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We cry the parents we never had, we children of manipulators
Yesterday I met a friend and a guy who has become very power-aware.
And we talked about parents and manipulative / (emotionally) abusive parents.
(Funny by the way how much power dynamics overlap with therapy, and therapy has largely missed the crucial power angle. The power angle is crucial because abuse/manipulation are in large part about power & control, and without the equivalent love/care. But therapy only focused on "attachment/affection/love")
I asked him a "tough" question.
A question I had thought about myself.
The type of question you'd almost be ashamed to share -together with the answer to that question-.
And it's this:
Would you cry at the funeral of your parents?
And he replied something like:
I already cried my (lack of) parents.
And only this morning I connected the dots and realized how true and deep that is.
We children of manipulative parents don't cry at funerals.
We cry when we realize the "good" or even just simply "normal parent" that one should have, we never had.
That applies to children of various dark triads, emotionally impaired, no-conscience parents, and probably even very low quality parents.
Yes, I asked myself a similar question.
It's the whole paradox of having parents who cared for us and at the same time hurt us.
Thanks for sharing.
I will not miss my mother, but I also never felt like I was missing anything. My dad is great and that was always enough.
The best gift my mother did us was being a career woman, so we would not see her often. Sundays were the worst days.
That’s what I fear the most: the regrets.
I don’t know yet if I’ll regret or not to have kept her far away.
Regarding the funeral I’m imagining that I will play to her image. Like I (unconsciously) did for my father. Another person that I haven’t met in a long time cried the other day talking about my dad’s passing. I was not as moved. She should have come to our apartment and see how he was behind closed doors. I don’t think my father was a manipulator in the sense that my mother is. But I will truly never know for sure. I think he was a hurt insecure boy hiding inside a man.
I’m not going to say bad things at her funeral. What does it matter that people know the truth. It doesn’t. Another person gone soon forgotten anyway. No need to add insult to injury.
Lack of grief is not rare , see point number five from the link.
10 ideas from Good Reasons for Bad Feelings – Insights from the Frontier of Evolutionary Psychiatry
For me it was the realization that emotional attunement from my parents was not at the level ideal for me. A while ago I read the book "running on empty" (about childhood emotional neglect) and felt that it resonated with me a lot. Sometimes it doesn't take a dark triad or narcissistic parent to do some harm.
I think I've reconciled with it much better now and I'm not sure how I will feel at my parents' funerals - maybe something very complicated, maybe more about myself than them. Anyway, still grateful to have parents who at least didn't groove me into a psychopath - like so commonly seen in crime stories (toxic formula usually has those elements :extreme isolation + emotional abuse + control + religious brainwashing)
Dana white’s father was mostly absent. And he had a bad relationship with his mother, they were entirely estranged.
She wrote a book about him saying he’s a bully a cheater and overall a bad person.
Here is a clip of him talking about their passings:
The first comment goes back to what Lucio was saying about having already done the grieving.
YT comment: Sounds like he lost them far before they were gone. Respect to the strong ones.
