How Much Can We Blame On Our Parents?

How Billy learned to be ‘good’…and how he suffered as an adult

Billy was brought up by his single mother, who was a very strict, critical and perfectionistic parent.  She saw ‘being quiet and not making a fuss’ as ‘good’ behaviour.  She deemed noisy play and crying to be ‘bad’ and, therefore, punishable behaviours. If ever he failed to meet her high standards of behaviour, she would abuse him verbally, physically and emotionally.  And if he complained, his Mum would become terrifyingly angry.  Billy lived in fear of his Mum’s wrath, disapproval and brutal punishments.  He learned to repress his true self in order to keep her temper in check.

These adaptive behaviours helped Billy to stay safe and feel loved in childhood.  However, in adulthood, Billy found himself being a people-pleaser.  He was uncomfortable with conflict and feared authority figures such as his boss at work.  He always put others’ needs ahead of his own and had difficulty maintaining healthy boundaries.  Just like in childhood, he feared expressing his emotions – especially anger – in case others rejected or disapproved of him.  His creative, playful side was repressed and he had little joy in his life.  He was a perfectionist, always seeking approval and trying to avoid the kind of criticism he used to endure from his Mum.

Billy worked incredibly hard and with great precision but never achieved his potential. The immense pressure he put on himself to please others was a source of constant stress.  Eventually, he got burnt out; he was utterly exhausted, experienced anxiety disorders and numerous physical ailments.  In repressing his true self, he struggled to find a sense of identity or purpose.  He became severely depressed and attempted to escape his pain through self-harming behaviours, including binge-eating, excessive video-gaming, overworking and abusing alcohol and other drugs.

The anger he had repressed all his life leaked out in inappropriate ways. Firstly, he turned it upon his wife, who endured it for many years and bore him three children before leaving him for another man.  Billy then projected has anger onto his three children, repeating the strict, critical parenting style he had experienced as a child…

Billy’s eldest son, Alex, filled his life from morning until night, seven days a week, 365 days a year.  His motto was ‘work hard, play hard.’ He got an excellent degree and landed a lucrative job in the City.  Every weekday morning, he would push himself hard in the gym before embarking on a day of meetings with potential clients, cleverly signing up many of them with his persuasive banter and personable smile.  Several times each week he would indulge in long, cocaine-fuelled nights with colleagues or clients, often ending up having one-night stands or sleeping with a prostitute.  At weekends he would play online games until his eyes and head were sore, using caffeine to keep him awake into the early hours.  Alex had no meaningful relationships – no partner, no real friends.  And he ‘didn’t really do’ emotions – he just kept himself busy and avoided ‘dwelling upon’ his painful past.  Alex struggled to maintain his gruelling routine and sought progressively harder drugs in order to ‘keep going.’  Tragically, he died at the aged of just 29, due to a combination of a drugs overdose and heart complications.

Billy’s middle child, William Jnr, came to fear his father’s anger and disapproval.  He fell into line, being a ‘good boy’, just like Billy had done as a child.  William’s life played out like an uncanny carbon copy of his father’s history.  The patterns of people-pleasing, perfectionism, avoidance of conflict and issues with authority and anger were virtually identical.  He also experienced the same combination of mental and physical health issues.  This ultimately led to him seeking GP support when he collapsed with exhaustion at the tender age of 27…just two weeks before his older brother died.

Roxy was the youngest of Billy’s three children.  She rebelled against her Dad’s parenting, refusing to allow herself to be moulded into a ‘mini-me’.  They raged at one another throughout her adolescence.  Billy’s response to her ‘insubordination’ was to subject her to a barrage of emotional and physical abuse, calling her a ‘lazy, disrespectful, good-for-nothing lout’.  He would regularly taunt her, comparing her unfavourably to her ‘good, hard-working brothers’.  Roxy rejected her father’s work ethic and ‘old-fashioned’ values; she was a free spirit who wanted to live in joy, ease and creativity.  Every time she made a decision, she imagined what her Dad would do…and always chose the opposite, even if doing so caused distress.  She left home as soon as she could and travelled around Europe.  She spent a few seasons working on organic farms in France, then moved on to a church restoration project in the Spanish Pyrenees.  The last Billy heard from his daughter was a series of text messages she sent whilst in Spain.  In them, Roxy explained that, although this was not what she really wanted to do with her life, ‘it was better than slaving away in an office in a meaningless job being bossed around by a man in a suit’.  The rest of the messages were an angry assault on her Dad – criticising how badly he had treated her and his whole lifestyle, which she wanted no further part of.  She then blocked his number, preventing any further contact.

Billy reaches crisis point…and reaches out for help

Billy became overwhelmed by his chronic mental, emotional, physical and spiritual dis-ease.  At the age of 42, he attempted to take his own life.  He clinically ‘died’ for several minutes and was resuscitated in hospital.  He struggled on for a few more years before finally accepting that he needed to change…and he needed help.  His GP signed him off work, prescribed medication to help with his anxiety and depression and encouraged him to spend time walking in nature regularly.

Billy’s GP also referred him for six sessions of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, which helped him think about his behaviours in a different way.  The following year, Billy started weekly psychotherapy; he didn’t get on with the first therapist but stayed with the second for over four years.  During that time, he worked through the wounds of his childhood, with the skilful support and safe space offered by his compassionate, non-judgemental therapist.  Together, they brought much of Billy’s unconscious material into consciousness. 

Billy’s past is laid to rest…

During this time, Billy came to understand the huge influence that his critical, demanding mother had upon his developing psyche as a young boy.  He acknowledged how he had adapted his behaviours as a survival mechanism, acting through fear to avoid his Mum’s anger and to gain her conditional love.

He joined the dots between his childhood traumas and the chronic issues in his adult life.  He saw how his childhood coping strategies had become maladaptive and had cost him his mental, physical, emotional and spiritual health…along with many relationships.  He expressed his grief, sadness, regret, frustration, disgust and fears…and learned how to safely express his anger.

He reconnected with his inner child.  He took his share of the responsibility for his failed marriage and his failure to reach his potential at work.  And, crucially, he recognised how he had replicated his Mum’s parenting, reconstellating the wounds he had suffered in his own children. 

Although his time in therapy was often painful, it was also transformational, enlightening, empowering and, at times, joyous.  Alongside spiritual practices like meditation and journaling, Billy found compassion, acceptance and forgiveness – for his Mum (and her ancestors), his ex-wife, his children…and himself.  He saw how trauma and unhelpful behaviours repeated through the generations like a toxic, psychic cord.  He worked through his guilt and came to the realisation that ‘everyone is guilty but nobody is to blame’ – everyone does their best with the tools they have available at the time…and we all fail in some way because of our conditioning, which in itself was a response to our parents’ conditioning.

…and he becomes accountable for his present and future

But that was the past.  He knew that his domineering mother had been a huge influence on him, from his birth right up until the point that he brought all of this material into consciousness.  The past had been present in all of Billy’s behaviours and decisions for decades.  But now Billy had to take responsibility for his present and his future.  He could now make choices from a position of greater conscious awareness…and he had to become accountable for his choices from the position of his adult psyche.

In his fifties, Billy retrained to be…a psychotherapist!  He began to live life true to his soul purpose.  He found liberation and empowerment in living authentically, expressing his thoughts and emotions in a calm and congruent way.  In supporting others towards healing with his approach of unconditional love and acceptance, he found his calling.  And, by changing his behaviours, he broke away from the conditioned patterns that had probably been at play in his family for generations.

Today, Billy is no saintly figure!  He still has moments where he criticises others.  He still has thoughts of avoiding conflict rather than expressing his needs.  Regardless of how much therapy we have, we cannot surgically remove our history like a tumour.  Everything that has ever happened to us is stored somewhere within our being, with the potential to be triggered at any moment.  As the psychoanalyst Carl Jung said, “We do not solve these problems, because they are part of us…our task is to outgrow their influence.”  So, our task is to recognise our unhelpful patterns sooner, pull ourselves out of them sooner, cause others less hurt and, when we do wound others, make swifter and fuller reparations.  For Jung, this approach of living our own, authentic lives, this process of ‘individuation’, is the key task facing us in the second half of our lives.