How do we react to emotional trauma?

by with No Comment Family

The situations we lived in our childhood leave a mark on us for better or for worse. These marks last for a lifetime. They are called emotional trauma. If our parents or relatives have hurt us emotionally, or if we belong to a dysfunctional family; it will be up to us to take advantage of these experiences. You can use them as motivation to make changes in our lives to avoid continuing the behavior patterns we saw in our homes.

Emotional trauma

When we look back at our past, and our childhood, we can discover and recognize interpersonal situations that directly influenced who we are today.

According to Horney, basic anxiety (and therefore neurosis itself) could be the result of a variety of critical interpersonal situations we experienced at an early age, including:

“… direct or indirect domination, indifference, erratic behavior, lack of respect for the child’s individual needs, contemptuous attitude, excess or lack of admiration, lack of reliable affection, having to take sides in parental disagreements, too much or too little responsibility, overprotection, isolation, injustice, discrimination, broken promises, a hostile environment, and so on…” (Horney, 1945).

Three broad categories of neurotic needs of an emotional trauma

Throughout her work, Horney describes 10 neurotic needs that can be classified into three broad categories:

  1. Needs that move us towards others

These neurotic needs to make individuals seek affirmation and acceptance from those around them. They could be categorized as dependents, since they constantly and disproportionately seek other people’s approval and affection.

  1. Needs that move us away from others

Its main characteristic is what is called neurotic detachment. These individuals are often cold, indifferent, and distant. They could be categorized as schizoids. According to Horney herself, “they have an intimate need to put an emotional distance between themselves and others.”

  1. Needs that move us against others

These neurotic needs give room for hostility, antisocial behavior, and the need to control other people. They are individuals often described as difficult, dominant, or toxic.

How to use the neurotic needs

People who have well adapted use all three categories in a balanced way, shifting focus according to several internal and external factors. But for people who grew up in a dysfunctional home, they did not feel safe expressing their true emotions towards the people who were inflicting injuries. So, they defend themselves by expressing their anger against people they considered weaker than them.

The other alternative was to self-diminish and view themselves as a worthless person and worthy of the punishment received. Many times this was the action that their parents supported, telling them that it was all for their good (Miller, 1993).

Gestalt therapy talks about the defense mechanism of retroflection, in which the retroflecter does to himself/herself what he/she would like to do to others. The retroflecter is his/her own worst enemy. Instead of expressing emotions and feelings to promote change, he/she directs everything towards himself/herself, doing to himself/herself what they would do to other people. The person directs his/her energy the wrong way, becoming the object of action instead of the environment.

If this is your case, the truth is that you did not have someone who could understand how you felt or who could help you validate your emotions. You felt like a stranger in a strange land. As a result, you repressed your emotions, and your wounds remained unhealed until you reached adulthood.

Intergenerational transmission of emotional trauma

When you reached adulthood, you tried to heal those wounds. You do it by seeking to finally establish a relationship with someone who could understand you and help you heal those wounds. But, the process is not something done consciously and. Besides, you cannot control the other person the way you would like, you ended up not receiving emotional healing.

If all this effort you made to receive healing did not work, maybe because you gave up and tried to resolve these emotional traumas by focusing them on your children. Or by focusing on people who you perceive as weaker than you and easy to control. And now, you feel that you can do to them what other people did to you.

You need to be aware of your emotional trauma

But you do not feel guilty because you are not aware of the trauma you have in your mind. Possibly you treat your children the same way people treated you, thinking that everything is fine. As the adage goes: you cannot fix something until you know how it got broken.

If this is your case, possibly while you do not acknowledge or understand the harmful effects of what your parents or relatives did to you during childhood. You will destine to repeat the same cruel acts you learned from them. You will do it without perceiving them as such.

Instead, you will try to defend or justify your behavior. You will do it in the same way your parents did. So, they claimed they were necessary for you to grow and be like them. This is how traumas that produce dysfunction in our families transmit from generation to generation.

Do you know any other defense mechanisms for victims of dysfunctional parenting? Share it with us in the comments section, so we can help others identify other manifestations of emotional wounds. God bless you.

How do emotional traumas develop in families?

by with No Comment AddictionFamily

Families are living on a battlefield. The situations in our society have made it this way. How do emotional traumas develop in families?

Statistics about emotional traumas

Many professionals dedicate their time to studying this phenomenon. Among these professionals is Doctor Joyce Brothers, who presents some terrifying statistics (1984):

  • 8 million women are being frequently abused in their own homes. They are victims of men who had promised to love them.
  • About 3.4 – 4 million children are being physically abused by their parents.
  • The writer Susan Forward says that there are more than 10 million Americans who have participated in incest, and come from different economic, cultural, racial, educational, and religious backgrounds.
  • It estimates that by the age of 18, about 45 – 60% of children in this country have been victims of sexual abuse (DeMause, 1991).

What is a dysfunctional family?

Thus, a dysfunctional family is one in which conflicts, misbehavior, and, often, abuse by family members, happen regularly, which leads to other family members accommodating such actions. Healthy families also go through crises, but after the crisis, they go back to functioning normally.

To understand the process through which a family’s emotional dynamics transmit from one generation to the next one, we need to understand the systemic concept of the “intergenerational transmission process.”

It is the transmission of values, facts, secrets, stories, emotional dynamics, and dysfunctional behaviors from one generation to the next. When these aspects transmit in a non-elaborated or non-processed way, they go from one generation to another in the same way, affecting the family’s mental health and healthy balance.

Today, we will talk about the influence that the intergenerational transmission process has on the foundation of functional or dysfunctional families, o their characteristics. We also see how it causes emotional traumas and how the dysfunctional cycle in the family can be broken.

How do emotional traumas develop in a family?

Some families have dysfunctional behavioral patterns that go from one generation to the next. These patterns can be alcoholism, consuming drugs, emotional, physical, verbal, or sexual abuse, mental illnesses, and an autocratic parenting style.

Let me tell you the story about a man named Pedro. His life story is a sad one. I met him when I was living in Philadelphia. His wife, a church member, called me one day. She desperately said to me: “Please, Pastor, do something for my husband. He is addicted to heroin.” When he had no money to buy drugs, he would sell whatever he found in their house he could buy drugs.

One day, I saw him in an abandoned house buying drugs. He told me his story. His father was an alcoholic, so he introduced Pedro to that world when he was still very young. And, from that moment on, that teenager’s life of no control began. He went from drinking to consuming marijuana. Then, from marijuana to cocaine, and then to heroin. This is the story of a young man who grew up in a dysfunctional home and got lost inside the addiction maze.

Emotional traumas are common in dysfunctional families

The toxic effects of dysfunctional families cannot measure. Children are the most affected in this type of family. All of these maladaptive behaviors take away the possibility of having a happy childhood. They also avoid the parent’s need to become functional adults in the future. Behavioral patterns become a “family script.”

There are several clinical studies that it proved that small emotional wounds produce daily and the lack of attachment with our parents can produce traumas that last a long time. These emotional traumas were produced every time:

  • they were not taken seriously
  • when someone mocked them or made fun of them,
  • when they do not allow expressing what they felt.
  • Specialty, when they do not treat like people who have their own will.

Self-esteem and emotional traumas

And many wounds that were inflicted when they were told:

  • to go away,
  • get lost,
  • close your mouth,
  • get out,
  • do not act like that…
  • or do not be such a…

All of these experiences were emotional traumas that inflicted wounds on their self-esteem. Even if it was the scenario in your home and family. Or even if today it is the scenario you have in the family you have built. Well, I have good news for you.

Even so, the deepest traits of our personality affected by adverse situations can transform. Yes, with the desire to change and improve as human beings and to be the best version of ourselves in Jesus Christ.

  • Maybe this is something you already know, maybe you identify with Pedro’s story because you grew up in a dysfunctional home, a dysfunctional family.
  • Maybe you have not realized that those emotional wounds that have not healed yet are affecting your life and your own family’s dynamics, the family you have built.
  • Or, maybe you see yourself repeating those same words to your children, the words that hurt you when you were a child, and that your parents said when they disapproved of you.

Do you want to know more about this topic? Then, I want to invite you to read our next posts, in which we will continue studying the main effects and characteristics of dysfunctional families so that you can overcome these difficulties. God bless you.

How to Fix a Toxic Relationship?

by with No Comment FamilyParenting

The Bible tells us that we were created to live in a community, not in toxic relationships. Our creator lives in the community and made us in His image, the image of a relational God (Gen. 1:26,27). A God manifested in three different people who are one in mind and purpose.

From the beginning, God intended to have a relationship full of love with Adam and Eve, and they were to emulate the same love-based relationship with each other. However, we know our first parents’ sad story. They broke their relationship with God and as a result, today we experience toxic relationships in our lives.

What is a toxic relationship?

When we talk about relationships, we tend to underestimate the influence of our sinful nature on developing healthy relationships with others. Our sinful state greatly affects every interaction we have with our neighbor neighbors.

It means that many times we find ourselves establishing toxic relationships unconsciously. As Pablo said, we do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do, this I keep doing. When are toxic relationships born, and when do they arise?

Thus, to answer this difficult question, we must consider how we develop our personality and how this affects the way we relate to others when we reach adulthood. It all starts when we are born.

According to Erickson, this is the stage of trust/distrust. At this stage, we can learn about the world through our parents’ eyes. If parents give love, affection, and attention to the child, he/she will develop a sense of trust and security in the parents’ arms.

However, if parents are too busy and so disconnected from the child that they do not have the time to become attached to him/her, expressing love and care, the child becomes confused and understands that he/she cannot trust those around him/her and develops a sense of distrust and insecurity.

Later in life, through the psychological mechanisms of integration and differentiation, the child begins to incorporate the parents’ traits into his/her personality and discards others. In other words, these traits begin to be a part of the child’s personality.

Children’s mental schemas

Then, the same way children have an innate ability to easily assimilate a language, they also have a system for adapting to a difficult environment and surviving. They assimilate what they see and build a defense mechanism to survive in their environment. These understandings about life and their environment become a part of children’s mental schemas.

What are these mental schemas? They are made up of thoughts, assumptions, and beliefs learned from experience with our family that help us to maintain a sense of personal identity during a difficult world when we are little, and also allow us to understand the environment in which we live.

In other words, the fundamental concepts are a structure that contains a representation of the reality in which that child lives. These mental schemas will have a great influence on the child’s life when he/she is an adult.

Adaptive or maladaptive mental schemas

These mental schemas can be adaptive or maladaptive. The problem with maladaptive cognitive schemas is that, like a map, they reveal approximations in the physical world. Cognitive schemas are also a map that helps us and guides us in our relationships with others. These maladaptive beliefs become the root of the relational problems we present as we go through life.

Mental schemas store in the subconscious and are not that easy to identify because they operate unconsciously. This is why you could be your best to have a healthy relationship with someone you love and still not see any progress.

These toxic behaviors often carry out unconsciously. This is why you might be stuck in a toxic relationship. People who are stuck in the past often need the help of a trained professional to identify toxic mental patterns.

How does a child develop a toxic relationship?

In general, there are four types of early life experiences that make a child vulnerable to developing toxic relationships.

  • Firstly, the toxic frustrations of needs. They occur when a child does not experience enough love and security to feel safe in his/her environment. This child learns not to trust others because he/she believes he/she could be mistreated and hurt again.
  • Second, emotional trauma occurs when a child is abused or victimized. A young person in this environment can learn to have a manipulative and abusive relationship with others, or can simply become a victim of an abuser.
  • Third, a child can be pampered or spoiled. This person may become highly dependent on others or feel entitled to special privileges. As a result, when this person does not receive what he/she expects from others, he/she can develop a mindset that is addicted to approval.
  • Fourth, the child may identify with or internalize the perspective of a dysfunctional parent. For example, a child who has been raised by an abusive parent may have the same emotional response as the parent when relating to his/her peers.

What can do with all these maladaptive basic concepts that lead to forming toxic relationships? The truth of the matter is that the damage that does a past toxic relationship cannot undo. However, there is something you can do about it.

How to deal with a toxic relationship

These toxic relationships formed from childhood can understand in the light of your new relationship with God. You cannot eliminate these mental schemas, but you can make sense of them and allow the Holy Spirit to renew your mind.

You are not alone on this journey, since we all have frustrations and disappointments when interacting with others. However, I have good news for you. The Holy Spirit’s mission is to restore the image of God in your life (Romans 8:29).

First, He will guide you to discover the full truth about who you are as a person (John 16:13). In other words, He will show you who you are in your mind and how your toxic relationships are destroying your life.

Secondly, He will renew your mind (Romans 12:2), bringing every thought (belief, mental scheme) captive to the obedience of Christ (1 Cor. 10:5).

Thirdly, the Holy Spirit will put the mind of Christ in you (1 Cor. 2:16) and He will make you a new creation so you can enjoy healthy relationships.

Set your mind up today to ask the Holy Spirit to transform your mind. May this be your prayer today: Give me a new heart, Lord

What’s the biggest thing you’re struggling with right now that I can help you with?