I've always relied on the kindness of strangers
I’m going to reproduce here a short bit of writing I put on Twitter. It relates to what I said on last night’s Disaffected.
This may resonate for those who were emotionally abused by their parents when they were children. I said something on the show last night, but it took a night's sleep to consolidate my thoughts.
I talked about what it was like when your parent threatens suicide.
That's bad enough, but when they say or imply that you, the child, are the only one who can save them, it becomes torture.
On the show, I said that it was hard to explain to people what this does to a child. I think I meant something different. I think what I really want, deep down, is for other people to feel the emotion I felt-not a lot, just briefly, enough to “get it”. I think a lot of us "kids" like this want that.
There are a couple of ways to look at that.
1. We can't realistically "make" other people feel our emotions.
2. Maybe it's not necessary for people to feel our subjective sensations in order to grasp the significance of this kind of abuse.
Once, I said to my therapist that I didn’t think he could ever understand what it was like to grow up the way I did. That no one who grew up in a normal home could understand it. It wasn’t clear to me until now why I said that to him.
I think that desire comes from not ever having our emotions as children recognized and mirrored by our parents. That's the real and legitimate and necessary kind of "validation" that children require to be stable people.
So long-grown "kids" like me seek it out from others. We're like Blanche Du Bois, relying on the kindness of strangers for emotional succor.
I wanted my therapist to feel my emotion. To suffer with me in the same subjective way I suffered. Not out of cruelty, but to soothe my own emotions. To get “mirrored”. But I’m a grown man. I can’t be “re-parented,” I can’t expect that of another. Damaged grown-ups have to find an alternate way; that includes accepting the disappointment of never receiving the emotional validation that is a child’s birthright.
My therapist, so far as I know, grew up in a normal, stable family. We have a proper boundary that prevents me from knowing much at all about his personal life (this is the way it is supposed to be). So I’m right in a sense that he doesn’t “get” what it felt like on the level of qualia . However, I think he’s right that this is not necessary.
”Nothing human is alien to me,” he said.
I so get you. My parents were each emotionally abusive, to each other and to the four of us kids. No one should have to grow up like that. Both of my parents did damage that can’t be undone. I had to learn to move past it- accept it for what it was, understand it, know that I was not to blame and learn not to do the same thing to others, especially my own children. My son and his wife have confirmed and affirmed, over and over, that I have not passed on that kind of emotional abuse, but even all these years later, the feelings crop up and I find myself having to actively stop myself from acting in a way that could be emotionally abusive. It is like a virus that lies dormant and can flare up. I can never be cured, but it can be managed.
That was the single piece of evidence I needed. “Emotions were not mirrored”. So we’ll written. It explains everything. That I always felt and still do as if I am wrong and bad for what I feel. I have this hunger to feel validated and often cannot seem to function until someone confirms that what I am feeling is valid.
I feel always feel like an invalid. I guess.