It is highly unusual for my daughter to ask me for advice. Until recently, I can only remember a few occasions when she sought my wisdom regarding the profundities of life. Maybe denying the need for help from parents is mapped in our genetic code. I never asked for much assistance from my own.
However, recently Amy came of age. At 36, she finally decided it was time to lean on dear old Dad. On this rare occasion, during a recent phone call, a bombshell was hurled. Amy retorted, "Dad, what can I do to rein Malia in a bit? My feisty four year old daughter is wearing me out!"
As a psychotherapist, with plenty of parenting expertise, I'm sure that Amy was waiting for my most profound response. However, my spontaneous reaction took both of us off-guard. Impulsively, I replied with, "I don't know Amy - I sure as hell didn't know how to cope with you - maybe it's payback time."
We both had a good laugh as we processed the parallels between Amy and her precocious, pesky daughter. Here are a few of the significant similarities:
• They both are a strong-willed handful.
• They became non-stop talkers before they were developmentally capable of walking.
• They both love to carry the show with intensity - camera, anyone?
• They are both too smart for their own good. Going to school comes disgustingly easy, but is filled with the challenges of unmet academic needs.
• They both are similarly assertive, bordering on aggressive; please look out when they're unhappy!
• They both appear affectionate, but seem to be overly-sensitive to other’s feelings.
• They are extremely independent people. They know what they want and you don't dare hinder their progress!
One area of temperamental variance is worth noting. It is a fascinating distinction and the area where I believe my daughter is being punished for her past. Malia insists on wearing pink clothes and accessories at all times. Malia has a pink handbag, beret’s and beads to match her feminine looking clothes. This fashion statement, required by Malia, is a foreign concept to my daughter. At first, Amy tried to encourage Malia to wear different colors, but to no avail. Malia resisted wearing anything but pink.
Amy wonders where she went wrong. She was the queen of the Gothic look, wearing black as her only color scheme throughout school as a theater buff. However, when Amy came home from the first semester of college, a miracle occurred. I found a pastel colored sweater lying on her bed. “What are you doing with this pretty sweater?” I replied. Amy laughed and said it was a new day in her life.
When I see Malia, I see the wonderful reflections of my daughter. I see the smile, the passion, the precociousness, and the personal need to be understood. They are versions of the same person. Being out-of-state, I don't see Amy or Malia that often, but when I do, I'm so grateful that my granddaughter has not forgotten who I am. She's a slice of my daughter and a good one indeed!
James P. Krehbiel, Ed.S., LPC is an author, freelance writer and nationally certified cognitive-behavioral therapist practicing in Scottsdale, Arizona. James is the featured Shrink Rap columnist for TheImproper.com, an upscale arts, entertainment and lifestyle web magazine. He has contracted with New Horizon Press to publish his latest work entitled, The Search for Adulthood: Saying Goodbye to the Magical Illusions of Childhood. This book is about the impact of “unavailable” parenting on adults and the people they become. James can be reached at www.krehbielcounseling.com.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
The Search for Adulthood: Grieving the Past and Embracing the Present
Learning to process and accept our past is a necessary step in one’s search for adulthood. Instead, people often choose neurotic suffering as a way of coping with painful memories. Neurotic suffering consists of coping mechanisms that put a salve over our wounds. Rather than confront one's painful past, adults will convert their grief into physical symptoms, and mask their losses through over-activity, intellectualization, avoidance, self-blame and projected anger.
Neurotic sufferers ignore the stop signs, transcending their grief as if it weren't there. They pretend that everything is running smoothly, ignoring what their bodies, mind and feelings are trying to tell them. They diminish the truth in the pursuit of coping, choosing to ignore their emotional distress.
Holding Ourselves Together
Anxious sufferers hold themselves together like a ball of yarn. They fear that if one strand were pulled from the ball, they would slowly unravel into a mound of scattered threads. However, protecting oneself from the realities of the past eventually creates insurmountable fatigue. One's sympathetic nervous system reacts to the stress of trying to ignore the reality of stored and unprocessed psychic pain.
We must move through our grief and loss in order to get to the other side. There is no substitute. We cannot short-circuit the grief process without paying a price consisting of unnecessary suffering. Grieving our pain allows us to legitimately navigate our loss, finding closure over past perplexing problems.
Mourning and releasing our losses takes time. There is no way to short-circuit the process. There are strategies that we can employ to facilitate moving through the grief process. Here are a few ideas:
• Share one's painful narratives with friends.
• Seek the emotional support of family.
• Journal one’s thoughts and feelings.
• Write a letter (not to be delivered), focusing on the impact of a significant other as you grieve the loss. Explore difficult emotions and thoughts.
• Give up the illusion that people (particularly our parents), will change into the people we have always wanted them to become.
• Face our mortality by grieving the aging process and its affect on us.
Learning to Get Our Power Back
Once we face our grief, our past will no longer have power over us. We are freed from being straddled with false guilt, remorse, regrets, and the inability to connect on an emotional level with others. Grieving is like peeling an onion. There are layers, and it takes patience and persistence to navigate through our turmoil.
If one holds tightly to metaphors of pain, refusing to acknowledge its presence and impact, the lack of resolution creates the conditions to foster self-defeating thinking and behavior in the present. Often, individuals who have thwarted the grief process, continue to play out interpretations and narratives of behavior similar to scripts present during childhood. Individuals may have failed to squarely face their painful past - as interpreted through the eyes of a childhood burdened by emotionally unavailable parents. They may never have come to terms with the pain generated by those who failed to love them unconditionally.
Saying Goodbye to the Magical Illusions
People, who experience the pain of a turbulent childhood, often cling to the illusion that someday their parents will magically morph into the loving parents they longed for. Rather than swallow the "bitter pill" of how our parents dealt with us, we continue to hold out hope that someday, somehow, they will change. By holding out false hope, we minimize the significance of promises un-kept, thus cutting ourselves off from the part of us that needs individuating.
The search for adulthood involves recognizing the power of our painful past, creating and releasing it, and learning to rationally respond with fresh interpretations in the present. The search for adulthood involves finding integrity, authenticity and adventure. By appropriately grieving roadblocks from our painful past, we are able to move forward and become adaptive, functioning adults in the present.
James P. Krehbiel, Ed.S., LPC is an author, freelance writer and nationally certified cognitive-behavioral therapist practicing in Scottsdale, Arizona. James is the featured Shrink Rap columnist for TheImproper.com, an upscale arts, entertainment and lifestyle web magazine. He has contracted with New Horizon Press to publish his latest work entitled, The Search for Adulthood: Saying Goodbye to the Magical Illusions of Childhood. This book is about the impact of “unavailable” parenting on adults and the people they become. James can be reached at www.krehbielcounseling.com.
Neurotic sufferers ignore the stop signs, transcending their grief as if it weren't there. They pretend that everything is running smoothly, ignoring what their bodies, mind and feelings are trying to tell them. They diminish the truth in the pursuit of coping, choosing to ignore their emotional distress.
Holding Ourselves Together
Anxious sufferers hold themselves together like a ball of yarn. They fear that if one strand were pulled from the ball, they would slowly unravel into a mound of scattered threads. However, protecting oneself from the realities of the past eventually creates insurmountable fatigue. One's sympathetic nervous system reacts to the stress of trying to ignore the reality of stored and unprocessed psychic pain.
We must move through our grief and loss in order to get to the other side. There is no substitute. We cannot short-circuit the grief process without paying a price consisting of unnecessary suffering. Grieving our pain allows us to legitimately navigate our loss, finding closure over past perplexing problems.
Mourning and releasing our losses takes time. There is no way to short-circuit the process. There are strategies that we can employ to facilitate moving through the grief process. Here are a few ideas:
• Share one's painful narratives with friends.
• Seek the emotional support of family.
• Journal one’s thoughts and feelings.
• Write a letter (not to be delivered), focusing on the impact of a significant other as you grieve the loss. Explore difficult emotions and thoughts.
• Give up the illusion that people (particularly our parents), will change into the people we have always wanted them to become.
• Face our mortality by grieving the aging process and its affect on us.
Learning to Get Our Power Back
Once we face our grief, our past will no longer have power over us. We are freed from being straddled with false guilt, remorse, regrets, and the inability to connect on an emotional level with others. Grieving is like peeling an onion. There are layers, and it takes patience and persistence to navigate through our turmoil.
If one holds tightly to metaphors of pain, refusing to acknowledge its presence and impact, the lack of resolution creates the conditions to foster self-defeating thinking and behavior in the present. Often, individuals who have thwarted the grief process, continue to play out interpretations and narratives of behavior similar to scripts present during childhood. Individuals may have failed to squarely face their painful past - as interpreted through the eyes of a childhood burdened by emotionally unavailable parents. They may never have come to terms with the pain generated by those who failed to love them unconditionally.
Saying Goodbye to the Magical Illusions
People, who experience the pain of a turbulent childhood, often cling to the illusion that someday their parents will magically morph into the loving parents they longed for. Rather than swallow the "bitter pill" of how our parents dealt with us, we continue to hold out hope that someday, somehow, they will change. By holding out false hope, we minimize the significance of promises un-kept, thus cutting ourselves off from the part of us that needs individuating.
The search for adulthood involves recognizing the power of our painful past, creating and releasing it, and learning to rationally respond with fresh interpretations in the present. The search for adulthood involves finding integrity, authenticity and adventure. By appropriately grieving roadblocks from our painful past, we are able to move forward and become adaptive, functioning adults in the present.
James P. Krehbiel, Ed.S., LPC is an author, freelance writer and nationally certified cognitive-behavioral therapist practicing in Scottsdale, Arizona. James is the featured Shrink Rap columnist for TheImproper.com, an upscale arts, entertainment and lifestyle web magazine. He has contracted with New Horizon Press to publish his latest work entitled, The Search for Adulthood: Saying Goodbye to the Magical Illusions of Childhood. This book is about the impact of “unavailable” parenting on adults and the people they become. James can be reached at www.krehbielcounseling.com.
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