I just read a post on gaslighting and narcissistic parents posted by Trauma Research UK and it resonated with me..
https://traumaresearchuk.wordpress.com/2020/08/17/gaslighting-within-a-parent-child-relationship/
It made clear how hard it can be to grow up with an undermined sense of reality and sense of self.. this kind of parenting means that whole parts of our true self can be annexed or split off, disallowed an existence and, even worse, it means that any expression of such true feelings, thoughts, needs, observations or perceptions will be cut down inside the person over time by powerful parental introjects.
I remember hearing the term ‘soul murder’ being used many years ago, I also remember when actively seeking my first therapist in the UK back in 1999 and attending an interview with the head of the Jungian Society after relating my story and speaking of the many terminations I had undergone, the therapist in question mentioned this.. Possibly I feared deep inside that I did give birth to a child I may do to it, what was done to me.
It has taken me many years in therapy to understand the degree of alexithymia in my family.. For those of you who do not know the term it means that feelings are difficult for a person to differentiate, articulate, express in a functional way or understand. It happens in childhoods dominated by a climate of emotional neglect in what can appear (at least to outsiders) to be loving homes. In this condition there may also be only a very limited rage of emotions expressed which cover over the more deeply hidden ones such as sadness, helplessness, anger, hurt, confusion and fear…. lashing out and frustration may dominate the reactions of a parent suffering in this way and leads to the child not having a clue of what is going on and often feeling to blame or flawed in some way. It also leads to a similar lack of emotional differentiation in the child/adult.
Children are great absorbers so when feelings are not being expressed by a parent the child will often try to act them out in some way.. For me the most critical work of recovering my emotional sobriety in addiction recovery has involved this issue of understanding that emotions have a message and value and are not just some kind of aberration.
It is sad to see children of narcissistic or detached parents slowly over time lose touch with their true selves.. Depression and a sense of lowered libido or life energy is the frequent result, the struggle to find, express and live as the true self is often a task of Herculean proportions.. I was saying to Kat in therapy the other day how in many ways it feels like dragging yourself out of claggy quagmire (perhaps carrying the dead weight of your ancestral inheritance behind you!)
Such recovery is not possible in isolation as we all need mirroring…..sadly the way narcissistic parents alienate children from active sources of support can often guarantee impulses to connect, heal, understand, make sense of, recover or reclaim are thwarted.. I remember the struggle I had with both my mother and ex husband as i began to embark upon this quest.. they obviously both felt threatened… my husband didn’t want me ‘changing’ just possibly it was also sad for him to see how ‘lost’ I got in the family as well as how deeply bonded I remained in trying to want to bring healing to my older sister who had been so cut down.
For me finding my way to my true self and feeling safe to express it through a full range of emotions has taken years.. I, at times, still struggle with undue guilt for being real. Kat tells me all the time that as a young child I was like the little one in the tale of the Emperors’ New Clothes.. I got in trouble for saying the emperor was in fact ‘naked’. This why painful as it is exile is necessary for the scapegoated individual in the family.. its only in exile we often find our way back to what is true and real, it is also only when we find the courage to challenge the blind system that true freedom arises, that said we cannot expect many to like us for this.. But the real ones will, sometimes the price of freedom truly is exile for a while. During this time we must work hard to build and stoke our own individual creative fire and now allow others to pour cold water all over it!
Emerging From The Dark Night 