremacy’ over the ‘bad’, ‘inferior’ Jews. Alice Miller actually claims that Hitler’s mother fell pregnant to one of her Jewish bosses and so Hitler’s rage had a strong personal component, I do not know how true it is, but is does make some kind of sense to me. Pluto was in Leo during the outbreak of World War II and the inception of Nazism and Leo rules the ego at its best and worst.
Hitler clearly saw himself as ‘above’ those he projected his own wounds and vulnerability onto, the Jewish race, the physically and mentally handicapped etc, and this sense of inequality according to Ferrini is what our separatist ego thrives on. In the wounded ego’s view others are either above us or below us. As John Bradshaw writes a balanced sense of grounded humility is often missing in many of us who go on to suffer from addictions. We learn early on to split off, hide and run from our inherent sense of shame and feel ourselves to be unequal to overwhelming burdens or challenges we are presented with, or shame dumped by parents who also could not always allow themselves their own emotions and vulnerabilities. Or we identify with being ‘above it all’ and separate ourselves off from others who maybe we felt threatened by, fear, or mistrust (often for good reason in childhood.)
Taking care of our own heart and soul, knowing where our wounds lie, as well as our psychic injuries which block and defend against love and the inherent imperfection of life is a massive task for many of us wounded in childhood or who carried a parent or grandparent or great grandparents sense of inferiority, burden, hidden emotional wounds, grief, suffering, guilt or shame.
Our inner work lies with recognising this shadow within us which may also contain what Carl Jung called all our ‘gold’. Some of us may be actually stronger and less of victims than we give ourselves credit for and over identifying with a powerless victim role will often only function to keep us stuck or trapped in false beliefs we absorbed when young that no longer apply if we can apply ourselves to explore, examine and uproot those wrong beliefs.
There is more to explore of this but I want to keep this post short as I can and more digestible, I will end it with some quotes from Ferrini’s book
Separation leads automatically to manipulation and abuse. Distancing others enables me to treat them as objects. The more I address others as “It” instead of “Thou”, the more I isolate myself, and I cut myself off from the love I want. The exact same process happens if I allow others to manipulate me. .. it is foolish to think I don’t have selfish thoughts. It is just as foolish to think I should not have such thoughts. I am not bad because I perceive unequally, I am simply unhappy.
I see that my happiness comes in moments of joining of perceived equality, when the channel of love is open. And I also see that my unhappiness comes in moments of separation, of perceived inequality, when you and I complete for love and acceptance.
I am happy when I know there is enough love to go around to meet your needs and mine. I am sad when I think that there is only limited love available. And I feel guilty when I receive love and you don’t, and resentful when you receive love, and I don’t. Yet all ego dominated selfish thinking and behaving comes from “children” whose needs for love and belonging have not been met. Of course, that means most of us.
In closing it occurred to me while writing this out that the persecutor/inner critic is what Elain Aron writes works hard to break what she calls are ‘linkages’ to others and limit our ability to give and receive love and be vulnerable, as well to value us both equally. As long as the wounded child dominates us with its unconscious fears that we cannot be lovable, or give love without being hurt we will never truly find true equality and connection with others. It us up to us to heal that child from its false beliefs and take care of its pain so that it can be transformed. It us up to each of us to realise how our own blind spots may limit us and how certain fears and false beliefs keep repeating to continue the cycle of disconnection and unhappiness. When we connect to our own pain and hold it we are less likely to project it, or allow others to project their own pain onto us.
I see that I have created my life out of a belief in separation by perceiving myself as unequal with others. That strategy has led to depression and despair. I do not lambast myself because I have this awareness. I do not belittle myself and give away my power to choose. I simply see the results of the choice I have made. And I reject those results, along with the strategy that produced them.
Emerging From The Dark Night 