Were you allowed to be seperate?

Were You Allowed to Be Separate?

On Sunday, I went to see Gabor Maté at the hammersmith apollo, and fell more in love with him and his work! I did have a little banner in my bag with the words....Gabore will you marry me? but thought it was best i didn't pop the question considering I was sat there with my husband! Mind you, I don't think he would have minded considering how much Gabore has helped us change our lives. I think even my husband would marry Gabore! There was one part of the talk that I haven’t stopped thinking about since. He spoke about possums and the way their bodies respond when they feel seriously threatened. They don’t have many ways to protect themselves, so when they cannot fight and they cannot escape, they play dead. Except, they aren’t really playing. Their body takes over and enters an involuntary state called tonic immobility, creating such a convincing appearance of death that their entire physiology begins to slow down.

A small study of four free ranging American possums found that while they were in this state, their heart rate dropped by 46 percent, their breathing slowed by 30 percent and their body temperature decreased. They remained conscious throughout, but their whole body had entered the defence. They were still alive and still aware, but in that moment, their safest option was to become completely still.

As I sat there, I started thinking about the clients I work with and how often I see adults moving through their lives in a very similar way. Obviously, they are not physically pretending to be dead, or even a possum, but important parts of them have become very still. Their preferences have gone quiet, their anger has been pushed down, their boundaries are difficult to find and their identity has slowly disappeared into the background because, somewhere along the way, they learned that being fully themselves wasn’t safe.

It also made me think about my own life and how, for many years, my body played dead too. I was functioning. I worked, raised my children, maintained relationships and did everything I was supposed to do, but I was so automated that I had very little curiosity about my own behaviour. I didn’t stop and ask myself why I reacted in certain ways, I just carried on because those behaviours felt like me.

Looking back, I can see that I was almost acting like the bloody possum myself. I was alive and conscious, but parts of me had become so still that I couldn’t really access them. My body had learned to keep me safe by making me automatic. If I didn’t stop to question what I wanted, I didn’t have to face how frightening it felt to want something different from everybody else.

This is something I often see in people who grew up with emotionally immature or narcissistic parents.

Children have some really important emotional needs as they grow, and one of those is attunement. Attunement means that somebody notices what is happening inside the child without the child always having to approach the adult, explain themselves perfectly or reach complete breaking point before anybody pays attention. A child needs somebody to notice when they are worried, hurt, overwhelmed or unusually quiet. They need to feel that their inner world is important enough for somebody to be curious about it.

An emotionally immature or narcissistic parent may be so preoccupied with their own feelings, needs and wounds that they either cannot or will not make room for what is happening inside the child. The child then learns that there is little point in expressing what they feel because the parent may dismiss it, make it about themselves or react as though the child’s emotions are an inconvenience.

Another essential need is autonomy. A child needs to know that they are allowed to gradually become their own separate person, with their own personality, opinions, AND interests. They should be able to disagree with their parent without the disagreement threatening the relationship, and they should be encouraged to make age appropriate choices without their independence being treated as rejection or betrayal.

When a narcissistic parent experiences the child as an extension of themselves, there isn't a safe space for the child to develop a separate identity. Disagreement is seen as disrespect, and independence can feel like abandonment to the parent.

This control can appear in large and obvious ways, but it can also show up in the smaller and much more personal parts of a child’s life.

So what do children do best....the adapt!!!. They become more agreeable, stop speaking up and learn to check the mood in the room before deciding which version of themselves is safe to show. They don’t consciously decide to lose their identity though.

Then that child grows into an adult who is brilliant at reading everybody else but has absolutely no bloody clue what they want themselves. They might struggle to make the smallest decision without reassurance, choose clothes based on what other people will approve of or change their opinions depending on who they are with. Even as grown adults, there can still be a subconscious drive to preserve attachment to a parent by remaining loyal to the version of themselves that parent was comfortable with.

This can also make controlling adult relationships feel strangely familiar. If you have spent your childhood being taught to question your own preferences, it may not immediately feel unusual when a partner begins to do the same thing. A controlling partner may get you questioning who you spend time with, how you speak or what you enjoy. They may mock your interests, question your judgment or make you feel as though every choice needs to be defended. Fuck that shit! I'm exhuasted even thinking about that emotional immaturity!

Perhaps becoming still helped the possum survive because, in that moment, its body recognised stillness as the safest available option. In the same way, becoming quiet, agreeable and disconnected from yourself may once have helped you preserve the relationships you depended on.

So perhaps the question isn’t only, who am I? Maybe it also begins with asking who you had to become to keep your attachments, which parts of you learned to play dead and whether it finally feels safe enough to bring them back to life.