4. Who was the militaristic, rigidly harsh parent or person in my family?
My aunt was rigid, she didn't like it when I played, laughed, smiled, or had fun; it seemed to bother her, hit her buttons, offend her, really trigger her, and she came down hard on me, dismissed me, yelled at me, scolded me, took out her anger frustration and accusations on me, belittled me and my behavior and my natural instincts. I was reading about the 2nd chakra and how rhythm is important to establishing a healthy 2nd chakra in a developing child. My aunt's criticism negativity seriousness harshness and compulsive need to control my happiness, spontaneity, cheer, fun, play, laughter, brightness, lightheartedness, amusement, enjoyment, play and happiness, I believe had quite an impact on my 2nd chakra development.
I learned to be controlled, to hold my breath and my body rigidly, to feel that I was in the way and that just by my existence, I was already doing something wrong and needed to be apologetic for my presence, and also the way I did things, my process. I learned to assume I was wrong, my existence was INHERENTLY WRONG, whatever that can really mean. This felt like one of the most damaging messages I received.
I've found a lot of help with this particular message from the Al-Anon literature Paths to Recovery on Step One, the story "A Reminder That Made the Most Difference." The woman talks about how her friend bursts into anger when he drives, and she took it personally, and tried to control his moods, and when she finally worked on accepting that his behavior wasn't her fault and in fact had nothing to do with her, she stopped reacting to his behavior, and she realized that he wasn't concerned with his behavior, that his outbursts didn't bother him, he didn't see them as a problem, and when she stopped trying to control his behavior, she realized he didn't even notice, he didn't seem to care whether she jumped in and tried to lighten the mood for him, or whether she detached in the situation, and this makes me realize, I can do this with my aunt, and in fact, I expect it might be quite the same, meaning that she doesn't notice the change in me, and she doesn't care if I lighten the mood or not, and she also isn't concerned with her behavior. If she isn't concerned with her behavior, certainly I don't need to be!
My uncle was also rigidly controlling, in different ways. He has a lot of standards in his head about how people should be, (as does my aunt, who makes lots of side comments coupled with some serious eye-rolling), and uses a lot of "should" statements. He presents his ideas as the only reasonable, sane, respectable, rational, normal, acceptable, obvious mode of being, and it feels like he's rigidly forcing his viewpoint onto others, that they should agree with him, and he likes to feel secure that he's figured out "the best" way to be. It's part of a perfectionist quality, and also a black-and-white way of viewing things, and also a controlling dynamic, and he talks loudly and interrupts others.
From growing up around, I got this sense of -- that I "have to" be a certain way, in order to be respectable. And that being respectable is one of the most important things in life. And I also gained this sense of -- of course, these ways my uncle sees the world are how others see the world as well -- I came to expect that others see the world his way and would validate and approve of me if I acted according to his standards and codes of conduct. This had at least two effects I can recognize right now.
One, I felt "weird," "different," I didn't agree with his standards, in fact I found them quite offensive and opposed them strongly on a very gut-level, and yet felt bound by them, bound by this sense that "I have to be this way in order to be considered valid in the world, for others to see me as credible," and this feeling of being credible, this need to be credible, was also ranked very highly along with being respectable. I felt that I somehow needed or had to act this way in order to survive when it came to my interactions with others, that this is what others would expect of me, and that if I didn't act this way, I would be rejected, abandoned, shameful, unworthy, underachieving, that I wouldn't pass muster, that I would be failing, that I would be less than, that I would not be fulfilling my potential, that I would be lazy, that I would be considered worthless, that I would be considered untalented and incapable, or stupid. There was a real need here to prove myself to others, that the burden was on me, that they would automatically dismiss me (the way I felt my uncle and other family members did) unless I was able to prove myself well enough, convince them. This set me up to need to control their reactions and opinions of me, to need to show them, and made me at times pushy, often overachieving and burning myself out, and at times rigid and controlling and quite stressed out and afraid of authority figures (whoever I was proving myself to became my authority figure, even if it was a coworker whom I myself was managing!). There was a real push here, a large pressure and stress on myself to perform and achieve and do well enough, the emphasis on doing, rather than being, I came to value myself as a human doing rather than a human being, and felt guilty and nervous when I wasn't working hard, working overkill, working above and beyond what was required of me, needing to be perfect and perform better than others just in order to feel good enough, worthy, equal to others, yet somehow still not feeling equal or as good as others, and at the same time judging others harshly and noting all their perceived shortcomings to myself, all their indiscretions, and keeping track of them secretly in my head and holding them against that person indefinitely, pulling them out to myself whenever I wanted to justify something to myself, or needed backup about something they did which I didn't like, or over which I was hurt or felt threatened or triggered. I became very judgmental, and yet was manipulative about it too -- being very allowing toward others on the surface, being compliant and acting sweet and supportive and allowing almost any behavior, both around me and also toward me, and secretly feeling superior to others because I noticed and disapproved of their infantile behavior or their perceived infractions; being emotionally supportive in order to hopefully gain their emotional loyalty in return, that they might be supportive toward me and be willing to be there for me should I need them some day. This was highly manipulative, this enacted codependence.
And two, I came to expect that others agreed with him, and even when I saw that others didn't, and in fact, saw that others considered me rigid, I was unable to change this part of myself, the part of myself that rigidly was programmed to still act this and to continue to expect others to expect me to act this way even when it obviously wasn't true. In fact, I don't know if I've met a person outside my family that seems to believe and agree with those ways of being I picked up from my uncle. This way of seeing things and this way of expecting others to be and expecting the world to be and expecting the world to work this way colored my viewpoint so thoroughly that even though I so strongly felt opposed to it and disgusted by it and bothered by it, I wasn't able to shake it, neither the expectation that others saw things that way, and my own reenacting this way of being in myself. I felt so unhappy with myself when I acted this way, and I also felt like a fraud, and I felt like others respected me less, and I felt like I respected myself a lot less too, because I was going against my values of how to treat and view others, and how I wanted to be myself, and what kind of world I wanted to live in. This really bred a lot of self-hatred, self-loathing, low self-esteem, and shame and guilt, feeling badly about the way I treated others and being aware of it and yet not being able to do things differently. I then was harsh on myself and my harshness generally caused me to reenact this viewpoint and these expectations in an even stricter way, and the cycle continued.
So, realizing this and putting a finger on it goes pretty far in recognizing how to change it, and being able to change it.
That feeling of having done something terribly wrong just by existing is much less, if not mostly gone right now.
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