How do I deal with an abusive parent?
How to deal with an abusive parent (or parents if you're particularly unlucky) could well be a book, or at least an essay. There's far more to say than I can reasonably say here, but I want to provide some suggestions and some support that I hope will be helpful and provide a good place to start in a quick and easy to understand format.
Warning signs of an abusive parent
Abuse is when something damaging is done to you by someone else.
Abusive parenting can be:
Physical abuse e.g. hitting, slapping, pushing, pinching, burning and other forms of abuse and physical violence, physical harm and domestic violence, fear of punishment through threats of violence
Sexual abuse e.g. sexual or attempted sexual touching by a parent, inappropriate sexual interest by a parent, exposure to sexual images or acts by a parent or inappropriate interest in your body, relationships, clothing or violating physical boundaries.
(It's worth noting there doesn't always have to be physical contact to constitute sexual abuse. Non contact sexual abuse is also possible. Emotional incest is a term which applies to the child being used as a surrogate partner. It may fall under the second or third category).
Emotional abuse (also known as verbal abuse) e.g. name calling, silent treatment, insulting, humiliating, being passive aggressive, criticising.
For more information on abuse and how it differs from child neglect, click here.
Child abuse is often used synonymously with child neglect however neglect normally refers to something being missing rather than something bad happening.
Is one type of abuse worse than another?
People often believe that there is a hierarchy of abuse and that one form of abuse is worse than another. All abuse is damaging and emotional abuse is not less damaging than physical or sexual abuse.
The general public and families tend to be more accepting of some types of abuse than others. People are often more dismissive of emotional abuse, which can lead to people underestimating the impact of what happened to them.
Emotional neglect which is where you didn't have safe people to talk to about your feelings, feelings weren't discussed or understood is particularly poorly understood in society, and the emotional harm that is incurred vastly underestimated. Common signs as an adult include superficial relationships, feeling of emptiness and difficulty in connecting with people. You can read more about emotional neglect here.
Emotional abuse and your inner critic
Childhood abuse results in a merciless inner critic.
What we hear becomes our internal voice, so if you grew up with damaging messages and constant criticism of your apparent failings and how difficult or problematic you were then as an adult you will believe that you are unloveable, unworthy and incompetent.
Excessive criticism is not feedback, rather it is a from of punishment and creates feelings of anger which are either suppressed by the child in an attempt to be good or can lead to angry outbursts, so called poor behaviour and poor performance both socially and at school.
Emotionally abusive parents result from parents who cannot manage their own emotions rather than children who are bad.
Self gaslighting
Self gaslighting occurs when people attempt to justify the abusive behavior they experienced, because others have minimised the abusive behavior as normal. It may start as hearing justification from an abusive parent:
'You made me angry'
'You can't get anything right'
'Shouting is all you understand'
'I need to knock some sense into you'
Self gaslighting sounds like:
It didn't happen all the time
It only happened once or twice
I know my other friends got it worse
My parents treated me better than they were treated
They did their best
I know he loved me really
It was a long time ago
It was a different time
Everybody did it in those days
Impact of abusive parent
Low self esteem
Difficulty in setting boundaries
Finding it hard to stand up for yourself
Unhelathy or abusive relationships
People pleasing
Depression
Anxiety or anxiety disorders
Unexplained medical symptoms such as IBS, migraines or ongoing pain, poor physical health
Substance abuse as a means of coping with emotional pain
Panic attacks
Flashbacks
Repeated abuse
Feelings of shame, intense negative feelings
What are the effects of abuse on adult children?
So the more interaction you have with an abusive parent and the worse they treat you, the higher the impact that it will have on you.
Traumatic experiences are dependent on the person who experiences them and stems in part from their available resources. This means that something that is traumatic for one person is not necessarily traumatic for someone else. So the severity of abuse is subjective; you might feel incredibly traumatised by your family but someone else might not understand your reaction.
Complex trauma is a result of repeated traumatic experiences and can results in abused children suffering flashbacks, mental health conditions and lead to coping strategies such as drug abuse, alcohol abuse, cutting off from feelings and other unhealthy coping mechanisms. This is a normal response to an unbearable situation and does not mean that you are 'doing anything wrong'. You are trying to cope with what happened you by numbing negative emotions and painful feelings and this is not your fault.
You might choose to reduce your time spent talking or seeing them or choose only to see them in public or when they are diluted in family situations.
Of course you shouldn't have to put up with any abuse, but I find that many people find it hard to extract themselves from abusive situations or feel pressure to keeping seeing family. They struggle with feelings of guilt or are guilt tripped or punished by other family members when they do try and extract themselves, so reducing time can be a helpful intermediary step.
Setting boundaries with an abusive parent
Although boundary setting is often recommended in cases of parental abuse, in my experience this is easier said than done.
Abusive people inherently have poor boundaries, otherwise they wouldn't be abusive. They ignore the impact on you and prioritise their feelings or inability to manage them over you. Expecting someone who ignores your feelings to suddenly start behaving well because you set boundaries is highly unlikely.
You are far more likely to experience pushback, confusion, an increase in abuse, gaslighting, blaming and punishing if you try to set boundaries.
Can you repair a relationship with an abusive parent?
Many people who come into therapy, come with the hope of mending the relationship.
Broken relationships must be worked on from both sides and you cannot engineer change from your side all the while the abusive parent ignores you and refuses to change their behaviour.
Therapy is therefore focussed on understanding where our poor standards come from and acknowledging the pain that growing up in an abusive family caused. For many people this also involves learning to reconnect with their feelings as it's common for children who were abused to dissociate or disconnect themselves from their feelings to avoid their pain.
Learning to reconnect with your feelings is therefore an important part of therapy and recovering from abuse.
Family estrangement and abuse
Family estrangement is often viewed negatively, but my opinion is that for some people, it is preferable than repeated abuse or gaslighting they experience within their family.
It is not my job to tell you what choices to make with the parent relationship, instead I will help you see and understand the impact that your childhood has had on you and highlight the connections between your current symptoms and past abuse.
Protecting yourself from future abuse is important and sometimes making the least worst choice is the best available option.
Abuse from parents can be very poorly understood by others and may lead to comments such as 'you only have on mother' or 'why can't we all just get along'. Ignoring your feelings and refusing to change are common tactics in a dysfunctional family.
Silence in abusive families
It's common for families to close ranks and consider their interactions or painful experiences a 'family matter', not for discussion outside of the family. The reality of this is that the child feels isolated, ashamed and is unable to get support or form close relationships with people in a more healthy way.
Understanding the nonabusive parent
It's common for people to consider one parent good and the other bad. The situation is not always this simple and the dynamics of parents can lead to complex emotions and a difficulty understanding the situation.
Sometimes the 'good parent' is also abusive or neglectful but blames the 'bad parent' who is more obviously abusive.
Sometimes the 'good parent' is also being abused by the 'bad parent' and didn't protect the child, or still makes excuses for the abusive parent. This can also be the case that the child is reluctant to protect themselves and leave the victim parent unprotected.
Therapy for complex trauma
Therapy can be a safe space to explore the reality of growing up in an abusive family, although it is normal to be hesitant to speak the truth about your family for fear of being ridiculed or told that your experience wasn't sufficiently bad enough.
This fear normally comes from the family experience, although it is worth noting that some therapists do not have a good understanding of family dynamics or may be overly invested in repairing the family relationships rather than allowing the child to separate. It is important that the therapist supports you in reaching your goal rather than telling you what to do.
Online therapy is as effective as in person therapy and can afford you more options for choosing a therapist.
For more information on choosing a therapist click here
To book a call and find out how I can help click here