No wonder I sought out similar situations to my early experiences for so long. Our image of love is totally, unequivocally distorted. Verbal abuse wrecks us completely, we are demolished. Self love is often categorically rejected as narcissism. (It is a myth that narcissists are authentically loving themselves. They are often the utmost in insecure person on the block, they just develop and don a mask so ornate they deceive not only those around them, but themselves as well.) We certainly can not love our neighbors well if we can not start with loving ourselves well. Fragments of “love” fraught with conditions, poison, and pain are not really love. The world over, we can see people loving their neighbor as themselves, all right, that is to say: NOT AT ALL! Barely, conditionally, abusively. We need to cultivate more self love, especially compassionate love for the child within us who has been hurt.
Verbally abusive parents have not faced the deep pain their own parents caused them. Sometimes, they even venerate them as great people who just acted like that “for their own good.” People believe it is easier to justify or altogether forget what happened. All of this is mostly unconscious. However, when they have children, the cycle is then continued. If they can get in touch with the pain they felt as a child, they can begin to see their children as porous, emotionally malleable beings. They can see themselves in their child. Verbal abuse stifles joy, creativity and passion are smothered. We may marry someone who verbally diminishes us, and when we have children, we pass on this emotional cancer. The same holds true for any abuse.
When we as parents can feel our own pain about our parents, transformation happens. We can allow our righteous anger and grief to endow us with a deep resolve NEVER to allow poisonous parental ghosts to visit upon our children. This involves sitting with some very unpleasant feelings, many tears, difficult yet essential for healing. We must for our children and for the children we were.
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