In the middle of the journey of our life, I came within a dark wood where the straight way was lost.
DANTE
The Divine Comedy
My wife and I recently returned from the Costa del Sol on the Mediterranean in Spain, where we luxuriated for two weeks. Each morning, we awakened to glorious sunshine bursting through our windows. We strolled the beaches and dined on terraces that overlooked the sea. We felt as if we were living in a fairy tale.
Owing to the good fortune of frequent-flier miles, we flew from Madrid to Seattle—by way of New York—in first class. It was our last bit of pampering before we returned to our normal lives.
Our stopover at JFK airport in New York was an unpleasant wake-up call. Babies screamed; businessmen rushed through the terminal, jabbering on their Blackberries; people jockeyed for position in lines; others sprawled on the floor, desperate for a few moments of sleep.
The scene—replete with teenagers in grubby jeans and torn T-shirts, businessmen dressed in power suits, and nouveau riche women bejeweled from head to toe—was simply too much to process. If the incredible din and the sardine-like cramming of flesh-on-flesh weren’t enough to shake us, the odor of a metropolitan airport did the trick.
“I want to go back to Costa del Sol!” my wife exclaimed. “I can’t take this!”
I couldn’t have agreed more. Our chaos detectors blared their alarm:
Too much.
Can’t take it.
Sensory overload.
Danger.
Get out now.
Dr. Fritz Perls, the father of Gestalt therapy, taught us that the mind strives to make sense out of things—even out of chaos. We seek to construct a whole from fragmented parts. It is one way to come to peace with life’s disturbing elements. Another famous psychoanalyst, Viktor Frankl, said much the same thing—we need to make meaning of our lives.
That’s what Tim was trying to do.
It’s not easy for a 15-year-old to make sense of the world, especially a world as chaotic as Tim’s. He watched his father leave the house at six each morning and arrive home at ten each evening. His mother slept much of the day.
Tim’s father, John, believed that medicine was the only remaining honorable profession. His father and grandfather were doctors. Growing up, no one doubted that John would follow their prescribed path. He learned at a young age to deny his interests and pursue options that garnered his parents’ approval.
John excelled in soccer and received a scholarship to Yale, where his father and grandfather had earned their degrees. He was an outstanding soccer player, and his excellence helped him gain recognition, which he desperately sought.
Although John loved architecture and design, he was raised in a family that talked only about patients, disease processes, and interventions. John had little conscious choice about his future profession. It would be medicine.
John graduated from Yale and then attended Johns Hopkins medical school. His academic prowess provided a steep trajectory into the adult working world. John became accustomed to working 16-hour days—10 to 12 at the office and another four to six making rounds at the hospital. The pace was fast and familiar. He wasn’t satisfied just doing rounds—he performed them with excellence and perfection. He was oblivious to any chaos this caused his family.
Tim’s mother, Susan, had worked as an RN prior to becoming a doctor’s wife and having children. But John’s job took center stage. She tried to deny her resentment; the only vestiges of it now were her stress-exacerbated health problems—arthritis, stomachaches, and other symptoms, possibly including fibromyalgia.
She learned early on that her husband was married to his work. Susan did not question the husband who controlled her and his family with a firm hand. He expected her to control the children the same way.
When I talked to Tim about his parents’ marriage, the bitterness spilled out.
“What marriage? They don’t really have a marriage. Mom stays with him because it’s the ‘Christian’ thing to do. They don’t have a relationship. I’m surprised they spent enough time together to have four children. Go figure.”
“So your dad is dedicated to his work?” I asked.
“That’s not the way I’d put it. I think they’re both crazy. My mom had better run the house efficiently ’cuz my dad’s like a drill sergeant who can’t stand any chaos when he comes home. He can’t see that he creates the chaos. He rushes into the house at night like Captain Von Trapp—you know, that guy in The Sound of Music. He whistles, and each of us has fifteen seconds to recite the day’s events. Crazy! He wants an instant relationship, and that’s not how things work.”
“How do you feel when your dad pulls into the driveway?”
“I want to see him. I just wish he’d come home for dinner and spend real time with us. I wish he’d slow down. He comes into the house, and my mom becomes Superwife. I watch her rush to get the house picked up and heat up Dad’s dinner.”
“Do your parents seem to care for one another?”
“I’ve never seen them hug or anything. Like I told you, I’m surprised they have kids. My dad loves his work, and that’s the only thing he loves. He wants to control Mom, and the one thing he can’t control is her health. It drives him crazy.”
I could see the pain in Tim’s eyes as he talked about his family. His father was married to his work while his mother made sure the family was in order for his father. His mother finally became sick and tired of this make-believe family, and she expressed her feelings in her symptoms of poor health.
No wonder Tim was having trouble making sense of this world.
Sarah, whose mother and sister seem to be addicted to chaos, shared more about her childhood during one of our many sessions. “It was always about my mom,” she told me. “It was like she was addicted to the sound of her own voice. She could hear herself talking, but I sure don’t think she heard me.”
On a recent visit, her mother had greeted Sarah abruptly. “I’m glad you’re here. You’re not going to believe what happened to me today.”
Sarah rolled her eyes. “She kept moving while she was talking. I had to follow her to have a conversation. I’d been there less than five minutes, and I already had a sinking feeling in my stomach. My mom was totally preoccupied with her crazy life and didn’t have a breath to spare to ask about me.”
“What did you do?” I asked.
“Kept following her around. It’s what I always do.”
“How were you feeling at this point?”
“That’s when I started feeling depressed again. Hopeless. I wanted to run, but I’d just gotten there. I tried to get her attention, but it was useless.”
“Then what happened?”
“I tried to interrupt her and tell her about my trip to California, to the wine country of Napa Valley. I thought she might be interested because she likes wines. She didn’t miss a beat in her conversation and acted as if she didn’t hear me.
“I had to wait half an hour for your aunt to meet me for lunch,” Sarah said mockingly, referring to her mother. Sarah continued sharing her mother’s comments.
“You know I don’t have that kind of time to spare. And then I had to take back that dress I got for my birthday. Nothing fits right anymore.”
“And it’s been like that since you were a child?” I asked.
“Since the day I was born, my mom has been addicted to chaos. One man after another. One job after another. One house after another. I don’t know if she plans it that way or if life just happens to her. I do know that she becomes sullen when she slows down. It’s like she’s trying to outrun her pain.”
“Do you know whether there is a history of abuse in her background?” I said. “I wonder if she is depressed under the facade of all her busyness. Jumping from relationship to relationship, from marriage to marriage, from job to job—your mother must have issues she is trying desperately to avoid.”
“I’ve spent my adult life wondering how my mom and sister can create so much chaos and still think it’s normal.”
“That’s part of the deal, Sarah. They learn to operate as if it’s a normal way of living. They become so addicted to the chaos—the adrenaline rush of it all—that it seems normal to them. The brain actually produces chemicals that give people a high from rushing around like that. They like to be the center of attention, and they demand that you fit yourself into their world. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that they’re not going to fit themselves into yours.”
“No chance of that.”
“It’s a good sign that their behavior doesn’t seem normal to you. If it did, you’d be addicted to chaos as well. But that doesn’t seem to be the case. Didn’t you say before that you like white flowers and peaceful things?”
“I grow flowers in my apartment—geraniums, pansies, some tulips. It’s not much, but it soothes me. I sit there looking at the plants on my deck and write in my journal. A few poems. It’s a great feeling. But I wish I could have a normal relationship with my mother.”
“That would probably be difficult, at least at this point,” I said. “Let’s talk some more about your mom and see if we can come up with some new strategies that might help you from feeling crazy around her.”
Becky’s history wasn’t so much about chaos—she was not raised with it. Quite the opposite. She was raised to defer to men. Her father had been in the military and raised Becky and her sister to be submissive, to live in the shadow of a controlling man. She learned the importance of pleasing others, of putting her needs last. She learned that lesson well.
Conversely, her husband, Jeff, was raised by alcoholic parents who lived with constant chaos. His parents became angry when drinking, which became increasingly frequent. Becky told me that his parents were late-stage alcoholics who had whisky before dinner and several glasses of wine after dinner.
“They drink like crazy,” Becky said. “We hate to go over there. They invite us for dinner, but they’re half-crocked by the time we arrive. And they continually repeat the same stories about their lives when they were younger. I’m sick of them.”
“They’ve been drinking like that ever since you’ve known Jeff?” I asked.
“As long as I’ve known him, they’ve been alcoholics.”
“I know I don’t like to even be around people who are drinking heavily. Tell me what it’s like for you.”
“I don’t think it’s just the alcohol. That’s bad enough. But Jeff’s dad has always been a womanizer. I wouldn’t be surprised if his mother’s had a few affairs too. That was their lifestyle. Jeff doesn’t like to talk about it, but I know his parents hurt him a lot.”
“It had to be a tough home to grow up in,” I said.
“I feel sorry for Jeff. It’s not fair for a kid to be raised in a situation like that. But he doesn’t talk about it. Probably no surprise there.”
“I suppose not.”
“Sometimes I wonder if his life with them was like mine is with him,” Becky said.
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“I wonder if he learned not to think or feel. With his parents, I just stop talking. I stop thinking. I start planning my next grocery list so I don’t have to listen to the story of their last cruise. I don’t really care to hear about it again.”
“And to think Jeff was raised with that,” I said. “It doesn’t excuse his behavior, but it makes you wonder how it affected him. No wonder he doesn’t know how to share his feelings or ask about yours. It’s no surprise that he likes to be in control, to overmanage his emotions, to overmanage your emotions. His world was pretty chaotic growing up. He probably doesn’t have the slightest idea about emotions.”
“That sure sounds like Jeff,” Becky said softly. “He doesn’t care to hear about any pain in my life—or about our kids’ for that matter.”
“Remind me about your kids,” I said.
“Two daughters. Great girls, both living in town, going to college. I don’t know how they’ve been affected by Jeff and me. Overall, they’re doing pretty well. I haven’t told them I’m going to counseling or that I am not sure about whether I want to stay with their father. I guess that’s part of my craziness, huh?”
“Not necessarily,” I said. “You have to decide how much of it is their business. Maybe a time will come when you’ll want to tell them you’re having some problems.”
Becky remains in counseling, working on developing her identity separate from her husband. She has had a difficult time reawakening emotions she has learned to silence.
We can easily wrap our brains around the notion of addiction to nicotine, alcohol, and drugs. We aren’t as quick to comprehend addiction to chaos and the central role it plays in being a crazy-maker.
Sarah had a hard time understanding her mother’s and sister’s behavior.
“How can they race around like ants in an anthill?” she asked. “Why do they treat me like I don’t exist? They look at me and talk to me, but they never hear what I say or care what I think.”
“I don’t think the key is that they don’t care about what you say,” I told her. “That may be too simplistic. But I think you’re right when you say they never really hear what you have to say. They have an agenda that doesn’t include you. It’s truly all about them. Your sister and mother probably don’t get along a whole lot better, but they may have a higher tolerance for chaos with one another.”
“I don’t get it,” Sarah said with exasperation. “They matter to me. Why can’t I matter to them?”
“Until you come to terms with it, you’re going to feel mighty crazy around them.”
“You’re right. I do feel crazy around them. I want to grab them both by the neck, hold their faces in my hands, and scream, ‘Hey, it’s me, Sarah! I want you both to shut up just this once and listen to me!’”
“Do you think that would work?” I asked, smiling.
And with that, Sarah and I spent a great deal of time talking about addiction to chaos. We discussed how addiction can happen to anyone; Christians can become addicted just as surely as non-Christians.
What is addiction, other than becoming fully accustomed to a destructive process or substance? If we move blindly forward on one path long enough, we can believe it is the only path.
We talked about how her mother had, perhaps at an early age, started running from something inside herself. Sarah had heard stories from her aunt about how her mother was an unhappy girl, and then an unhappy young woman. Her mother discovered that frenetic activity could keep her from feeling unhappy. After she had run so fast for so long, running seemed to be the natural way of moving through her world. It would be too frightening to slow down, and she had no guide to help her do so.
Sarah wondered if her mother knew she was avoiding something by running so fast—by being addicted to chaos.
“I doubt it,” I said, “not any more than alcoholics know that they began drinking excessively to avoid something painful in their lives. Pretty soon it’s the tail wagging the dog, if you know what I mean. The alcoholic needs the alcohol, not for the delight of sipping the wine, but because the body craves the booze.”
“So my mom doesn’t know she is running without a purpose?”
“No, I don’t think she has any awareness of it. She only knows she feels better flitting around from thing to thing, man to man, job to job. She starts to feel unhappy with something and puts that feeling aside by getting wild and crazy. Having a new man makes her happy, at least temporarily. Moving to a new town makes her happy for a short time. Getting a new home, decorating it—all these things give her a buzz.”
“You’re describing my mom to a T,” Sarah said. “She’s seems to be desperately looking for something to make her happy, never looking at herself as the source of her craziness. She has excuses for everything. Nothing is ever her responsibility.”
“Maybe it’s a little like telling alcoholics they’re drinking too much,” I said. “You keep thinking they’re going to wise up and get it. But the addiction is too strong. It’s the addiction that’s driving them. In your mother’s case, her addiction to chaos is her driving force.”
Working with Sarah seemed a bit like walking with Dorothy through the land of Oz. In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy leaves the frightening wizard, who stays comfortably in the castle he has created, the place from which he can intimidate people.
Accompanied by the scarecrow, the tin man, the lion, and her dog, Toto, she overcomes many obstacles on her journey. When she comes back to the egotistical wizard for her reward, he drifts off without her. The ego cannot take her to the home she longs for. She despairs until the good witch Glinda reveals that she doesn’t need the ego anymore, only her own readiness. Through her travels in Oz and her personal growth, she learns she does not need to rely on the ego to save her. Christina Baldwin, in her book on journal writing, Life’s Companion, explains:
We all live in Oz, and the transformation Dorothy makes is the same transformation we are all trying to make…As the ego becomes the servant instead of the master, we are able to see our life stories differently: to interpret events in terms of their purpose and growth.1
Sarah was being controlled by her mother and her egotistical power. But who can criticize Sarah for trying to get her mother’s attention and affirmation? We all want to be loved and appreciated. But in order to heal herself, Sarah would need to learn to let go of her expectations of her mother and find meaning within herself and from God. Anything less would relegate her to her mother’s crazy-making world.
Baldwin explains her theory about the powers of the ego and the pain involved in coming to an awareness about those addicted to chaos and ego-power:
The ego…perceives itself as the only real self… So, in the midst of everything else that’s going on, you will find yourself grieving. Or the ego may throw last-ditch fears and obstacles in your way. But there’s a trick of the mind to be noted in all this: If the ego is so sure it’s the only self, then who is it yelling at? Who is it trying to control?2
Over the course of several months, Sarah began to see what was truly happening. She began to see that her mother was driven helplessly by her own ego and her own fears.
So much of our distress in life comes from the power of the ego—the masterful self, the Wizard of Oz. Since the beginnings of the science of psychology we have been warned about the power of the almighty ego. We have learned that it really means Easing God Out. Who needs God when we can control our own destiny? This, of course, is futile thinking.
The Scriptures are replete with warnings about how the ego, or fleshly self, can destroy us. The apostle Paul says it well:
Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of the sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace (Romans 8:5-6).
These are powerful verses and tell us much about our nature and the path to freedom. Who has not felt controlled, compelled even, to do things that were self-destructive? This is because we are controlled by our sinful nature. Thankfully, we are free when we live according to our regenerated spiritual nature. Paul continues:
You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you…If Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you (Romans 8:9-11).
The ego relies heavily on denial to remain in control. Making healthy choices is hard when we deny important realities like these:
• the pain we are causing ourselves
• the pain we cause others
• the ramifications of our behavior
• our own feelings
• the feelings of others
• our ability to make healthier choices
• that our choices are faulty
• our culpability in the problem
• what we are seeing
I have written previously about my experience with work addiction. This was, in large part, an addiction to chaos. It began innocently enough. I wanted to have it all. I wanted to raise a family, succeed in my private practice as a therapist, and go back to school for my doctorate. None of these ventures were bad. What was clearly wrong was believing I could do them all simultaneously at the expense of my family.
Desperately wanting to accomplish all of these things, I became obsessed with them. I narrowed my focus and set out on a journey to attain all that my heart desired. My ego gained superiority over my life. The train picked up steam, reaching a frenetic pace—a chaotic fervor. When I entered school, I denied my exhaustion. I silenced any criticism from family and friends that said I was taking on too much (more denial). I didn’t want to hear their messages.
At the same time, I wanted to succeed in private practice. This required investing inordinate amounts of time attending to the day-to-day running of the practice, accepting speaking engagements to promote the business, and catering to the requests of referral sources.
Most important, I wanted to be a good husband and father. These roles were important to me, but I falsely assumed that I could give my family my leftover energies and that everything would be fine—once my life slowed down. Of course, my life never did slow down, and I paid a dear price in the form of marital problems and emotional distance from my sons. Even as the ship was sinking, I told myself I was doing nothing wrong. The power of addiction to my chaos was that strong.
The process of tolerating chaos in our lives is, in part, a process of tolerating denial.
Harriet Lerner, in her book The Dance of Deception, says that many of us don’t really want to know the truth. We want to be spared knowing what is really going on.
Lerner writes about the wife of a university professor who tells her that if her husband is having an affair, she doesn’t want to know. A mother of a teenage daughter tells her that if her daughter is using drugs, she really doesn’t want to know. The owner of a successful law practice doesn’t want to know if her daughter has been sexually abused by an uncle. The wife of a businessman doesn’t want to know if her brother is struggling with suicidal thoughts and feelings. Facing these challenging situations is difficult.
No one wants to be tricked, manipulated or duped. But, we may feel, at a particular moment, that we can’t handle a more direct confrontation with what we already suspect or know. We are unlikely to seek “more truth” if we feel unable to manage it, or if we are not confident that potentially painful information is ultimately empowering and could lead to productive problem solving, more informed decision-making, and a more solid self in relationships. We vary widely in the degree to which we are in touch with our competencies to manage painful facts, and our readiness and willingness to move toward them.3
Perhaps, like me, you want to dismiss what Lerner says. You may see yourself as someone who can identify and confront reality. You may see yourself as someone who can look straight into the eyes of reality and make necessary changes. Maybe yes, maybe no.
How do we explain Tim’s father’s behavior? Does this incredibly intelligent man have no inkling that his son is in deep distress, to the point of making a halfhearted suicide gesture? He is a renowned medical doctor, but he can’t see that his son is acting out for attention.
Or Sarah’s mother and sister. Can’t they see how exasperated and depressed Sarah becomes when trying to get a word in edgewise? Don’t they have any understanding of what it must be like to live in her world, filled with confusion and looking for an understanding ear?
What about Becky? Has she just now realized that her husband is controlling and that the life he wants for her is far different from the life she wants for herself? What has it been like to walk in her shoes through countless years of giving up her spirit, her true self? And what about her husband? Does he really think she is fine and that things will be bright and rosy in their home tomorrow morning?
Each of these questions points to the power of denial. As Lerner says, we differ in our ability to face and name reality.
Our knowledge and interpretation of the truth is, at best, partial, subjective and incomplete. But we all have varying capacities for empathy, intuition, refection, autonomy, objectivity, integrity, maturity, clarity, and courage—all of which enhance our ability to detect deception and incongruity in ourselves and others.4
As I mentioned previously, we strive to make sense, a gestalt, out of our worlds, as soiled and troubled as they may be. Each of us has this task, though it is quite difficult for the crazy-maker. How can crazy-makers make peace with their incongruities—the inconsistencies of their lives? How can they say they want happiness and peace and yet create chaos wherever they go? How can they go around making others crazy while believing they have little to do with it or perhaps not even noticing it?
Part of the answer lies in the understanding of incongruities. Many people have an extremely high tolerance for incongruities—living life with many inconsistencies. Saying one thing but doing another. Espousing certain values yet living life without incorporating these values into their lives. Their lives may not add up in our eyes, but they have found a way to make sense of them. They trip themselves up at every corner, but because of denial and tolerance, that is okay with them. Incongruities may not feel inconsistent to them at all.
We look into their lives and wonder, How can you treat your loved ones the way you do? The answer: Crazy-makers live in harmony with their incongruities. Because of massive denial, they are able to disconnect cause from consequence. They’ve found a unique way to create a gestalt out of it all.
But the crazy-makers aren’t the only ones who have a high tolerance for incongruity. We must remind ourselves that Sarah keeps going to her mother’s house, expecting things will be different this time. We must remind ourselves that Becky tolerates her husband’s control and denies any semblance of autonomy for reasons she must come to understand. Even Tim, though young, will need to carve out his own individuality in the face of adversity without succumbing to self-destructive tendencies of depression.
Lest we become too judgmental of these individuals, we do well to remember that we have blind spots. We too live with incongruities. I read recently that the correlation between Christians’ values and actions was quite low. In other words, what we say we believe has little connection to what we do in life. We believe in environmental causes yet give little of our time or energies to them. We believe in easing world poverty yet donate little of our resources to end it. We believe in equality yet cling tenaciously to what we have worked hard to keep. Incongruities exist among all of us.
Another window through which to view chaos addiction—the home of the crazy-maker—is the avoidance of pain. Addiction is, after all, a powerful way to avoid those things that hurt us. In fact, that is the essence of addictions: to avoid feeling pain and to seek pleasure. It is a primary issue in our culture and the source of many problems.
Consider how addiction (including addiction to chaos) is a way to cling to emotions that feel good and to avoid those that do not. Let’s look again into the life of Tim’s father, John.
We learned that John was groomed to be a physician from the time he was a child. He learned how to obtain his parents’ approval and how to avoid their disapproval. The worlds of athletics and academics gave him extraordinary power. At an early age, he became addicted to this power. He enjoyed this feeling of control and disdained the feelings associated with losing.
John’s life continued to gain momentum. Like other addicts, he learned to resist certain feelings, such as fear and pain. Having deadened his emotions, he couldn’t learn from them. He never allowed himself to feel sad or hurt. Even a hint of painful emotions drove him further and faster into the world where he wielded power and control.
John moved deftly into the world of medicine. He became a hardworking and successful surgeon. In the fast-paced world of medicine, he truly learned to wield power. He continued to live at a frenetic pace and soon accepted the adrenaline rush of his life as normal.
Sarah, Tim, and Becky are stuck—in many ways, as much as their family members are stuck. They are caught in a vicious circle of destructive actions—being fixated on trying to change other people, only to have them resist their actions. I explored those behaviors and their consequences with each of them during therapy.
Sarah wanted to force her mother and sister to pay attention to her. She wanted her mother to slow down and actually listen to her. To want this so desperately and not get it was excruciating to her.
Tim wanted his parents’ attention. He wanted his dad to come home and actually be a father to him. He wanted his mother to give up her concocted illnesses and return to being a loving mother.
Becky wanted her husband to change but had, for years, catered to his power. She saw him as the culprit for all her woes. The bottom line was that Becky needed to make healthy choices for herself. To choose to have her husband simply change would not be helpful, not only because she could not force change upon him but also because she needed to make adjustments of her own.
Wishful thinking is destined to fail. Sarah was not going to get her mother to let go of her addiction to chaos. Likewise, Tim’s rebellion would never succeed at getting his parents to settle down and become a normal family. Becky’s depression and passivity would not help her cope with her situation in the long run.
Sarah realized, at least at some level, that her sister and mother were going to continue being chaotic. She couldn’t change that, which caused her a great deal of despair. She took their rejection personally, and this made her feel horrible. Tim drifted into feeling lost and lonely when thinking about his parents. He took their rejection personally and was overcome by hopelessness. When Becky interacted passively with her husband, she was bowing to his control.
Our work in the months ahead was to discuss how to expand their options, which would open up greater possibilities. They needed to learn how to do what Dorothy did in The Wizard of Oz—to make a spiritual shift.
We will talk more about this in the chapters that follow.
As chaos addicts rush about, denying their inner experiences and emotions, their world eventually becomes numb and numbing. Wielding power and manipulating others becomes second nature. They don’t know how to live any other way. They become anesthetized to their inner world.
What must it be like to live numbly in a world where life is a blur? Where other people are a blur? Let’s listen again to Becky talk about life with her controlling husband. She has learned, over many years, to deaden her pain.
“I learned to live according to my husband’s expectations. Whatever I had to do so he would not be upset, I did. I learned to tiptoe around him. His intensity and control always scared me, and I never fully realized the toll they were taking on me until too late. That’s when I came to therapy—after I had already become depressed. Now I’m learning how to listen to my feelings. I had to turn them off through most of my marriage just to survive. Even now it scares me to feel. What will I feel? Will I still want to save my marriage? In many ways, it was better not to know how unhappy I have been. It was safer there. It scares the daylights out of me to think and feel for myself.”
Tim is learning—thankfully at a young age—to be honest about his feelings. Although he often expresses himself with anger and has been numb to many other feelings, he is finally starting to explore the origins of his pain.
“In my family, to talk about what I think has never been okay. Besides, who would care? My dad is gone, and my mom is sick. My family seems kind of dead to me.”
Harriet Lerner talks about the importance of the family climate as it pertains to being able to speak the truth.
The level of underground anxiety or emotional intensity in a family determines how much freedom individuals have to discover, clarify, and express their own truths—and how accurately they will see themselves and others. Anxieties drive people toward polarities, toward fusion or cut-off, toward glorifying or hating a difference, toward disclosing too much or too little, toward avoiding a subject entirely or focusing on it incessantly. Anxious families deny differences, sweeping them under the rug in a “group think” mentality that compromises individual autonomy, or they exaggerate differences and magnify them out of proportion.5
Lerner explains how people like Becky, Sarah, and Tim—and perhaps you—lose their voices and become numb. The process is insidious. It rarely happens in a short period of time but develops gradually over many years.
Tim’s father could not abide anything negative happening in his home. The epitome of power and control, he wanted the perfect family. He wanted to come home to his wife, four kids, and dog Fido all living happily. He didn’t want anything to be out of order. He was under incredible pressure and wanted nothing more than a few minutes to enjoy a warm fire and a glass of wine.
Sarah’s mother had all the anxiety she could handle and more. She perpetuated her own calamities and led a crisis-filled life, so she had little energy for others. She lived as if she were kicking up a cloud of dust and couldn’t see anything beyond her own nose. Her message to Sarah was clear: “Don’t cause me any worries. I have enough of my own. Don’t have any feelings because I don’t have room for them, and I can’t help you with them.”
Becky learned not to create any problems. Her husband had control issues, and thus the family charter didn’t allow for problems. Her husband’s anxiety caused him to disallow any emotions that might make him feel uncomfortable.
Don’t feel.
Don’t hurt.
Don’t talk about problems.
This is the definition of a crazy-making world because our emotional well-being actually hinges on our ability to talk about problems, share painful and joyful emotions, and state clearly what we are seeing. To learn to be numb is the beginning of craziness.
A large part of the answer, for both the crazy-maker and for family members and friends, is to “come alive,” to turn on our “chaos detectors” and recognize when we are numbing ourselves instead of sharing our feelings. This includes regaining the ability to speak and rename the truth. We cannot do this if we are numb and entrenched in denial or if we are firmly enmeshed in the crazy-maker’s world. Healing begins with the smallest step of awareness.
Coming alive, however, is just the beginning. Reading this book will do you little good if you don’t use it as a springboard for action. Consider the crazy-making relationship that you fall into again and again. You vow to do things differently but find yourself with the same feelings, the same expectations, and the same disappointments.
Consider some “two-degree changes” you can make, small steps you can link together to create real change. You can begin by journaling about the crazy-making relationship you have with a parent, sibling, or spouse. You can diagram what he or she says, how you react, and how you feel. These are very positive steps and set you moving in a different, far more constructive direction. Simply coming alive begins the process of change.
I close this chapter with inspirations from Henry David Thoreau, who clearly understood the importance of personal freedom:
If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.