Childhood Trauma

Who Shortchanged Me and How Do I Get My Change Back?

March 5, 2024 by Ken Wells

READ IT TO ME: Click play to listen to this post.

My mom died when she was 99. One of the last statements she uttered as she gazed at my sister was “You know I killed my sister!” Over the past nine years of her life, she was decimated by Alzheimer’s. Slowly the lights went out and she did not recognize anyone during her final hours.

When my mom was 9, she played with lit candles in a backyard shed with her little sister Aileen, age 6. The wind caught the candle flame which ignited Aileen’s dress and within an instant, she was engulfed in flames. My mom took Aileen by the hand and ran with her toward the house. Their mother, seeing what was happening from the kitchen window, raced toward them, ripped off a sheet from the clothesline, and rolled her torched little girl to the ground, putting out the flames. Skin fell from her body. She was rushed to the hospital where she spent two weeks. Her mom took her out of the hospital for home care. However, she died at home from gangrene poisoning. Her little body was placed in a casket in the home, a custom observed during that day in time.

The experience was so traumatic that my grandmother insisted that everyone sleep in the backyard. It was her way of pacifying the immense pain she felt from the horrific event. The tragedy occurred in August and they slept in the backyard till mid-November. Grandmother blamed herself for the death because she took the child out of the hospital too soon. She never talked about it for the rest of her life. My mom was convinced it was her fault for playing with the candles. No one ever sat down to process with her as a 9-year-old what happened. From that day forward they both blamed themselves, never discussing their false guilt with the other.

To get the smile of approval from her mother, my mom became a great baseball player, barnstorming throughout the Midwest in a well-known women’s league. This worked until it didn’t. She fell in love with my dad and married him during the middle of a road trip. Their elopement was unapproved by her parents. She fell out of favor with them.

My mom discovered religion and became extremely zealous with her faith for the rest of her life. I always believed that her intense desire to show love for God was in part a make-up for the lack of approval she felt from her parents. This lack of emotional validation was passed down to the next generation. I certainly felt a sense of being one-down from my mom’s folks—my grandparents. Likely, I was carrying my mom’s shame without knowing it.

My dad had his own unfulfilled developmental needs that he brought to the marriage. Both were emotionally shortchanged and throughout their lives never recognized the emotional shortchange that happened to them from their parents. They certainly had no idea how to address the deficit or to effectively get the change back. The emotional deprivation was transferred to the next generation which included me and all my siblings.

At the end of my mother’s life, she was only able to recall the shameful guilt she carried throughout her life. For her, seeking her mother’s approval, and God’s forgiveness, was never enough to rid her of the shame and guilt she carried from the tragic accident that occurred when she was very young.

My mom’s story is not so unique. Most of us do not get through our childhood unscathed. Metaphorically, our early childhood developmentally resembles the holes in a chunk of Swiss cheese when those needs are left unmet. The developmental needs of a child are many. When they are not met an emotional pool of pain is created that must be drained. When it is not drained it builds and eventually splashes out of the pool into destructive behaviors that sabotage relational intimacy.

It becomes an intimacy disability that can take the form of argumentativeness, addictive behavior, narcissism, and much more. Through the stages of development, the child becomes emotionally stymied. Later, when these needs are inadequately addressed, children grow into adults who respond with the mindset of an adolescent or younger in relationship dynamics. In short, responses that worked as a child do not work as an adult.

People tend to try to fill up the inside holes and emotional vacuum with a cocktail of outside pursuits. To be loved and accepted people might seek achievement, popularity, sexual relationships, addictive substances, and countless other experiences in an attempt to fill in what is missing. The attempts become destructive because the unmet needs can only be met within and not from the outside. The many attempts to fill in the holes that exist on the inside through outside validation and experience trigger one to be like a child who cannot get enough sugar. It is necessary to develop the wise mind adult within each person in order to address the neediness that exists because of the unmet developmental need that exists within.

So, the first question about who shortchanged me must be addressed. To answer this question it is necessary to look back to our relationships with our family of origin. Soren Kierkegaard, the philosopher wrote that “life is meant to be lived forward but can only be understood backward”. Examining our relationships in our family of origin is not about looking for someone to blame. Rather, it is about seeking understanding which uncovers ways in which you take responsibility to address the unmet needs in a healthy adult way. When you recognize who shortchanged you emotionally, you can then focus on getting the change back.

The late John Bradshaw used to say that we have 25,000 hours of parental introjects by the time we become an adult. That is a lot of parental tapes that influence how we behave, how we respond to others, and what we say to ourselves. Your parents are like you, imperfect. Some parents were egregious in their lack of parenting skills. Some were extremely abusive. All parents fail to meet every need in a healthy way. It’s the result of a condition identified as being human. There are no perfect parents.

In order to recognize the shortchange, you will need to take your parents off the pedestal. By necessity, every child puts their parents on a pedestal. To each child, during the magical years of development, essentially the parents are God. For example, Dad could say to Junior at an early age that tomorrow the sun is going to come up from the west and be bright blue and Junior would respond, “OK, if you say so!” Whenever a need goes unmet, impressionable children are vulnerable and conclude it is their fault. At a young impressionable age, it is one thing if they have a problem, but it is really big if God—mom or dad are the cause for the problem. So, as a child grows through the psychological stages of development, it is necessary in early adulthood for them to take the parents off the pedestal so that the adult child can have an adult relationship with mom and dad.

When this takes place, you will not only recognize who shortchanged you but how to get your emotional change back. The way you give the change back to your parents who failed to meet significant needs is that you give back the shame you have carried for them into your adulthood. For example, a child learns that s/he matters when the parent spends significant time with them on their terms and not the parents’ terms. When this does not happen, the child concludes without conversation that they matter less than other things. The need for connection and knowing they are valued is so great at this young impressionable age, that the child will seek ways to get mom and dad’s attention in order to know they matter. The child may try to be a family hero, scapegoat, or achiever in one form or another, all examples of seeking the parent’s attention to know that they are significant and matter to the parent. This is often carried out subconsciously by the child.

So, in the development of a wise-mind adult, you seek to recognize these unmet needs and consciously give back to mom and dad your carried shame. By that you converse with them and share the unmet need from childhood and how you have carried shame for not mattering. You can explain that now you are aware that there have been many things you have done to get their attention only to never be able to do enough to know that you mattered down deep. This dynamic may very well be unintentional on your parent’s part. Yet, by recognizing this and sharing it with them, you can give them back the shame that you have carried of not being good enough to matter. It is the parent’s role to connect with you as a child in meaningful ways by spending sufficient time with you on your terms in order for you to know that you do matter.

If your parents are deceased, or unwilling to have the conversation, then you can have a powerful discussion without them by putting them in an empty chair with someone present who you trust and will give you a fair hearing. With this trust support by your side, you can put your mother or father metaphorically in the empty chair and have a healing conversation. Remember, this conversation is for you to heal not to lay blame at your parents’ feet. You can be direct and respectful with kindness at the same time.

It is possible to stop destructive and damaging behaviors without resolving unmet childhood emotional needs. You can put a cork in the bottle and stop a destructive pattern of addictive drinking or other hurtful behaviors. However, without doing this work, you are unlikely to drain the pool of pain in your life which will continue to sabotage healthy relational connections. It is important to scrub the childhood wounds that result from unmet childhood emotional needs. As you do this work, you will not only recognize who shortchanged you but you will be able to get the emotional change back because you will become the empowered change agent of your own life and destiny.

Your task in identifying the shortchange is to recognize where to roll up your sleeves to do emotional work. It is not to get you to hate your parents and get stuck with blame. However, it is understanding that leads to healing, not blame. If you do hate or are angry with your parents for their abuse or lack of meeting your needs, your recognition is the beginning of the work. Do it to transform negative emotions into healing experiences.

Facing Abandonment

November 24, 2023 by Ken Wells

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Addicts have many anxieties and fears. They grew up with holes in their souls with unmet childhood developmental needs from parents who failed to provide the fundamental emotional needs necessary. Some addicts suffered woeful negligence from physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. For many their parents failed to provide necessary support because they didn’t know how. Their parents loved them but were unable to give to their children that which was not given to them.

Children learn that their parents loved them when they provide clothing, food, shelter, education, and other material possessions. However, children comprehend that they matter when a parent spends sufficient amounts of time with them on their terms, not the parents. Children develop a hole in their soul when this doesn’t happen. Subconsciously they conclude they don’t matter. They don’t consider that something is wrong with their parents. Instead, they embrace the misbelief that they must not be worthy or important enough for the attention desired.

Developmentally they become like a chunk of Swiss cheese with holes. Each hole represents an unmet childhood need. Kids learn to compensate by trying to fill the hole from the outside with a cocktail of relational experience. They learn to please and gain approval through performance or get attention with negative social behavior. It doesn’t work because the depth of emotional need that must be met will ultimately only be fulfilled from within. They become like the little kid who can’t get enough sugar. Their emotional neediness becomes insatiable. Eventually, they organize a dependency upon an addictive substance or process that delivers what it promises. For many, it involves a collection of addictions that are depended upon to assuage their fears and anxieties and to numb out what hurts.

One of the greatest fears that an addict faces is that of abandonment, physically, emotionally, or both. Abandonment is like the metaphor of a pack of wolves that chase you through the woods. The pack pursues you relentlessly even though you create diversionary tactics of avoidance. Eventually, the pack corners you. Either the pack wins and consumes you with addictive behavior or you turn around and face the gnashing teeth of abandonment. In doing so you begin to realize that it is not the terrorizing force that its growl suggests.

Addicts become pleasers, workaholics, and deniers to avoid conflict. Behind their behavior is a pernicious fear of abandonment. They will do anything to avoid feeling deserted. Addiction becomes a lifelong affair to avoid abandonment. Some addicts have described their relationship to their drug of choice as a warm blanket that offers consistent comfort from fear and anxiety. What lurks behind every addictive high is the fear of abandonment. How to address abandonment is critical to the long-term sobriety from addiction. Here are a few steps to consider:

1. Embrace the fact that the fear of abandonment is universal. Abandonment is not just a fear that afflicts addicts. It impacts partners of addicts and the world at large. It is a common thread of life experience. Recognizing that everyone experiences this fear helps to avoid isolation or the conclusion that you are particularly flawed and different from those around you. You are not! We all must face our fear of abandonment.

2. Others may desert you but the key is to learn not to desert yourself. This may seem obvious. Yet, simple things are not easy. It’s an automatic response for a child to subconsciously attempt to capture a parents’ attention when neglected. When children lack recognition for who they are, they try to compensate with what they can do. If the inattentiveness is chronic the child will participate in behaviors that will get their parent’s recognition in order to avoid abandonment. Over time they learn that who they are matters less than how they act or what they do. Essentially, they learn to abandon themselves. Overcoming the fear of abandonment requires that you learn to reclaim the importance of being and parent yourself in healthy ways. You must learn to pay attention to your genuine needs and not abandon yourself through pleasing others.

3. Listen to your triggers, don’t just run from them. Triggered with fear or lust for your drug of choice can be a gift! This is true for both addicts and partners. When triggered, put yourself out of harm’s way and take time to let the trigger talk to you about your unmet needs that must be met in a healthy way. Some addicts spend much of their recovery reporting about triggers and chronic high risk behaviors, thinking that telling another addict when they have been tempted is enough. However, it is a beginning. When tempted think about the legitimate need that is represented in the trigger and then endeavor to self-parent by meeting the need in a healthy way through adult choice and interaction. Rather than abandon yourself by only running away from the trigger, allow the trigger to speak its truth and transform the trigger from a curse to a blessing. Practicing this skill set which takes a lot of hard work is a major step that avoids abandonment of self.

4. Take the people with you who abandon you. People hurt each other and abandon one another. People die. Relationships end through the passage of time, betrayal, and a myriad of other reasons. It sucks to feel abandoned. Yet, it is a broken experience that is common to all. It requires skills to grieve the loss of what once was. Some people live life longing for yesterday’s experiences in order to avoid feeling abandoned. The end result is that they wallow in the abandonment. I suggest that you take the lost person or experience with you. Keep it with you in your heart. It is not necessary to live in the past. Yet, you can bring those experiences with others with you in the here and now through treasured memory. Even in the face of betrayal, you can embrace your truth and the closeness that once was, and the pure intent you generated when others were invested in ulterior motives. Precious memories need not be abandoned. Loved ones who are now deceased can be alive in your heart. We all live in a nanosecond of present time and then it too becomes historical. So we hold precious experience by treasuring its memory in our hearts. Learn to address abandonment by taking your precious personal intents and initiatives with you in your heart. The good in all the relationships you have ever experienced can dwell inside of you no matter what others choose to do. When you consider the power and potential that exists within, you never need to be dominated by abandonment again.

Walking Away From Crazy

June 9, 2023 by Ken Wells

“We come from fallible parents who were kids once, who decided to have kids and who had to learn how to be parents. Faults are made and damage is done, whether it’s conscious or not. Everyone’s got their own ‘stuff,’ their own issues, and their own anger at Mom and Dad. That is what family is. Family is almost naturally dysfunctional.”

—Chris Pine

Family is a powerful dynamic. It’s the place we come home to every day. It’s a place where the fundamental supplies to do life are provided in order to function and thrive. Family is where the emotional, physical and spiritual needs are furnished and developed. Most families do not provide enough for these needs to be met. Essentially, bonding is a critical need that when left unmet without sufficient amounts of mirroring, engagement and attunement to children increases the likelihood of addiction Addiction most likely occurs when an individual cannot find meaningfulness in everyday experience. This is not addressed by providing more things for the child to do, but rather by participating with the child’s activities with sufficient amounts of time. Connection is critical and ofttimes missing. Without connection the possibility of addiction increases. For certain it contributes to the creation of crazy-making life experience.

I tell people we had 12 kids in our family. In reality, there were 9, 4 girls and 5 boys, and I was the youngest boy. I say 12 because my parents raised my oldest sister’s 3 kids from school age to teenage. My sister’s kids were dropped off at our front porch and abandoned by their parents, who were unwilling to raise them. I often think about how crazy-making this experience was for them. Including them into our family would be a bare minimum expression of care.

My dad was a World War II vet, a foot soldier for two years. He fought in the Battle of the Bulge. I learned after his death that he was a decorated soldier with 2 Bronze Stars, 2 Oak Leaf Clusters, and a Purple Heart. He took his World War II combat PTSD out on the boys in our family. Once one of my older brothers, Jimmy, thought he was big enough to take on my dad. He had disobeyed and smarted off to my mom. My dad told him he couldn’t talk to his mom that way and to apologize. Jimmy told him that he would not apologize and wanted to settle the matter, mano a mano with my dad. My dad gave him a beat down. It was awful. He never stopped until my mom begged him to stop. It became pretty clear to me that any kid who received a beat down like my dad gave Jimmy would have a ton of rage inside. This was the type of crazy-making I grew up with.

Then there was church which doesn’t have to be dysfunctional. Yet, in my experience, it reflected the reality of the home I grew up in—crazy-making. We all had to go to church twice on Sundays, to a midweek prayer meeting, and all the revival meetings which took place twice a year for two weeks straight every night.

Our preacher’s name was Gravitt. My dad liked to call him “Doc” Gravitt. He was no doctor I would ever choose to visit. He was a rough rogue. He would call people out by name during the worship service and accuse them of not paying their tithe. He was known to stop preaching, walk down from the platform, and spank a kid for misbehaving in church. He would challenge men who he thought were malcontents to meet him in the parking lot outdoors for a fight. He was unpredictable and very abusive. My parents always thought he was God’s anointed and that you had to tolerate the negative in order to get the positive. They would cite some of the antics of characters in the Bible that God used and were satisfied that Gravitt was like one of those. They would say that it took a character like Gravitt to drive out the riffraff so that the church could grow. All my brothers and I thought that Gravitt was the riffraff. We all used to love it when my one of my older brothers, Dave, would mix it up with Gravitt when he would try to get in Dave’s face and tell him how he should live his life. Dave would not tolerate Gravitt’s bullshit! He would challenge Gravitt to meet him in the parking lot for a fisticuff. We all looked forward to these encounters. We thought they were entertaining. In truth it was crazy-making!

My parents had little time to spend with their kids. Geez, if they were paid full time to only raise kids, there still wouldn’t be enough time to spend with each kid. As it was, my dad worked 2-3 jobs at a time and my mom was a domestic worker. In our home, everything was rationed. Baths, the amount of milk for breakfast, food, and electricity were all rationed in order to cover the expenses of 14 people. There wasn’t any personal time for affection, attunement of spirit, and emotional support from parents.

Martin Luther King once said that “violence is the language of the unheard”. In the family I grew up in there was little experience of being heard. My parents tacitly agreed to not fight about disagreements they had. The anger that was avoided between them was played out between my siblings and me. I was the youngest boy so I had experienced a shitload of hell from my older brothers. To say the least, it was crazy-making.

The lack of touch, attachment and bonding that my parents missed in their childhood was passed along to me and my siblings. It became a mainspring to the years of intimacy disabled-ness, struggle, and addiction that would later develop and come to fruition in my life and that of some of my family members. There was little touch and affection and nurture was scarce. It was crazy-making.

How do you walk away from crazy-making? Addicts experience dysfunctional dynamics within their families of origin to one extent or another. There are many effective suggestions for addressing the crazy-making. Here are a few to consider.

Tell your story. Make your rags into a tapestry. It is a worn-out metaphor, yet many addicts continue to want to walk around the elephant in the living room. Our families of origin have taught us well how to compartmentalize dysfunctional pain and pretend it does not exist. We embrace the impossible and ignore the obvious. Shame is passed from one generation to the next and the conduit is secrecy. We create secrecy by hiding what we don’t want others or self to see and thus avoiding what is painful. Addicts are great with knowing how to compartmentalize.

Show your family rags in 12-step groups. Let this sharing be a stepping stone to open your heart and share with your family, your partner, and your kids. They will truly benefit. Through your sharing, your kids will be able to stand on your shoulders and make a better way for their future. It is an excellent beginning in unraveling the crazy-making from your family of origin. It is a way of making a tapestry from the rags of dysfunction.

Scrub the wound. So much in recovery is counterintuitive. When hurt we want to roar with anger, whereas healing requires us to embrace our anger, fear and sadness with vulnerability. Overcoming the crazy-making that exists in our family of origin insists that we lean into our fear, fragility, and frozen emotional experiences.

Like scrubbing a laceration on your knee, the last thing you want to do is what is demanded. Scrubbing emotional wounds is painful. It is automatic that you would want to shy away and procrastinate scrubbing the wound. When we don’t, the infection spreads throughout our relational lives and appears every time anxiety and threat surface in our lives. Crazy-making family dysfunction must be scrubbed. You must drain the pool of pain that exists through identification of hurt, grieving the losses, and validating your experience.

Anchor to your true self. Tolerating the crazy-making in your family of origin required you to create a false sense of self. Survival in your dysfunctional family called for people-pleasing, caretaking and approval-seeking behaviors. Often your inherent value was not nurtured and was forced into hiding in your family of origin. You may have learned to seek identity and validation through the services you rendered to others. This can set you up to do more to keep from being less. As an addict, this is a common place where you lose your sense of self. This becomes a perfect place to escape emotional pain with your drug of choice. Ending the crazy-making handed to you from your family of origin requires that you anchor to your true self. Crazy-making experiences in life come to an end when you anchor to your own sense of worthiness. It demands that you embrace your own feelings whatever they are. Rather than being dominated by what others feel about you, your true self will give birth to authentic congruence. Your feelings begin to line up with your values which are expressed by what you say and how you live. It’s being anchored to your true self that separates you from the crazy-making in dysfunctional family living.

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