Unhealthy control is insidious, it’s under the radar. The
feeling it creates is that you are on the back foot, you are either unaware of
the nature of it or you just desperately want to make the situation right. It
confuses you and makes you angry, sad and sorry all in one go.
It does the above things in adult life, but when we are
children and we have no separate sense of self, that is where the blue print is
created.
One element of control in parenting is a parent who restricts
their child emotionally, the child ultimately feels smothered. You may now as
an adult look back and realise that what you felt as a child was scrutinized and
inspected. As an adult it is confusing, because
parents who do this seem incredibly caring and bracket themselves into the ‘worry
and fuss too much parents’. Parents who control by any different means do not
trust and experience high anxiety themselves.
When you have experienced this type of control as a child
you may still feel as helpless when you spend time with your parents as an
adult. Because controlled children are not used to recognizing feelings and
processing them there is only a vague sense of being disconnected to themselves.
You may have experienced your parents instilling self-doubt through
a questioning of your choices
“Are you sure, don’t you think that would be foolish”
“that’s a stupid idea”
“You don’t mean that, what you mean is”
this can apply to career and life choices or something as
simple as a food order or clothes choice. You may have had a different
viewpoint but you get the feeling that “it may be safer to listen to mum and
dad” you may also have experienced little privacy, personal habits and friend
choices will have been questioned and inspected.
An opportunity seized by you as a child to express deeply
felt emotions may have been labelled ‘overblown’ or ‘out of control’ as the
parent cannot tolerate strong feelings themselves, which leads the person to
feeling disappointment in themselves and in turn an increased dependency on mum
and dad’s choices and viewpoints.
Smothering parents cannot separate you and them out. They also
find it difficult to be alone for any length of time which in elderly years
forces a dependence on the now adult child.
So, what happens when you reach adulthood?
You suffer an increased feeling of anxiety and a mistrust of
your capacity to make sound decisions for yourself. You may be more prone to meeting
controlling partners who you give your all to, plus second, third and fourth
chances after abusive and disrespectful behaviour, but it never quite feels
whole.
You may have a disproportionate guilt response to meeting
parents need as “mum has always carefully looked out for me and so I need to be
there for my mum”. The overwhelming feelings though is resentment.
Most importantly how does it affect your parenting?
Not in all cases, but quite commonly I have noticed in
private practice with my teenage clients that the overly anxious caring parent who
considers themselves too soft, is the parent that was tightly controlled by
their parents in their upbringing. In parent liaison meetings they reflect that
they were controlled tightly by a parent and that they vowed they would never be
like that with their own child. The parent though is unsure of their decisions
(their decisions have always been questioned and discouraged and funnelled into
what their parents want) also ultimately, they feel fear of disappointment in
themselves when the wrong decision is made, this makes it very easy for the
teenager to nudge and cross the boundary and a controlling partner to second
guess any decision that is made.
How do we set that boundary with the parent, partner or
teenager? We will come to late later in the series of blogs. Below is an online
questionnaire re how you were parented, which if completed may give you some
more clarity and lessen your confusion about your childhood experiences. I hope this helps.
#talkingtoteenagers
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