Neglectful Silence (From Carolyn's Thread)

[Gabben]

I've copied this thread from Carolyn's old "Neglectful Silence Thread (I know she won't mind) since the issue was raised by Amber on Polymaths thread.

This was just eyeopening or heart opening for me as finally getting at a stabbing pain that has been in my heart that I have yet to identify, although I am sure that I have, before, in the past, just too much pain to process all at once. I'm sure you know?

When I first started working in T with a Freudian T, this was one of the first issues raised up for my awareness as I was upset with his constant silence and unresponsiveness or his one liners of insight rather than he fullfilling my childhood desire for mirroring and emotional comfort. It was painful work, I learned through the transference what was going on me with, starting a deeper more reflective way of re-parenting my inner child and grieving the losses of lack of emotional comforting in childhood. But this wound is up, again, but a much deeper level that anything I have ever experienced, or at least it seems that way since I was a baby and emotional comforting was SO much of what my whole world was about. Now, the wounds color my world, but just to a degree, I can separate out the past from present, eventually, in a flash and start comforting myself....
Lise
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.... IS Abuse... 
excerpted from  http://www.aardvarc.org/child/about/emotional.shtml

Silence is another way to emotionally neglect or abandon a child. In MY opinion, this one is the worst. By not sharing anything intimate or vulnerable with the child, or not sharing information that the child needs to grow and develop, the child is emotionally and intellectually alone without a means to get the information they need to grow and develop. Silence is another way of controlling. Information is power and when an abuser holds onto information, the child is left feeling vulnerable. The child will never know a sense of comfort by knowing that the caretaker has also felt vulnerable at times or has felt vulnerable as a child. I think this makes it hard for a child to allow themselves a vulnerability. Even as an abuser, this person is an adult who the child may feel they should grow up to be like. If it's bad for an adult to be vulnerable, it must be bad for a child to be vulnerable too, right?

These children learn how to become easy to use by becoming invisible; they become compliant and without needs, and they fear the consequences and the unknown state of being apparent, real, noticeable, with boundaries, and having needs.

[Meh]

Thanks for putting this post up, it helps me to understand my mother's form of neglect/abuse. She was passive in a controlling way.
Almost nobody that I have met before "gets" this and it's difficult to communicate. This board is the first place where I've "met" people who understand.

[Gabben]

Glad it helped, Helen.

After writing about this my heart started bleeding again. I need to go to my favorite well for love, Christ. Just sitting in a church or chapel, giving Him my time, prayers, silence, heart, gives me the strength to keep trekking through the desert of my heart, the dry experience of childhood emotional neglect. God is love, His love fills me, it is the only thing that really fills.

Peace,
Lise

[Meh]

Lise,
I'm trying to send you a prayer. The prayer that I sent you looked like a gigantic, fluttering cloud of multicolored butterflies, I hope they reach you. They were mostly orange, pink, yellow with a little bit of blue and purple maybe some glints of silver. Maybe they will be waiting for you at the other side of the darkness.

[Gabben]

Lise,
I'm trying to send you a prayer. The prayer that I sent you looked like a gigantic, fluttering cloud of multicolored butterflies, I hope they reach you. They were mostly orange, pink, yellow with a little bit of blue and purple maybe some glints of silver. Maybe they will be waiting for you at the other side of the darkness.

Helen,

That is so beautiful, what an image to hold on to. Earlier, this week, I was out for a walk and saw a butterfly with the exact colors that you mentioned above, the blue in the butterfly stood out to me because it was so vibrant against the dark blackish purple and contrasted with the orange in such a stunning way.

Thank you.

[Meh]

Lise,
I'm trying to send you a prayer. The prayer that I sent you looked like a gigantic, fluttering cloud of multicolored butterflies, I hope they reach you. They were mostly orange, pink, yellow with a little bit of blue and purple maybe some glints of silver. Maybe they will be waiting for you at the other side of the darkness.

Helen,

That is so beautiful, what an image to hold on to. Earlier, this week, I was out for a walk and saw a butterfly with the exact colors that you mentioned above, the blue in the butterfly stood out to me because it was so vibrant against the dark blackish purple and contrasted with the orange in such a stunning way.

Thank you.

Thank you. I just teared up a bit upon reading this.

[bearwithme]

Gabben, I'm so sorry for your pain and I hope your heart mends someday, somehow.  I found the post very intriging.  I would like to know more about this "silence" theory.   I know it's hard to talk about but I got to thinking and I think I need some examples....for my Nmom.... I'm not making sense, I know. I'll come back when my 2 year old is not tugging on my hands as I type...

Bear

[Gabben]

"These children learn how to become easy to use by becoming invisible; they become compliant and without needs, and they fear the consequences and the unknown state of being apparent, real, noticeable, with boundaries, and having needs."

Hi Bearwithme:

This line above says a lot and is a good starting place when trying to work through the invisible but real wound of emotional scarring from lack of communication.

There are a couple of examples that I can think of one being my older sister, who has four young children, still to this day has a hard time telling me what she needs and will conform to my expectations or wants just to safely assure that she will not get rejected or start conflict. Such as I asked her if I can come for a visit this Christmas, staying with her family as I alway do, she was silent which told me that she is needing to have this Christmas alone with just her family and not go through all that she goes through when I come for a visit, which, as much as she enjoys me, she has to drive usually in snowy dangerous road conditions to get me 1 hour 45 min away at the airport. Also, as she puts a love of energy into my visits, opening her home to me when I am there; bottom line, company, no matter who it is can be exhausting. But instead of her telling me this she would most likely conform, not taking care of her needs, which are understandable. But since we grew up not knowing how to set limits with others, expressing our needs assertively, we stay silent. A learned behavior. Later, as adults, this leads to tension, resentments and possibly broken relationships.

Fortunately, for my sister and I we have learned to develop unconditional acceptance and love of each other, so even if we fight or have conflict we always get it resolved, somewhat messily, but we work it out by baring all with each other.

Another example is that as a child my mother looked down on us children, "as children." We were to be seen and not heard. We, according to my mother, were not allowed to ever talk back or to speak unless she told us to. We conformed our inner world in order to get our psychical needs met, denying our emotional needs.

As an adult I have learned to better identify my emotional and any needs, acknowledge my needs as OK, human, and then practise getting my needs met with direct assertive behavior, communication that at times is frightening, but I risk asking for what I need; I may be rejected or others may not like my requests but that is the risk I have learned to take. As I have developed a healthy sense of self and higher self-esteem that knows that I am worthy no matter what (not entitled...there is a difference) I can ask for what I need with a genuine assertiveness that is not off putting...people don't like being manipulated.

Hope this helps in some small way.
Lise

[JustKathy]

Ny N mother's silence prevented me from growing up and developing into an adult in the manner that a child normally should. I had written about this in Amy's thread about feeling like a child. I still feel like a child. I think I always will.

My NM never taught or told me anything. She kept me isolated from news, current events, things I needed to know. When it came time to give me the "sex talk," she never told me how people actually have sex, just that it was "dirty" and something I should never do until I wanted children. She never told me how to interact with other adults, only to address them as Mr. or Mrs. Smith, then to shut up (children are to be seen and not heard, etc). I think she believed that she could keep me in a state of arrested development, forever a child, by not telling me of adult things. Most of what I learned about the adult world, I learned in school.

When I left home and went to work, I was not able to function normally around other adults. I thought that I was a little girl working with "grown ups." I had no social skills. I didn't know how to properly act on a date, and would sleep with any man who told me the things my mother never did - that I was pretty, smart, or loved.

Once I went NC with my mother, I started to feel myself pulling out of it and finally being able to assert myself as an adult. Before NC, she continued to treat me like a child, and continued to not speak of certain things in front of me. At Christmas time, me, my siblings and one cousin (in our 30s and 40s) were still required to sit the "children's table," away from the adults who were talking about "grown up things."

My sister never managed to escape from this, and at 47, has the maturity of a 12-year-old. A child cannot grow into an adult without a parent to guide them there. Withholding information on basic life issues can do irreparable damage. To this day, I have a very hard time viewing myself as an adult. I always believed that Michael Jackson had the same problem, that he was unable to view himself as an adult. That's what N parents can do to us.  

[Meh]

Re: Bearwithme

I have an example:

A woman who took care of me when I was a kid, would talk to me as if I was in the room, she would share mundane bits of information with me. She would tell me how her father made her and all her siblings scrub their feet really good because he didn't like dirty feet. Now I know that statement means nothing and is not important, the thing is I remember her telling me that, the little tid bits of personal information she would share with me and how she would share them. She shared them in an accepting way.

With my mother I am allways rejected somehow even if not overtly it is covertly, there was a lack of mundane family intimacy.
There was never a true exchange of acknowledgement and acceptance.

My parents never talked to me as if my thoughts or opinions mattered.

In some families children are spoken to directly about their own lives and world. What happened in school today?
What friends did you play with? Where did you ride your bike to? How was your music lesson? What song are you working on?
What color wall paper should we put in your room? What would you like to do today? What did you think about that movie?
Did you have fun?

I've seen parents ask their children the above questions and the kids are CONFIDENT in their own perspectives and oppionions and their right to have their own oppinion even if it differs from their parents oppinion. The parents acknowledge that the child has it's own child's world.
The child is not wrong for having it's own world.

Come to think of it, I know for a fact that mother never once asked me that most basic question "Did you have fun".
I can't recall if my father ever asked me that question either.

[JustKathy]

Helen, I was never asked those questions. I was, however, told how I was to respond to them. I was instructed to tell my teachers, relatives, etc. what I was working on (even if not true), what classes I was taking, what clubs I belonged to in school, and so on. I was never asked the questions out of genuine interest - just given the answers - pre-rehearsed answers designed to make HER look good.

[Meh]

Just Kathy,

Yes, Being told what to think and say is another layer of silence.

[bearwithme]

Gabben--thank you for the example and additional stories to go with such an awful subject.
Helen--thank you as well for the insight and the examples you had.  They hit home.

I think for me, my Nmother silenced us as people.  Her anger and rage did not allow for ANYBODY else's feelings or emotions and God forbid, any of us had opinions.  They had to be her opinions and hers only.  I have to be careful of this in my life. At times I find myself slightly frustrated when someone doesn't share my opinion about something and I can't fathom why not.  My therapist said that it isn't necessarily that I WANT people to share my opinion, it's that I'm looking for something else...maybe to be heard or just simply, believed.  Perhaps I get frustrated when my opinions or feelings get dismissed by people because that is what my Nmother did my whole life. Dismiss my feelings and opinions.  So my frustration comes from feeling "not heard" or "ignored" when all the other person is doing is sharing their side of things, they are not my Nmother, I remind myself.

My Nmother neglected us in this emotional way just like you all had this experience.  But in front of people, she was different.  She put on and act that she was a superior mother. JustKathy mentioned about always being treated like a child.  My Nmother did this as well.  She preached to me all my adult life that I had to be a better family member as in to my aunts and uncles and cousins, that I had to partake in ALL activities and gatherings, I had to be by her side as that's "what all children do for their mothers."  Mind you, in my 20's and 30's I had my own life and jobs, etc., and I couldn't make all the family gatherings, and some I just didn't want to attend.  She would scream at me for hours that I was a "bad" child "bad daughter" and a "horrible family member" and she would scream "you were the ONLY ONE NOT THERE!!" She would say "you are my child  so you better act like one!"  What??  I would get soooo pissed when I would find out that only 2 out of 22 cousins and 3 aunts and uncles, out of 9, were at a particular gathering!  Over half my cousins were not there because they were either on drugs, drunk or nowhere to be found.  But I was the bad family member!  She just wanted to look good in front of everybody, "oh, see, my daughter looooooves me...we're the perfect mother and daughter!"

I got so sick of this routine of hers that as I was going to therapy and learning to have a voice and feel my anger, the next time she told my I HAD TO attend some family gathering to be by her side "as [her] daughter and child as a child should be by their mother's side" I told her I had to work and couldn't go.  She went nutso!  Nmom told me I better not be working that day and if I was then everyone will be so disappointed in me, especially her.  I literally had to work and I didn't back down.  She yelled into the phone so loud my husband (boyfriend at the time) heard her from across the room.  I boiled over this time and I screamed back!  I screamed at her to never, ever call me again and to never, ever invite me to another family gathering....that I hate her family, they are losers and racists...I screamed at her to give up the notions she has a daughter that stands by her side, that I would never stand by her side and never, ever want to be her friend! 

That was my first boundary establishing event.  The next phone call she made to me was sweet as pie, but I turned on her again and screamed all kinds of hateful things and kept raging on her.  I let it ALL OUT!! I told her I hated her and thought she was ugly.  I screamed that she was a b--tch and crazy, I screamed that I hated her and she was a useless piece of sh--, that I'm embarrassed to call her "mom," I screamed that she ruined my life..I said so many more things.  But I screamed so loud that my voice cracked and I was hoarse.  Well, she was stunned and started to cry like a baby! I kept screaming. She hung up on me. I called back and got her answering machine and I screamed into it until it beeped and cut me off.  I called back again and did the same thing.  I kept hitting redial and doing it until her recorder was full. I went manic. I screamed out all my pain into an answering machine.

I kept calling like some stalker freaky person!  3 hours later she finally picked up the phone and cried, "why are you doing this to me?  why are you trying to destroy me?"  I screamed into the phone one last time, "HOW DOES IT FEEL????? HOW DOES IT FEEL WOMAN??? HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE YELLED AT?  GET READY WOMAN BECAUSE I'VE JUST BEGUN!!!!"  Literally. And I laughed like a Jackall and told her to rot in Hell.  I came out of my skin, I really did. 

It felt great.  I only did this once and it was 6 years ago and I want to do it again but it's too exhausting.  As you can guess, Nmom never got it.  She continues to this day with her same abuse.  She's sick.  Her silence to me as a child still reigns. I find this issue so interesting. N's neglect and don't communicate and on so many different levels.  But for that one day, I had my voice and broke her silence.

I apologize for my rant here.  I feel I've hijacked your thread Gabben, forgive me please.

Bear

 

[Meh]

Re: Bearwithme.

You mentioned that you have to be careful of not putting your opinion onto other people.

I too, feel this way, I'm not sure that some people are comfortable having their own opinion around me.
I really want to be understood, but I don't need for people to be just like me or think just like me.

I have worried about this though. Me forcing my point of view onto others. It also depends on the strength of the other person's personality I think. Some people really do go along with anyone they come into contact with, others can feel comfortable being together without having to agree. It's a two sided thing. It's interesting to watch.

I had a friend who always seemed to agree with me and it started to worry me that she was being fake to me and that I was somehow causing or forcing her to be fake. Then I watched her interacting a lot with other people and she did the same thing with everyone, not just me. She goes along.

I think that what you may be getting at is that we have a HUGE need for VALIDATION of our perspective?
We could not trust our own perceptions growing up, every thing became skewed and warped.


Oh yeah, and the family gathering thing, I get that, I really do. My mother would get really mad and mean and manipulative in order to get me to go to family gatherings. It frustrated me because she didn't really care about me, she cared that the event unfolded the way she demanded it to, with me going to the event and being polite, polite...oh

[JustKathy]

Oh yeah, and the family gathering thing, I get that, I really do. My mother would get really mad and mean and manipulative in order to get me to go to family gatherings. It frustrated me because she didn't really care about me, she cared that the event unfolded the way she demanded it to, with me going to the event and being polite, polite...oh

YES! I absolutely get that. Christmas was M's big day, and everyone was required to be there, OR ELSE. She didn't give a rat's patooey that I was there - she just wanted the event to go as planned, in order to impress others. Every Christmas was celebrated as it had been when we were children. The big tree with gifts stacked to the ceiling, the decorations, the whole family gathered around. And she would take videos, and send them to her siblings, to show them that she was a perfect mother, with a perfect family. "Look at me, my family adores me. They're all here celebrating with me." Then the next day, it was "pick up your stuff and leave."

She was producing a show for the benefit of others. When I finally pulled the plug and said that I was an adult in my forties, and would no longer act like a child on Christmas day, she went into a rage that was not to be believed. Now every year, we get gifts mailed to us, that contain nasty notes inside.  Once I stopped attending, she went to great lengths to ensure that I suffered on Christmas day. When we found out that she was terminally ill, the first thing my husband said was "no more nasty Christmas surprises."