Aleta Edwards, Psy.D., Licensed Clinical Psychologist,Life Coach & Author
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The Gift

8/28/2011

4 Comments

 
I think shame and a feeling of being bad or unacceptable come after learning we are separate.  We all have to learn this, like it or not. Then, if we are accepted in our separateness, we have a chance to not be filled with shame and a longing to be better in some vague way.  People who had miserable, abusive childhoods were obviously not given this and in fact are given multiple messages that they are bad.  That is the essence of shame, that we are somehow bad in a core kind of way. Yet, there are non-abusive homes in which the parents do not know how to let their children know that they are okay in their being different from them.  But some special parents do not need their children to be identical to them, to mirror how they wish they were.  My mother was such a person.  She never studied psychology but knew in her heart in a truly wise way.
I have early, preschool memories.  I always have.  I might have trouble remembering dates of everything important to me, or times, or names, but I remember some early things and I remember issues.  When I was very young, my mother didn’t work or drive and we would walk everywhere.  One day we walked to get ice cream cones, as was our custom.  My mother, ordering for us, asked for two vanilla cones.  I was very young.  I was gripped in an intense anxiety and asked her why she always got vanilla, as I burst out crying.  My heart was pounding and this was a significant development for me.  My mother, knowing what I was feeling, said, “Oh! I should have asked you.  Do you want something else?  Do you want chocolate?”  Crying, I said I  did.  My mother went on and said that we loved each other and that it was okay to not like the same things, that people can love each other a lot and like different things and that this had nothing to do with love.  She said she did not need me to like what she liked to know I loved her or to love me.  The anxiety started to leave me.  My mother then went on to say I was growing older and that she should have realized it was time to change the habit of just ordering for me.  She went on to say people were not good or bad because of a food preference.  

A short time later we took a walk to the drugstore, back in the day when you could eat lunch there and have a fountain drink.  We lived in Jacksonville, Florida, at the time.  My mother ordered two hot dogs, and added "No mayonnaise."  I asked her what mayonnaise was, and she said it was "the white stuff I use when I make tuna fish."  I said I loved that, and she asked if I wanted it on mine.  At this place, they used to put everything on hot dogs – mustard, ketchup, mayonnaise, and relish.  I told her I did want it, and it was fantastic!  I asked her if this was like the ice cream, and she laughed and said it was.  She said to always remind her of what I wanted, because she got used to my not knowing things and might forget and just order for me.  I was so happy because chocolate and mayonnaise entered my world, and more importantly, I was okay, and good, and free to explore my feelings and preferences without guilt or shame.  I have remembered this all my life and I am sixty now.

Several years ago I complimented my client Cindi’s hair.  It was short and spiky with a purplish streak, and she looked great and I loved it.  She burst out crying, and when I asked why, she said her mother never approved of her hair and she finally thought she may as well do it the way she wanted and have some fun with it, since she never liked it anyway.  But the act of freedom and trying to have some fun with her style was not what she had hoped.  She admitted to feeling bad and ugly and also guilty, and avoided seeing her mother.  I could give you hundreds of examples of people even in their 30s who had a hairstyle or other thing the mother didn’t like.  People oppose their parents and then think they are horrible people.  They go into therapy because they are in their 30s and can’t find what they want to do in life.  It’s no wonder!  They were not allowed to even be, let alone be someone with some self-expression. It is amazing the kinds of details that make people feel filled with shame and badness.  
 
When I told Cindi what my mother had told me, she began to sob, and I told her my mother could share this with her as well.  Of course, we had more  work, but the goal of this work was to help her internalize what was so freely given to me at the time it needed to be.  Some people really feel they are bad people because they didn’t clean their apartment, wash their dishes, do laundry on schedule, watched television instead of learning something that evening. I could go on forever.  I finally came up with the phrase “morally neutral” for my clients, to refer to these things that are neither good nor bad.  

As I have said, I have had my own path to walk and sometimes it has been very long, but that is not the purpose of this blog.  I have never doubted my essential goodness and decency as a person.  I have never measured myself or others by achievements. I have always known that I am not my achievements, my things, my likes and dislikes.  I had never thought about this until I met so very many people who did not get the gift I was given, and I have had the honor of working with so many with these issues.  
 
For my mother’s birthday, I want to thank her, to let her know that this gift, in the context of ice cream and a hot dog, was one of the greatest gifts a parent can give a child. I want her to know how her wisdom is freely given to those in need.  Until I worked with people therapeutically and saw how a majority had these painful issues of shame and not being good enough, I never knew I was rich.  I am sixty now and I put things together better than before, and when my mind tends to worry about different things or to feel bad about aspects of life that hurt, I remember that pearl sitting in my heart that my mother gave me – all the more valuable because she responded quickly and without intellectually knowing, just knowing.  I pray that my mother is with the angels in a wonderful place, soothing, healing, making people laugh, as she did in this life, and I thank her with all my heart.  I will always care about shame and related issues and reach out to help people, and I will never forget my brush  with those feelings.
4 Comments
Carl Harris link
8/28/2011 08:46:58 pm

Happy birthday to your mum, Aleta.

As a young boy I held a 'rose tinted' view of my mother who lived like an agitated ping-pong ball as if she were a 'victim of circumstances'. She had a number of opportunities to settle down but nothing was ever good enough and her children's role was simply to follow her from place to place - we would move home about every 6 months and it only began slowing down when I hit 15 years of age.

I left school with few qualifications, no friends and no idea about working life (I hadn't seen my father since I was 7) and the rosey tint was starting to fade - I started to see my mother as a manipulative bullying thug.

I'd been physically attacked and verbally abused by her for years but had always forgiven her but the forgiveness was coming to an end - particularly once I got married and she repeatedly tried to create a rift between me and my wife and me and my children.

I had also become her 'piggy bank' - she would be pleasant to me if she wanted money but unpleasant and abusive if she didn't and one day, in my thirties, she came round to borrow money and I just told her I didn't mind the money but I wanted a better family atmosphere. She told me our relationship was over and she never wanted to see me again.

A year or two later my neighbour knocked on the door to show me an article in a national UK gossip magazine in which my mother was a part of 'the most remarried couple in Britain' and in this article my mother stated I was the cause of her strange remarrying cycle because I wouldn't accept her husband. Truth was I'd only known him during their first marriage and he and I had never had a cross word. She did it for the money they paid.

About 6 months later I got a message my mother wanted to start seeing me again and I declined the invite.

She died a couple of years ago and I went to her funeral where my brother and sister and about 50 people I didn't know paid their respects - I was shunned by the attendees and it was obvious I'd been painted 'the Darth Vader of the family'; there were a few gasps and whispers at my unexpected arrival.

It didn't bother me much - on that day I was wearing my rose-tinted glasses.

I hated my mother's lifestyle; I hated her attitude and behaviour towards men and people generally and I hated that she never found personal happiness.

I hated the way she treated me and that she was stuck in a narrow escapist mentality that couldn't be challenged without her reacting like a cat on a hot tin roof.

But the reason I hated all that so much was because she had the potential for so much more and never reached for it.

In that sense I'm sure we're all similar to a degree and I definitely am not a perfect parent myself. But if I were to say I didn't learn from my mother it would be untrue - I learned about lots of things I didn't want.

And, although I eventually found I couldn't stand to be in her presence any longer and felt genuine relief when we parted ways I have to remind myself it was her behaviour I couldn't stand rather than her as a person and if there's enough time available any behaviour can be changed.

Underneath all that rubbish she was my mum and I cared about her.

RIP my mum - but if you're in heaven, give 'em hell! :) x

Reply
Xavier Nathan link
9/6/2011 02:33:35 am

Dear Aleta

You write beautifully. Your blog is turning into a book with each post being a helping hand being outstretched by you to all who read it. You have a beautiful way of reaching people's hearts through your writing and this is evident in the previous comment by Carl. You are a good person and may you continue to attract good people and circumstances in your life. All of those who come to you for healing are blessed indeed. Thank you for writing this post and please add a facility for people to subscribe to your blog so people like me who wish to follow your blog can be notified every time you add a fresh post.

Kind regards
Xavier

Reply
Dr. Barbara Becker Holstein link
9/18/2011 03:45:21 am

Dear Aleta, It is such a treat to met another psychologist as interested in the tiny, subtle moments that lie inside of ourselves that if not handled with care and insight, as your mother was able to do, can led to such suffering! We are definately kindred spirits. If you read The Enchanted Self, A Positive Therapy, you will see how often I have had similar moments with my clients. Look for Martha Trowbridge also. She has done some extraoridary work with women also.

Reply
Ann Becker-Schutte link
10/16/2011 03:28:19 pm

Aleta,

This was simply lovely, in a very profound way. I hope that your mother has some way of knowing how her gift of unconditional love, so freely given, not only changed your life. It also created the foundation for you to offer that same acceptance and healing to others in your path. I can't wait to share this.

Warmly,
Ann

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    Aleta Edwards, Psy.D.

    I am a psychotherapist in private practice, with a strong interest in shame and perfectionism. I will periodically post my thoughts about these topics and other observations relating to emotional health.

    (The people I will discuss in this blog are all composites of many people I have treated down through the years, but their stories are ones that will apply to many.)

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  • Home
  • About the Author
  • Life Coaching
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  • Perfectionism and Shame
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  • English sample
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  • Extrait en français
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  • site français