My husband, Tom, grew up on a farm in Iowa Park, Texas. From all I had heard of them it sounds like his parents were fine, upstanding people. I envied him.\u00a0 Early in our relationship I asked him what gems of wisdom they shared with him. Surely people of such high standards must have had a lot of gems to disperse.\u00a0 He thought about it for a minute and then replied: The only thing they ever said was, \u201cDon\u2019t ever embarrass us.\u201d With those words a world of understanding opened up to me about Tom\u2019s growing up years. Finding out that his parents were strict Baptists added to the pot.<\/p>\n
In my years of recovery I realized that a lot of who and what I was came, unbeknownst to me, from the voices of my parents that played over and over in my mind. I\u2019m sure Tom had moments when he too wondered how much his parent\u2019s one sentence of advice contributed to him as a person. When our parents gave us life they gave us a lot more than just that. While creativity is nothing to be scoffed at, how many parents realize that all of their words, all of their actions go into creating that human they delivered into the world. In a fantasy world (I\u2019m finding out there is no such place) our mom and dad were loving, solicitous, wise, good humored, and affectionate. In that world they taught us how to work hard, be honest, have strong personal integrity, be diligent, sensible and prudent. They bestowed on us the ability to have foresight and visualization, a love for learning, a capacity for joy and mostly how to love ourselves, our creator and each other. I think I have just stepped in to the land of Oz.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, very few children have parents that gave them all these wondrous gifts. How many times during the day do you hear your mother\u2019s voice, you didn\u2019t do a good enough job, you should have got an A, a B+ isn\u2019t good enough, why can\u2019t you walk like your sister, she has poise and good posture, I\u2019ll give you something to cry about, I will tell you which books you can and can\u2019t read, come off your high horse Lady Jane <\/em>(that was my mother\u2019s favorite). <\/em>How often do you hear your father\u2019s voice, I\u2019m your father and I can do anything to you I want, you are not allowed to think for yourself, I\u2019ll tell you what your opinions should be, you will go to confession this week, there is no such thing as having no sins, if you think long enough you\u2019ll find something wrong you did, don\u2019t take yourself seriously, you\u2019ll get a big ego that way, you can\u2019t write that good, your teacher must have made a mistake on your report card, <\/em>and on and on ad nauseam.<\/p>\n These voices follow us through the years, through our days and sometimes into our dreams at night. Most of the time we\u2019re not aware of their existence, let alone the importance they cast on our being. I just figured out the other day that my obsessive house cleaning comes from my mother\u2019s continual admonishment, Do it over, young lady until you get it right <\/em>to say nothing of the heavy handed,\u00a0I will punish you severely if you don’t do it exactly how I say you have to.<\/em><\/p>\n We want to be our own person, not voices in our heads that are from our parents but it\u2019s not that easy. In our family growing up if there were dessert you didn\u2019t get any until your plate was empty. If you had to sit there for four hours (crying in to the dreaded liver and onions) until you finally held your nose and gulped it down then that\u2019s what it took. When I was in recovery one of the therapists I was seeing at the time told me my assignment for the week was to \u201ceat dessert first.\u201d I thought she was being rather silly and giving me a task that was easy. I went home, cooked dinner, took out my dessert and stared at it\u2026\u2026..and stared at it\u2026\u2026..and stared at it. I couldn\u2019t do it. I ate my dinner then my dessert. Night after night I tried to eat dessert first and was not able to do it. It wasn\u2019t until I finished my REPAIR program and completed my recovery that I finally ATE DESSERT FIRST. \u00a0Hooray for me! The world didn\u2019t end. I didn\u2019t get sent to my room, I didn\u2019t get the belt. Nothing happened except that I was able to get one monkey off my back.<\/p>\n If the parental voice inside your head is healthy, Be kind to others, chores first, fun afterwards, a good job is its own reward, if it\u2019s not yours, don\u2019t take it, etc.<\/em> let those messages play. Encourage them. Find more. But little by little if you find yourself obsessively doing something you don\u2019t want to do, think about it. Is this related to messages from your childhood? Especially pay attention to subliminal messages. They have diabolical power and take root even more than blatant ones. Your father, who is drunk every night, punishes you for under-age drinking. Your mother, who is indiscriminately sleeping around, becomes enraged when she finds you\u2019ve had sex at the age of 15. You find out your parents lied on their tax return then later become angry that you cheated on a test at school. For those of us who are incest survivors, if your perpetrator was your father, his subliminal message could have been, It\u2019s okay to sleep with married men.<\/em> This may have been one of the directions you took as an adult, thereby breeding self-loathing. It is difficult to have healthy self-esteem when you feel you are covered with garbage. Another one may have been, It\u2019s not okay to set sexual boundaries.<\/em> Make a list of the subliminal messages that planted themselves in your unconscious, paving the way for unhealthy behavior.<\/p>\n You were literally programmed to acquire a belief system at an early age that wasn\u2019t yours. Those thoughts, those voices in your head may have been nothing more than your parents standing over you still having control decades after you left home. Find your own beliefs, set your own boundaries, discover your own integrity. One thing your parents did give you was a mind of your own. Use it. Use if for good and not for unhealthy behavior. Take over the reins of your life and tell your unhealthy parents they are no longer in charge.<\/p>\n