Brave New Kitty

Another thing I notice when people get together with family is how similar the younger generation is to the older one. My friend’s parents are highly dysfunctional people: verbally and physically abusive, dishonest, and narcissistic. Since reaching adulthood, he’s had little to do with them. His brother, on the other hand, is becoming more and more like their father every day. Even weirder, his brother’s wife is almost a clone of their mother. You can see this in many ways: how they raise their kids, the things they’re interested, even the clothes they wear, the possessions they value, their language and mannerisms. Mostly, you can see it in the morals they hold (or lack thereof).

If you told my friend’s brother this, he would horribly offended. He hasn’t distanced himself from their parents the way my friend has, but he still considers them to be people not worth emulating. If he realized how much he was like their father, and how much his wife is like their mother, he would devastated. (And I don’t know how people manage to find spouses that re-create their parents’ marriage, but many do. It is a fascinating topic.)

The truth is, we are all like our parents. Our only choice is whether to be so consciously, or to be so unconsciously. If we are unconscious of how we have absorbed their lessons and learned to imitate their behavior, then we are likely to take on the worst of their behavior in a state of not-so-blissful unawareness. If, however, we recognize the inevitability of being like our parents, then we have more choice about what we emulate and what we do not.

If we had good parents, parents who were decent people, who loved us, and who tried to do the next right thing, then being like our parents isn’t a big deal. In fact, it might feel good to be told we were like our mother or father (I wish I knew what this felt like!). But if our parents were unloving or abusive, then the inevitability of being like them can sound horrifying.

So horrifying, in fact, that many of us spend our adulthood trying to not be like them, trying to fight our inevitable fate. In so doing, we often end up even more enmeshed inthe family system because all of our decisions are still in reaction to it. Trying to avoid our fate is just about as bad as being unaware of it.

I spent many years trying not to be like my parents. One day, I was devastated to realize that I was, in fact, very much like them. I had the same poor impulse control, the same anger issues, the same bouts of depression, the same self-destructive streak. Much of this, I realized, was beyond my control. These traits had been imprinted in me long before I had the power to resist them (and were perhaps even biological).

After a period of deep mourning, I realized that fighting the inevitable was futile. Instead, I learned that self-awareness was the key. The more I understood my behavior, its root causes and what I expected to gain from it, the more I was able to free myself from the prison that once felt so impenetrable. Being like my parents wasn’t so bad, I discovered, as long as I understood and accepted my lot in life.

Paradoxically, acceptance was, as it is in so many life situations, the key to change. For only by accepting my fate was I able to be at peace with it. And once I was at peace with it, it lost its power to control me–and I was free. Fighting it fed its power, while accepting it starved it. Only when I came to terms with who I was, the good the bad and the ugly, was I able to transcend it.

And the truth is, being like our parents doesn’t have to be horrifying. Your father may have used his anger to hurt people, but you can use yours to help people. Your mother may have been a passive-aggressive doormat, but you can turn this into a real sense of compassion for others. I even learned that I had inherited some good traits, such as a love of books and learning and the ability to think for myself.

It’s all in how you look at it.

But looking at it is key. Because if you don’t make a conscious effort to be aware of your personality traits, one day you will wake up and realize you’ve become your mother or your father. If this doesn’t disturb you, great. But if it does, then a little bit of self-discovery will do wonders for your peace of mind.

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, Jim and I got together with some of his relatives. We are not close to his family, but he has one uncle who we enjoy spending time with. The conversation turned to the past, as it usually does, and we spent a few hours sharing stories most of us already know and reliving tragic times that we wish had never happened. When I get together with my sisters, we inevitably end up doing the same thing; rehashing sad old stories we all know by heart, as if trying to come up with different outcomes.

I have noticed that this happens with a lot of people who share invalidating backgrounds. We never seem to get tired of telling, and listening to, the stories that shaped who we are. You’d think we would want to forget these things, to move on, to focus on the positive, to live in the present rather than the past. And mostly, we do stay out of the past most of the time. But when we get together with the people who know our histories, there is often a powerful urge to regurgitate it over and over and over.

I don’t have a judgment about this one way or the other; it’s just something a lot of us seem to do. But I got to wondering why this is so.

One simple reason is that it’s common ground. It’s a way we connect with each other. We may not be very involved in each other’s adult lives and have gone our separate ways. We may not have a lot in common in the present, and we may flail about for topics of conversation and ways to feel comfortable with each other. But we always have a past that connects us, and we can always fall back on it if all else fails. When we talk about a shared past, we renew a very old, very strong bond, and we feel close again, even if we no longer are.

This is true for happy and unhappy pasts alike, though, so it doesn’t fully explain the rehashing of painful memories. I think the reasons for such rehashing go deeper.

I think maybe it’s a sort of reverse nostalgia. We want to relive the past not because we enjoyed it, but to try and make sense of it. We tell all those stories over and over and over because we are trying to fit them into some scheme or worldview that we can make sense of. We are trying to figure out why we were treated badly when we were young and unable to defend ourselves. We are, in essence, trying to understand the injustice that was done to us, and how we could have been betrayed by the people who were supposed to love us and keep us safe.

There isn’t room in the human psyche for such injustice. People are biologically wired for self-preservation, and when you’re a child, that means being dependent on the adults in your life. So when those adults hurt us rather than nurture us, it defies our biological wiring; it literally makes no sense. But, also out of self-preservation, we are driven to try and make sense of it anyway. We can’t help it; giving up on making sense of it means, in a very real way, giving up on our innate self-preservation instinct. To accept that we were treated badly means accepting that on some level, our parents didn’t care if we lived or died.

It isn’t that simple, of course. Along with the indifference, abuse, and invalidation came at least a minimum amount of nurturing; if it hadn’t, we wouldn’t be around to talk about the other. But this only adds to the confusion of trying to sort out the past. And it can be hard to accept that both things are true: that yes, our parents nurtured us enough to reach adulthood, and yes, they were also in some ways very un-nurturing.

But it is never the nurturing part that we need to make sense of. It is the other, and because it is utterly nonsensical–that is, it goes against everything we know, need, and are wired for–we are stuck with a largely unsolvable puzzle. Yes, there are rational reasons why people hurt their children, but they are complex and messy and often tightly kept secrets. And even if we reach the point of intellectual understanding (“I know now that my father abused me because his father abused him,” for example), it can take much, much longer to arrive at an emotional peace about it–to accept the past as it is and give up trying to change it, to know to our core that it wasn’t our fault, to forgive, and yes, even to find some gratitude for the painful pasts that so deeply shaped our lives.

Many of us never quite get there.

But we keep trying because we are compelled to do so, even if we aren’t aware that that’s what we’re doing. So families get together, and the rehashing continues, a decades-long conversation that seems to have no resolution and no end.

And you know what? This is just fine. Because as long as we’re still trying to make sense of a nonsensical past, the rehashing will and should continue. Verbalizing emotional pain is healing; by putting it out into the world, we lighten its burden. We feel validated, and we feel less alone, and we feel better. No, it isn’t necessarily good to keep going over the same old ground ad infinitum, the same old complaints and grudges, without some effort to come to terms with them. But I think that doing this is the effort to come to terms, to heal, to become more whole. And no matter how far we get with it, the effort itself is proof of our commitment to our own self-preservation; it is, in a very real way, proof of our self love, even if it may not feel that way.

This is the time of year families see a lot of each other. So if you have a family that likes to rehash the past, don’t feel bad, and don’t try to resist the urge to participate in the griping. Instead, surrender to it, and participate with the full awareness that this is part of the healing process. Know that there is a purpose to what you’re doing, and that if you stay present with it long enough, paying attentions to your feelings and trying to figure out why they’re there, that purpose will eventually become clear. This is the first step to someday no longer needing to engage in the reverse nostalgia that demands so much of our attention and energy.

Years ago, as I progressed in my recovery from addiction and an abusive past, I found that I was spending less and less time with my family. At first, it wasn’t a conscious decision; I just found myself more and more reluctant to be around my family because I didn’t like how I felt. When I did visit them, I became ever more aware of how bad I felt around them, eventually linking my several-week long depressions and suicidal urges to having spent time with them. When I realized this was my pattern (and had been for my entire adult life), I really began to create distance, consciously and deliberately. I began to spend holidays with friends, or even by myself, rather than visit my parents, who were particularly unsavory for the last six weeks of the year (which I wrote about here). I also shared less and less personal information with them because I had begun to learn what it meant to be truly listened to and cared about, and no longer wanted to open myself to shame, criticism, and ridicule.

This decision to create distance has been validated over and over for me whenever I do get close to my family; this happened again for me just this week. I am so glad I no longer feel obligated to spend the holidays, or any other time, with people who are soul-sapping for me to be around. Sometimes I feel guilty, and always I wish it were different. I know they are hurting people, but I also know now I can’t help them, and that it is agonizing for me to try. I have accepted the way it is and no longer need to pretend it is something else.

The key word here is “is.” Present tense. When children grow up and become self-loving enough to create distance from their invalidating past, the people who are part of that past, primarily parents, tend to always look to it–the past–for the reasons. I know my own parents (now just my father) believe that my sisters and I are hanging on to slights and grudges that happened thirty or forty years ago, that we are still nursing wounds that should have long ago healed. They think I am bitter and angry and stuck in a past that no longer exists, that I have given it far too much power to frame my life and my choices.

They are wrong.

It is not about the past. It is about the present. It is about the simple truth that these people who hurt me when I was small haven’t changed. They are still the same people they were then, the same broken, hurtful, invalidating, pathologically narcissistic people they have always been. I don’t keep my distance because I’m stuck in a painful past; I keep my distance because of a still highly unpleasant (some would say “toxic”) present.

The evidence for this is overwhelming. My father, though now an old man, is still drinking. He is still uninterested in my life. He projects the same negative energy, the same hostility, the same indifference that he always has. The same goes for the other people from my ancient past who’ve hurt me. And I know they are the same because they’ve made no attempt to make things right or, in fact, to do anything differently at all. When I have contact with them, the dynamic is exactly how it has always been. Their treatment and expectations of me are as if no time has passed at all.

People who want things to be different don’t behave this way. If they’d had any epiphanies about themselves or our relationship, if they wanted things to be different, I would know. I have had enough experience by now to know the difference between emotionally honest people who make mistakes, and insincere people who have no intentions of changing. Sadly, most of my family members fall into the latter category.

It is sad, but it isn’t surprising. People who hurt vulnerable children have to live with themselves, after all. They have to find a way to rationalize their behavior, to somehow make it okay in their heads. Otherwise, they’d have to look at themselves; otherwise, they’d have to change. And we all know how hard change is. So instead of confronting their own demons and taking responsibility for them, they continue to project them onto other people. They may be a bit more careful about doing so than when their children were small, but unless there has been an admission of wrongdoing and a sincere effort at change, the behavior persists. Sadly, because change is so hard, and requires more self-awareness than most people hardened by their wrongdoings possess, these patterns are likely to continue indefinitely.

It is not about the past; it is about the present. I am not bitter or angry anymore (although it took me several years to work through these feelings). Today I have only good will for my parents (and have told them so). But today I also understand that letting certain people into my life is not a requirement of good will. For my own sanity, I have to love some people from a distance.

So many of us get into relationships and then wonder if we’ve done the right thing. We wonder “is this the right person for me?” Or “is this person good for me?” Or “am I getting what I should be getting out of this relationship?” People can spend months or even years with someone who isn’t who or what they really want; some people spend entire lifetimes like this, tied together by stubbornness, fear of change, or both.

All because they haven’t subjected their relationship to one simple little test.

This test is so simple, so obvious, and so easy to assess that I’m amazed I haven’t thought of it before this. I mean, I have thought of it, but only in vague terms, like sort of a background issue, when in actuality it is a foreground issue of the most pertinent kind. It is the be-all, end-all summation of whether a relationship is “good,” “healthy,” and “right.” If your relationship passes this test, then you have a good foundation for a future together. If it doesn’t, then no amount of time, patience, effort, or heartache is likely to make a difference.

Here is the test: Ask yourself two simple questions. First, do I love my partner just the way he/she is? Second, does my partner love me just the way I am?

That’s it. If you can be honest with yourself in your answer (the biggest “if” involved in this little experiment), then you will know what to do, even if it is not the action you were hoping for.

Why is this test so important? Because the test of true caring is whether we love, and are loved by, a person who thinks we’re okay just the way we are. This is not to say this person has an unrealistic view of who we are, or vice versa; just the opposite. He sees us how we are, faults and all, and accepts us anyway. And just as importantly, we feel the same way about him–he isn’t perfect, but he is perfectly alright just as he is. There is no need to try to change him or improve him.

In other words, you and your partner like each other. You’re friends. If you don’t both meet this simple requirement, a long-term relationship will make you both miserable.

One reason this simple gauge is so often overlooked, I think, is rooted in our childhood conditioning. Many of us grew with parents who taught us that we needed to behave in certain ways to get their approval, that our lovability was tied to our performance. Some of us even learned that no matter what we did, parental approval was never quite going to happen; such approval was a moving target, and even if we managed to meet a stated requirement, that requirement was quickly changed to something else.

It is not just abusive parents who do this. Tying approval to performance is something all parents do in an effort to teach their kids right and wrong, and in many situations, it’s a valid approach. But basic love and acceptance should never be up for grabs in this way. When it is, children learn that they need to act a certain way in order to feel lovable, and they learn to see other people conditionally, too. This is disastrous not only for their relationships, but also for their self-esteem.

A conditional sense of love and low self-esteem can cause many problems, as we know; one is that people have limited abilities to judge what kind of relationship they want or how to get it. They tend to be focused primarily either on finding attachment or approval, or in seeking “projects” rather than partners–people they believe they can transform into the perfect mate, just as their parents tried to transform them into the perfect child (both of which are, of course, non-existent). In both cases, “fixing” is the focus, either yourself or the other person. Fixing will re-create childhood circumstances, which we subconsciously see as a “second chance” to prove our lovability. It is unlikely to result in a happy, long-term partnership.

Since all parents are imperfect, all of us reach adulthood with some measure of unlovability issues. The question is not whether we have them, but rather, to what degree we have them. (And this realization is best followed up by asking what we want to do about them, but that is another topic.) For the same reason (i.e., that we believe we are unlovable), if we are lucky enough to find someone who loves us for who we are, just as we are, and whom we feel the same about, all of these impulses to fix or be fixed just sort of heal themselves. It is incredibly validating to be accepted, simply and wholly, for who we are. It is poignant, rich, and wonderful. It is, I think, the key to healing all those old wounds (which is why therapy can be so powerful: it is the experience of completely non-judgmental acceptance by another person). It is something that all humans deserve, yet few of us actually find. And because it is so rare yet so simple, many people can go through life never comprehending that that is what they’ve been looking for all along.

If you’re questioning your relationship, or questioning your what you want, or you feel unsure about what constitutes happiness with another person, this simple little test is a good starting point. If you’re able to answer it honestly, the decisions that result may be hard ones, but they will be the beginning not only of finding “real” love, but of discovering real self-love, as well.