Low Mantenance Child

Photo Image by Anonymous

“Being a low-maintenance child or partner (a nice word for self-neglect) is idealized as a valuable attribute.” – Charlotte Z. Cavatica

“It is common for people to say we all have a void that only God can fill. That is probably true but the emptiness I lived with and inside of was greater than any natural, inborn need for God. It was the void that nurturing parents are assigned to fill as they love, protect, and encourage their child. By this they teach their son or daughter who they are, and of their importance, and place in the world. I didn’t have that and though I managed to survive, I had no fully developed identity of my own.” -- Pam Witzemann

Through most of my life, I sought to hide, fix or "unbe" myself. Coming from an Southern Italian immigrant background, my role as a child and youth called me to adopt a highly charged, extroverted cover -- at least in theory. I mattered to others only to the extent that I reflected the resilience and tough-mindedness of a typical high school jock. So, somehow I ended up becoming a burden bearer instead -- obsessed with fixing other people’s problems.


Since I couldn’t rely upon my caregivers nor my immediate environment to meet my needs, I became as low-maintenance as possible, someone who focused his energy upon rescuing others. I derived great satisfaction from this learned behavior. I not only remember having an exaggerated fear of letting others down early in life, but felt acutely responsible for others’ feelings of disappointment or anger. This set me up to having huge boundary issues or a lack of them.


The idea of introspection is meant to release empathetic persons from the prison house of the past. However, I read this week that if our rumination leads to blaming(either ourselves or others), then we will remain stuck in the funk of our emotions. Doc Childr and Deborah Rozman state in their book, “Overcoming Emotional Chaos” the following key concept that I really appreciate and am seeking to implement:


“One of the most important things to release is faultfinding or blame toward yourself or another. Blame keeps spirit in retreat. To bring in more of your spirit, you need to take full responsibility for yourself and realize that you have the power to release judgment, resentment, or hostility. You do it for your own health and well-being if not for any other reason.”


Learning to keep blame in check is a hard lesson for me to retain as I did the blaming so automatically in the name of honesty and/or authenticity. Since I disliked folks who projected a pristine, I’ve-got-it-all-together persona, I didn’t want to fall into this phony category. So, I learned there are two extremes that need to be avoided: “Nicety” as well as blame.

Inner Wounded Children

painting by Joan Miró

When we get around to understanding a little bit about our inner wounded child we are more aware about how our past can interfere with our present. As a young adult I knew I had issues to wrestle through -- both big and small. Still, apart from reading self-help books and listening to good sermons, I had no clue how to resolve my inner conflicts nor where to begin, so I often settled for avoiding my inner world.

I struggled with compulsive behaviors like rescuing others from their problems, excessive gift-giving and "falling in love" too fast. My locus of motivation focused externally, seeking to get my supply of approval through people pleasing. The wake up call came when I read John Bradshaw's book, "Home Coming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child"

Bradshaw writes some penetrating descriptions that pertain to the inner wounded child that are worth considering. Here is a summary of his thoughts (sprinkled with some of my own comments) for your viewing. Those of us who have had an emotionally chaotic childhood with many traumas may find ourselves struggling with some of these issues:

We may have difficulty trusting ourselves to meet our needs and therefore think we need someone else to meet them.
We may have difficulty trusting others so that we feel we have to be in control of our surrounding all the time.
We may fail to detect body signals such as not being aware how tired we are.
We may neglect going to the doctor or dentist.
We may have deep fears of abandonment.
We may feel we don’t belong anywhere or anyone.
In social situations we may be invisible so no one notices us, yet not even be aware why we do this.
We may attempt to make ourselves indispensable to others to make sure they will not leave us.
We may have a great need to be touched or hugged that could make us vulnerable to bonding too soon, too deep with someone we don’t even know and who could even be harmful to us…
We may have an obsessive need to be valued and may have difficulty establishing boundaries for fear that others may not like those boundaries.
We may isolate ourselves out of fear that people might end up rejecting us or we might end up rejecting them.Some of us are gullible and don’t see other people’s hidden agenda or else we see the hidden agenda but go along with it all the same...

spiritual abuse and lame sermons

I paid a visit to a church today I usually don't attend. Even though it's close by my house I prefer to go farther because .... uuummm, the preacher rubs me the wrong way? Until today, it’s been difficult for me to understand what triggers this allergic reaction since the pastor seems like a nice guy.


Well, the sermon emphasized the importance of hearing God’s voice which I thought was ironic because to me a lot of FOG seemed to be filtering throughout the whole message. I wrote down some of the points that were made for your viewing:


1. The true Christian cannot show sadness in his face because he or she is a child of the light; 2. Grace is granted by God, but it has an expiry date; 3. The Christian must set aside his own plans and commit to God’s plan only; 4. Once the Christian has submitted to God’s plan, then God grants success in the plan that was set aside. 5. The Christian must put aside his or her problems if he or she wants to listen to God.


Is it just me or are these ideas incongruent? They reflect a kind of moralizing reasoning dominated by the Wounded Inner Child; where the wounds seem bigger than God and where the hearer needs to be nagged about duties in order to get his or her act together. To me this does so much damage to children who feel they have no real choice, but to conform to adult expectations.


What also pained me was that the preacher addressed the hearer assuming that he or she:
1) doesn’t want to listen;
2) resists getting involved
3) makes all kinds of excuses in order to not commit to ministry


These are digs that a sensitive soul detects. It’s probably not the speaker's intention, but the gospel message is cross-pollinated with FOG (Fear, Obligation and Guilt Tripping). It teaches the hearer to conform outwardly while denying or minimizing his or her inner conflicts.


“Put on the smile.”
“Help someone in distress.”
“Stop being self-centered.”


To me these subtexts beg the question; Why must inner conflicts be placed as the antithesis (in dichotomy) to listening or to serving God? How can this spiritually fortify the hearer? Doesn't this kind of reasoning reinforce the socialization tactics of the world? Doesn't it reject authentic expression thus constructing a false self that conforms to what others expect (on cue) -- what the hearer SHOULD be doing?


No wonder some people outside the church, view christian communities with caution. When the Wounded Child is not healed, hearers are subjected to external mandates such as learning to smile on cue (if you aren't naturally inclined). This kind of false environment upsets me. The worst part is that the general public silently affirms FOGGY religious assumptions -- week after week.


The preacher also sprinkled some self-importance into the sermon by letting us know that he had breakfast at the same restaurant three times this week while "ministering" to people in his congregation. Why did we need to know that bit of information? How is it related to listening to God? The subtext seemed to be saying, "Look at me, I'm important and the way I show that importance is by having breakfast three times at a nearby restaurant.If you listen to God, then you can have these privileges too."


My thoughts on this post one week later: This journal entry ties well with the post entitled, "The Subconscious Script of the Wounded Child" The preacher is replicating what he was taught by his parent or parents with the difference that he uses the Bible to give authority to his erroneous thoughts.