https://www.patreon.com/posts/caregiving-and-i-69787517
We’ve been talking Self instead of Trauma Brain over here for a few weeks. Why that’s such an important, very dissimilar, “operating center” to be directing your actions and assessments from.
As far as demonstration of concept goes… I don’t know if I could come up with a better one than the organic example that just cropped up over here, leading to this episode being researched and written.
Because, you know this guy is behind the scenes, typing away at all different OTHER trauma trends going on in my silly life. One of which, has been this relationship issue I find myself in. In particular… How we rarely have equal, non-reparenting, non-obligatory-til-death, relationships… As described through this recent experience I’ve been feeling trapped in and reactively annoyed about.
Try and try as I did, I couldn’t see it any differently.
And that. Right there. Is what I’m talking about.
I spent two posts writing about the common trauma trends that formed this relationship I’m in. and I spend a good part of both of them wailing on the exhausting, over-obligated, entrapping feeling of being responsible for someone else’s life. Much, much frustration detectable in everything I said. And even some victimy vibes.
Then I spent a third post, having mostly come out of that mindset and into a more centered place, talking about how… nah… I’m not really trapped or tethered to this human’s existence. That’s just trauma and trauma bonding speaking.
And then I woke up today, still not satisfied with what I’ve done so far, and asking “but removing the frustration and reactivity and negative premonitions of the future… what’s at the core of this? And why, as usual, does it feel like it’s part of a much larger pattern? Like I’ve felt imprisoned by so many relationships in the past… and they zap my will to keep trying in the future?”
Saying, I finally got to the real question. And here’s the answer.
The distress I’ve been under… yes, is caused by trauma. But the extremity of it – the way it’s been weighing on my psyche and physical being… what’s up with that?
Well… It’s the “obligated and therefore helpless in relationships to the point of wanting to die” cognitive program that I have. Which was really controlling everything, starting with my historical perspectives being engaged and filtering down to affect each of my perceptions throughout the day. Compounding the whole shit feeling and operation mode.
Once I got to that point, I did a little research and BOOM – here’s the answer.
Of course I’m not the only one who goes through this. And there are real, brain-based reasons for what’s been driving me to the point of death-find-me-now! desperation.
So. Moving from reactive and ready to run. To being in a better place for examining these wild thoughts. AND THEN, connecting those realer thoughts to the full breadth of the deep, dark, core issue, as it’s creating all sorts of cognitive and emotional distortions in my life, we can now say….
“Here’s the real lesson learned from a pervasively traumatic past bleeding into the present… and the way to reframe what’s been going on for progress forward, instead of spinning in the same circles til these wheels fall off.” Ah, thanks much wiser than my brain is, Self.
Anyways. The point today is recognizing the narratives at work and perspective shifting, so our perceptions can be less damning. Especially, in relationships that still carry the weight of our past social contacts, acting as easy trigger points. They’re well suited for taking our brains faaaaaar back in time, and re-instituting us-abandoning perspectives from those old days..
Which, if you’re like me, might make you a bit dickish. As you’ll hear in those other posts I mentioned.
But… As it turns out…. Of course, I am not the only one who takes relationships to feel limiting and to often mean “I’ll feel completely helpless and imprisoned, but it’s the only way, so let’s grind through this.”
Or, “I’ll die for you now that you’ve been any part of my life. Because… I have to! Or else… what does that mean about me? And if I can’t fix this… then I’d rather just give up on everything, because I’m a failure and I can’t do anything right.”
So let’s dig into some research today on the relationship between growing up in a traumatized environment, serving others, self-perception, and the remediation of depression, PTSD, and suicidal ideation.
Starting with… something we’ve touched on before.
Filial Anxiety and Obligation
Of course, you’re not surprised to learn that this all starts with the family enmeshment connection. We already know from past episodes, from day one we learn to mirror others emotions. Then, we learn to try to mimic and regulate our parents’ emotions FOR them as children. Keep our brains in line with theirs – or, even, further ahead in the line so we’re prepared for their pending actions – so there’s less trouble to deal with. We also often learn to tiptoe around their trauma to prevent their distress, which we learn to detect with our hypersensitive super power… even if that trauma of theirs has never been directly discussed.
If you need a reminder, most of those episodes live in the Summer 2021 timeframe. Then we hit them a bit again this spring of 2022 in the whole, like, 8 part Perspective series.
But today… Let’s hear a little blip on that topic from a paper called “Filial anxiety and sense of obligation among offspring of Holocaust survivors.”
So, first thing’s first. Gotta justify the trauma-connections between these toopics.
Yes, we’re talking parents who are Holocaust survivors. Is this likely a “higher level of trauma” than our parents experienced? As far as, probably not seeing their families and friends systemically killed and everything else? I would guess so, in most cases. Hope so.
But I also hope we’ve all accepted by now, trauma impacts brains pretty similarly down the line. And those cognitive patterns are what largely go on to fuck us, as much or more, as the emotional and memory problems do. They’re just sneakier than flashbacks and dissociative outbursts to pinpoint as problems, because they’re generally somehow “logical” adaptive thoughts and methods of operation.
I.e. this thing scared me in the past, so now I avoid that thing, and you also will avoid that thing. Well, that’s living in a limiting PTSD-born pattern, even if it doesn’t seem to be hurting anyone on the surface. Right?
So, as far as trauma, it’s not so much the SCALE that matters, as the ways a brain starts to interpret and operate in the world, that creates these shared patterns of thinking and feeling and behaving. That’s why my trauma doesn’t have to look like yours for us to understand each other and have similar symptoms.
In other words, your post-traumatic parents didn’t have to go through the holocaust first hand to have similar behavioral tendencies to people who DID.
Second of all. Yeah, let’s acknowledge that this article is touching on filial anxiety – which sounds a lot like the filial piety that we learned about in the spring. Huh? Yep, basically the same thing. Anxiety created by the idea of not exhibiting “enough piety.” Being freaked out about not honoring the family properly, in all the right methods. You can think of it that way.
Anyways, introductory notes aside, these researchers say:
“Despite the impressive resilience levels in survivors’ families, Offspring of Holocaust Survivors may feel that their parents may have transmitted more emotional burden on to them as well as being overinvolved.
Disruption in parental behaviors may have been especially salient among survivors with unresolved traumatic losses. Consequently, parental behavioral patterns may have elicited in the OHS fear, distress and insecure attachment.
Transmitted burden from parents may create a parent-child role reversal, as the offspring may sacrifice their own needs in order to try to satisfy the needs of their parents. Early enmeshed parent-child relationship possibly shape late-life interaction.
Accordingly, qualitative studies reported that OHS manifested strong filial piety, high caregiving stress and showed reluctance to seek assistance when called upon to assume caregiving roles.”
Okay. Amen, yeah? I felt responsible for my parents emotional states and life outcomes growing up – and, uh, do STILL. Think about that, one is dead and the other is estranged, and I STILL feel this.
Also, we can all agree that insecure attachment and more of this chronic enmeshment problem awaits us when we embark on new relationships, after learning those skills in our old relationships, correct? Then we’re often either going to become fawners or choose the path of “fuck humans, I’ll be better off on my own.” henceforth. Anxious or avoidant, choose your black or white path of traumatic relationship learning.
And on top of that, this “filial anxiety, high caregiving stress, and reluctance to seek assistance when called upon to assume caregiving roles” also sounds very familiar. I doubt that any of us get a call from mom and dad, stating that they need a hand and it might require months of attention… and feel GOOD about it. And I bet we’re also reluctant to tell anyone in our broader lives that we’re absolutely not feeling like we’re handling it well.
I’d say, possibly because of the family vow of silence most of us took, when we weren’t allowed to tell people what was going on behind closed doors and we definitely weren’t allowed to ask for help, even if our basic needs weren’t being met. Plus, most of us were trained not to ask for help or show weakness, period.
SO. All in all, parental caregiving becomes a mandatory-feeling, but impossible-feeling, task. Which isolates us from others and drives up our own anxiety about our self performance.
But… actually… can we agree that it’s not only in PARENT relationships…. This happens in ALL relationships?
So, let’s keep it close to home, first of all.
Starting in the family – does anyone else feel this way about siblings and extended family, as well? Or have I been the only one who realized I tried to parent my big brothers in the ways they weren’t parented by our parents… and honestly was doing some of the same with my GRANDMA this past spring, too?
Both groups, obviously exhibiting signs of depression, dis satisfaction, emotional suppressing that broke into outbursts, health problems, isolation and loneliness.
Me, non-intentionally deciding, “I will be there as a liferaft or a helping hand from the ship overhead, because it’s my job! It’s the “right” thing to do!” And then feeling very anxious, overwhelmed, burdened, and “trapped” in all of those attempts, because they were too costly for me… but how could I not? It was the “correct” course of action.
AND, moving farther away from the clan… I can tell you that trend extends beyond my family, to basically anyone I meet. Doubt that I’m the only one, based on all the “fixers and fawners” I know in my life. “What IS a relationship if we aren’t helping someone?” I think most of us inquire with true ignorance that there is another possibility. Like, being in a relationship because we just value each other fundamentally.
Sounds made up.
From my perspective, if we’re friends on any level, I feel responsible for taking care of you. For cushioning your emotions. For extending care that I wish others extended to me. And all of it is very driven by anxiety – it’s what I “should” do. As well as over-empathizing through those highly sensitive person superpowers I wish I didn’t have.
So those things are going on under the surface, just as much as it’s also driven by genuine concern and compassion and joy of being a comfort… but those have all somehow been twisted around into a thousand ugly faces.
Plus, let’s also comment further on another tidbit our authors dropped in that excerpt… this resistance to asking for help while IN these over-caring, role-reversed, situations. That also extends to our non-family interactions, yeah? I think most of us also agree with that one, right?
I’m very rarely IN a friend or romantic supporter shituation AND seeking support for myself. Even when other people offer it – satan bless the Blanket Fort Community, it’s not like you all haven’t offered a thousand helping hands – I don’t know how to accept it. It feels like failure to acknowledge it. And it also FEELS helpless. So, I’d rather just not put this on someone else, as well. Let me grind my way through this as a one-human support system for others.
Meaning, also, usually, I’m just hunkered down in my own trauma brain, already so overwhelmed by the one relationship drain that I can’t even remember other humans exist.
PS – I’m never proud of the circumstances I wind up in, especially when I KNOW it’s based in trauma. So it’s not like I WANT to talk about it. And like I mentioned, since I don’t see a way OUT… even if we did discuss my enmeshed ass making me into one, as well… then what? Then everyone knows more about the ways I’m fucking up and flailing every day? And, so? What? Throw me a pity party?
Saying… Shame of getting into this relationship-caregiving place of feeling somehow incapable of single-brainedly shouldering multiple people’s problems all alone? Drives silence and isolation. And that only circles back to worsen the shame, when we’re left alone with our own negative thoughts and self-perceptions. We’ve learned this a million times over already.
And – finally – the last point I want to make on this excerpt was their mention of traumatized parents being over involved. And this is probably going to be a point where we might differ around the community, because a lot of us got either end of the parenting-attention-polarized stick on this one.
But… do you feel like your parents or at least one of them or another caretaker… was way too up your butthole growing up? Maybe in a “guiding” way that seemed like “good parenting” at the time? Maybe because they told you it was good parenting. Or, maybe they paid attention to you in a pervasively overdisciplinary and critical way, being waaaay too focused on your every action? Likely, so they could tell you it was incorrect.
Or… were they more of the “hands off” sort? Too busy with their own shit to pay much attention to you at all? Telling you to figure it out on your own – you’re becoming your own individual and self-reliant 5 year old!
Or, as I’m realizing… was it some extremely baffling mix of both. Depending on the day and/or the area of your life in question? Or, perhaps, depending on the circumstances that were always changing around you? Sometimes they were all hands on deck… suddenly, they were on a completely different ship as you made unsupervised sandcastles on whatever island you were dropped on?
And, now, the real question is… Do you see yourself doing the same in your adult relationships, in those same methods or topics of interest? Providing all the attention or none of the attention to others, depending on the exact area of their current concerns overlapping or not with your parents’ focuses?
OR, alternatively, do you ever find yourself overcompensating for others in the ways that you were left figuring it out alone your Self? “No one ever gave me real, unconditional, care… so now I deal that shit like pot butter in a college town?” Example from my life, no judgment. .
Anyways. I do these things. In all the ways. I’ll overgive in practical areas, for instance… trying to tell you how to live more efficiently and responsibly and financially-stringently… or suddenly offering to just “take care of things” for you in random bursts of “don’t even bother learning how to do that yourself, I’ve got it” – like my mom did. A pretty “hard assed” approach to caretaking, interspersed with sudden bouts of keeping us feeling helpless by taking complete control out of the blue, so we never learned – say – how to make phone calls in my branch of siblings.
BUT, on the other hand, I’ll do the opposite. Give em what I rarely/never got. I’ll also overgive in soft ways, trying to be your endless emotional support system until I can’t offer any more feels. I’ll dream up fun days out and activities, so you can feel better. I’ll make you gifts. I’ll write you heartfelt letters personally cheerleading you. And I will think and emote MORE about your situation than YOU even do – continually worrying about how you’re doing and how I can help, especially when I DON’T hear from you. I’m going to ask how that shituation has progressed, not pretend that it’s magically gone away and you’re doing fine.
Again… unlike my family did, as far as I know. Unless they’ve all really kept their emotional care, concern, and support to themselves.
And all the while, I’ll feel this filial anxiety. Like it’s my duty. There’s not even a question. And this is the ship I’ll sink on.
But… again… that doesn’t stay in the family home in my case, and I know it’s the same for a lot of other humans. I feel driven to reverse-parent all the time and I’m guessing most of you would say the same. Or not, but it would be detectable from the outside, Fucker, even if you aren’t directly noticing it from the inside.
I’ll tell you… It’s a very family-iar feeling that takes over and a pattern of eventual, growing, overwhelmed misery that emerges with everyone I meet. And the next thing I know, I’m… well… Feeling like shit about my Self, and my whole life, which has become a sliver of what it could be, circa all my re-orienting towards the party in question every day. Plus, then I’m drained of any cognitive or emotional willpower to do anything about it, even if I DO get the wherewithal that this is what’s happened.
Sigh.
So… Let’s take a deeper look at filial anxiety and obligation, per this paper, and see if anyone else has the same relational sensations and patterns, both in and outside of the family bubble.
If you’re a heavy connector who’s always seeking the family you never received – ya know – I’ve found that the bonded-like-blood trend can make a lot of folks feel like they’re your actual kin. And then allll the trouble begins.
So let’s hit one more excerpt from these authors, and do me a favor… Even though it’s directed at the aging parent-child relationship… which, I personally know that some of you are ALSO dealing with, and this information might be striking on those current-day challenges you’re facing. And I’m sorry if you’re feeling the filial anxiety and obligation.
But, to put this into the context of our broader relationship shitteries, also, please just go ahead and ask after every pause, “does this sound like my approach in other relationships, not just my family? And are these descriptions also applicable to issues which might be a whole lot less serious than death, too?”
OR, alternatively, “WAS this my approach, and maybe that’s pinging on some agitated nerves that signal ‘why I no longer have other relationships’?” If you take the avoidant, rather than anxious attachment approach?
Overall, just… do these words seem like they run through more than your memories and behavioral trends of caring for mom and dad?
Cool? Cool. I’ll prompt you, so you don’t forget to reflect on it.
The authors say:
“Parental caregiving includes many characteristics. As aforementioned, the current studies focus specifically on two aspects—filial anxiety and sense of obligation associated with parental caregiving. These two aspects may best capture the unique characteristics of OHS in general: increased anxiety in stressful circumstances and entangled relationships within the family.
(Do you feel the same outside the family? I feel my blood pressure rising as past situations flood my brain. They continue:)
Filial anxiety refers to a state of worry or concern about the anticipated decline and death of an aging parent, and about one’s ability to meet current or anticipated caregiving needs.
(Do you feel the same outside the family? And outside of “death” situations? Mhmm.)
Filial anxiety is embedded in relationship between adult offspring and their aging parents. It supposedly reflects a protective aspect of the attachment between adult offspring and their elderly parents, where the offspring take measures to prevent the loss of the attached figure.
(First of all, appreciate their use of the word “supposedly.” Doesn’t sound like a necessarily secure attachment to me. Second of all, do you feel the same outside the family, with other “attached figures”? They continue:)
However, as the parents’ physical decline and death are inevitable, the adult offspring experiences a continuing sense of anxiety regarding parental welfare.
(Again, do you feel this way in non-family-relationships and non-death-based circumstances?)
Filial anxiety and worries were found to be stronger among offspring who were more attached to the parent, but at the same time felt more ambivalent towards the relationship. Moreover, offspring who tended to perceive their parent as having poorer emotional health and fewer coping strategies reported higher filial anxiety.
(Hmm… ambivalent about the relationship, because perhaps it’s NOT a secure attachment? It’s an anxious one? Where the offspring is trying to protect that parent through their poor emotional health and lack of coping skills? Interesting, interesting. And secondly, do you feel the same in your relationships outside the family?)
Filial obligation, the second aspect in focus, refers to the sense of duty, obligation, or responsibility to care for aging parents; consequently, it typically peaks in midlife. Filial obligation is a product both of the nature of the parent-child relationship and one’s cultural background, as both factors determine the generalized expectations regarding the amount of support offspring should provide to old parents at times of need.
(Sure is, right? The way you react to YOUR parents might be very different from the ways your social contacts interact with THEIRS. Like, maybe they don’t regularly worry about their grown-ass parents, because they’re responsible and autonomous humans? But… do you also see this in your non-family relationships? Have they, too, been dynamically defined by culture and your past history of relationships? Then the authors say:)
Filial obligation is predicted by secure attachment and contributes to better caregiver preparedness.
(Which, I just fundamentally don’t agree with. I think we feel obligated even when we’ve had shit relationships with our parents and family members. That’s how abuse works. That’s why we don’t leave or go no-contact until we’ve somehow convinced ourselves to go against everything we’ve ever learned. Anyways. Same in non-family relationships for you? It is for me. And they continue:)
Accordingly, it (filial obligation) also correlated positively with helping behaviors towards elderly parents. Still, intense filial obligation may also facilitate guilt and feelings of inadequacy, especially when it is difficult to ideally fulfill the filial responsibility. Consequently, high sense of obligation may exacerbate the caregiving burden.
(Ahhh… yeah. It sure does. Obligation leads to helping behaviors. Servitude and fawning, one might say. And those measures don’t really relieve our anxiety, because there’s always a new way to serve and fawn. Instead, they drive MORE obligatory behaviors and the fear-based instinct to try HARDER. One last time… Do you feel the same outside your family relationships?)
Obviously you know where I land on all of this. Opening a behavioral program that feels required… trying my god-damndest to act the right way for everyone… finding that the demands are neverending, because life keeps creating emotional and practical upsets that I try to smooth over for the whole class… and then getting stuck in an ever-tightening spiral of doom as I realize that I can’t fix other people’s problems, but I also can’t suddenly withdraw my support – or ELSE WHAT?
They’ve been trained to accept THIS set of behaviors. THIS relationship dynamic that we both drafted together. And when you try to change that two-party behavioral back and forth… uh… it doesn’t go well, to say the least.
THEY aren’t happy. They think it’s a personal thing against them, when really, it’s just FOR EVERYONE, because the old interactions weren’t even working for either one of us. And I’M not happy, because it opposes every single set of relationship instructions I’ve ever received or received reinforcement from.
This is why changing relationships is so hard. And this is where we start feeling increasingly trapped, torn up, and tormented about our inability to be everything everyone could ever need…. So where does that put us with our current self-worth and future plans?
Uh, wondering if we’re not good enough to be a part of any relationship, ever? So, will we be fatefully dying alone sooner than we ever anticipated or learned to fear?
Or, as always… maybe that’s just me.
But it’s not, and we have more research on that to touch on from another set of papers.
But before diving into THAT whole story… where caregiving actually corresponds with negative self-appraisal, which mediates suicidality…
Lastly, let’s just note that the results of this particular study we’ve been reading from concluded that “sense of obligation” created the relationship between caregiving and anxiety. If we didn’t feel like we HAD to, then we wouldn’t be so torn up about all the action and attention we were putting into this relationship. We wouldn’t be orienting towards a future time signature with fear and uncertainty, AKA anxiety.
AND, they concluded that all of these measures – filial obligation and anxiety – were higher in children of parents with PTSD, versus children with non-posttraumatic parents. Actually the Holocaust WASN’T the determining factor. They (and I don’t understand this exactly) say that Survivors who DIDN’T come out of it with PTSD (HOW?! I don’t know) didn’t have these same relationship patterns with their offspring. Holocaust survivors without PTSD produced less obligated and anxious offspring, just like the non-holocausted parental population without PTSD did.
And that’s fucking wild to me. “Slash” really demonstrates that it’s the PTSD part that creates the downstream shitfuckery for all of us, huh? So, one more nod to this spring’s Perspective episodes… it’s not necessarily the events that people go through, but their PERSPECTIVE on the events, that matters.
Anyways. Just want to throw that in there because we’re all going to go through it, huh? If you’re here, I’ve gotta assume you’ve got traumatized parents. So I’m going to risk being sued to give you this paper, seems important enough to fuck with copyright law and find out.
And from there… I want to wrap this bitch up.
It wasn’t REALLY the focus today, but I have to note again that obviously the decline of a parent is a complicated process. I know several of you are IN IT or just went through it. And by no means am I trying to shit on anyone for being there for family members in their transitioning days, or NOT BEING THERE.
Whatever caregiving route you’ve chosen, you’ve chosen for your own good reasons. I’m not trying to tell you it’s right OR wrong to give care. I don’t know your relationships or your life.
And also, I’m sorry if you’ve had or are having this experience. Holler if you could use a niche Discord channel about it in the server. Or you’d like to share your experiences on the show.
But the point in the context of our episode today is, I maintain – it really doesn’t need to be my aging parent nearing the end of life for me to feel like “this person is in danger and I’d better give up my world to prevent the loss of that attached figure. Or ELSE.”
What COULD be a positive thing – feeling connected to others and uniquely capable of giving care – becomes a deep personal problem when it’s required, it’s overwhelmingly burdensome, it’s anxiety inducing, and you’re striving to pacify or prevent some pending problem FOR the other party. That might not be fixable, either way.
Especially, if it’s a problem that’s not fixable because… you’re the only one trying to fix it.
Keep in mind, you providing attention to another person feels good for THEM – that’s behavioral science, we’re all pretty widely reinforced by any variety of social contact as human animals. Meaning, even if the attention and concern and care isn’t producing real results in the other party’s life… the caregiving, itself, might be maintaining their behaviors. Getting better might not be the real motivation of their seeking support.
Enablement, we call it. Exhausting, we say, when you’re the person continually caring.
Am I right?
And under all of these circumstances… it stops being a positive aspect of embodying a good human being. It can actually start driving you in the opposite direction – towards negative assessments of Self, of the world, and of your future.
So let’s talk about those things next.
Where relationship obligation perceptions – remember, perceptions are driven by your perspectives, and vice versa, so we can’t really trust any of them without culling for distorted ones – might be driving our own self-hatred… self-doubt… and self-suicidality.
Merp.
And with that I say – yep, that’s where I’ve been recently, too. Thanks to a shitty relationship dynamic that developed like all my other relationship dynamics. Endless caregiving. That feels required. And, yet, doesn’t do anything besides make everyone more miserable.
To the extent of writing THREE SHITHEADED POSTS about it, from my trauma-brain’s false, historical perspective of being stuck and fucked forever. Before my less freaked out, wiser, observer could ask… “really though? Or is this feeling a lot like home?”
Sigh.
Fuck yeah. All the way at the beginning again. Brought it back.
Calling it a success on THIS neverending caregiving task I created for myself.
And I’ll talk to you Fuckers, Fawners, and Fixers later.
Hail your Self.
Hail understanding our relationships don’t have to be the same ones we were trained to forever work for.
Hail Archie… who was also an endless care-taker to quench my drive for care-giving. And those patterns aren’t unrelated. And his loss isn’t unrelated to the next needy relationship I wound up in. And… Fuck me. But cheers, y’all.