Toxic Parents Read Online Free Page A

And how unnecessary it was?
    Sandy’s “yes” was barely audible. I asked her if it scared her to think about it. She just nodded, unable to talk about the depth of her fear. But she was brave enough to hang in there.
    The Hopeless Hope
    After two months in therapy, Sandy had made some progress but was still clinging to the myth of her perfect parents. Until she shattered that myth, she would continue to blame herself for all the unhappiness of her life. I asked her to invite her parents to a therapy session. I hoped that if I could get them to see how deeply their behavior had affected Sandy’s life, they might admit some of their responsibility, making it easier for Sandy to begin repairing her negative self-image.
    We barely had time to get acquainted before her father blurted:
You don’t know what a bad kid she was, Doctor. She went nuts over boys and kept leading them on. All of her problems today are because of that damned abortion.
    I could see tears well up in Sandy’s eyes. I rushed to defend her:
That’s not the reason Sandy is having problems, and I didn’t ask you here to read me a laundry list of her crimes. We really won’t get anywhere if that’s all you’re here for.
    It didn’t work. Throughout the session, Sandy’s mother and father took turns attacking their daughter, despite my admonitions. It was a long hour. After they left, Sandy was quick to apologize for them:
I know they really didn’t come through for me today, but I hope you liked them. They’re really good people, they just seemed nervous to be here. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked them to come. . . . It probably upset them. They’re not used to this kind of thing. But they really love me . . . just give them some time, you’ll see.
    This session and a few subsequent ones with Sandy’s parents clearly indicated how closed-minded they were to anything that challenged their perception of Sandy’s problems. At no point was either one willing to acknowledge any responsibility for those problems. And Sandy continued to idolize them.
    “T HEY W ERE O NLY T RYING TO H ELP ”
    For many adult children of toxic parents, denial is a simple, unconscious process of pushing certain events and feelings out of conscious awareness, pretending that those events never happened. But others, like Sandy, take a more subtle approach: rationalization.When we rationalize, we use “good reasons” to explain away what is painful and uncomfortable.
    Here are a few typical rationalizations:
     
My father only screamed at me because my mother nagged him.
My mother only drank because she was lonely. I should have stayed home with her more.
My father beat me, but he didn’t mean to hurt me, he only meant to teach me a lesson.
My mother never paid any attention to me because she was so unhappy.
I can’t blame my father for molesting me. My mother wouldn’t sleep with him, and men need sex.
    All these rationalizations have one thing in common: they serve to make the unacceptable acceptable. On the surface, it may appear to work, but a part of you always knows the truth.
    “H E O NLY D ID I T B ECAUSE . . .”
    Louise, a small, auburn-haired woman in her midforties, was being divorced by her third husband. She came into therapy at the insistence of her adult daughter, who threatened to cut off her relationship with Louise if she didn’t do something about her uncontrollable hostility.
    When I first saw Louise, her extremely rigid posture and tight-lipped expression said it all. She was a volcano of contained anger. I asked her about her divorce and she told me that the men in her life always left her; her current husband was just the latest example:
I’m one of those women who always picks Mr. Wrong. In the beginning of each relationship, it’s terrific, but I know it can never last.
    I listened intently as Louise expounded on the theme that all men are bastards. Then she began comparing the men in her life to her father:
God, why can’t I find somebody