When we experience hurt or pain, our brains automatically start constructing a narrative around that experience. We can't help it. Our minds are wired to make sense of the physical and emotional stimuli that we encounter. That is true generally, but there is a particular urgency around the negative, hurtful and painful stimuli because those are threats. Those need to be clearly marked with warning signs so that they are not experienced again. In fact, your brain is actually standing by with a package of neurochemicals to reward your pleasure centers if you are able to jam all the pieces of that experience into a frame.
Okay, so what's the problem hotshot?
The problem is that your brain kind of sucks at doing this accurately. That frame is usually broken. You may adopt a story that keeps you from that particular harm again, but to make it fit, it often has to weave together a set of lies or distort a belief that you hold. This is especially true of children when the wounding comes from a parent or an adult in a care or authority position. Kids need to believe that their parents are good people. That they are trustworthy and will be safe. They need to know that if the wise masters of the world (i.e. parents) say something is true, then it is in fact so. When a parent assaults, abuses, neglects, or otherwise wounds a child without proper apology and reconciliation, the brain makes a story.
However, the most accurate version of that story, the one that says that the parent wrongfully hurt the child leaving them without recompense or recourse, threatens to tarnish the image of their hero. So you distort. You accept a false version of the event that does not implicate the person actually doing the harm. Sometimes you adopt the lie that it didn't really hurt or that it was an accident, thereby denying the reality of your felt experience. But more often the lie is something like:
That happened to me because I deserved it. I'm too clumsy, too lazy, too wild, too wimpy, too boyish, too loud. I'm not strong enough, soft enough, ambitious enough, good enough. I'm not enough.
Right about now some of you may be nodding your head. Perhaps you're thinking of a childhood experience where you "got what's coming." If that's you, I have two things I want to challenge you with. First, I'm not saying that we never play a role in our own wounding. But, the lie is cleverly hidden in the structure of the message. While you may have acted lazily, brashly, or disobediently, your brain turns it into an identify statement "I AM lazy," "I AM wild," "I AM uncontrollable."
Second, and without knowing your story, I want you to momentarily refrain from holding that belief. Open yourself up, ever so slightly, to the idea that you did not deserve it. Pause the story. Take yourself out of the frame and put another kid in your place. Maybe you put your own child there, or a niece or nephew. Someone you know and love. Now hit play again. What do you feel seeing that other kid verbally berated in front of their friends, or being shoved to the floor by an adult, or ridiculed for the shape of her body, or told to cut the shit because boys don't cry, or whatever it is that happened to you? Do you feel the same thing when you put yourself back in the story? If not, why not?
These stories we tell about ourselves are lies.
These stories need to be challenged. Still, they should NOT be rashly thrown to the wind. If you're able to dig in, these first drafts actually hold important data points. Like the notes scribbled in the margins of your outline, the stories tell more than what is seen on the surface. Pull up your stories, but don't just start revising. First, understand why you wrote it that way to begin with. Get back to that mental space and take a good look around. There are treasures hidden in those lines. Only then should you make the necessary edits.
Lastly, this does not have to be an exercise in demonizing your parents. A lot of us had really loving parents and an overall positive childhood. All of us have imperfect parents that. You do them no service or honor by denying that. This process does not ignore forgiveness, but you need to make yourself whole first. Restore the story. Correct the lie. Only then can you forgive.
Until next time, be blessed.
Sam
Image Source: Bath, Sunrise
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Creative inspiration on this piece from Brené Brown.
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