Child Abuse by Rejection
Father
are some children who are raised in fierce, open, and active
discarding by a parent. Here, there is no subtlety.
Some adults have never gotten over the vivid image of a father's icy
stare signifying hateful contempt for the very personhood of the
child. This kind of clear and total rejection is never fully overcome
but can be carried, scars and all, if one's value is restored through
intensive, insight-oriented therapy aimed at throwing off the lies
communicated during childhood.
In one of the most extreme cases I have treated, a widower with a 5-
year-old son married a woman who had not been married before and had
no children of her own. From the very start, she became irritated by
almost everything the boy did or said, even though the child had a
very gentle and sweet personality and was very obedient.
This little one, having his real mother's death still weighing on him,
endured constant nagging and direct verbal abuse by his stepmother.
With each new child born to the couple, the rejection of the first
became worse. Stepmother eventually stopped pretending, quit hiding
her hostility, even when visitors were present in the home. In time,
anyone could see that she blatantly had it in for the boy. By the time
he reached his teens, he tried to stay away from home as much as
possible.
A very bright child, he lost all motivation; became a substandard
student; gave up the career dreams and fantasies of his earlier
childhood; and began to settle for existence rather than life. He was
convinced that he deserved nothing. Even his father had given up any
emotional support and gave all of his attention to the later children,
those he shared with his wife.
One day, when she was sure the boy would be away, the stepmother took
everybody else to the photographic studio for a family portrait.
It happened that one night, as a young adult, this same victim had
managed to spend some time with his father, and the two had gotten
very drunk. He used the occasion to ask the question that had plagued
him all of his life: "Why did you never love me?" The father looked at
him and said nothing as the son implored him again and again to
answer. No answer ever came--not that night, not ever.
The son could not adjust to this horrible reality.
Processing the information, grieving, and moving on would be
impossible until the condition made some kind of sense. He performed
his own therapy by never giving up his search for a cause. Then, one
day, through a distant family member, he received his answer:
The man he thought was his father all of his life was not. He further
learned that his deceased mother had been extremely promiscuous all
during the marriage, and any one of a long list of men could be his
real father.
Compared to the rejection issue, the identity of his biological father
did not matter very much. He had solved his problem, for now there was
an explanation. From the very instant of his discovery, he was
relieved. Little grieving was necessary, because he had indeed mourned
the issue all of his life. Now he knew the problem was not with
himself. He became somewhat empowered, and very soon began the work of
exploring who he really was, apart from being anyone's son. Very
essential to him was a strong spirituality that enabled him to put the
matter largely to rest by concluding that he was on Earth because his
heavenly Father willed that he be here, and further, that there was an
excellent purpose for his life.
Some children experience the brunt of rejection even when they are, in
fact, loved. There are many parents who are quite able to love but not
able to demonstrate it because of their own deficiencies in the way
they were raised. When a parent has missed a warm, accepting, and
openly affectionate relationship with his own parent, he or she can be
disabled in what would be normal parent-child interaction.
But such unfortunates are not aware of the deficiency because most
people feel that what occurred in their families of origin was normal.
Thus this partial parenting, without intervention, will be passed on
from one generation to another and will tend to produce robotized
adults.
In the most sever cases of outright rejection of a child, a terrible
fact is realized: that while all children love their parents, not all
parents love their children.
The above excerpt from "AM I BAD? Recovering from Abuse" is brought to
you courtesy of St. James the Elder Theological Seminary online.
(http://www.child-to-adult-victim.com/whats_new_3.html)
'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`''`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`
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Tim McNamara
Father <heywar...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> While neglect is certainly the most common form of rejection, there
> are some children who are raised in fierce, open, and active
> discarding by a parent. Here, there is no subtlety.
>
> Some adults have never gotten over the vivid image of a father's icy
> stare signifying hateful contempt for the very personhood of the
> child. This kind of clear and total rejection is never fully overcome
> but can be carried, scars and all, if one's value is restored through
> intensive, insight-oriented therapy aimed at throwing off the lies
> communicated during childhood.
I think there are a few problems in this position.
First, it is true that some parents reject their children with
hostility, contempt, etc., rather than "neglect by absence" such as is
often associated with having an alcoholic or workaholic parent- or, for
that matter, an impoverished parent who must work two jobs to keep a
place to live and food to eat.
Second, while it is true that *some* adults have never gotten over overt
and/or hostile rejection, it is not true that *all* adult have not
gotten over this. While the excerpt notes this, it goes on to write in
very deterministic and overly melodramatic terms.
The term "lies" is interesting in this context. "Lies" about what?
That the parent rejected the child? That may not be a lie. That the
parent disliked or resented the child? That may not be a lie either.
The lies may be in the explanations that the child thought up to explain
the rejection to him- or herself: "it's my fault;" "I am bad;" etc.
This is basic RET/CBT. Insight is not going to be enough to change
these patterns of thinking and emotion.
Maybe that was the point that the author was trying to make and it just
wasn;t clear to me, or perhaps is made in another section.