I THOUGHT 

I LIVED IN UTOPIA

It isn’t necessarily what you do.

It really is what you say!

by David B. Tick, M.A.

            One of the real tragedies of having a parent with a mental illness is how the very essence of that person can be so totally obscured by that disorder. I don’t know if my mother was ever medically diagnosed with a mental illness, but for those of us who were closest to her, it became evident, over time, that she suffered from a variety of psychological disorders. This likely diagnosis offered one answer to a very important question: How could someone with so much devotion and love for her children and grandchildren be so incredibly destructive to her family? That’s when I realize that it was impossible to separate her from her illness because I never knew who she really was as a person, only what I experienced from her, individually and as a part of the entire family.

            Growing up, children idolize their parents and rationalize all kinds of parental behaviors, just to feel the love that is so essential for them to flourish. The possibility of parental abandonment for the child is far worse than emotional, psychological, or even physical abuse… because to a child, any attention is better than no attention. There is some consolation in that my mother had an excuse for behaviors that were based upon some organic issues; however, it’s difficult to know for sure the origin of her apparent disorders. Recently, my wife (a school counselor and social worker) told me about one of her teenage students, who was feeling emotionally abused. His father had gotten him hockey equipment, signed him into a league, took him to the games, and spent quite a bit of money to keep his son involved in the sport. After a weekend game, the father had told his son how awful he had played (but with even harsher words), and my wife said that it was a devastating blow to the boy’s self-esteem and his emotional wellbeing.

            The teen didn’t think to himself that his father was making sacrifices and spending money as well as his time to have his son experience something positive. All he heard was his father’s disappointment and disapproval. Did the father have the right to say that his son should only be grateful and not sensitive to the judgmental comments?

            That’s what I heard at an early age. I was supposed to internalize that what my parents said to me should always be judged with what they did for me, and they wanted to be appreciated for it. Basically, I was not supposed to be impacted by their criticisms, opinions and comments, and I actually would feel guilty if I did not consider previous acts of generosity during one of their verbal assaults, so it was a double whammy: I had to take all the criticisms along with the responsibility of making a rather complex leap in controlling human emotions as part of the acceptance of their judgments. Of course because I loved them so much, I tried to do that; however, this cognitive dissonance created an insecure person who was taught that as long as you do something nice, you can say whatever you want, and that’s not a great lesson on how to create meaningful relationships.

            As a child, I don’t remember my mother changing my diapers, feeding me, caring for me when I was sick, and bringing me up to the best of her abilities, but what I do remember most vividly are the emotionally abusive words that tore into the fabric of an evolving self-esteem. She needed to control not only the situation, but also “the way I should feel about a situation.” If I didn’t feel what she thought I was supposed to feel, I was just not a good person like she was.

Parental Rationalization

My children need to understand that it’s what people do for you in life and not what they say. We’re all just human beings who say many things, but we should only be judged by our actions.

            At what age is a child capable of balancing the nuances in a parent-child relationship? In other words, when does a child have the cognitive and emotional abilities to discern the greater moral issues that parents are teaching from the individual parenting styles? There is no answer to that question but the simple fact is that parents were children once too, and they bring their frailties, insecurities, and unresolved issues from their own relationships with their parents along with them when they become parents. Too often we hear: “That’s the way I was brought up and I turned out okay.” You turned out okay? Says who? I just wanted both of my parents to accept me and allow me to feel good about myself and the choices that I made, even if I was wrong.

            That was wishful thinking.

Parental Rationalization

You don’t know how good you have it. When I was growing up, we didn’t have any of the advantages that your generation has. My mother worked seven days a week and shoveled coal into the furnace every morning.

________________________________

            My mother had many “close” acquaintances in her life, especially the different tenants who lived in the two rental apartments upstairs. Unknowingly, they were manipulated by her gifts, meals, and even money (my father’s), and they also served my mother’s purpose of being people with whom my late brother, my two sisters, and I were compared. She constantly referred to the devotion that she experienced from them, the kind of devotion that her children did not give her.

            Many times, these people were filled with so many half truths about us that they must have thought we were terrible children. After my mother passed away, I was told that a former tenant and “confidant” of my mother could never forgive me because my wife and I had stolen my mother’s house. This was totally absurd, yet I’m sure that nothing could convince the person otherwise.

            One extremely damaging behavioral technique in a parent’s “bag of tricks” is to compare their children with other children. This always sets up a winner and a loser, and usually the other child is the winner, which creates both insecurity and resentment. I never did quite measure up to the loyalty and commitment that other children gave to their parents, but I’m sure that the reality of what was going on in other households was quite different from my mother’s interpretation.

Chapter Two

            Recently, I came across a picture of my mother that was taken about two years before her passing. I was struck by the intense sadness, the incredibly vacant stare… with eyes like black, bottomless pools of water. It was a haunting image and I felt so bad for her, and yet I remember her behavior during that time, which was particularly reprehensible. What took me a long time to learn was that even though you really love and value your parents, it’s not being selfish to love yourself first.

            If you should judge people only by their deeds, what if the damage done from what is said…is more harmful than the “good” engendered from the nice things that they may do? Using hurtful words is a form of emotional abuse, and actions don’t always speak louder than words. Only those who rationalize their behaviors think that it’s a fair exchange. A few months before my mother passed away, she said to me, “I was just thinking of all thethings I did for you.” As she began to name a few, I interrupted her: “I would have rather had your emotional support than anything material.” Unfortunately, she had no idea what I was talking about, and I’m sure that she thought she had provided the perfect environment for her children, something of which I was fully convinced until my later adult years.

            I was never quite sure if my father drank because of her mental illness, or if she experienced even more madness from his almost daily drinking as well as the consistent nightly and weekend-long abandonment as the children began to leave home.

            What I do know is that the only time that they seemed to bond as a couple was in an alliance against the children. They had a tacit agreement: You let me drink and I’ll let you be crazy, or you let me be crazy and I’ll let you drink. Either way, we’ll support each other, despite the moral implications and damage that may result from our unholy alliance. My father would support her even when he knew she was wrong, even if she was blatantly lying, just to keep the peace as well as to prove his loyalty to her.

Parental Rationalization

I have to live with your mother and it’s not easy. If I don’t go along with her, she’ll make my life miserable so please don’t say any controversial statements around her because it will make trouble for me, and in turn, I’m not going to be happy with you. Even if she’s wrong, you need to apologize whenever there is a dispute because to keep the peace in this family is paramount.

____________________________

            I believe that if my parents had known better or could have done better, they would have, because in most ways they were always there for my brother, my two sisters, and me. As grandparents, they were incredibly loving, devoted, and very generous. The difficult part for my mother with her children as well as with her grand-children was when everybody began to grow up and were no longer dependent upon her. She needed that dependency, and it was almost as if she began to blame us for no longer being babies; she loved babies! Facing her primary childhood disappointment with her parents’ divorce as well as living in poverty, she could not deal with the prospect of even more abandonment (father) when eventually, everyone would continue on with their lives. As she lost control of her children, she began to take desperate and calculating measures to regain it.

            My parents used guilt, shame, and ridicule to create the desired behavioral results that they wanted from their children. It may have been what they had experienced from their own parents, but the scars of emotional and psychological abuse make it difficult for me to reconcile ‘why’ they would say the kinds of things that they said.

            There were times in their marriage when my mother actually told my father that she needed therapy, but he would bully her into doing nothing by threatening her safety and security with the fear of the stigma that she would be labeled an “insane” wife, and that his law practice would suffer. Because of society’s ignorance toward mental illness, he wasn’t necessarily wrong, but the real problem was that he thought therapists were “kooks,” and he wasn’t alone in that distorted perception among people of his generation; also, he certainly wasn’t going to consider any formal abnormal psychological diagnosis of his wife because of his own beliefs as well as the taboos that existed in society at that time.

Parental Rationalization

Everything needs to remain in the family because we can handle our own problems. It’s nobody’s business and people will try to hurt you if you reveal too much about personal issues. We could lose the house!

            It was unfortunate for my mother that my father was so resistant to her getting therapy, and it ultimately contributed to the final undoing of any possible truth in their marriage. Ironically, they did try marriage counseling; however, my father stopped going when the therapist labeled him as an alcoholic. This all happened during the time that my mother and some of us (family members) began to attend Al-Anon, something my father deeply resented, but it was helpful to learn how to detach from his drinking.

            As with mental illness, alcoholism can ruin the very best of a person as well as many of the good memories. The fact is that when my dad drank, his verbal abuse was every bit as damaging as hers. The difference was that my father didn’t drink all the time as opposed to my mother, who was crazy most of the time. There were instances when she might drop her defenses for a few moments, and that was really special because it demonstrated the potential that she had for being very loving, funny, intelligent, affectionate, and really entertaining! Those were the moments I held on to and still cherish, but usually she would give that part of herself — only to neighbors, strangers, and tenants.

            If you were from outside the family, she really didn’t have as many trust or abandonment issues, so she was able to share an emotional piece that was very rarely offered to the children, or at least to me. In terms of her close friends (and the children’s spouses), they fell more into the unenviable category of family, and her personality disorder created the need for her to be “the one” to whom everyone would turn. This usually included a certain level of “splitting” when she would set up one friend or child against the other, resulting in many fractured relationships.

            One time, she was so frustrated with my father’s drinking that she talked with one of my father’s oldest golfing buddies to get advice, and he reluctantly agreed that my father had a serious attitude problem and volatile temper when he was drinking, which strained their relationship at times. Unfortunately in order to bond with my father after an argument not more than a few weeks later, she broke confidentiality and said that his golfing friend had been talking against him. My father was furious and I couldn’t believe that in her moment of desperation, the person to whom she had turned for support ended up taking on a similar role as her children, that of the sacrificial lamb.

            Another time she revealed to a childhood friend of hers, whose husband lay in the hospital dying, that he had been cheating on her throughout the years. Their already strained relationship from my mother’s reputation of splitting, which began as a teenage girl, was now totally over. Broken relationships may have been one reason why my mother was always seeking new ones: no history.

            Both of my parents had issues with boundaries. My father’s usually appeared when he was drinking; however, with my mother, it was pretty much a constant. Also, when you see poor boundaries as modeled by your parents, it’s difficult to understand what “normal” boundaries are. For example, my mother was always complaining about her hemorrhoids. I guess she didn’t think that my brother and I fully appreciated the extent of her plight or were sufficiently compassionate, so one evening she summoned us into the kitchen, turned her back to us, pulled down her pants and underwear, and spread her “cheeks.” There they were! Hemorrhoids! She was right!

            The psychological damage that I experienced from her obscene weirdness was nothing compared to the fact that I really didn’t think that what she had done was so abnormal. Once you’re used to poor boundaries, you just accept it and unfortunately model some of it, but certainly not to that extent I would hope!

Parental Rationalization

You need to understand the enormity of my pain under all circumstances. I’m suffering and I think you’re ignoring my pain. We must all be aware of how some people suffer in silence and give them their due attention. This is an important lesson of empathy, and if it is too much for you to look at, get over it; people are dealing with much worse in hospitals, and nurses see these things every day; it’s no big deal.

____________________________

            My parents were very generous in terms of providing all of the basic needs in life… and more. I always appreciated that they gave me opportunities to succeed and taught me good values, but developing a positive self-esteem in a household with mental illness and problem drinking had more than its challenges… because the condemnatory remarks created the greatest impact, not the opportunities. Specific actions or behaviors by the children became judgments of our entire characters. The problem was that the dots could be connected from our earliest childhood proclivities, and my mother had a knack of finding the weaknesses and exploiting them to make her point. How could we argue with her about things we didn’t remember?

            When I was a little boy, I didn’t like to be teased about girls because understandably, it just made me feel uncomfortable, so I pretended to be somewhat oblivious to their existence, but that was not the case and I had many early childhood crushes.

            I remember driving with my mother as a young boy and glancing at a girl walking on the sidewalk. My mother quickly made it known that she SAW me looking at that girl and I needed to admit it. For an eight year old boy, talking to your mother about girls was really not going to happen. After that, I felt so embarrassed that I just shut down and never discussed any of my feelings with her until one day when I was a young teenager, I finally introduced her to a girlfriend. In a private moment away from everyone, she whispered to me, “She’s not very pretty.”

Parental Rationalization

If you didn’t want my opinion of her, you shouldn’t have introduced me to her. If you like her looks, that’s your business, but I don’t have to lie.

            Have you ever wondered why there are people who constantly try to build themselves up? Maybe it’s the same reason why some people tear others down: to increase their own self-esteem. From my eagerness to be valued, I had to “fish” for compliments and living with parents who provided so much and yet took so much emotionally created a paradox, a cognitive dissonance for the children: You’re very grateful for what’s being given,but incredibly frustrated from what is not.

            Parents might consider reflecting upon their parenting techniques and really assess whether or not what they are doing is working. The love that parents feel needs to be expressed in a meaningful way that has a positive impact, and once again this is created by words, not just by actions. Telling children that a parent loves you “in his or her own way” is not enough and from personal experience is completely unfulfilling. To reach one’s full potential, a child needs to receive encouragement and support without having to ask for it.

Chapter Three

            Because of my father’s penchant for martinis, especially extra dry martinis (basically straight gin), he did not achieve his life-long dream of becoming a judge. He just spent too many hours in the local bars, a behavior that he denied was the reason he may not have reached said goal. The fact is that others who were in the same position in the court system where he worked all became judges.

            The visible impact of my father’s drinking was in direct proportion to the incremental amounts of gin that he would consume in his martinis. It was both confusing and unpredictable. As children, we certainly could not navigate the complexities of adult behaviors, never mind adult behaviors under the influence. That was particularly difficult for my brother at the dinner table, where he was constantly berated by my father when my brother would make a joke or try to lighten up the serious atmosphere created by my parents. I was too young to recognize if it was the alcohol that made my father so intolerant of my brother’s sense of humor, or if my father was in a foul mood after being nice to people he didn’t like, and now he could just be spiteful in a safe environment with a perfect scapegoat, a needy son looking for his attention. I used to get such a sick feeling in my stomach when my brother opened his mouth at the table because I knew that my father’s response was going to be so aggressive, so hurtful… and with a booming, angry, and scary voice. My mother would warn us not to say much to my father when he would come home after work because “he had a very difficult day.” Being young, I was compliant, but my brother had more immediate, adolescent needs… human needs; he wanted to have his thoughts and opinions validated by his father, to talk about school and friends. But my father wanted to talk about his day, and how the people at the office annoyed him… going on and on. He would get so offended when my mother would say, “All right already about the office!” He continued to do this for years. We were never asked about our day, so my brother tried to have a normal — or even abnormal — conversation about anything. As a young child, I remember my older sister defending my brother, but the bottom line was that we either stayed quiet or risked a family argument, and it was usually the latter. Then the condescending opinions would follow with my mother blindly supporting my father in order to bond with her provider… chiming in with, “Your father’s right!” The reality for my mother was that my brother didn’t listen to her and keep his mouth shut, which made her resentful towards him because there was once again no peace at the dinner table, and certainly no consideration from my father that my mother had cooked a nice meal.

Parental Rationalization

We need to tell our son that he’s not funny so he won’t get himself into trouble with other people.

____________________________

            My father was either unable or unwilling to make a connection with my brother, a source of frustration for both of them throughout their lives. The following is just one more example of my father’s dysfunctional parenting: My brother was in high school and had competed in the talent show. His band finished in fourth place and out of the running for the top three awards. Instead of praising my brother about the performance, my father called them a bunch of “jerks” for taking too long in the set up of the equipment. At that moment, my brother didn’t remember the fantastic drums and expensive practice set he had been given, or all of those years of lessons with the best teachers. What he did recall, most vividly, was the pain of rejection that he carried with him his entire life from that event because it was reinforced in similar situations. The expectation was always that my brother should weigh everything equally, and realize how much my father had wanted him to succeed despite the criticisms that were always part of the equation.

Parental Rationalization

Constructive criticism is important and as your parent, I have right to give it, even if you don’t like it. You should appreciate my input and be grateful to both your mother and me. If you hadn’t spent all that time working on your set up, you may have finished in the top three and won a prize. Next time, you’ll consider that and not worry about the details so much. You should have realized that the crowd might get bored and the judges would hold that against you.

            The relationship my father had wanted with my brother was never going to happen because of my father’s inability to make a connection on my brother’s terms, including laughing at jokes that weren’t necessarily funny just to reinforce the bond, just to make my brother feel good about himself. As their children, it was our duty to make sure our parents’ emotional and psychological needs were met, something that became more and more exhausting as time moved on. It was wearying for me as an adult to continue this charade; however, it was the only way to keep some harmony in a family divided, a family torn apart by ego and pride — to satiate my parents’ need to be appreciated by children who never were as good as the strangers in their lives or as other people’s children.

            Another incident that deeply impacted my brother in terms of trying to make a connection with my father had to do with golf, my father’s weekend passion. My teenage brother was forced to caddie for my father on Sunday mornings. When I say forced, it was a psychological coercion that he later also used on me until one day I just refused, like my brother had before me. My father’s manipulation (guilt) was to tell us that other kids were caddies, and why should he spend money hiring someone else‘s child, when he could pay us instead. One early Sunday morning, my brother wanted to sleep past 5:30 a.m., so my disgruntled father left without him. My brother felt so guilty that he actually biked fifteen miles including dangerous highway riding to make it to the golf course; he didn’t want to disappoint my father. Upon seeing my gleeful brother who was sure that my father would be thrilled and appreciate his extraordinary effort, my father unleashed a barrage of devastating insults. To this day, I don’t like golf!