living with parents

August 5, 2018

Is a Breakup Ever Harder Than a Death? Reflections on the Complexity of Grieving

“You need to grieve,” is easy to say, hard to do. Some equate it with “feeling sorry for yourself” or insufficient religious faith. Others tell you the endeavor is not “manly.” A few give it a time limit and cut off the process too soon.

What else might block this dark passage to recovery?

The short answer? It sometimes takes longer to recover from the end of relationships with the living than those who are dead. Their continuing life holds out the possibility of a long shot, perfected resumption: a second chance at the prize.

As terrible as it is to survive the demise of one you love, the psychological remedy is relatively direct. Death means losing not only the departed, but the disappearance of whatever future you desired. Was there an apology you never got, but awaited forever? Would he have said, “I love you,” the words you never heard? “I’m proud of you” perhaps? Were there plans in the offing for a continuation of your bond with a being like no other?

All hopes are shattered by Death, a bigger than Life opponent with an undefeated record. Grieving becomes the only way to reconcile yourself to what you missed.

But what about a person who yet lives, but not within the relationship you desire?

—

Let’s say you reside with your parents or an unloving spouse, are financially dependent, and the object of unrelenting emotional neglect or abuse. Your dependency evokes grudging gratitude, but also fear of losing financial support.

Were you to open the full extent of your heartbreak and anger, it might be more difficult to contend with the ones who continue to heap misery on you. The wall built to endure mistreatment could crumble. A darker depression and rage against them or yourself will not now improve your life. Postponement of this therapeutic exploration (beyond awareness that you need to get out) is often the wisest course until your living circumstances are favorable.

A faith community that believes in instant “forgiveness” (or reflexive honor to parents and spouse) is also challenging. If you lack congregational support for the therapeutic process, you are likely to experience the very kind of invalidation, guilt, and misunderstanding you want to escape. Beware, too, an internal and external pressure to “be good,” win the approval of your coreligionists and friends, and don a smiling mask disguising private unhappiness.

Parental death, at whatever age, supplies notice of one’s permanent eviction from childhood. We receive automatic sympathy upon its publication. Widows and widowers are honored in the same fashion.

Not so for the ones who cannot have the other they prefer. No plot of land called a cemetery — respected and visited — is dedicated to their loss; nor the black attire or armband officially signaling their grief.

The graveyard of ended love affairs exists only in the mind of the bereft. Visiting hours are listed in the imagination as “anytime,” the garments of mourning observed from the inside alone.

Many face this grief in the world of divorce and shared child-rearing responsibilities. Continuing friction between the adults can endanger the well-being of the child. Treatment must honor the heartbroken parent, and enable a tightrope walk over a cesspool of emotional turbulence that might swallow you as well as your offspring.

Another roadblock to ending a living grief resides in a simple word called hope. Who can say when it is time to give up hope? How do you know when hope is misplaced? Who among us is certain when a fantasized future is the equivalent of a sunk cost: in effect, throwing good money after bad because you have already invested so much in another human being?

Exit from love’s casino is always a gamble. Memory and desire insist, “‘Tis not too late. …” When friends suggest you move on, however, they are not always wrong.

—

I recall a young lady in her early teens. Her father’s death years before did not unmake the “relationship’s” continuation. The worshipful veneration at the shrine she erected permitted an idealization that made the stepfather pale in comparison.

The latter was a fine man who wanted to give the teen all possible affection and guidance, but could not leap the barrier with which my patient surrounded herself. Only when she recognized the cost of her preoccupation with the biological father, did she embrace the decent man holding on to his own version of hope.

Loss of love, whatever the cause or consideration it receives, is not well-captured by the clichéd word heartbreak. Rather, the heart cracks, seeps, bleeds; it shudders, submerges, or bursts. The tissue tears and weeps. For most of us, the blessed thing will force itself to repair, reform, and — yes — take heart and try again. The heart, remember, is a muscle.

Patients always need to clean their wounds and suffer the sting such cleansing brings, even if touching them requires delicacy on the counselor’s part. The demands of work, child-rearing, housekeeping, and the daily indignities of life must also be respected for the therapeutic obstacles they can be. These complications function like the huge linemen in American-style football, blocking your progress toward the place you need to go.

Like therapy, American football is played 60-minutes at a time.

The best players find a way to get around and over those giant opponents; not as fast as one would like, of course, and not without bruising. Those who “break through” to victory are talented and relentless.

Courage takes more than a physical form, you know.

I saw it displayed in my office, in the therapeutic integrity of people just a few feet away.

They have long since left that place, but my awe and pride in them have not departed.

———————-

The first image is called, Knock Apparition Cloud by Froshea. The next one is entitled, Sad Woman. Jiri Hodan is the creator. Both are sourced from Wikimedia Commons. The bottom photograph is Georgia O’Keeffe, Abiquiu, N.M., 1984 by Bruce Weber.

May 20, 2010

Telling Your Children Too Much: The Danger of Role Reversals

“My children are the most important thing in my life.” I know you have heard that before. You might well have said it yourself, believe it, feel it, and it might be true.

But are you injuring them anyway?

What I’m talking about here is the tendency to confide in children; to tell them things that they shouldn’t have to hear.

Such as?

Feelings of depression and loneliness, criticism of your spouse, and details of your sex life (whether good or bad).

Questions to them about how you should handle your relatives and friends. Disclosures of insecurity about your abilities or your appearance.

Why not talk about these things?

First, you are the parent, not a friend. Even when we are older, we want to see our parents as people who are capable, strong, reliable, confident, and who will always be there. As children of whatever age, we want to know we can, in a pinch, go to our parents — count on their wisdom, and depend on their honor. We really don’t want parents to be friends, although it is good if they are friendly. We shouldn’t have to “take care” of the parent’s emotional life, serve as a confessor or a therapist; or function as a go-between for one parent in order for one alleged adult to get along better with the other nominal authority figure in the house.

Our children shouldn’t come to feel we are an emotional burden on them, the one who needs parenting rather than the other way around.

If our progeny are to separate from us, become independent, create healthy families of their own, take good care of themselves, and navigate the white water of twenty-first century life, it does not help them to take on the parenting role of their own parents.

I have known children who were required by one parent to retrieve the other from a neighborhood saloon. I have known children who were expected to accompany one parent on her detective work in an attempt to discover whether her spouse was cheating on her. I’ve known kids who were told to ask for the child support (much too common), expected to mix the parent’s favorite alcoholic beverage, smoke pot with mom, lie to the other parent, or cover dad’s money mismanagement; and when older, double-date with a divorced parent and take over the job of being the isolated parent’s social life.

It is usually the mom, not the dad, who cries on the child’s shoulder, gives too much information, and creates the emotional burden for the child. Dads are less likely, even today, to talk about their emotions and their weaknesses and insecurities. A father’s stoicism can be a problem for a child, but not usually in this particular way. Nor are fathers as likely to compete with mothers for a child’s attention, interest, and camaraderie.

Instead, when dads become a burden it is usually a consequence of their misbehavior, addiction,  or life failures. Regardless, neither parent should communicate that the child must “choose sides” or take over the psychological role of a spouse, because one parent is estranged from the other and needs support. While such parent-child relationships are not frankly incestual in a physical sense, they can be emotionally incestual and contaminating, fraught with a sense of something not right and a feeling of complicity in the usurpation and betrayal of a much-loved guardian.

Even after childhood is over, we still prefer our parents to be bigger than life, ideal models capable of solving any problem, all deriving from the same instincts that caused us to say “My dad is better than your dad” when we were little. Of course, as adults we know it isn’t true.

A funny story: my dad told his three sons (when all of us were still small) he’d been a famous Chicago Cubs pitcher, but somehow, quite mysteriously, all record of this time in the Major Leagues had been lost! Moreover, he’d been so reliable, hard-working, and constant that he could pitch nearly every day. And so, his teammates came to call him “Rain or Shine Milt Stein.”

Soon enough we realize stories like this are not true. Soon enough we become aware our parents do not embody the perfect mix of human qualities. Eventually, we see that our elders have failures of judgment, imperfections of mood, and suffer from doubts and worries just like everyone else. We realize even our parents cannot protect us from heartbreak, failure, and injury. Soon enough we see them aging and grasp they will not be around forever, and might even come to a point when they cannot fully care for themselves. Life reduces everything to size sooner or later.

If you are a parent, don’t accelerate this process; know that your children need protection not just from the outside world, but from you — from your intimacies and personal problems and sleepless nights just as much as they need their own privacy and the permission to fail, to learn, and to grow on their own — to come into their own and own their lives, not to be hostage to your judgment, your worries about them, or worries about you due to an invitation or requirement to know you too well.

A parent is a guardian and a custodian, not an owner; a loving authority, not a buddy. A child is not on the planet for the purpose of fulfilling your life, but rather, to fulfill his own.

Your life is your job, not that of your offspring.

One of the greatest favors a parent can do for a child is to take good care of himself or herself both physically and emotionally, not expecting anyone else to achieve that result for him (or worry about the fact it is not being adequately accomplished). And yes, this means even such things as eating well, following medical advice, and making oneself as physically fit as possible.

How important are your children to you? Not in words, but in deeds — in the way you relate to them and the care you take of yourself?

If you haven’t put your words into action, might it be time to start?

—

(The reproduction at the top of this page is Rembrandt’s Young Woman Sleeping)

January 30, 2010

High School Reunions

So you have a high school reunion coming up. And, perhaps you are a bit uncomfortable with the idea of attending. I’ve heard quite a few reasons that cause people to hesitate to go to just such events:

  1. No one will remember me.
  2. Everyone will remember me.
  3. I’ve gotten ________(fill in the blank here with such things as: fat, bald, wrinkled, or the physical defect of your choice).
  4. I haven’t accomplished anything or I haven’t accomplished enough.
  5. I’m divorced.
  6. I’m_________(another blank to fill with such things as: living with my parents, an ex-convict, dreadfully boring, etc).
  7. I never liked those people when I was 17, so why would I like them now?

I imagine there are other reasons, but you get the idea.

Let’s see if I can counter some of these excuses:

  1. Lots of people believe that they won’t be remembered. It is unlikely that no one will know your name. But even if you are recalled by few others, a reunion is actually an opportunity to get to know some of the people who you didn’t know well in high school.
  2. Apparently, you believe that you were well known as a social outcast or as an obnoxious teenager. But perhaps you will be surprised to discover that people are pretty forgiving after 10 or 20 years. If you are no longer on the outside looking in, you have nothing to worry about — people will take you as you now are. And, if you were a bad guy, maybe you need to apologize to a few people. They will almost certainly be gracious.
  3. Do you really think you are the only person who changed physically since your graduation? Unless your classmates live in a jar of formaldehyde, its likely that they haven’t escaped the aging process. It’s true that people age differently, and a lucky few are pretty well-preserved (or have been cosmetically altered to give that appearance), but only one or two have made pacts with the devil to remain ageless.
  4. In the midst of the “Great Recession” more than a few people are out of work or under-employed. You will hardly be alone in this either. Indeed, the reunion might be an opportunity to network.
  5. You are divorced? Look at the reunion as a chance to encounter a new love. Many of the divorced people in attendance are looking for just that opportunity. You might be the person they seek.
  6. OK, living with your parents is not something to brag about. Unless, of course, you are taking care of an aging parent, in which case it tells your old friends that you have a heart. And, if you have a criminal record and are reformed, good for you. Unless you made the front page of the Chicago Tribune, its unlikely that anyone will know this. As far as being boring, you have some time to think about what you might say to the people you meet at the reunion. Work on it. Think of some good questions to ask them. And remember what notable or amusing events you’ve lived through since the last time you saw your old friends.
  7. So you didn’t like your classmates. You didn’t get along with the snobs, the jocks, the brains, the preppies, the druggies, the burn-outs or all the above and more. The good news is that some of these people have changed and are now much more approachable. More good news: some of the people who seemed stuck-up were actually just as shy as you were, and you mistook their distancing for disdain.

A few more observations about high school reunions. The closer in time to your graduation, the more people will resemble their high school avatars. The first reunions, certainly including the 10th and 20th, do involve a certain amount of social comparison among people.

But, by the time you reach reunion 40, almost anyone who comes is just glad to see you and likely to be unconcerned with anything to do with your social status, bank account, or beauty. The feeling of good-will is pretty palpable by the time you are reunited in middle-age: you know that not everyone from your class is still alive, and you are likely to appreciate old friends more than ever.

There is something about being with people who lived in the same place as you did, had the same teachers, in the same moment in history, at precisely the same age as you were when you achieved many of the “firsts” of your life: first kiss, first love, learning to drive, taking your college board (SAT/ACT) exams, and so forth.

You (and your old classmates) had all the same anxieties, worries, hesitations, and learning experiences as you tried to figure out who you were and what was the best direction for your life. It’s likely that you’ve made good friends later in life, but these high school friends were the people you walked with in the formative moments of that life, the people who knew your still relatively young parents and your siblings, and the almost brand-new version of you. Nothing can replace that shared background and knowledge.

So, if your not certain about attending your reunion, I hope you will think about what I’ve written. You might be pleasantly surprised by the experience.