My friend Xiaoyou is 28 years old this year, and he still receives "love packages" from his mother from time to time.
Last time it was a pair of slippers, bright pink, two sizes too big;
had a kitten printed on them, a style she would never buy herself.
Even if I say no to it many times, my mother will still send some "useful" things from time to time.
I had another phone call with my mother and asked the same questions as usual:
Are you eating well and have you gone out to exercise?
Are you afraid of living alone? Are you unhappy at work?
Source: unsplash
These words of worry and fear were repeated over and over again, and Xiaoyou's ears almost became calloused.
then made a joke and said:
You always say that you can cook at the age of six or seven, why am I still worried that I am thirty years old and
still worry that I don’t have the ability to take care of myself and buy daily necessities?
After hearing this, my mother became angry, with disappointment in her tone:
When you are older, do you not need me anymore and want to get rid of me?
If you think I have too much control, don’t ask us for any money in the future.
In our interactions with our parents, we always encounter similar situations:
being forced to care and worry excessively.
No matter how many times I communicate with them, I hope they can calm down and live their own lives first, as if they will never be heard.
In the eyes of others, the child is the blind wolf, and the parents are the injured party.
In short, both parties have huge grievances hidden in their hearts.
01 Behind "happiness" is suppressed demand
Parents' love for Xiaoyou has been extremely intense since childhood.
During high school, in order to keep up with nutrition, Xiaoyou switched from boarding to day school and lived with his parents.
After living together, my mother got up at five o'clock every day to cook.
Egg pancakes, steamed buns, and fried rice are served in different styles.
has to watch Xiaoyou finish eating every day, watch her go to school, and then go back to catch up on her sleep.
But in fact, my mother doesn’t like cooking very much and is not very good at it;
plus getting up too early, she often feels resentful.
Source: unsplash
If Xiaoyou wakes up late and eats less, the mother's resentment will have an outlet.
Over time, Xiaoyou felt unbearable and suggested to his mother:
Since we are not happy, why not give me 3 yuan and buy a cake to eat on the way to school.
After hearing this, the mother felt angry and aggrieved, and said:
"Who do I get up early to cook for? Is the food outside better than at home?"
"The winter is so cold in the twelfth lunar month, so I get up every day to cook You are cooking in different ways, don’t you think it’s cool?”
Xiaoyou’s idea is very simple. He hopes that his mother can get more rest and have less arguments in the morning;
However, her mother only wants to do her best for her children and tends to interpret it as “the child is ungrateful” or “the child is rebellious and gluttonous”.
Behind these complicated emotions is actually the worry that "the child cannot take care of himself".
Parents lack trust in their children, so they are like cameras, tracking and taking care of everything.
Source: unsplash
Winnicott proposed a concept called the "mother-infant gap".
means that a small gap needs to be left between mother and baby, child and family in order to get along better.
If parents and children are too close, it is like too many people standing in the same elevator;
The child's body cannot turn, and no matter what he does, he feels like someone is watching, and he feels depressed and controlled.
The conditions for this "gap" to be created are appropriate trust;
requires parents to treat and respect their children as people with a sense of subjectivity.
But the actual situation is that parents always want to be close to their children and develop a kind of "pseudo intimacy":
self-sacrifice and give you what I think is good, you must accept it happily.
Source: unsplash
In the book "Fake Intimacy", a defensive mode of getting along is mentioned.
That is, in a relationship, one party plays the "performer" and the other party plays the "audience".
The performers ignore their own feelings and play the role of "good parents";
, as the children of the audience, passively accept the other party's efforts, and it is difficult to be heard when raising objections.
In the eyes of onlookers, parents love their children very much and have a very close relationship;
But only by being there can you feel the despair of "neither party's feelings are taken care of".
02 What is hidden behind the "invisible" concern?
When he just graduated from college, his parents came to Xiaoyou's city to visit Xiaoyou.
When he walked into Xiaoyou's bedroom, his mother said: "The floor is a little dirty."
Xiaoyou thought, then use vacuum cleaner to suck it, and then mop it again.
But my mother just didn’t agree. She knelt on the ground, picked up the rag, and wiped away the marks on the ground bit by bit.
The roommate passed by and said: "Your mother loves you so much, she came to clean it herself."
The mother answered: "Yes, my little girl has not been able to clean up since she was a child, so please bear with me."
Source: unsp lash
Xiaoyou standing aside was not happy at all, but felt unusually awkward -
He could live a good life even if he lived alone;
Why did he always do poorly in his mother's eyes?
Now she is almost 30 years old. She occasionally shares photos of her life with her parents, but they still can’t help but say:
She has too few clothes on, so don’t show your legs next time.
Who is that next to? Are they all girls?
Don’t go back too late at night, 9 o’clock at the latest.
In the eyes of parents, children seem to never grow up.
Why do some concerns out of "love" make people so suffocating?
Source: unsplash
The first possibility is that behind the concern lies the unprocessed anxiety of the parents.
Parents have many issues that need to be dealt with urgently in their own lives, such as career development and personal growth.
Because of the appearance of children, "raising an excellent child" has become the main topic, temporarily covering up other issues.
When children grow up and leave home, they feel like they have been emptied out of their hearts;
It is difficult to "wean off" psychologically, unable to face up to their own life issues and redirect their attention to themselves.
Therefore, we can only continue the previous strategy and continue to pay excessive attention to our children.
Source: unsplash
The second reason is that parents are in the excessive projection of "self-centeredness"
Overly concerned parents like to give their children what they think is good;
They cannot see the real children, but take care of them through "projection".
In the parent-child relationship, excessive projection is a "self-centered" mode of getting along;
believes that one's own views are the views of the child.
For example: There is a kind of cold person who calls you mom and thinks you are cold, and there is a kind of hungry person who calls you dad and thinks you are hungry.
There is no good separation between parents and children.
Parents fail to realize that their own feelings are their own, and their children's are their children's.
03 Intimacy begins with separation
In the past few years when I went to school and worked, I often felt that the relationship with my parents had become better.
In the first two years, my parents had not yet been "weaned" and would call me every day to "care" about me.
Sometimes they miss it when they are busy, and they will say sourly:
"It doesn't matter, you have your own things to be busy with;
Don't worry about us, we, the old couple, depend on each other at home."
In recent years, the frequency of contact with my parents has become once a week;
has become relatively financially independent, and it is more comfortable to get along with them.
My parents gradually took their attention away from me and devoted themselves to their own lives.
My mother started playing the piano and practicing table tennis, while my father focused on writing poetry and playing with cats.
If we cannot change our parents, how can we adjust ourselves and help our parents stop caring too much?
Source: unsplash
Many people will be morally kidnapped by their parents' sacrificial love , resulting in a sense of guilt.
But regardless of the other party's needs, the essence is still a kind of control.
Faced with this kind of control, it is reasonable for us to feel grievances and anger.
Blindly accepting it will only keep suppressing your self.
Expressing anger at a parent's behavior does not mean that you are attacking the parent themselves.
Only by psychologically accepting this emotion can we feel more comfortable.
Source: unsplash
There is a disease called "weaning mother anxiety disorder", which means that when the baby is weaned, it is more difficult for the mother to adapt than the child.
When a child suddenly no longer needs his mother, the mother will feel a strong sense of abandonment.
It’s not that children need mothers, but mothers need children.
Sometimes parents pay too much attention to us to appease their own inner insecurities.
When parents fall into the "actor" mode and impose what they think is good on us, you can try to ask yourself:
Is this your own business or your parents' business?
Is the worry yours or theirs?
My dad likes to push me to do things, such as looking for a job and finding a partner. He will greet me about these things every time he calls;
I can feel his concern, but behind it is deep anxiety;
This is his emotion and should not be handled by me.
Source: unsplash
We need to psychologically separate our parents' emotions from our emotions.
Rather than focusing on their children, parents should first live their own lives.
Of course, the sense of security in a relationship is established jointly by both parties.
While asking parents to give us enough space, we also need to help them build trust.
To truly live your own life, financial and spiritual independence is fundamental.
Finally, I want to end with If You Love Me by family therapist Satya :
Sacrifice yourself to meet my needs
That doesn’t make me happy
That’s like You put a crown on me
But you embed it in my flesh
It aches my soul
Proclaim self-sacrifice is great
That's an ancient Lies
You demeaning yourself
does not make me noble
I can only learn from you "I am not worthy"
Before you love anyone, you should love yourself first.
Before taking care of anyone else's feelings, you should first comfort yourself.
Author: Qingyun
Picture source: Internet
First release: Yidianling Psychology
Focus on psychological growth, love you warmly and powerfully
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