Self-Hatred

Children of Trauma
by Jane Middelton-Moz, Ph.D.

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The deeply felt experience of self-hate is not limited to cultural or ethnic minority children. This process takes place for any child that feels the powerlessness of his differences in a broader world that cannot be expressed or validated at home.

A young child, for instance, with a perceptual handicap such as dyslexia, may feel the pressure from a school that does not understand the handicap. The child may be considered lazy, unmotivated or just one more behavior problem by teachers. Unaware or uninformed parents may see the child's behavior in the same light, not understanding the perceptual problem over which the child has no control. Without competent perceptual screening and testing, the child and parents may never understand why and how she is different. Instead, the child internalizes the beliefs of the adults and peers and feels that she is just "lazy" and "bad." This frequently leads to more behavioral problems, lack of motivation and severe depression. This sense of self-loathing can also be passed down the family tree and across generations.

Paula

Paula was aware from an early age that her father was different from other parents. Whenever they were out in public, he would become painfully shy and would sit far in the back at any public gathering. He was frequently depressed at home or would become enraged with her or her mother with little provocation, slamming doors and yelling, "You two feel better than everyone else. Well, I have news for you, I'm just as good as you are!"

Paula became very protective of her father and would feel disdain for those she felt were hurting him. When she was five, she realized that he could not read and quite innocently expressed this fact to her peers in the neighborhood. She was punished for this transgression by her mother, told that she had hurt her father deeply and was ordered to never again let anyone know her father could not read.

Paula became extremely compulsive about her own schoolwork and felt ashamed when she got less than an A. She studied constantly, never entering into the more social world of school and play. Her first love was a boy who she met in her junior year at college. He was an intellectual, a "bookworm" like herself, and their time together was spent sipping cokes after studying in the library. Their relationship broke up when he received a higher grade than she did on a final exam.

"I never want to see you again," she screamed. "You have always felt you were better than me; now you have your proof."

Paula's father delighted in her school successes, and he even began showing a sense of pride (that had always been lacking) whenever she brought home an honor. He would never, however, accompany her mother to her graduation ceremonies. Paula would become even more determined to try harder in school so that he would come when she received the next degree.

I saw Paula shortly after she had received her Doctor of Education degree. She had been hired as an assistant professor at a prestigious college in the East but had to leave the job because of severe panic attacks she experienced whenever she was required to stand up in front of her classroom.

Unresolved Trauma

All children experience traumatic events of one kind or another before reaching the age of 18. This fact is central in our treatment of children and adults who have experienced the effects of unresolved traumas in their lives. It is a fact we must also understand in order to appreciate and recognize healthy family interactions. Parents and extended family members cannot fully protect their children from traumatic events. They can, however, protect them from the damaging effects of unresolved trauma on the child's developing self-esteem.

For example, some children raised in alcoholic families do not show the typically damaging effects on self-esteem. If at least one adult family member was not in denial, the child's experience of trauma can be validated and her emotional reactions can be expressed. These two factors are essential if the child is to be assisted in mastering the traumatic events.

Children of trauma are individuals who were raised in families where denial is the primary defense used to cope with emotional pain. A child's sense of self is damaged less from the actual experience of the trauma than it is by the reactions of the significant adults in the child's life.

Sandler (1967) has observed that,

"There is strong evidence that many children recover from truly traumatic experiences with little or no residual damage to their personalities. The degree of environmental support that the child receives is important here. What would seem to be crucial in deciding the outcome of a traumatic experience is not so much the experience itself, as the posttraumatic state of ego strain that it engenders in the child's adaption to that state."

Many survivors of sexual abuse, for instance, have shared that the failure to be believed when reporting abuse to an adult support person was far more devastating than the abuse itself. Likewise, children who have experienced the loss of a sibling in their childhood and had their feelings ignored because "they were only kids" show a devastated sense of identity. Many felt that they not only lost their brother or sister but also their parents because Mom and Dad failed to acknowledge the loss or grieve themselves. In some families the deceased sibling is never talked about again. Often failure to process the grief of a child's death results in divorce or emotional withdrawal of the parents from each other and their remaining children.

Many of the adults I have treated who lost siblings early in their childhood experience numerous problems: poor ability to connect with others, extreme dissociation, constant suicidal ideation and intense survival guilt. In some cases, because of their age at the time they experienced sibling death, or because of early rivalry and normal ambivalence, they have unconsciously believed that they killed the child. For others, the perceived lack of parental concern over the death resulted in the remaining child's internalized belief that the parents actually killed the brother or sister.

Many individuals have suffered extreme survival guilt, never allowing themselves to truly experience life past the time of their sibling's death. These adults unconsciously believe that they should have died instead. They also feel that if they let their lives go on and detach from the constant memory of the dead sibling, no one will have cared. The parents' seeming lack of concern for the dead child is proof that the child never mattered to anyone and neither do they. Clinging to the dead child is the only way some children can validate their right to exist.

The four components necessary for the resolution of any trauma are: validation of the event, a supportive adult, validation of emotions and time. (Middelton-Moz and Dwinell, 1987).

In families where communication is open and healthy, where parents are not suffering from unresolved trauma and grief, validation, support, time and modeling are present.

For instance, if Danny's parents can talk to him after leaving the department store, model feelings for him, allow him expression and support, talk openly about the issues of prejudice and offer him skills to deal with the world outside his home, rather than deny their feelings and the prejudices that exist in others, he will not suffer injury to his self-esteem. It will be through their own denial, unresolved pain and inability to be emotionally present for him that his growing identity will be affected.

Connie

Connie is a very energetic five-year-old. Her drawings reflect a great deal of creativity and spontaneity. Occasionally, during shopping trips or while walking in the park with her dad, she will say, "Boy, Daddy, I really miss Mommy sometimes. I wish she were here with us." Rather than ignoring the subject or feeling the child's statement is an attack on his ability as an emotional caretaker, he stops and puts his arm around her.

"I know, it must hurt a lot sometimes. I miss Mommy, too. She used to come here with us. Are your remembering those times?" Connie's eyes fill with tears; her daddy's do also. They hug for a minute; then Connie grabs her dad's hand and they continue walking.

A little over a year ago Connie's mother died. She was hit by a car as she and her husband were walking back to their car after a late night out at a restaurant. Jim, Connie's dad, went immediately into shock. Even in his numb state, however, his first concern was his children. He called a friend for support and discussed how to tell them. The next morning after the children were awake, he gathered them together and told them directly and honestly that their mother had died the night before. Jim had his brother there as a support for himself. They all cried together frequently during the next few days.

Jim involved his children in the funeral arrangements. They took part fully in the grieving process. Jim sought out counseling and emotional support to deal with his feelings of loss and the traumatic event that caused his wife's death. He dealt with his rage at the driver who had killed her, as well as his own guilt. He asked himself over and over, what could he have done to prevent her death? He struggled endlessly with his own sense of helplessness. While working through his own grief, however, he remained as emotionally and physically available for his children as he could. He dealt with Connie's early night terror and her recurrent fear every time he would leave the house. He talked about his own loss and processed theirs with them.

About eight months after the death, Connie woke up in the middle of the night; she was crying and awakened her dad, "Daddy, I wish I could say happy birthday to Mommy. I wish Mommy were here. I miss her." After they had talked for a long time, they agreed to talk about it as a family the next day. Connie went back to sleep.

On his wife's birthday Jim and his children had a picnic in the backyard. They bought a huge bouquet of helium filled balloons and tied notes to them that said, "Happy birthday, Mommy." After they had eaten, they let the balloons go. The bright colors of the balloons stood out against the summer sky as they floated upwards and beyond while the children cried and sang "Happy Birthday."

For Connie and her brother the devastating effects of trauma on their personality development will not be present. Connie will not experience panic attacks at night whenever a loved one leaves the house nor compulsively overprotect her own children or need to emotionally detach from them. She will not have to leave relationships before she gets left or work her grief out in other relationships. Children who suffer unresolved trauma frequently act out in their adult lives the traumas they could not master in childhood fantasy and play. Because there was validation of her mother's death, validation of her feelings, her dad's modeling of appropriate grief, someone there for her and time, Connie will have mastered the trauma.

© 1996 Health Communications, Inc.

About the Author

Jane Middelton-Moz is a therapist who speaks internationally on the topics of multigenerational grief and trauma, and cultural and ethnic self-hate. She has over 20 years experience in community mental health work, including a position as clinical director of the largest mental health organization in western Washington. Jane Middleton-Moz has appeared on national radio and television shows, including Oprah. She is the author of After the Tears, Growing in the Shadows, Children of Trauma and Shame and Guilt.