Staying together just for the Kids?

[Anonymous]

Effects of Childhood Abuse on Adults
Debbie Twogood
 
   These and other patterns of survival that are learned in childhood are carried over into adulthood.  The five main ways the effects of abuse continue into adult life include:
1. A lack of trust- Because of the denial that is common in abusive families, adult children have learned to discount their own perceptions, feelings, and thoughts.  It is hard to share personal thoughts and feelings with others because of lack of trust.  Basic distrust is common in almost all relationships they have.
2. Avoiding feeling- they try to control their feelings and even try to control the feelings of others because they have learned to avoid expressing any emotions such as anger, sadness, or even happiness.
3. Low self-esteem-  The conclusions held about themselves as children still haunt them as adults in the form of beliefs they maintain about their inherent unworthiness and unlovableness.  They use lots of negative self-statements and wonder how they could ever truly love themselves.
4. Sense of helplessness-  When faced with life’s trial and tribulations, a conditioned sense of helplessness is triggered.  They maintain a passive helpless stance with regard to life because, as a child, they experienced a great deal of helpless feelings and were not able to affect situations and other people often enough to prevent the abuse or change the situation.
5. Difficulties in relationships-  Since adult children did not learn any effective communication skills from their parents, they now feel inadequate socially.  As an adult, not knowing what to say or how to act, some survivors are exceedingly cautious about saying anything.  Others often mistake this as a lack of interest and tend to stay away.  This reaction reinforces a sense of not being loved.  Other survivors have such a hunger for real human contact that when it is offered, they display clinging and highly dependent behavior eventually forcing others to reject them.  Still others sabotage relationships.

The Kids are not okay.
They will carry the legacy of abuse into adulthood
It is our jobs as parents to stop the cycle and give our children the chance
to live healthy, productive lives.
As parents, our fear of the unknown, our inability to embrace change, our
desire to change our mate into the man we want him to be, our need to
live out the fairy tale, happily ever after story is robbing our children
of their ability to live a full and honest life

[tayana]

I read this post earlier and didn't respond to it.  My parents stayed together for me and my brother, even though it was very clear they didn't want to be together.  They fought a lot.  My mother wouldn't get physically violent, but she would throw things.  Once she broke all of our dishes after a fight with my father.  I remember hiding in the closet and praying for it to stop.  Since the points were brought up, I thought I'd go ahead and post my agreement to the original most.

1. A lack of trust -- I do not trust anyone.  I except people to hurt me.  I often don't listen to my own instincts about people.  I expect people to lie to me, steal from me, and all of the things my mother did to my father.

2. Avoiding feeling -- I once told my the school psychologist that I couldn't feel anything.  I still feel like that.  I have a real hard time showing affection, and I tend to let anger and frustration build and build until I make myself sick.

3.  Low Self-Esteem -- Only in the last couple of years, thanks to a few very good friends, have I decided that I really deserve a better life than what I have.  For most of my life I thought I was stupid, fat and ugly.

4.  Sense of Helpness -- When bad things do happen, I have a period where I just fall apart.  I don't know what to do or how to get out of a situation.  

5. Difficulities in Relationships-- I deliberately avoid relationships. I keep friends at arm's lengths.  And because I have a hard time trusting people, I don't put myself in a situation where I could meet someone new.  The relationship I had with my son's father was a very shallow, immature relationship that made me feel loved for a period of time.

I have commented many times that I didn't feel loved, that I wasn't worth loving, and that nobody truly cared about me.  I swore that I my son would never feel unloved, even when I had to punish him, and so far I don't think he's ever felt unloved.  

Outside of my relationship with my son, I seldom feel like anyone cares, or wants to care.  With my family, I feel like every move I make is highly circumspect and ready for ridicule at any time.

To reply to the post, "staying together for the kids" isn't a good thing.  In the end it causes more harm than good.  People, including my parents, seem to think that kids are stupid and can't understand "adult" problems.  The truth is, kids will always know when something isn't right or when a situation is unhealthy.  My son knows.  He's made comments to my mother, and I have to admire him, because I still can't tell my mother to stay out of my business, and I'm an adult.  Most people would look at my family and say it wasn't abusive because on the outside we looked like an All-American, loving family.  But no one sees the emotional and verbal abuse, which in my opinion are worse than physical abuse.  

So I now find myself at this crossroads where I want to recover, but can't quite take the steps to do it.  Or I can do it for a while and fall back into the trap of thinking the problems will just go away.

Sorry, for rambling with this post.

[tayana]

I read this post earlier and didn't respond to it.  My parents stayed together for me and my brother, even though it was very clear they didn't want to be together.  They fought a lot.  My mother wouldn't get physically violent, but she would throw things.  Once she broke all of our dishes after a fight with my father.  I remember hiding in the closet and praying for it to stop.  Since the points were brought up, I thought I'd go ahead and post my agreement to the original most.

1. A lack of trust -- I do not trust anyone.  I except people to hurt me.  I often don't listen to my own instincts about people.  I expect people to lie to me, steal from me, and all of the things my mother did to my father.

2. Avoiding feeling -- I once told my the school psychologist that I couldn't feel anything.  I still feel like that.  I have a real hard time showing affection, and I tend to let anger and frustration build and build until I make myself sick.

3.  Low Self-Esteem -- Only in the last couple of years, thanks to a few very good friends, have I decided that I really deserve a better life than what I have.  For most of my life I thought I was stupid, fat and ugly.

4.  Sense of Helpness -- When bad things do happen, I have a period where I just fall apart.  I don't know what to do or how to get out of a situation.  

5. Difficulities in Relationships-- I deliberately avoid relationships. I keep friends at arm's lengths.  And because I have a hard time trusting people, I don't put myself in a situation where I could meet someone new.  The relationship I had with my son's father was a very shallow, immature relationship that made me feel loved for a period of time.

I have commented many times that I didn't feel loved, that I wasn't worth loving, and that nobody truly cared about me.  I swore that I my son would never feel unloved, even when I had to punish him, and so far I don't think he's ever felt unloved.  

Outside of my relationship with my son, I seldom feel like anyone cares, or wants to care.  With my family, I feel like every move I make is highly circumspect and ready for ridicule at any time.

To reply to the post, "staying together for the kids" isn't a good thing.  In the end it causes more harm than good.  People, including my parents, seem to think that kids are stupid and can't understand "adult" problems.  The truth is, kids will always know when something isn't right or when a situation is unhealthy.  My son knows.  He's made comments to my mother, and I have to admire him, because I still can't tell my mother to stay out of my business, and I'm an adult.  Most people would look at my family and say it wasn't abusive because on the outside we looked like an All-American, loving family.  But no one sees the emotional and verbal abuse, which in my opinion are worse than physical abuse.  

So I now find myself at this crossroads where I want to recover, but can't quite take the steps to do it.  Or I can do it for a while and fall back into the trap of thinking the problems will just go away.

Sorry, for rambling with this post.

[Anonymous]

or they would realise that even after a divorce the narcissist partner ( even grandparent )  is still going to be involved with their precious children- and without their current level of supervision, intervention, control or advice.

The n. may behave a lot worse towards everyone, given their reaction to rejection, or in grandiose or subtle ways that outsiders won't even understand are abusive or painful.

After divorce many parents manipulate or abuse their children unintentionally or subtly through their immature malice to get back at the partner who has left or hurt them. There's even a name for it: parental alienation syndrome. Any parent who does this is risking damaging their child, but many adults are too wrapped up in their own pain or anger to stop, even in the children's interests.

Some situations are best for a split and court intervention: where there is any risk of physical or sexual abuse to the children ( or partner ) or where the child is suffering emotionally from contact with the the narcissist. Not all children do, but for some sensitive children the almost imperceptible ( to others ) shifts and slights of narcissism are too much to bear.

If the narcissist regularly targets a child as an object of either idealisation or devaluation the child is unable to develop a consistent sense of self-worth, very damaging if the n. is a significant figure in the child's life.  If this is the case then contact with the child will also have to be severed to some degree, and if it's a parent it will be a messy divorce with lots of professionals involved, many who won't fully comprehend narcissistic personality disorder and will make things worse or inadvertently side with the narcissist.

But frankly any of these problems are possible in a non-narcissistic family as well as a narcissistic one. Each family situation is individual, and only the people in the situation can decide what is best for their own family members. A good therapist or court welfare professional will understand and attempt to facilitate that. the better ones will be educated about narcissism. But not all- be warned!

[phoenix]

bye

[phoenix]

bye

[tayana]

Thank you to those who offered their support.  There were a couple of things I wanted to reply to.

Guest -- I have a child, and I'm quite well aware of the effect my parents have on him.  I spend a lot of time untaglings lies my mother has told him and reassuring him that I'm not going to leave him.  To play advocate to your post, generally people who "stay together for the kids" never had a healthy family to begin with.  They're the families who divorce after the last child leaves the coop, or else they stay together forever because they don't know how to exist on their own, like my parents.  There are families who come through divorce relatively unscathed.  There were always be hurt and anger in a divorce situation, but families who deal with the problems are likely to still be fairly healthy.  And in my opinion, any family where the parent alienates the child, targets the child, or uses the child as a scapegoat for their emotion is an abusive family.

Phoenix --  I know how you feel.  I felt much the same way when I first came here.  I really didn't think my family was all that bad.  I just thought there was something wrong with me because I felt so badly about my parents.  I'm sorry your father was such a jerk, and I'm glad to hear you've worked through the pain.

Jacmac --  Children in normal, healthy families have problems just like the rest of us.  They get angry, sad, depressed too.  The difference is that their family doesn't ignore or belittle them for having feelings.  In my family, NOTHING was ever talked about, and the things that were, were discussed in ways that made me feel dirty.  "Don't tell your father about . . "  "Don't tell your mother . . ."  It disgusted me.  I hated the lying, the dishonesty, and I couldn't do a thing, because no one listened to me, even though it was okay to dump their problems on me.  Big issues, like my father drinking too much, my mother stealing money, and my own feelings were pushed aside, swept under the rug and not talked about.  For an example, my mother squandered the money my father gave her for the house payment, eventually the bank foreclosed, but she said nothing until they day before they were to be removed from the house.  Then her reaction was to get a gun and try to kill herself.  No one ever talked about it, and all she could say was, "I know your father blames me for losing that house."

Sorry to rant.

As I said earlier, families who talk about their problems have emotionally stable, healthy children most of the time.  I'm sure there are exceptions.  

From where I've come now, I can look back and see all the things about myself that I should have known much sooner.  I should have realized how my mother manipulated me.  I should have been able to stand up for myself.  I never could, and I still can't, not to her.  So much of my own personality was repressed and pushed aside to accomodate how she felt I should act, think, dress, and believe that it's taken me far too long to find the person I should have been.

[#1Texan]

From where I've come now, I can look back and see all the things about myself that I should have known much sooner.  I should have realized how my mother manipulated me.  I should have been able to stand up for myself.  I never could, and I still can't, not to her.  So much of my own personality was repressed and pushed aside to accomodate how she felt I should act, think, dress, and believe that it's taken me far too long to find the person I should have been.[/quote]

Tayana,
Please don't beat yourself up about "knowing sooner"  I honestly believe that we don't know any better, how are we as children supposed to know they are manipulating and controling us?  We don't, until we... in my case get out into the real world and see how things are with other people that is when we start to question things.  You seem to recognize now the abuse, and you are trying not to generate any of that to your child.  You are doing your D$%dest to make a loving home.
Take Care

Tex

[Anonymous]

all fo us do, none of us would have chosen life like it turned out, or had children knowingly with a person with personality disorder. I'm sure you're doing the best you can, and your child will be fine. Children are very adaptable if their needs are met by someone.

[Argusina]

Thank you for so many wonderful posts (very helpful & challenging) - still I have to say that stating that the "children will be fine and are adaptable" is really not something that we can be sure of.

Encouragement lies very close to denial sometimes... better be honest and assess the damage... without guilt but with our newfound responsibility...

[visitor]

Tayana  wrote "My mother wouldn't get physically violent, but she would throw things. Once she broke all of our dishes after a fight with my father. I remember hiding in the closet and praying for it to stop.Your wrote "

Throwing things and breaking dishes is violent and unaceptable behavior.
 
When I read this post, I thought you might be one of my daughters.  I am going through divorce now.  As a man, getting custody of my children is difficult is difficult enough but on top of that, the courts do not recognize Narcissism as a reason to deny custody to an N.  It has taken a long while to finally decide that divorce was better for my children than keeping a dysfuntional family together.  

Your perspective helps me with my resolve to go forward.

[Anonymous]

"stating that the "children will be fine and are adaptable" is really not something that we can be sure of. "


that's right, and true for any family. Just do your best as a parent, and watch out for and listen to the child.