Why protect them?

[Dyess]

Why is it that when talking about childhood you down play events and even protect those who caused the most damage? Or is it something special for me ?) Don't get me wrong, I have anger, lots of it but I don't feel like it would benefit anyone by my expressing this anger.

[Dutch Uncle]

I think for a large part it's just the habit of doing so.
Like I can't quit smoking. Why? It's just the habit (the physical addiction is gone within two weeks or so, and I have already quitted multiple times for much more than that. Still, the habit has always drawn me back)

And we have never learned how to do otherwise (and here it's different than quitting smoking  ). So we need to learn to work with a whole new set of tools. That we also have never seen anybody else use!
It's hard work without a good instruction video  , and just a written manual (You know, the kind that were typed up in China. In Engrish   .

My two cents.

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[Dyess]

That may be true to a point. I think it may also be that you are afraid of loosing them if you confront them. You keep them happy so they will stay around. It's kind of hard to explain.

[Dutch Uncle]

Co-dependency plays a role here, I think.
"Want" is conflicted with "need".
Or something like that.
I've just started working on co-dependency.

[mourningdove]

Why is it that when talking about childhood you down play events and even protect those who caused the most damage? Or is it something special for me ?) Don't get me wrong, I have anger, lots of it but I don't feel like it would benefit anyone by my expressing this anger.

It's not at all something specific to you, Trace. I have done this too for most of my life and I'm pretty sure it's fairly common for people with C-PTSD and possibly for everyone.

I think it happens because as children we are dependent on these people and we need to believe that we are loved by them and safe with them, so we will do all kinds of mental gymnastics automatically to meet that need. In addition, there is tremendous social pressure to meet some kind of idealized conception of family. Alice Miller is, in my opinion, a great writer on this kind of thing and she used to always say that most people remember their childhoods as being better than they really were.

I felt similarly about my anger for a long time, but I've found lately that expressing it - even just to myself in my diary or to my T - has been very very helpful in getting me closer to healing. As a child, I was essentially not allowed to be angry.

[stillhere]

Thank you for all of these observations.  They're giving me something to think about.

Only a few weeks ago, a close friend suggested that I was "protecting" my uNPD mother, despite everything she'd done.  My friend expressed frustration, suggested that I might work a bit harder to access my anger.  Of course, I wouldn't be expressing it at anyone – so, Trace, the point is not to be heard. 

Until then, I'd not understood my inability to be "appropriately" angry as a form of protection.  So what is it?   A habit?  Dutch Uncle, I'm not so sure in my case.  I've been NC for more than twenty-five years, and patterns of interaction have long become dormant.  Mourningdove, I see your point about the remnants of childhood dependence.  But it's also something else, at least for me.

I've told myself that I also feel sorry for members of my FOO. My parents had pretty hard lives early on, or at least I'm sure my father did and suspect that my mother was a CSA victim (unacknowledged by her).  So I sometimes explain away their behavior.  Is that a form of protection?

[Dyess]

No wonder this is called COMPLEX Ptsd. There are so many variables to each person. So much different , so much the same. I will say I think by talking here we are challenged to think about issues we may not otherwise discuss. It's good to have a place where people understand and "get it" and you don't have to jump through hoops to try to get that understanding.
If I expressed my anger it would deeply hurt someone. In their mind my childhood was good and was the best it could be under the circumstances. It's true they both tried to be good parents, and I think they did the best with what they had and what they knew to be true of parenting. Everything comes with instructions except children and they really need instructions and warning labels Babies are false advertisement, they grow up to be teenagers sadly.

[Rainydaze]

I wonder whether you protect the abuser because you're simply a very compassionate person, stillhere. I don't believe people are born evil, I think they're victims of circumstance. Even though I hate my dad for what he's done to me I do feel sorry for him for being so self destructive and full of negativity and shame. I know that his parents probably didn't treat him well and that's how he became sociopathic. I don't forgive him for doing the same to me though, so although I feel compassion for him I don't want to protect him because that's the role he should have played in my life as my parent, not the other way round.

[Kizzie]

I wonder whether you protect the abuser because you're simply a very compassionate person, stillhere. I don't believe people are born evil, I think they're victims of circumstance. Even though I hate my dad for what he's done to me I do feel sorry for him for being so self destructive and full of negativity and shame. I know that his parents probably didn't treat him well and that's how he became sociopathic. I don't forgive him for doing the same to me though, so although I feel compassion for him I don't want to protect him because that's the role he should have played in my life as my parent, not the other way round.

I feel similarly Blues. I don't protect or forgive my parents per se, but I do feel some compassion for them because I understand how they came to be abusive.

[BigGreenSee123]

I have thought about this myself. I, too, have a bit of trouble with expressing emotions, anger especially. Two possibly reasons I've thought about more recently:

1. I don't like to get angry. It makes me feel uncomfortable. It makes me feel vulnerable. I was never "taught" how to be angry, it wasn't a healthy part of my relationships growing up. I still remember the first time I was angry with my T and actually said something about it (meek though my protests may have been). She listened to me, and responded to what I had to say. For me it was literally unbelievable. If we never learn the healthy side of certain emotions it makes sense we will continue to be averse to them and not use them. Especially if our protests were stifled in the past. Why be angry if it is upsetting and we have no experience of it being received by others, if we have no experience of having our anger heard? In this case, returning to anger will likely mean a return to that incredibly vulnerable place. Talk about prime EF territory.

2. Also, when I did witness anger growing up it was typically explosive, random, passive aggressive, and/or carried with it a significant sense of jarring disconnection. It hurt me, I didn't like it, I found it to be cruel and harmful. I know there are many defensive reasons why I stay away from it, but I also think it is partly motivated by good intentions - I don't want to harm others as I've been harmed. And, a little more on the defensive side of things, I don't want to imagine I could be similar to those other, harmful people. Even if, objectively, just being angry would not make me like them, it is too close for comfort. I refuse to be like those people so I refuse, for better it worse, to be angry at all.

[stillhere]

BigGreenSee, I think you're on to something I've only begun to glimpse:  I'm afraid of the experience of anger.  My expression of anger was punished, and whatever complaint I might have had was always dismissed.  In contrast, my uNPD mother's anger was validated, especially by my father who enabled her behavior.  Her rages were explosive, sometimes physically violent, and truly terrifying to anyone encountering them at close range.

Your second point, though, really hits home:  I'm also afraid of becoming someone like my uNPD mother.  If I can be as angry as she was (and is), I might just morph into her, and if I did, well, I'm not sure what would happen.  The good things in my life, especially my small group of close friends, would probably recede.  And I'd be left with myself as a daily reminder of a past I dread remembering. 

Blues_cruise, I'd like to think I'm motivated by compassion.  But protecting the abuser is also about protecting myself.

For years, into adulthood, I was told with approval that I was "just like [your] mother."  My father considered the statement a compliment.  People outside the FOO would hear approval if they agreed or offered some point of comparison.  Becoming her could have been a form of protection, but it didn't really seem that way.  My fear was more about being swallowed whole.

Thank you for the reflections.  Very helpful.

[Dyess]

Every since I was born I've always been told I look just like my father. It was so annoying to mom, but she never really acted on it. Until the dark side of Dad emerged, after the death of his dad falling down our basements stairs in front of me, it didn't bother me. But once he turned into this other person I didn't want to be anything like him. We are very similar though and I try to address the parts of my parents that I don't want to claim as my own.  No one is perfect though, they both had their issues, but that was just who they were. Not who I am. My mom likes to play the victim role every chance she gets and if she can't be the victim she likes to talk about me being the victim, just for her attention. She doesn't mean anything by it, but I wish she would leave me out of it, but it would hurt her for me to confront her with it. Even now, I feel some what guilty telling this in the forum.

[BigGreenSee123]

I think this is a very interesting topic. I keep thinking about it. There is something else I know I've experienced, some other motivation for avoiding anger, etc. I'm not sure it's clear in my mind yet but I'll try and describe it, hopefully it makes sense.

It's something like admitting I'm angry being too much like admitting something else - that I have been hurt, that I have been affected, that I am affected. For example, I haven't really had any contact with my father for years. There was no big falling out, more like a slow falling away of the relationship. I realize it probably affects me more than I'm aware of, but I just don't feel like I care. If I try and imagine myself caring, though - being angry or sad or whatever that he is not present in my life...It almost disgusts me. I loath the thought of being upset with him. It's like it would give him too much. Too much power or something, something valuable he doesn't deserve. I'd prefer to continue feeling unbothered; it's like I win somehow that way. I can be invincible, I can be better, I can be stronger...than the me who was (is?) probably innocent and vulnerable and angry and hurt.

I don't know if anyone can relate (or if this even makes sense). It's hard to tell what the more universal experiences might be versus those that are purely a product of my own, personal story.

[Dyess]

I think most of us are really digging to understand what these feelings are and what to do with them. I can tell you I tried to talk to my Dad about it one time and he became pretty mad and denied what happened. That made me so angry, but he was still my Dad and I loved him, so I decided that what happened is the past and it be more beneficial for us both to move on and try to embrace the rest of the life we had together. I thought we had more time and at some point we could address it again. But now he's gone and I'm very angry that his choice denied me the opportunity to discuss this with him, plus now he's gone and I can't enjoy growing old with him. Anger is not so cut and dry, you can be angry and still love someone.
My point is understand that they will not be around forever, do you really want one or the other to leave this world feeling like this? If I had known he was going to do this I would have tried to stop him obviously, but we would have gradually worked into discussing the issues between us. I have no doubt he loved me, in his own way.

[stillhere]

BigGreenSee, I think, again, you're expressing something I understand.  Becoming angry is a kind of engagement.  At least for me – I've been NC for very along time – accessing anger could bring the abuser that much closer.  I'd have to deal with her and with those who enable and deny. 

So I think your point about giving power away makes much sense.  As a child, I learned the perils of expressing anger.  What came back at me was frightening.  Now the key, perhaps, is to learn to be angry without the fear of disempowerment. 

Thanks for the clarity.

Trace, I want to send condolences every time you say something about your loss.  The lack of open discussion is one more piece of it.