eNEWSLETTER
May 2007
Our Mission Statement:
"Providing a range of innovative professional services, empowering our clients to positively address issues affecting their lives."
Welcome to the May edition of Clayfield Counselling Services e-newsletter. You may remember last month we wrote about toxic relationships. We had such a great response to that newsletter that we have decided to explore both the controller and the controlled person in more depth. This month we will look at the person being controlled.
The truth is there isn’t much difference between the controller and the person who is being controlled. Usually a deep seated fear; fear of rejection, fear of not being acceptable, and fear of abandonment is at the root of their need to control or their acceptance of being controlled. The difference is how the controller and the controlled choose to interact with others; the controller tries to cover up their feelings of inadequacy by trying to dominate and have power over others while the controlled chooses to give their power away in order to please others and gain love.
Let’s look at the person being controlled…
The inner shaming voices
All of us have a private internal dialogue which affects the way we see ourselves and the way we relate to others. These inner voices usually sound like our parents and remind us of lessons we learned when we were young. If your parents were critical or abusive, your inner voices are likely to speak to you in a similar manner. For example in his book Compelled to Control, J. Keith Miller writes, “I remember that the first grade I brought home on a paper from school was an 86. I had no idea what an 86 was except that I’d done my best. My well-meaning mother, who was a perfectionist, said, “Hmm… 86… what did you miss?” Something about the way she said it triggered my shame, and I believed that an 86 wasn’t good enough to get her approval. I tried never to make such a low grade again, though I often did.” (1997)
Creating Personages and Keeping Secrets
Very young children express themselves honestly because they have not yet learned any social constraints. One of the jobs of all parents is to teach their children acceptable social behaviour but many parents try to mould the child into their expectations of what the child should be. Although the parents usually don’t set out to hurt the child and in fact, want the best for their child, the child’s authentic self is denied love; instead love is rewarded for fulfilling the parents’ expectations. The child quickly learns that he/she must act a certain way to be loveable and often feels compelled to hide their true self in order to avoid rejection. As the child grows into an adult, he/she will usually develop a range of different personages to interact with others; the studious, hard working personage to impress the teacher or the boss, the fun, attractive personage to interact with peers, the well behaved, loving personage for family relationships and so on. All these different personages serve to please and impress others in order to gain acceptance and love while at the same time hiding the true self in order to avoid rejection and ridicule. True feelings are kept secret for fear of being rejected but this only serves to prevent the individual from ever being truly intimate with another person.
Out of Control
It is when a person enters into an intimate relationship such as a marriage or a live in sexual relationship that he/she struggles to keep up the illusion of all the different personages. He/she is often subconsciously attracted to a person who will seek to control them. This enables him/her to continue hiding the true self while creating a personage to please the controller but nobody can deny their true self constantly without eventually experiencing emotional turmoil and because controllers seek control due to feelings of inadequacy, which can never be assuaged by seeking control over others, it is impossible to please them. Eventually the person being controlled will start to feel resentment, anger and depression, often without ever realising or acknowledging that their partner is controlling and abusive.
People who are being abused and controlled by their partner will often contact CCS seeking counselling because they are “too emotional”, “too demanding” and even “controlling”. In truth all that has happened is they have reached a point where their true self refuses to be oppressed any longer and they have sought to have some of their own needs met in the relationship only to be denied and abused.
Due to the dynamics of a controlling relationship, it can be very difficult to decide if the relationship is indeed controlling. In her book Too Good to Leave Too Bad to Stay, (1997) Mira Kirshenbaum outlines some red flags to help you decide if your partner is controlling:
- Whatever your need is, your partner will claim there’s something wrong with you for having that need. They will try to make you feel ashamed or inadequate and will likely label you “defensive”, “neurotic” or “co-dependent” in order to make you feel embarrassed for having that need.
- Your partner might agree with everything you say and never deny you anything verbally but never get around to delivering and actually fulfilling your request.
- Your simple request could be met by an emotional uproar, a verbally abusive uproar, an intellectual, political or busyness uproar. This has the effect of distracting you from your original request and you usually become so bamboozled that you don’t notice until much later that your request was never met.
- Your partner gives you a basic, recurring, never-completely-going-away feeling of humiliation or invisibility.
If any of the above listed points sound like your relationship why not give us a call on (07) 3862 6622? Our professional counsellors and psychologists are able to assist you in making the changes you need to improve your own emotional health and the dynamics of your relationship.
Some interesting books for you to read
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Too Good to Leave Too Bad to Stay, Mira Kirshenbaum (Penguin Books)
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Compelled to Control, J. Keith Miller (Health Communications, Inc. Deerfield Beach, Florida)
Office hours are from 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday. After hours and Saturday appointments are available on request.
Until next time then...
“Owning your power is having the courage to show up as your full and true self, without apologies, and without holding back about who you are and what you want.”
- Jenna Avery