Negative Messages

How did your experiences with a parent contribute to your way of thinking today? Some people receive many negative messages throughout their childhood. Those who received negative messages as children develop irrational thought processes that carry over into their adult life. Edmund J. Bourne, Ph.D. wrote about the childhood origins of anxiety disorders in his book, The Anxiety & Phobia Workbook. He postulated that children who grow up with critical parents who are perfectionists will experience self-doubt about whether they are "good enough" or are "sufficiently worthy." He reported that these children grow up feeling insecure and become dependent on safety. Many of these children grow up to become perfectionists later in life. Are you driving yourself or another person to be perfect in your relationship? The high expectation of perfection is irrational for anyone in a relationship. Can you be perfect? You live in a world that reinforces high standards and achievement. Can your relationship work with this same philosophy? The perfectionist contributes to the hurt in a relationship through critical statements and blame. A person´s critical behaviors represent another subtle kind of hurt in a relationship, which can go unrecognized by the criticizer.

Alanis Morissette´s song, "Perfect," depicts the irrational thoughts of perfectionists.

Sometimes is never quite enough
If you´re flawless, then you´ll win my love
Don´t forget to win first place
Don´t forget to keep that smile on your face
Be a good boy
Try a little harder
You´ve got to measure up
And make me prouder
How long before you screw it up
How many times do I have to tell you to hurry up
With everything I do for you
The least you can do is keep quiet
Be a good girl
You´ve gotta try a little harder
That simply wasn´t good enough
To make us proud
I´ll live through you
I´ll make you what I never was
If you´re the best, then maybe so am I
Compared to him compared to her
I´m doing this for your own damn good
You´ll make up for what I blew
What´s the problem... why are you crying
Be a good boy
Push a little farther now
That wasn´t fast enough
To make us happy
We´ll love you just the way you are if you´re perfect

Other negative messages may consist of the child not feeling loved and respected. Can you remember the times you were made to feel hated or disrespected by a parent? Did a parent consistently lie to you? Did your parent have a favorite child? Were you blamed for your parents´ problems in their marriage? Did you think you were the cause of a parent´s hate or disrespect toward you?

Burt and Cynthia have been married for twenty years and have four children: Burt Jr., age seventeen; Judy, age fourteen; Jonathan, age nine; and Becky, age four. Burt and Cynthia have experienced some marital problems recently. Cynthia´s mother, Marge, has babysat the younger children and has been pointing out to the children how their father has not been spending enough time with them. Marge has also pointed this out to Cynthia and has told Cynthia that Burt is just like her father. Burt Jr. cannot stand his maternal grandmother and tells his father the bad things she is telling the other children. Burt Sr. takes out his frustration on the three younger children and tells them that they are rotten kids and that they are never satisfied. He threatens that someday he will leave them with their mother to survive on their own with no help from him. Burt and Cynthia argue frequently in front of the children and threaten to leave one another.

Does this happen in real life? How irrational do you think some children will become when exposed to negative messages from parents?

On October 1, 1997, high school student Luke Woodham opened fire on several students in Pearl High School in Pearl, Washington. He killed two of the students and wounded seven. He began his day by slitting his mother´s throat before he headed to school in her car with a rifle tucked underneath a trench coat. Luke talked to one of the students he wounded and apologized, claiming he was not shooting at anyone in particular. Police Chief Bill Slade said Luke had written a detailed note, saying he felt he´d been wronged and that he killed because people like him are mistreated every day. During his 1998 trial for killing his mother, Luke stated he killed his mother because "she always never loved me." He went on to state that his mother blamed him for her divorce and problems with his brother. He also stated that his mother spent much time away from home. Luke wrote about how he and an accomplice beat his dog, Sparkle, then set it on fire and threw it in a pond. He wrote, "I hit her so hard I knocked the fur off her neck. It was true beauty."

If you believed your parents´ negative messages as a child, you grew up with irrational thoughts that have influenced your thought processes. Due to your irrational beliefs, your actions toward someone in a present relationship may not be based on reality. Do you find yourself overreacting to comments made by a person in your relationship? Do you automatically interpret someone´s critical feedback as an expression of hate or rejection? How would you respond to someone you thought hated you or was rejecting you? In these instances, many people either avoid the problem or become very aggressive. In either case, the person´s behavior resulting from his irrational beliefs from the past would contribute to his hurtful acts in a present relationship. The problem is that he will not always recognize his actions as hurtful. Many people who receive negative messages as children enter relationships as adults sending similar messages.

Copyright 2002 Jay Krunszyinsky

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