TRANSCRIPT
CONFRONTING PARENTS PART 2
Often confronting parents in the actual flesh creates a lot of backlash, and in some cases, it can be outright negative. I mean, if someone is still being supported financially by their parents, often parents who get confronted just cut off their kids financially. If people are getting some of their love needs met from their parents, often the confronted parent will totally stop loving the child.
Now in both those cases—being cut off financially and being cut off in terms of love from one’s parents—this could be good actually. Especially if the person’s an adult, it can be a real thrust toward adulthood. The other thing, if you really confront your parents, one thing you really find out is who they are. You can find out if they’re on your side or not. Now some parents can fake it and say they’re on your side and say they empathize with you, but generally, that’s not the case.
My observation is that parents are not too amenable to being confronted. It’s laden with too much horror, too much pain, and too much discomfort for them. They may try to empathize with you and try to admit what they’ve done, but usually, it doesn’t make that much of a difference, and they only go so far—if at all. And it may kick up some guilt in them. Or it may not. But I think that’s a best-case scenario. The worst-case scenario is that they absolutely hate you from confronting them. They could try different ways to destroy you.
PARENTS TO BEWARE OF
I’ve heard cases of parents getting children or adult children who confront them psychiatrically locked up. Can get them arrested. Can sabotage them within the family system. Spread horrible things about them. And this can be devastating to a person.
That is the other thing—why does someone really confront their parents? What I’ve observed in others—and sometimes in myself too—is deep down people really still are saying, “Please love me.” They’re desperately trying to get loved by the parents, and if you’re confronting your parents about the horrible things they did to you, secretly what you’re really saying is: “I wish you’d own what you did to me, take responsibility for it, now love me properly.” I’d say: “Guess again.” Because that’s not going to happen.
KNOW THY MOTIVES
The key if you’re confronting them is to know why you’re doing it. And if you’re expecting them to love you, then you’re barking up the wrong tree. On the other hand, there is still much value to be learned because if you criticize or attack or really critique your parents for what they’ve done to you, they often drop their mask—and you get a chance to really see who they are, and that can be of value.
It can be extremely painful, but also it can be a pain that can actually be very provocative for growth. Sometimes not on the short run—sometimes that can be devastating. It can even drive a person psychotic to realize how much the parent hates them and always has, or doesn’t love them, or is not on their side at all, or doesn’t fight for them. But on the other hand, in the long run, it can be a vitally important clue to know where your parents really stand.
SO IF YOU ARE GOING TO CONFRONT…
Some other things I would urge: whatever you do, if you confront your parents, keep your hands to yourself. Don’t put your hands on them because it can definitely work against you. Perhaps it’s better to do if you have an ally there—someone who’s safe to witness it. Make sure you have some really strong allies in your life before you confront them, people who you can talk about this with, people who really believe in you, are strongly on your side, so you’re not going into this all alone.
Because if you’re going to go on the fairly large chance that you’re just gonna get rejected, just get hated more by your parents and perhaps your whole family system for confronting your parents, then you better have some allies lined up. Because it can be extremely alienating and marginalizing to be hated by the people who are there to really love you most of all in the world.
SO BE PREPARED!
If you confront your parents, be prepared for everyone in the family to line up on your parents’ side. It often happens because you may be the only one in your family who’s really acknowledging the full reality of the horror of your childhood dilemma. Perhaps your siblings are much more in denial, and they don’t wanna know what happened to them. A lot of people do not want to know what happened to them in their childhood.
So if you confront your parents, that might really incredibly threaten your siblings because they see the writing on the wall: “Oh my god, if this happened to one sibling, what does that mean? What happened to me?” Maybe it’s just far too painful for them to even consider what happened to them, so it’s much easier to side with the power person in the family. Side to the authority, “identify with the aggressor,” as they call it in psychology.
THEREFORE…
Before you do any confronting of your parents—confronting in the flesh that is, confronting them directly—build up your life, be as strong as you possibly can, have as possibly strong of a support network as you can have, work out as many of your addictions as you can. Because if you’re expecting there is going to be a lot of pain afterwards… If you’re a drinker, a drug addict, or something like that, or you abuse food, chances are if you confront your parents and realize you’re not going to get any more love from them, it can totally spike your addictions and send them through the roof. Send them into orbit.
ACHIEVE STABILITY FIRST
So that’s what it is: Really just be as stable in yourself as you can possibly before you even consider doing any confronting. And even though I’m a therapist, I’m not always the strongest proponent of therapy because I think most therapists really do not empathize with the child much at all. But if you can have a therapist who strongly empathizes with your inner child and empathizes with the horror that you went through, it can be very helpful to have a therapist.
Or at least the minimum—some really close friends who strongly identify with your inner child and can defend you. Because that’s the other thing about confronting a parent: if they do turn on you and start blaming you—because that is not an uncommon thing—parents who abused or neglect or do horrible things to their children, they blame the child for it, and it can be subtle. They may never say it, but there’s a reason that children who are abused deep down feel it’s their own fault.
And there’s just something so profound and primal about the role of parent that even if you know your parents did horrible things to you—and maybe is a fairly horrible person—if they turn on you and start blaming you again, even if you’re 25, 35, 45, 55 years old, it can trigger a massive self-hatred response in you. And that’s why it’s vitally important to have allies. And most importantly of all, to have a strong, strong ally within yourself.
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