Jack was swept along by events: into and out of war, into marriage when a beautiful girl batted her eyes, and into parenthood. One day he woke up and felt like he was in jail. Somehow the entire course of his life had gotten mapped out while he was looking the other way.
Control was important to him. He had controlled himself and made himself do his duty in a terrifying and confusing war. Now he would control himself and make himself work to support his family, not go to college for the education that would let him do the work he wanted, not take the road he had planned to stride.
He was angry. His wonderful wife would try to please him, but he couldn’t let himself be pleased. He had too much friction going on inside. He just wanted to do his job, come home, and be left in peace. He couldn’t tolerate anybody wanting anything more from him.
Before the war he might have been capable of looking at his wife and seeing her fear when he menaced her. But he’d had to block out a lot to survive the war, and he didn’t let perceptions in anymore. He made no effort to read her face. He couldn’t stand the little niceties she insisted on. It just made him feel more trapped, so he snarled at her. Then she’d back off, which is what he needed.
He couldn’t see what he was doing to her, and she didn’t know she didn’t have to take it.
Into this tense scene toddled a baby.
Talk about need. Babies need. Jack really didn’t have the energy for that.
The course of his relationship with his daughter Tamara got set early. She symbolized everything wrong with his life. She needed. She pulled his wife’s services from him. She made noise. She cost money. Therefore, she became his target.
Tamara, in her baby vulnerability, felt his hostile energy. He scared her, and she didn’t want to get too close. It embarrassed him when she shied away from him, especially in front of others, so he’d punish her.
As she grew up, Jack and Tamara were locked into this pattern. Time only increased his anger, and she was the easiest target in view. If he had a bad day at work, he vented it on her. If traffic was especially snarled, she got yelled at when he came home. Just about anything that caused him anxiety or discomfort got discharged onto her little shoulders.
He couldn’t bear it anytime she required extra attention. Normal kid behavior would set him off into a volcano of abuse. Most of the time the abuse was in the form of yelling, loud and long. Sometimes he hit her. Sometimes he would humiliate her.
One day she spilt her milk. He made her get down on the floor and drink milk from a bowl like a dog.
Another time, coming in excited from a softball game, she got mud on the floor. He grabbed her, held her upside down so her eyes were inches from the floor, and paced back and forth, her head dangling, while he yelled at her to look at her footprints.
Any child would be marked by incidents like these. What do you think happens to a vulnerable child treated this way?
Misery addicts, like most addicts, are very perceptive people. They absorb energies from others. They are raw and exposed in a way that normal people aren’t. (Hence the need for an addictive behavior or substance. It provides a buffer against the world.)
When treated harshly, sensitive children get afraid to move or act or choose. They stop being kidlike. They erect a radar dish. They make avoiding mistakes a lifestyle. They lose their ability to risk. They get scared to leave the square they are on for an unknown square with hidden dangers. They get afraid to relax. They don’t let down their guard. They learn not to hope, not to get excited, not to want anything too much. Sometimes they’ll tuck their true selves into a little cave and erect a false self to handle living.
Where was Jack’s wife while he was being so mean to Tamara? Marta was right there. She was sitting at the table when he made their child get down on all fours and lap milk from a bowl. She was standing by the door when he hoisted their daughter upside down and dangled her as he paced. She, of course, was the one to sop up the spilled milk and mop the floor.
When he came home in a rage, she watched as he scoured the house to find their daughter, listened as he vented onto Tamara, and saw her daughter’s despairing eyes at the dinner table. In the early years, her child had sought Marta’s eyes with hope for rescue. None came. Her daughter didn’t look toward her anymore.
Marta was passive. She was scared of her husband and believed it was up to her to make the marriage work no matter how much Jack acted against any amiable connection. Jack may have been trying to drive her—and the responsibilities that came with her—away, but their religion did not sanction divorce, so separating didn’t seem a real option to either of them.
Marta could not let herself realize that she was sacrificing her daughter. She especially couldn’t let herself see, when Jack was going after their daughter, that she, Marta, was somewhat safer. After venting his anger on Tamara, Jack would sink into his chair, have his beer, and read his paper, like a lion easing into a nap.
Tamara had a typical childhood for a misery addict. One parent, usually the father, is critical and angry. The other parent is passive or absent, either unwilling or unable to stop the excesses of the angry spouse.
The abuser can, of course, be the wife and the passive spouse the father. And I’ve noticed that usually the passive spouse dies first.
Many couples who fit this profile are religious. They can belong to any religion, but in my experience they are more likely to belong to one in which women are the servers and not normally a part of the church leadership.
Most misery addicts aren’t comfortable with their own anger.
Kali Rose had a sweet and winning way, so she attracted friends and people who were generous to her. Often, though, she didn’t see or appreciate their generosity. Instead, her attention was on her own internal struggle with self-disapproval and on the current woman from whom she was craving attention and approval.
Most of the time, the woman in her sights had a leadership role in some group Kali Rose was a part of. One such woman was her boss. Another coworker shared the same level of duties as Kali Rose, and she perceived the coworker as the boss’s pet and herself as the drudge in their boss’s eyes. This replicated her childhood, where her sister was favored by their parents and she was the rejected child.
Kali Rose was fixated on her boss’s attention toward the coworker. Anytime Kali Rose believed the other woman was being favored, she would be triggered into the depths of despair, blame herself for her unworthiness, and then binge on junk food. Her primary topic of conversation with friends was the perpetual tempest of her emotions regarding this woman.
One of the first things Kali Rose did when she became part of any group was to assess other members in terms of their closeness to the lead woman. She sorted group members according to these categories: strong women, weak women, competitors, and nonplayers. In addition, she always identified one other group member as her competitor for the lead woman’s favor. She was jealous and angry when the leader gave attention to someone else, especially the person she had labeled as her competitor.
In any group, Kali Rose would create an alliance with one other woman, be afraid of her peers who were strong, scapegoat the person she perceived as weakest, and ignore the others. Nonplayers were ignored so thoroughly that even if they asked her a direct question, she might not answer it, as if she neither saw nor heard them. Toward the scapegoated person she would be consistently cutting and dismissive.
The roles she assigned to people shifted if the group shifted. For example, in a church group she attended regularly, she had an alliance with Bettina, a strong woman who was her occasional competitor for the attention of the assistant minister, the leader of the group. In the same group, Kali Rose labeled Evie as weak. However, at a recent church retreat, Kali Rose knew no one except Evie. During the retreat, she poured her considerable charm on Evie in order to form an alliance—one that evaporated by the next Sunday.
People cared enough about her to give her feedback from time to time. When they did, Kali Rose would rapidly descend to a pit of shame, even to the point of being unable to talk. People would then stop giving her feedback and distance themselves from her.
Kali Rose was completely imprisoned by her system. What she wanted most of all was to be with the chosen woman as much as possible. Toward that end, she would do things for her: take on chores, give her back rubs, do odd jobs—anything that gave her extra time with the woman.
Fortunately, most of the time she chose women who were too ethical to take advantage of her. Occasionally, she’d target a woman who would use her. She’d then feel connected to the woman as a result of her services. It wasn’t true intimacy, but it felt like a bond. Then when the woman turned her attention to her own life, family, or husband, Kali Rose felt abandoned. And for that she would be furious.
From each phase of this cycle—adoration, despair, sacrifice, abandonment, rage—she got something. Each stage reenacted some aspect of her relationship with her mother.
Misery addicts are often furious. They were not taught healthy ways of handling anger, and they were usually not permitted to show it. To be obviously angry as children would have been too dangerous anyway. In many cases, they would have been seriously punished for it.
They are usually anger-phobic. They abhor looking like the abusive parent, and their fear is that if they open the door to anger, it’ll erupt like a volcano, destroy others, and never stop.
Their defenses against anger are solid. This is one aspect of misery addiction that usually requires deep, consistent, focused therapy and group work. The company of warm, safe, intentional people can also help to soften both the anger and the misery addict’s defenses against it.