My adult children don’t speak to me – I blame their therapists

[IwantToRetire]

NB - this is not about trans children, but thought some of the experiences seem to be the same, and the article seems to focus on mothers ...

“They have all talked to therapists in the various places and countries they’ve lived. They all seem to speak the same ‘therapy language’, talking about ‘toxicity’, and ‘boundaries’. It seems like a witches’ cauldron of dark forces feeding the whole scenario. The children seem happy to carry on with blaming us for anything and everything that doesn’t tally with their unreasonable expectations of us.”

“[Therapy encourages] people to do things for their mental health, and what’s best for them, and relationships are now governed on the basis of whether or not they promote one’s happiness. The idea of previous generations that you cared for your family, that you had duty to them, has been replaced by a more self-centred perspective.”

Where does therapy come into this? “The goal of therapy is often to not feel so guilty or obligated or responsible for other people’s feelings. Your obligation is really to yourself and your own happiness. I don’t think a lot of therapists have really reckoned with the harm that can be done by supporting or encouraging estrangement.”

“There’s been an enormous expansion in what gets labelled as harmful, abusive, traumatising, and neglectful behaviour in general. I often see adult children who have different ideas of what constitutes mental illness and harm and abuse, trauma and neglect, compared to the parents. I see parents so confused, because they think: ‘But I gave you a great childhood, I’d have killed for you.’ The idea of trauma has become more subjective, so that if you say that someone has traumatised you, then they have traumatised you.

“I see things get labelled ‘traumatising’ or ‘triggering’ which would have, to previous generations, been seen as the normal slings and arrows of family life. Therapy has given adult children a much bigger stick with which to beat their parents, and the parents – particularly those who feel they gave their kids a far better childhood than they experienced themselves – are left confused.”

Just a few paragraphs from a much longer article at https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/adult-children-dont-speak-to-me-blame-therapists-3158291

Can also be read at https://archive.ph/3BENZ

Completely agree. No accountability. And a blame culture.

Easy for me to say because I come from a loving family, but if a person blames parents for all, then that's easy. They don't ever need to say : ok yes they did this, but aged 21 I myself decided to do xxx.

And all the good, solid, meaningful values seem to be totally absent in a self-centred generational slice of society at present ( and it isn’t the younger teens).

Like what?

I don't think this is accurate at all - plenty of young people go to therapy and are getting the gender ideology from there. In some cases you see parents talk about, therapy is where it started.

Therapists are very captured on this, especially in North America. How likely is that if their overall models are robust?

I agree with this wholeheartedly.

Again, plenty of people find it helps them get to a place which is easier and less emotionally draining for them to try and understand their parents. If it is not for you, fine. If you dont want to forgive, fine. Reasons are not excuses - you are right. If you take on responsibility for children, that is on you. I spent a decade working with children in hospital and I had that discussion more times than I can count. Over my career, I have found that for many people the idea that parents were doing their best is helpful - but if it does not help you or you simply dont want to do it. fine. There is no 'one size fits all' or right or wrong answers. It is what is right for you. Which is why it is helpful to do this exploration with a therapist and find a good, qualified and properly trained therapist who maintains a license/accreditation with a reputable body, to interview them before you start work, and to be ready to say if you do not feel comfortable or click with them.

I think the PP thought you meant Post-partum depression rather than Personality Disorder, hence the confusion.

It can be extremely difficult working with people with PDs because of the possibility of transferring all the rage they feel towards their parents/authority figures/the world onto you. And rather than working through that in the therapy room, which would involve dismantling some of their coping strategies and walls they have put up, which might feel de-stabilising and be painful, they make a complaint against you.

You can have all the compassion in the world for those clients, but it's still extremely hard and draining process to work with them. I almost feel like a team of people working to support the client might work better in the long term.

Ironically, far from finding it easy to go NC, in reality many people feel like you and take excessive responsibility for what happened in their childhood and worry that they're exaggerating what they experienced.

It's almost impossible to make your parent feel secure. It is not the right relationship for that, we can help our children feel more secure, but rarely our parents. It would be much better for your own MH to focus on your own healing rather than your mother's.

Have you looked for any low cost counselling services or tried to find a therapist who offers reduced fees for those on a low wage?

If that is not possible there is a huge amount of literature and support on like.

A great book to start with is called 'Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents' by Linday Gibson. Or also CPTSD from surviving to Thriving by Pete Walker (he also has a good website).

I wanted to add in regards to appointing "blame ".

A lot of us have been blamed for everything and anything from a very young age. We grew up forced to take responsibility. That if WE changed things would be different.

Being able to say actually, you know what? It's not me , it's her/him/them is a massive step to healing and improving your life, including making better choices.Believing it , even more so.

"Doing one's best" is often a polite fiction. If you've really bolloxed something up, good and proper, you normally haven't done your best.

I disagree. I’m absolutely certain my parents did their best. Unfortunately, given that both of them come from deprived, dysfunctional backgrounds, and were never parented themselves, they not only had no idea how to parent their large family beyond the provision of basic food and shelter, but to this day they have no idea now badly they messed up. Some people’s ‘best’ just isn’t adequate.

I absolutely feel huge responsibility. I see my mother as scared little girl. She had a rubbish childhood, is painfully shy and self-conscious, has been in multiple abusive relationships and suffered the loss of her first child before the rest of us were born. I want to make her better but I can't and some people just don't understand it. 'How can you dislike her after everything she's been through?'.

I'm not a low earner but knee-deep in nursery fees for 2. I'm hoping once they get some funded hours I'll be able to explore therapy. I desperately want it and have considered asking my DH for a session for Xmas 🙈

We had a nice home (surrounded by domestic abuse through) food, days out, dance classes, occasional holidays etc. She also name-called, guilt tripped, would fly into a rage and shout until I was shaking. She never apologises, is self obsessed and thinks she an expert on everything. I read my diary today: I wish mum loved me is the theme from age 11-15. She tells me she did her best. Those who refer to this - how do we define what 'best' is? Is it different for different families, depending on the parents' prior experiences, or is it a set standard for all?
I know that my experience doesn't fall into what some people call 'real' abuse (lack of food, neglect, physical abuse), so I'm interested to know where those people draw the line, what counts apart from that?
I've read more books than I can remember on the topic and some of them are quite old, pre the type of 'therapy talk' this article refers to. I believe there are generations of people that longed to go 'nc' or just not have that person in their lives, but just were not aware that their experience was not normal. Awarenesses may have prompted this 'phenomenon' but the problems have always been there and that's not fault of therapists.

The other thing that really muddies the waters is how quickly the standards of acceptable parenting can change. My parents grew up in the 60s and what was commonplace (I think the term normal is a bit loaded) such as letting kids go free range from a young age and smacking, sometimes with objects would be considered abuse now. Some people feel harmed and others insist it never did them any harm and I don't think that there is a wrong perspective.

I've no doubt that there are commonplace things now that will no longer be accepted by future generations. I'm all for knowing better and doing better but it does make it harder to work out if someone was doing their best or if the harm was too much.

The number one thing with parents like these is lack of self awareness. Which leads into… I never did anything wrong. The child gets the blame over and over again for insufficiently managing their parents feelings.

This is now recognised as emotional and psychological abuse which children have no ability to not receive. They have to take it. A grown adult can walk away. But children are repeatedly traumatized by parents like these. This is a child as a punching bag for the problems of the adult.

I second the recommendation for Pete Walker’s book. It is very good.

I agree with this and think it describes my parents too.

There’s “doing their best” and being abusive. If a parent is, perhaps, not good with dealing with emotions, for example, struggles to say “I love you”, has occasionally shouted, said the odd hurtful thing but has been there while growing up giving lifts, nice memories etc to me they fall into the “doing their best/meant well” category. This is a category that, I think, most people would be able to make peace with and move on from. People in this category would be able to recognise that their parents didn’t have the best childhood but they tried their best.

Abuse is totally different and should not be normalised, or filed under “doing their best”. If a parent slapped, pushed, punched you, tells you that you’re fat, ugly or a whore, treats a sibling in the exact opposite way, ignore/participate in sexual abuse that is not “doing their best”, that is abuse,

In my opinion, the people who go NC fall into the latter category. Nobody goes NC because their parent once or twice screamed at them or said something awful.

I think it’s absolutely amazing that we are raising kids to spot abuse. I tell my kids that nobody should shout at you, call you names, hit you or mentally torment you and if they do you leave them, including family. If I don’t give them that message they’re most likely going to end up in toxic and/or abusive friendships and relationships (I’m speaking from experience). If I do any of the abusive behaviour listed above I hope my kids do go NC with me.

I work with teenagers and it’s great to hear them use words like abuse, consent and toxic, I applaud them and it gives me great hope for the future.

There's a difference between neglect and abuse. Parents who don't have the basic skills might struggle to provide a basic standard of care and parenting, without being actively and maliciously abusive.

I was able to understand and forgive the neglect , without having to forgive the active abuse.

You can have all the compassion in the world for those clients, but it's still extremely hard and draining process to work with them. I almost feel like a team of people working to support the client might work better in the long term.

Yes, you are spot on @butterbeansauce . Unfortunately, with the cuts to MH services, the sort of teams that would have supported these people in the past are cut to the bone and beyond. So many more end up coming into (or being shunted in to therapy, and short term therapy at that) therapy, and so the difficulties therapist encounter rise. It is really sad. People with PD dont choose to be PD, have usually had really difficult experiences in their lives and can lead really miserable and unhappy existences. I could potentially help some of them if I had years and years of funding to see them. Cant fix them in the 6 sessions we are often pressured towards.

I think that whilst there are undoubtedly adults whose childhood was abusive and toxic there are an awful lot of people who are seeking to blame their childhood for everything and claiming toxicity where it isn't. I think all of us probably experienced some toxicity whilst growing up and as parents we probably create or will some toxicity from time to time that is because we are human and make mistakes. We have to forgive. The point is the level of damage and I think for many the phrase "recollections may vary" applies.

And I would add to this that many of the generation claiming their parents were toxic or abusive have not had their own parenting come back to bite them yet. There are clearly some cases of outright and unacceptable abuse which are not - and never have been - acceptable. But there are also things that are less than desirable but were the outcome of parents just not being perfect. For instance I know a friend who - with hindsight- had a sister who was clearly autistic. But at that time it was not manifesting such that it would have sent parents rushing for diagnosis. She clearly struggled a bit socially but they just thought it was her own unique “ way” and, as she was super bright and had lots going for her, they didn’t seek diagnosis but supported her with her strengths. Her sister accepts it was her parents doing their best; yet the girl herself got therapy (at my friends suggestion) when the diagnosis finally came and is now very angry and claims she had abusive parents. There are things now that the “ therapy generation” don’t yet see on the horizon that their Dc will hold them to account for. But I do feel that once there was more understanding of previous generations’ differing perspective. These days people can be negative and negating of the older generations ( who might - who knows - turn out to have been right about a lot of things)

Good point about not yet having your own parenting come back to bite you. I don't think anyone is immune.

Well I have adult children who have no problem being in contact with me. I also managed to bring them up without hitting them in their beds, throwing furniture around rooms, having fights with their partners, chasing them up stairs threatening to hit them, comparing them unfavourably with their friends/siblings/other people's children, flirting with their friends, touching up other people in front of them, ridiculing them, swearing at them, being negative about their weight, not going to them when they were tiny and had nightmares, regularly making them cry, the list goes on...But you wouldn't have been there in my house so you would have described my parents as not being abusive because how could you have known.

I was prepared to look at my past and take responsibility for aspects of it that still affected me. I'm not perfect by any means but I have gone an awful long way towards not visiting it on my children because I wanted the cycle to end now. So I apologised when I screwed up (which of course I did), listened to them, gave them independence and privacy and also clear boundaries. You don't have to be perfect, just decent human beings really. If you treat your children worse than you treat your friends then you're probably not a good parent.

Good point about not yet having your own parenting come back to bite you. I don't think anyone is immune.

I find comments like this (and it's often said on this topic) really interesting. There's almost a certain glee at the thought that future generations might end up resenting the parents of today. That all their efforts are in vain. That trying to be better is almost pointless. How fucked up is that?

Similar to threads about x person seeming to have a nice life that the poster is envious/jealous of and they get a plethora of replies of they're in debt, his husband might be abusive/cheating, it's all fake , she might be miserable,crying every night etc.

Not a great example of resilience when you're basically hoping everyone is just as miserable as you are .

My DD might turn around and point my failings when older, or worse. Even then , I'll still be a much much better parent than my mother ever was, and hopefully DD will be even better(if she decides to have children).

Not a great example of resilience when you're basically hoping everyone is just as miserable as you are .
Hoping? Or merely acknowledging it's a possibility?

I've found so many posts on this thread fascinating.

I have a work sponsored programme that allows me to access counselling and I've used it on a few occasions. One of them was really good. Most were meh to fine - but - a long chat with one of my friends would have helped me work through things about as well. The advice of one of them nearly crashed my marriage. So I guess like any profession there are good ones but also bad ones, and I worry (without good evidence) that counsellors reflect that friendships are thinner in modern society than they used to be, even though they can't be a substitute. Also, I grew up very much attached to my local parish church. People at the church, including the vicar, were available to provide support. That's pretty much gone now, I imagine.

A point that's been made in passing quite a few times is that it's not people going to therapy that's the problem, but people giving themselves therapy. I think that's right - think of all the self-diagnosis on the Internet. If people are becoming more focused on themselves and less on others, that's more likely to be the reason why. I see it very much in my own children and I do wonder whether that will come back to bite me.

O.K! I get it that you are still very angry...... Other people are allowed to perceive things in their own way. I can only comment on my own situation and life experience and the way I've dealt and processed it...as you must do for yours.

Though, even with the most well intentioned, overall 'good enough' parenting, your children will end up holding you responsible for something or other; they may well moan about you to their friends, even if you are still in regular and close contact.