When children are not allowed to blame their parents’ bad behavior, they typically turn their blame against others and/ or themselves. When we cannot put our blame where it belongs, we are often unconsciously impelled to blame and hurt someone else. Dr. George R. Bach and Dr. Herb Goldberg describe the consequences of this: Many of the common forms of displaced aggression such as scapegoating, bullying, prejudice, and cruelty are by-products of aggressive feelings first felt within the family but suppressed. To inflict pain at least proves that I can affect somebody. If I cannot affect or touch anybody, I can at least shock you into some passion through wounds and pain. I shall at least make sure we both feel something .
Whether or not we unconsciously act out our blame through scapegoating, most of us unfairly blame ourselves for the deficits we suffer from poor parenting. We scapegoat ourselves rather than consider that our parents might have seriously injured us, especially since complaining about bad parenting is one of our culture’s ultimate taboos. Renowned psychologist Erik Eriksen points out that blame becomes shame when it is turned against the self, and many of us suffer unending bouts of toxic shame because our inverted blame continuously generates self-loathing. Until we understand the degree to which our current pain derives from unresolved childhood losses, we are susceptible to blaming the wrong person( s) for our troubles. We can have an approach to blame that does away with the need for scapegoating and witch-hunting, and that allows us to feel and express our blame in ways that do not hurt us, our parents, or innocent bystanders. If you would like to assess whether you have been poisoned by your own blame, close your eyes and notice your inner experience as you try to remember challenging your parents. Perhaps you don’t have any recollections of resisting them. Maybe your complete “humbling” took place before you can even remember. Nonetheless, you may still tense up inside, feel guilty, or even scold yourself at the thought or image of questioning your parents about anything at all. Or perhaps you remember traumas that occurred when you disagreed with them. If you feel any loss or distress doing this exercise, I hope it will motivate you to more thoroughly explore your relationship to blame.
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Mu this exercise spoke to me a great deal, it is in the Tao of Fully Feeling. I am a practical lady, and I am looking for ways to release. There is deep meaningful work going on in my soul and I am unblocking although it's stirring up things that I thought i should leave settled. I was mistaken.
Like you I have FOO issues. These are holding me back. They aren't the same kinds of FOO issues as yours.
I compared your reaction to FOO to Ghosts and thought hard and deep about it. There is much to see, as yet I have to explore sexual abuse and my next learning module is on that.
I am starting to look beyond ACES, although as a measure it is excellent. There has been much research based on ACE findings and some is relevant and some not so much so.
I truly had not understood that the poor parenting I had was abuse, neglect of a child is abuse. I was never hit or verbally attacked, I was loved after a fashion I suppose. It is referred to as benign neglect and it counts. As a result I became a fawn.
Your reactions to your FOO are fascinating and I want to analyse them with you as they contrast to mine. I see all the cycles clearly in the stages of your life as I do in mine although in a different order and exhibiting in different ways.
I went back and reread all of your threads a couple of times and have considered my thinking. I have lost track if I owe any other posters on the board assistance and if that is the case then I am happy to be reminded by them on the other threads.
There is still much work to do and thinking to undertake.
I believe we have established the acts of your life and arrived at a point where the abuse by your dad was a trigger. I also think you carry blocked shame which has spilled into your R. I see some mimic behaviour, suppression and pivots where change occurred because of the underlying shame. Each pivot changed your direction and stimulated another reaction from you based on your thinking pushed by shame. Shame is about who we are, blame turned inwards. The shame arose because healthy guilt wasn't expressed. Guilt when healthy is our moral compass it gets us back on track. We atone, guilt is assuage, we grow and then move on.
Blame and shame of ourselves lies hidden and leads us to be inauthentic. Unable to properly connect and have intimacy with another.
We are now seeing the authentic Mu emerging. Your world is still at the moment so I think it's a good time to move forward. As always Mu, you can say stop enough. I will not be offended.
Please know this is a new area of growth to me and my thinking is still in faux as I acquire book smarts. I also have less experience than adult abuse sitches. My own abuse by WH was deeply buried until I came here.
My next post examines my view on your father and mother and frankly isn't too kind.
V
Until we can mourn the past we are doomed to repeat it
