Stages of Development--Part Two
Age Seven to Fourteen
So why do I call myself an "ACMI Spelunker"? As noted in my first post, ACMI stands for "Adult Child of Mentally Ill". A spelunker is someone who explores caves. The cave I am spelunking in is my own psyche and I am trying to find as many useful tools as I can to make it a successful journey.
I hope to learn something in this cave that will help me succeed in the rest of my life. Just as I did when I was a teenager, I have at age forty-one a sense that I have potential well beyond what I am currently able to manifest. There is a transformation of self that I hope to accomplish in the cave. It's going to take work. And time.
One of the key tools I have in the cave is honesty. About myself and about others. I trust in two things here: first, that my intentions are to heal and not to harm anyone; and second, that human beings have an essential aspect which lives at a place beyond notions of "damage". Nevertheless, the damage is very much part of my current experience and so that is where I feel I must start.
In his book, The Biology of Transcendence, JC Pearce speaks about what he calls the "model imperative" in human development. He says that we need healthy models provided by our caregivers in order to develop.
"Someone who is fully able to do something or behave in a certain way must perform the role of model if a similar ability is to be awakened in that child."
In other words, the way we successfully develop any kind of capacity is by being in the presence, when we are a child, of someone who is doing it well.
My parents were, in some ways, very talented and highly intelligent. They both had advanced degrees from reputable Universities. They were interested in the world and drawn to service. They had ideals, education. In some ways their prospects were outstanding.
They also have had significant challenges in terms of illness, self-defeating behaviors, poor life and social skills, and flawed understandings which have held them both back considerably from achieving the hopes they both held as a newly married couple in their mid-twenties.
The acorn does not fall far from the tree. I have enough intelligence both to work with the ideas in this blog and to see that I have to transform a fair amount in myself in order to move forward in my life. I sense that if I don't tackle these issues now I will regret it.
What I think of now as my family's version of "normal life" started when I was seven and lasted until I was about thirteen. There was a lot more stability during those six years than during those bumpy years between four and seven, or the bumpy years from fourteen to seventeen. When I think of a "normal" day in my childhood I picture something from that time period.
During this time there were dynamics in play that took advantage of the traumas I had experienced and cemented the "bubble" I refer to in other posts. The "bubble" is my own personal survival mechanism I created as a child which was successful then but very problematic now.
My dad was essentially out of the picture from the time I was seven. He sent the occasional letter and called me on my birthday to chat for fifteen minutes and hear how the previous year had gone.
At this time I developed a strong feeling connection to my mom, influenced naturally by the context of survival instinct. The deeper love and connection I felt for her likely came from my early years, ages 0-4, when she was much more present, loving and tuned into my needs. It's not that she didn't love me later. It's just that she was frequently overwhelmed by being a single mom, a professional woman, and suffering from undiagnosed bipolar disorder, of which she was entirely unaware.
From when I was age four and a half on she and I were both focussed on survival. I think the reason I still have a loving connection with my mom today comes from what was built in those first four years.
From age five to fourteen our household was just mom and me. We formed something of a team. We were looking out for each other in our own way. She earned a living, shopped for groceries, cooked and made sure my clothes were clean, and I listened to what her life was like. We'd go out to dinner, see concerts and go to church on Sundays.
Soon after my dad moved out of state, my mom arranged for me to be at an in-home daycare near our house after school every day. Mom and I had recently moved to a new neighborhood where my babysitter seemed a million miles away. It really did feel like a safer place to live.
After about three months at the daycare, my mom asked me if I would rather just come home after school. I didn't think much of the daycare so I said sure. So about the time I turned eight I would walk home to an empty house and do whatever I felt like.
I got home from school every day around 3:30. I would get a snack; there was always enough food. Maybe I would play with other kids in the neighborhood. Maybe I'd shoot baskets in the driveway. Maybe I'd watch TV or play Atari. We had a record player with albums by the Beatles, James Taylor and The Moody Blues I loved to listen to and sing aloud. It was up to me. I never remember feeling a sense of freedom, however. I never rejoiced and said to myself, "I can do whatever I want!" I knew that I had to keep myself busy, do things that wouldn't get me into trouble, and not add any stress at all to my mom's load. If I'd had I much of an inkling of getting into trouble, it would have, even in our safer neighborhood, been easy to find.
My mom got off from work at 5pm and would be home at 5:30, unless she stopped at the store, in which case it was 6pm. Then she would be busy making dinner. It was best I stay out of the way because she was stressed and needed to focus on physical sustenance for us both. Sometimes she would come home and be exhausted. She would have a beer and lie down on the plaid white and brown couch in the living room. After a half hour or 45 minutes of rest then she'd get up and fix dinner. Other times she would be full of energy and restless, put on her running shoes and do a few laps around the neighborhood soon after she arrived home.
Whichever one it was, I had the things I would do to pass the time, so that when she did arrive and could talk to me I would be ready. At dinner time I would set the table and help with the dishes. She would ask me how my day was and I would answer fine. I am sure she'd have liked me to say more, but she liked to talk and always had plenty to share. For a while she would read to me before bedtime from the "Chronicles of Narnia" or "James and the Giant Peach". She remembers the time she spent reading to me fondly but I think it only happened for a year or so before either she was too busy to do it or I said I wasn't interested.
When mom was out on evenings I'd usually have a babysitter. Maybe she was at a board meeting, a bible group, choir practice or a date. She wasn't really into "hanging out" with me. We had a house that was big enough that I essentially had the whole downstairs to myself. I think that from her perspective I was pretty well occupied and if she could have dinner for me and read me a bed-time story from time to time that was doing pretty good. She didn't have a model of good mothering from her mom and she had the extra impediment of bipolar.
So in her view things were going pretty well. Life was stable, I seemed okay, was doing reasonably well in school, and wasn't lashing out at her. She didn't see the fact that I was sucking it up as a way of life. And that my doing so was shaping me in an unhealthy way. I made it all okay. In a previous post I mentioned that "optimism" is a symptom of bipolar. In the case of our family life, my mom seemed very "optimistic" about how things were going. I was being neglected but in my mind I just assumed that was normal. Being neglected felt a lot less bad than the shocks I experienced between the ages of four and seven.
To say my basic self-esteem took a sustained hit during this time would be pretty accurate.
Because my mom has likely always lived to a large degree in the moment, what's happening outside of "her moment" is largely out of her consciousness. This basic narcissism, which is a symptom of her illness, meant that she experienced my growing up in terms of her experiences when she was actively engaged in being with me. We'd occasionally go to concerts or eat out at restaurants. Her memory of being a mom is connected to all of those things. She remembers that she spent time finding a school for me which she liked and moving us to the the school's neighborhood so I could attend. She remembers getting me into sports like basketball, a good outlet for all of the energy I had to let out somehow. She remembers coming to my games and cheering me on.
She doesn't really have any sense of all the time I spent by myself waiting for her to arrive. Or the time when she was present when she wasn't able to relate to me but rather needed me to relate to her. She didn't, and doesn't today have the ability to imagine into my reality to a very high degree.
Ironically, her being retired means she has a lot more time on her hands and imagines into my life much more than when I was a kid. And I am certain that the medication she is taking now helps her enormously, including making her less narcissistic now than she was when she was untreated.
From age seven on I focussed more and more of my attention on my mom's experience. I began to tune into where she was emotionally and adjust my own behavior to compensate. If she was manic, I needed to be very calm and centered. If she was low-energy, I should be cheerful and upbeat. If she said things that were strange or if she was very irritable or unreasonable and demanding, I should be quiet, go along, and wait for the storm to pass.
The primary way I dealt with this way of living was to reduce my own needs (the ones that she would need to fill) to as close to zero as I could. I felt instinctively that too much stress on her might make her go away like my dad had. When we talked at the dinner table it was mostly her talking and me listening.
In many ways I was an extension of her. Much of my energy was directed on helping her navigate daily life. My sense of self was very slow to develop. And my boundaries were very weak due to the sexual abuse and my mom's own poor boundaries because of her bipolar. There was not a person in my life, basically ever, who was really tuned into what my thoughts and feelings were. Someone who could help me, day by day, to see what my strengths and challenges were, to orient me to the world.
I know that under it all I have a beautiful and radiant self that wants to be always present in my experience. In this cave I hope to uncover all of the masks I've placed on myself that have shielded that self. The "bubble" helped me to cope with difficult situations but it created layers of personality, infused with pain, which now I need to shed. I hope to have the courage to do it.
By the time I was twelve I realized that my mom was not going to be able to parent me in the way that I needed, and so I had to grow up and take charge of my own needs. I started learning how to drive, spending more and more time at friends' houses, and keeping my expectations of my mom very low. I was already versed with the bus system, I had a bike, and could reduce my dependence on mom to a very low level.
I was also becoming sexually active, drank beer with my friends on the weekends, occasionally smoked pot, and chewed tobacco.
I listened to my mom's problems at the dinner table but shared almost nothing of my own. By this time my mom would refer to me as the "strong silent type" which she has thought of me ever since. I think my real nature is not silent (judging from this blog it appears I have something to say). it's just that I didn't have adults in my life who could listen to me and be interested in what my thoughts were.
This was the trajectory we were on from the time I was 6 to age 14; me the only child and she, the single mom. I had worked out the niche for myself that seemed to help her be on an even keel most of the time. I did well enough in school and all seemed to be fine.
Except that I never really got to be a kid. To satisfy the deviant sexual urges of a babysitter meant that I was very aware of sex from age six on. And I had to assume a quasi adult role with my mom which would reduce the stress on her and make her survival in middle class life, as well as mine, more likely.
I am having trouble being an adult today because when I needed to be, I wasn't able to be a child.
I find myself in my life today struggling for purpose. My purpose as a child was to make sure that my mom stayed "afloat". Now that she is doing okay and has a stable life there is part of me that feels intense resentment. I have given so much of my own substance to her. Substance that children should not be required to give because they can't get it back later. It's taken out of the bank and the funds are not paid back. They're just gone.
I formed my sense of self in such a way as to ensure my survival and hers. We both survived. Maybe I should throw a party. Somehow in the thick of all this anger and resentment and wondering where my true self lies I don't feel all that celebratory.
Your comments are welcome.
Warmly, Ben
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