Now That You're An Adult, Your Parents Have Changed Into the Parents You Wanted As a Child

As a psychotherapist in New York City, I hear many adult clients tell me that they have problems reconciling who their parents were in the past to who their parents are now.

In these situations, psychotherapy clients often say something like, "My mother was so abusive when I was growing up, but now she's a sweet, kind lady. I can't believe she's the same person. I'm glad she's changed, but I'm having problems reconciling that the mother from the past is the same mother in the present.  Why wasn't she kind to me when I was a child?" (see my article: Looking at Your Childhood Trauma From An Adult Perspective).

Now That You're an Adult, Your Parents Have Changed Into the Parents You Wanted As a Child

This change often presents a dilemma for clients attending psychotherapy.  They are traumatized, they are affected in their current life by the childhood abuse.  But many of these clients also feel a sense of guilt for complaining about their parents' past behavior because their parents are no longer like that.  Not only do they experience guilt, but they also feel confused about the change.

On an intellectual level, most clients understand that people often change and who they were in the past is no longer who they are in the present.  But on an emotional level, especially if the past trauma is getting triggered in their current circumstances, it's hard to reconcile the change (see my article: Coping With Trauma: Becoming Aware of Emotional Triggers).

These clients often experience anger, sadness and resentment for the love and nurturing they didn't get as a child.  Many of them also express surprise to discover that their parents have changed because they never thought their parents would ever change.

In many cases, the change becomes evident when these adult clients have their own children and their parents, as grandparents, interact with their grandchildren in a much more nurturing way than they ever did with these clients when the clients were children.

This sometimes creates a dilemma for these clients because, on the one hand, they feel somewhat envious that their children are getting the love and nurturance from the clients' parents that these clients wanted for themselves as children.  But, on the other hand, even though these clients' feelings are understandable, no one wants to feel envious of their own children.

A Fictional Clinical Vignette: Your Parents Today Have Changed Into the Parents You Wanted As a Child:
The following fictional clinical vignette is typical of this issue and illustrates how psychotherapy can help:

Beth
Describing a horrific childhood with both physical abuse and neglect, Beth, who was in her 40s, told her psychotherapist that, she recently gave birth to a baby girl, Cindy.  She said that, after being estranged from her parents for many years, she and her husband were considering whether or not to contact her parents about Cindy's birth.

Beth described a traumatic childhood where she and her younger sister, Sandy, often cowered in their room when one or both parents lost their tempers and hit them with a belt.  Other times, her parents would leave them alone at home over the weekend with no food as the parents went to a resort in Upstate New York.

Beth said that neither she nor Sandy ever told anyone about the abuse or neglect because they were both too afraid of the repercussions.  As a result, they endured the abusive and neglectful behavior until they were old enough to leave the household.  Beth even delayed going to college for a year so that she and Sandy could leave the household at the same time.  She feared that if she left Sandy alone with their parents, they would unleash all their anger on her after Beth was gone.

Beth's husband, John, who had heard the horrific stories of Beth's childhood, would have preferred that Beth not contact them at all.  He feared that they might want to be involved with Cindy, and he definitely felt uncomfortable with that.  But he left the decision about contacting her parents up to Beth.

Ultimately, Beth decided to send her parents a note.  She would rather that they hear about Cindy directly from her rather than hearing it from other relatives who were still in Beth's life.

Based on their experiences with their parents, Beth and Sandy both doubted that their parents would want to be involved in Cindy's life.  So, Beth, Sandy and John were shocked when her parents wrote back that they were thrilled to hear that they were grandparents and they wanted to reconnect with Beth and Sandy and see the new baby.

At first, Beth wasn't sure what to do.  Before she contacted her parents, she knew there was a possibility that they might want to meet Cindy, but she thought of it as a very remote possibility.  She was shocked that her parents would even care enough to want to reconcile and meet Cindy.

When she talked it over with John, she understood his reluctance.  He had never met her parents and, after hearing about Beth's traumatic childhood, he hoped he would never meet them.  He was angry for the hurt that they caused Beth and Sandy.

After they talked it over and Beth discussed it in several therapy sessions with her psychotherapist, Beth and John decided to have a short visit with her parents in a nearby park rather than inviting them over to their apartment.  Sandy decided that she didn't want to see her parents, so she told Beth that she wouldn't go.

With much trepidation, Beth and John waited for Beth's parents at the area they designated in the park.  While they waited for Beth's parents to show up, they both wondered if they were making a big mistake.  But it was too late to back out at that point.

During her next psychotherapy session, Beth told her psychotherapist that she was amazed at how pleasant and nurturing her parents were with Cindy and with her and John.   Not only were they thrilled that they were now grandparents, they both said how much they missed Beth.

Afterwards, Beth was so surprised that she could hardly believe that they were the same parents who were abusive and neglectful with her and Sandy.

Her amazement was so great Beth told Sandy that when she was with their parents, for a second, she wondered if the abuse and neglect had ever happened.  She wondered: How could these be the same people?  But she was relieved that Sandy, who was also shocked to hear that their parents were pleasant, confirmed Beth's sense of reality about their childhood.

John was also surprised.  After hearing about Beth's childhood, he wasn't sure what to expect when they met for the first time.  But he wasn't expecting such a warm response from them.

Aside from needing help to reconcile her parents of today with her parents from the past, Beth also started therapy because she wanted to work on her unresolved childhood trauma.  But, after reconnecting with her parents, initially, Beth had difficulty processing the earlier trauma because she felt like her parents were such different people now, and she continued to have doubts regarding her perceptions of her childhood.

She felt a guilty complaining to her therapist about her parents when they were now behaving in such a loving and nurturing way with Cindy.  Even though Sandy confirmed her sense of what happened when they were children and she knew, on an intellectual level, what happened, there were still times, on an emotional level, when Beth felt like she might be "exaggerating" or "making a big thing out of nothing."

Beth's psychotherapist provided her with psychoeducation about how adults, who were abused and neglected as children, often have doubts about their childhood history--especially if their parents had changed.  Knowing that this was a common experience for many clients, Beth felt somewhat relieved to know that other people had similar experiences.

In addition, Beth had many mixed feelings about her parents.  She told her therapist that, when she was a child, she longed to have parents who were as loving as her parents were now to her daughter.  Although she was glad that they were able to be loving towards her daughter, she also felt a lot of grief for what she didn't get emotionally from her parents when she was a child.  She told her therapist that she was felt guilty to admit that she sometimes envied Cindy because her parents could be so loving towards Cindy.

Her psychotherapist used EMDR therapy to help Beth to process her traumatic childhood (see my article: Experiential Therapy, Like EMDR Therapy, Helps to Achieve Emotional Breakthroughs).

The work was neither quick nor easy.  As part of her trauma work, Beth grieved for the love she didn't get as a child.

In the meantime, as Beth was resolving her childhood trauma, she and her husband were making decisions about how much contact they wanted Cindy to have with Beth's parents.

Conclusion
People are often amazed when parents, who were abusive to them when they were children, can now be kind and loving as grandparents.

There can be many reasons for this, including:

• Abusive parents often mellow with age.  
• Grandparents are usually under less pressure with their grandchildren than they were as parents.  Often, they can have a good time with their grandchildren without the stress they felt when they were rearing their own children.
• People change, and abusive parents might have regrets about their behavior.  
• Grandparents, who have regrets about being abusive parents, often see grandparenting as a way to make up for the abusive way they treated their own children.

Of course, every situation is different, and each person needs to make his or her own decision about whether to allow a formerly abusive parents back in his or her life.

It's also true that, even when there aren't grandchildren involved, abusive parents can change over time, and their adult children have many of the same problems reconciling the parents of the past with the current parents.

Getting Help in Therapy
Coping with a history of unresolved childhood trauma is difficult, especially when, as an adult, unresolved trauma gets triggered in the present.

Psychotherapy with a skilled trauma therapist can help you to overcome unresolved trauma, so you can free yourself from your history and live a more fulfilling life (see my articles: The Benefits of Psychotherapy and How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist (see my article: The Therapeutic Benefits of Integrative Psychotherapy).

I am a trauma therapist who works with individual adults and couples, and I have helped many clients to overcome unresolved trauma.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Fear of Anger is Often Coupled With Shame and Guilt: Part 2

In my prior article, Fear of Anger is Often Coupled With Shame and Guilt - Part 1, I discussed how anger is part of healthy aggression and starts at birth.  I also discussed how problems develop when healthy aggression is short circuited at a young age and continues into adulthood.  In this article, Part 2 of this topic, I'm providing a fictional clinical vignette to illustrate those issues.

Fear of Anger is Often Coupled With Shame and Guilt 

Fictional Clinical Vignette: Fear of Anger is Often Coupled With Shame and Guilt
Beth began attending psychotherapy after she was passed over for a promotion that she felt sure she was going to get but didn't.  Instead, a colleague, Karen, who used Beth's ideas and presented them to their director as if these ideas were her own, got the promotion that Beth wanted so much.

Beth told her psychotherapist that other colleagues, who knew that Karen took Beth's ideas, told Beth that she should speak with her director and let him know what happened.  But Beth felt too uncomfortable doing that.  She didn't want to "make waves" at the office, so she remained silent.

Beth also told her therapist that other colleagues, who were on the same level as Beth, often dumped projects they didn't want onto Beth to free themselves up for more interesting projects--projects that Beth would like to work on but couldn't because she was weighed down with the less interesting projects.  Friendly colleagues urged her to speak up, but Beth said she was too uncomfortable to assert herself, so she did nothing.

She had been with her company for a little over a year, and she was aware that she was getting a reputation for being a doormat--someone that certain colleagues could take advantage of because they knew she wouldn't stand up for herself.

She was also aware that if she continued to allow others to take advantage of her, her situation at work would only get worse.  She told her psychotherapist that she didn't know how to change these situations, but she wanted to learn how to do it.

As Beth and her psychotherapist explored her family history, Beth revealed that she was raised by a single mother who controlled almost every aspect of Beth's life until Beth moved out five years ago when she turned 25.  Even now that she was living on her own, Beth said, her mother still tried to control certain areas of Beth's life.

She told her therapist that when she told her mother that she was moving out five years ago, her mother was upset.  Her mother told her that she could save so much more money if she continued to live at home.  Beth told her that she wanted to have her own place.  Her mother knew there was nothing she could to stop Beth, but she told Beth, "Okay, go ahead and move out, but you might not find me here one day.  I'm not going to live forever, you know."

Beth was alarmed to hear her mother say this.  She also felt ashamed of her desire to be on her own and guilty for hurting her mother.  This made moving out so much more difficult, but Beth knew it was time to be on her own.  She didn't know how she did it, but she found the courage to move out, even though she felt ashamed of her need to do this and guilty for hurting her mother.

As she recalled her childhood, she told her psychotherapist that she remembered so many other memories of her mother being very uncomfortable when Beth tried to be more independent--from the time she was a young girl wanting to pick out her own clothes to wear to her mother's dismay when Beth told her that she wanted to learn to drive when she was 17.

She told her therapist that her close friends from adolescence, who remained her close friends now, always urged her to stand up to her mother, but Beth felt too guilty to confront her mother.  She was so aware that as single mother, her mother sacrificed a lot for her.  She felt it would be a form of betrayal if she confronted her mother, and she knew her mother would see it that way too.

And, yet, there was another part of her that wanted to be able to stand up to her mother so she wouldn't feel so dominated by her mother.  She would often imagine herself telling her mother that she needed to feel more independent, especially now that she was 30.  But whenever she imagined speaking to her mother about this, she could see how hurt and disappointed her mother looked, and she felt she couldn't risk hurting her mother.  So, her dilemma remained (see my article: Ambivalence and Codependence in Mother-Daughter Relationships).

Beth's psychotherapist listened empathically and understood that Beth was very ambivalent about what to do.  On the one hand, Beth wanted to feel more autonomous and in control of her life.  But on the other hand, Beth worried that she would hurt her mother.  She felt like she had to either choose to honor her own needs or honor her mother's needs, and she didn't know what to do.

Beth had a lot of insight into her problems, even before she came to therapy.  She knew that her problems with asserting herself were related to her lifelong avoidance of confrontations which were rooted in her relationship with her mother.  She knew, on some level, that she was suppressing her anger, but she couldn't feel it.  She was insightful, but she just didn't know how to make changes.

Listening to Beth, her psychotherapist recognized that there were times when Beth asserted herself, like when she moved out of her mother's place.  So she explained to Beth that everyone is made up of different, and sometimes contradictory, aspects of themselves.  And, her therapist explained, Beth had a part of her that knew how to assert herself--she just didn't know how to access this part of herself (see my articles: Why It's Important For Psychotherapists to Provide Clients With Psychoeducation and Understanding the Different Aspects of Yourself That Make You Who You Are).

Using a combination of clinical hypnosis and Somatic Experiencing, Beth's therapist helped Beth to go back into the memories of the times when she was able to assert herself with her mother.  At the same time that her psychotherapist helped Beth to access that assertive part of herself, she also helped Beth to manage the guilt and shame that also came up.

Over time, Beth was able to access this more assertive part of herself on her own.  As Beth got more comfortable calling on this more assertive part of herself, her psychotherapist recommended that she practice using this in ways that didn't feel too difficult.  She taught Beth how to put her shame and guilt aside in order to assert herself in small ways at work.

Then, when Beth was more comfortable, her psychotherapist urged her to be more assertive in other more complicated situations at work--like when her colleague tried to use more of Beth's ideas and say that they were hers.  This was more challenging for Beth, but she did it anyway and felt good about herself afterwards.

Over time, Beth was also getting more comfortable and confident with presenting her ideas to her director, especially after she received very positive feedback from the director.

The most challenging ordeal was asserting herself with her mother, who would often come over to Beth's apartment unannounced.  One day, Beth's mother came over when Beth was having dinner with a man she started dating.  Her first inclination was to let her mother in, but then she realized that this would be awkward and it would ruin her date with this man.

So, gathering her courage, she told her mother that she had come at a bad time and she would call her tomorrow.  Her mother, who refused to accept that Beth was an adult--much less as a sexual being, got angry and she left abruptly.  After her mother left, Beth calmed herself and she went back to be with her date.

During her next psychotherapy session, Beth told her therapist that she was able to set a boundary with her mother, but she felt very guilty and ashamed.  She said that she almost called her mother the next day to apologize, but when she thought about how her therapist would respond to this, she decided not to do it (see my article: How Clients Internalize Their Experience of Their Psychotherapist).

Beth's psychotherapist understood that there was still much unfinished business from Beth's early childhood, so she recommended that they use EMDR Therapy to work on Beth's unresolved trauma (see my articles: How EMDR Works: EMDR and the Brain and What is Adjunctive EMDR Therapy?).

Several months later, Beth was able to work through her childhood trauma with EMDR therapy.  She felt a lot of compassion for her mother, but she no longer felt shame for having her own needs or guilt for asserting herself with her mother.

She also continued to assert herself at work, and she was promoted a year later into a senior position with a substantial raise.

Fear of Anger is Often Coupled With Shame and Guilt

Most important of all, Beth no longer feared her anger.  She understood that her anger and its related healthy aggression could be used to mobilize herself to be assertive (see my article: Using Anger to Mobilize Yourself to Make Positive Changes in Your Life).

Conclusion
Fear of anger is often coupled with shame and guilt, and these problems are often rooted in early childhood when parents don't allow children to use their healthy aggression to be more autonomous in an age-appropriate way.

Without help, these problems continue into adulthood and usually have a negative impact on your career and personal life.

No matter what kinds of problems you might be having, like everyone else, in order to survive, you have positive internal resources, including various aspects of yourself that have helped you throughout your life.  You might not be aware of these aspects or, if you are, you might not know how to access them on your own to use them now.

Getting Help in Therapy
A psychotherapist who uses clinical hypnosis and a mind-body oriented modality, like Somatic Experiencing, can help you to access the positive aspects of yourself so you can overcome your problems(see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy).

In addition, EMDR therapy can help you to overcome unresolved trauma from the past that keeps you stuck now.

Rather than struggling on your own, you owe it to yourself to get help from a licensed mental health professional so you can overcome your history and live a more fulfilling life (see my article: How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist (see my article: The Therapeutic Benefits of Integrative Psychotherapy).

I work with individual adults and couples, and I have helped many clients to overcome problems that keep them from maximizing their potential.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Fear of Anger is Often Coupled With Shame and Guilt - Part 1

In a prior article about fear of anger, Overcoming Fear of Anger, I began a discussion about how this fear is usually rooted in childhood where parents were intolerant of expressions of healthy aggression.  In this article, I'll expand on this topic (also see my articles: Anger as a Secondary Emotion, Using Your Anger to Mobilize Yourself to Make Positive Changes in Your Life, and Healing Shame in Psychotherapy).

Fear of Anger is Often Coupled With Shame and Guilt

What is Healthy Aggression and How Does It Relate to the Separation-Individuation Process?
Healthy anger is a form of healthy aggression, so before addressing fear of anger, I think it would be helpful to define healthy aggression because this concept is often misunderstood.

Healthy aggression begins on the day you're born (possibly, even before).  Similar to chicks who experience the impetus to leave the egg, healthy aggression is what also causes the infant to leave the womb.  As a child, healthy aggression is what enables a young child to want to feed herself and, later on, learn to tie her own shoes.

Throughout child development, healthy aggression helps a child to want to learn to walk, learn to say "No!," get dressed on his own, and go through a healthy separation-individuation process with his parents.

At each stage, as the child develops, he learns that he is a separate individual from his parents and that she can take age-appropriate steps to make decisions and act more independent.  For a child of three or four who is with parents who allow the separation-individuation process, this might involve making decisions about what she will wear.  This might mean that the child chooses to wear a sweatshirt with a ballet tutu with mismatched patterns.

Even if the parents wouldn't have chosen this combination of clothing for the child, they know that it's important for the child to start making some independent decisions for herself in this way.  Over time, this will help the child to have confidence to make other decisions for herself as time goes by--rather than the parents insisting that they make all of the child's decisions.

The Negative Impact of Healthy Aggression Getting Short Circuited
What if, instead of the parents allowing the child to make her own decisions, they intrude on this process from the time the child is young through adulthood?

If parents have difficulty allowing their child to exercise healthy aggression from a young age, this has negative consequences for the child in terms of psychological development.

For instance, when a newborn wants to get his parents' attention, he will cry--a form of healthy aggression.  If the parents don't come to attend to the baby's needs, he will get even angrier and cry even louder until he works himself into a rage.  If the parents still don't come, he will exhaust himself and, with enough experiences like this, he will eventually learn that to stop crying to get his parents' attention.  He will go into a dissociative state as a survival strategy.

Fear of Anger Often Begins at a Young Age

Even at this young age, an infant learns to adapt to his parents' needs in order to survive.  Under those circumstances, dissociation is adaptive is an instinctual survival strategy so he does not alienate the parents.  But this adaptation has serious negative consequences later on because the child is learning that he has to put his parents' needs before his own.  He will also probably grow up to be an adult who will continue to dissociate and not know his own needs.

Another example is if a young child has the urge to feed himself, when his parent tries to feed him, he might say, "No, I do it!"  If he has never done it before, of course, he's going to make a mess, but this is part of the way he learns.  If a parent can't tolerate seeing the mess, she might interfere with the child's healthy urge to learn to do it himself and insist that she continue to feed him.

Since this child's urge to feed himself is a natural part of developing, this child and parent will probably have a power struggle on their hands with the child insisting that he wants to feed himself and getting angry when the parent insists that she will do it.  In fact, it's probably the first of many power struggles if the parent doesn't realize that this is an important part of the child's development.

But what's going on here?  Why wouldn't a parent allow her child to feed himself (or choose his clothes or tie his shoes later on)?  When asked, the parent might say that she doesn't like the child to make a mess or she can do it faster or more easily, but if someone continued to explore the issue beyond the surface, what probably would come to the surface is that the parent has a fear of allowing the child to grow developmentally and become more independent.

This parent's fear is probably related to her own early family history and fear of eventually being "abandoned" by the child.  Even when a parent knows objectively that children do grow physically and psychologically and that this is normal developmentally, on an emotional level, it can be difficult to accept, especially if a parent has emotional issues that she hasn't worked out for herself.

A parent might see this reluctance to allow the child to grow and separate in age-appropriate ways as her being "protective."  And, while there might be an element of this, it usually has more to do with the parent's own fear of allowing the child to be more independent.

This can go on through the stages of child development so that the child learns that separating and becoming his own person is "bad."  In these kinds of situations, most children learn to sacrifice their own developmental needs in order to maintain an emotional tie with his parents (see my article: Is Fear of Being a "Bad Person" Keeping You From Asserting Yourself?).

Often, in an unspoken way, the message for this child has been all along that meeting his parents' needs is more important than meeting his own needs.  In effect, he learns that if he will maintain a less conflictual relationship with his parents if he ignores his needs.  In this case, healthy aggression is perceived as "bad" because it threatens the bond with the parents.

Healthy aggression, including anger, becomes coupled with fear, shame and guilt:  fear of losing his parents, shame for having his own needs, and guilt for wanting something that is different from his parents.

Fear of Anger is Often Coupled With Shame and Guilt

Instead of learning over the course of his psychological development that there is such a thing as healthy anger, the child learns that all anger is "bad" and he shouldn't feel it.  As a result, he will have an unhealthy relationship to his own anger.  Either he will learn to dissociate his feelings of anger, deny that he ever feels angry or project his anger onto someone else ("I'm not the one who's angry.  You're the one who's angry").

So, for instance, the child who isn't allowed to engage in healthy aggression (or healthy anger) and who grows up to be an adult that has a negative view of anger won't realize that he can use healthy anger to assert himself or to set healthy boundaries with others.

Instead, this individual develops a fear of anger, which includes shame and guilt.

In my next article, I'll provide a fictional clinical vignette to illustrate these points and how psychotherapy can help.

Conclusion
Fear of anger (or fear of healthy aggression) usually begins at a young age.

If parents, who have their own unresolved emotional issues, cannot tolerate the child's healthy aggression, the child will often grow up fearing his own healthy aggression (or fearing anger) and feeling ashamed and guilty for having his own needs.

Fear, shame and guilt related to anger often results in a person splitting off his awareness of his anger, which can be done through various defense mechanisms.  Also, it often results in the person being afraid to assert himself or set healthy boundaries with others.

Getting Help in Therapy
Fear of anger, which is coupled with shame and guilt, is a common problem for many people, especially women, who are raised to believe that being angry is "bad."

If you're struggling with your own fear of anger or an inability to know your own emotional needs or an inability to assert yourself, you could benefit from psychotherapy.

A skilled psychotherapist can help you to understand and accept your anger and learn to assert yourself in a healthy way.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist (see my article: The Therapeutic Benefits of Integrative Psychotherapy).

I work with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

How Your Perspective About Your Parents Changes Over Time

Like most people, your perspective about your parents will probably change over the course of your lifetime.  Whether your parents are still alive or they have passed away, as you change, your perspective about your parents also changes (see my articles: You Continue to Have a Relationship With Your Parents Even After They Die).

How Your Perspective About Your Parents Changes Over Time

Whether you idealized your parents as a child or you resented them, as you get older and develop psychologically, you're able to see things about your parents that you weren't able to see at an earlier stage of your life.

Depending upon your relationship with your parents and your life experience, this might mean that you no longer idealize your parents because you now see them as ordinary people or your resentment decreases because you now understand what they went through.

As a child, there might have been aspects of your parents' lives that you didn't know or that you couldn't understand at the time.  But when you're older with more life experience, you will probably see your parents' in a different way.

A new perspective about your parents allows for a change in your relationship with them.  Whether it brings you closer or causes you to feel more distant from them depends upon your particular circumstances.

Fictional Clinical Vignette: How Your Perspective About Your Parents Changes Over Time
The following fictional clinical vignette illustrates how your view of your parents can change:

Alice
Alice began psychotherapy after she discovered an old family secret about her parents' relationship.

She told her psychotherapist that, after her parents moved out of their house and into an assisted living facility, she worked on gradually clearing out the house so that it could eventually be sold.

Alice explained that she had a lot of feelings about emptying out the house because it was the house where she grew up and the only home her parents ever had in their long marriage.  Although she was glad that her parents would now live in a facility that would make life easier for them, she also felt sad that the house would no longer be part of her life after it was sold.

The process of clearing out the house took a lot longer than Alice anticipated because, as she began the clearing out process, she found many old pictures, videos and letters.  She had so many memories to contend with that the process was almost overwhelming at times.

Alice said that there was one day when she was going through her parents' belongings and she came across an old picture of her father and a woman that Alice didn't recognize.  Her father had his arm around the woman and the woman was gazing lovingly into his eyes.

The picture was at the bottom of an old chest in the attic that belonged to her father where he kept old photos of his family, and college awards and certificates.

When Alice turned the picture over to see the back, she was shocked to read a note in a woman's handwriting, "My darling, Rich, you are the love of my life.  Love, Ann."

Alice noticed that the photo was dated 1962, which would have been 12 years after her parents got married.  She felt like a ton of bricks had just landed on her and she had so many questions whirling around in her mind that she had to sit down and take a deep breath:  Who was this woman and what was her father doing with her?  Did he have an affair?  Why was he holding onto this picture?

How Your Perspective About Your Parents Change Over Time

She told her psychotherapist that she sat in the attic for a long time not knowing what to do.  She had always been closer to her father than her mother and she looked up to her father ever since she could remember.

At first, she placed the picture back where she found it and closed her father's chest.  Then, she took the picture out again and took it with her when she left.

She was planning to visit her parents later on that same afternoon, but she called them and made an excuse as to why she wasn't coming.

Then, she sat on her living room couch, looked at the picture and wondered whether to ask her father about it or not.  If she did ask him about it, she wasn't sure how to broach the topic with him.

She wondered: If she spoke with him, would he get angry?  Would he tell her that it was none of her business?  But then she realized that her father had never been this way with her before.

When her husband came home, she showed him the picture and he was surprised too.  He knew that it would continue to bother Alice until she spoke with her father, so he encouraged her to wait until she could speak with her father alone to ask him about it.

Tossing and turning, she barely slept that night.  The mystery about her father and the woman in the picture was eating away at her.  She ruminated about it all night long.

She thought about how in 1962, she would have been 11 years old, and she tried to think about what was going on in her family during that time.  But she couldn't remember anything unusual.

By the next morning, Alice said, she decided to visit her parents at the assisted living facility.  As it turned out, Alice's mother was in the beauty salon, so Alice had time alone with her father.  As she thought about how to broach the topic with her father, she suggested taking a walk around the grounds.

Her father was in his usual cheerful mood and talked about he and Alice's mother were making friends at the assisted living facility.  Then, as they took seats at an outdoor table near the pool, he asked Alice how the clearing out process was going.

All along, Alice felt her heart pounding and her throat constricting as if she were about to burst out crying.  Not knowing how to approach the topic with her father, she took the picture out of her pocket and wordlessly placed it in front of her father.

Her father looked down at the photo for a moment and then he pushed it back in Alice's direction, "I knew there was something bothering you, Alice, the moment I saw you, but I didn't know what it was.  Is this what's bothering you?"

Alice could barely speak, "Dad, who is this woman?"

Her father looked away and stared out into the distance, "Alice, it was a long time ago. Let sleeping dogs lie.  Your mother and I worked this out years ago."

Alice burst into tears, "Is that all you're going to say?  I've looked up to you all my life.  Do you know how shocking it was for me to find this picture?"

Alice's father let out a long sigh and looked into Alice's eyes, "I'm sorry to disappoint you.  I'm sorry I haven't lived up to your image of me.  Your mother and I were going through a rough patch at that point and I had an affair with another woman, but I never stopped loving your mother or you.  I told your mother about the affair when Ann threatened to confront your mother about the it.  She wanted to me to leave your mother and I wouldn't do it--I wouldn't leave your mother and you, so she started threatening me.  Your mother and I eventually worked it out and decided to stay together.  The affair last a few months and there never was a another woman before or after Ann.  We never wanted you to know about our problems.  I'm sorry you found this picture.  I forgot that I even had it."

Alice's thoughts were so confused that she didn't know how to respond, so they sat in silence for a while.  Then, Alice said that she needed to leave and she would see him and her mother soon.  Before she left, she hugged her father and kissed his cheek perfuctorily and then she rushed to her car.  A few days later, Alice made an appointment to see the psychotherapist.

As she sat in her psychotherapy session, Alice told the psychotherapist that part of her felt like a child again who wanted to keep looking up to her father, but another part of her felt like an angry adult who felt betrayed (see my article: Are You Approaching Your Problems From an Adult Perspective or From an Inner Child Perspective?).

She wasn't sure how she felt about her father now.  In a way, since she found the photo, she felt like he was different from the person that she had always known him to be.

Alice met with her psychotherapist once a week to try to work out how she felt about her father.  There were times when she felt that if her parents worked out this problem all those years ago, she should forgive her father for making this mistake.  But then there were other times when she felt angry and hurt.

She also saw her mother in a different way.  For most of her life, she thought of her father as being the more nurturing and loving parent and she saw her mother as the more practical, stoic parent.  Now she felt much more compassionate towards her mother, and she wondered how much of her mother's stoicism was related to her efforts to deal with the affair.

Alice also felt confused about her childhood since she found the photo.  She had always thought that she had a happy childhood and that she was from a stable, loving home.  But now that image of the happy family was marred by the discovery of her father's affair.

A week later, Alice's mother called her and suggested that Alice come visit.  On the drive there, Alice wondered if her father had mentioned anything to her mother and if this was the reason why her mother wanted to see her.

When she arrived, Alice found her mother alone sitting out by the pool.  As soon as she saw Alice, her mother waved for her to come sit next to her.  As Alice approached the table, she had already made up her mind not to mention anything to her mother about the photo if her mother didn't bring it up.  She felt there was no need to upset her mother about this issue all these years later.

When Alice sat down, her mother reached across the table and put her hand over Alice's hand, "Your father told me."

They sat in silence for a few seconds, and then her mother squeezed Alice's hand, "I know you're upset about this, but try not to be too hard on your father.  I've made peace with that affair a long time ago.  I hope you can too.  Your father is a good man who made a mistake."

After a long silence, Alice told her mother that she never would have thought that her father would ever do something like this.  In response, Alice's mother smiled, "I know, dear.  I felt the same way back then, but your father and I were going through a difficult time.  We tried to keep it from you  because you were too young to be burdened by this.  He made a mistake.  I think he found some consolation with Ann, but he would never leave you and me.  He loved us too much to ever leave."

Alice and her mother talked for the rest of the afternoon.  Throughout their conversation, Alice went back and forth from feeling like an 11 year old girl to feeling like an adult.

When she saw her parents together again, they looked happy and, as always, they were affectionate with each other.  She told herself that, even though the affair was news to her, her parents had more than 50 years to reconcile their relationship.

Alice continued to attend her weekly psychotherapy sessions and talk about her disillusionment.  Over time, she realized that, until she found that photo, she still saw her father through a child's adoring eyes and her idealization of him wasn't realistic.  She grieved in therapy for the loss of that idealization.

How Your Perspective About Your Parents Changes Over Time

Over time, Alice was gradually able to accept on an emotional level that her father is human and he made a mistake at a time when her parents were going through a difficult time.  As she continued to work on this in therapy, she was able to see her parents from an adult perspective--kind and loving people who  had their flaws just like everyone else.

As Alice accepted that her father made a mistake and he had made amends with her mother, she felt even closer to each of her parents.

Conclusion
There are many ways that your perspective about your parents can change over the course of a lifetime.

Whether you discover family secrets or you develop new insights into your parents, as you change and grow, your perspective of your parents can also change and grow.

Getting Help in Therapy
There are times when problems arise and you're unable to resolve them on your own.  Rather than struggling on your own, you could benefit from seeking help from a licensed mental health professional (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy).

A skilled psychotherapist can help you to work through your problems so that you can move on with your life (see my article: How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist (see my article: The Therapeutic Benefits of Integrative Psychotherapy).

I work with individual adults and couples.

One of my specialties is helping clients to overcome trauma.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

How Psychotherapy Can Help Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families: The Golden Child

In my prior article, The Roles of Children in Dysfunctional Families, I discussed the various roles that parents with narcissistic traits assign, consciously or unconsciously, to the children in the family (see my article: Dynamics of Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families).

How Psychotherapy Can Help Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families: The Golden Child

As I mentioned in my prior article, the most common roles for children of dysfunctional families are the following:

• scapegoat (see my article: The Role of the Family Scapegoat in a Dysfunctional Family)
• hero/responsible child (see my article: The Trauma of the Hero in a Dysfunctional Family
• invisible/lost child
• golden child (the focus of this article)
• caretaker/placater (see my article: How to Stop Being the Rescuer in Your Family of Origin)
• mascot/clown

The Golden Child
In this article, I'm focusing on one of the roles, the golden child, with a fictional clinical vignette with a typical scenario to show how psychotherapy can help an adult who was traumatized by being forced into this role as a child.

As mentioned in the prior article, the golden child is usually the parents' favorite child because this child is seen by them as an extension of one or both parents.

He or she is seen as the "perfect" child.  As a result, the parents live vicariously through this child.  Rather than being seen and valued for his or her inner qualities, the golden child is usually valued for physical attractiveness.

As in the other roles, the child's emotional needs are subordinated to the parents' needs.  As a result, one or both parents often establish an enmeshed relationship with this child (see my article: Overcoming Shame: Enmeshed Families).

Fictional Clinical Vignette: How Psychotherapy Can Help Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families - The Golden Child:

Jane
Jane, who was in her late 20s, told her new psychotherapist that she wanted to start psychotherapy because, a few years after she had jaw surgery, she developed sagging skin around her jaw line.

Jane explained to her therapist that she was so upset because, before she had surgery, she had an attractive, youthful appearance.  But shortly after the surgery, she noticed that the skin around her jaw was noticeably sagging and it made her look older and less attractive.

She had a consultation with a plastic surgeon who told her that she could have surgery to lift the sagging skin, but Jane wasn't sure if she wanted to go through another surgery.

Jane told her psychotherapist that she grew up always being praised for her attractiveness by both parents, especially her mother.  Her mother, who seemed to be very conscious of her own looks, often confided in Jane that of her five siblings, she considered Jane to be the most attractive and the most like her.

How Psychotherapy Can Help Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families: The Golden Child

As a child, Jane was aware that she was her parents' favorite child based primarily on her looks.  She felt fortunate to be attractive and to be her parents' favorite, especially when she considered how her other siblings were treated by her parents.  Her mother used to call Jane "my perfect child."

Prior to the surgery, Jane did everything she could to remain young looking and attractive, and she continued to get her mother's praise and attention.  Her mother was extra generous with Jane, as compared to Jane's siblings, and often treated Jane to expensive clothes and spa treatments.

Throughout high school and college, Jane was conscious that she could use her attractiveness and charm to get what she wanted from young men, friends and even college professors.  She felt she also used her attractiveness to excel in her career.

But after the surgery, when Jane and her mother began to notice the change in her appearance, her mother had a strong negative reaction to Jane's sagging skin, which hurt Jane a lot.  Her mother physically recoiled when she noticed the change in Jane's appearance, and she told Jane that she no longer looked as attractive.

This precipitated a change in her mother's attitude towards Jane.  She no longer invited Jane out to go shopping for clothes or for spa treatments.  Instead, her mother invited Jane's younger sister, Beth, and praised Beth for being the most attractive child and the most like her mother.

Whereas Jane and her mother used to spend a lot of time together, now her mother made up excuses for not wanting to spend time with Jane.  This was devastating to Jane, who used to relish the attention she got from her mother.

Her mother's change in attitude as well as Jane's own new self doubts about her appearance caused Jane to lose confidence in herself.  She no longer felt confident talking to men at parties or going out on sales calls for her job the way she used to do.

This resulted in social isolation and problems with regard to her job performance.  After her manager  admonished Jane for not bringing in enough business, Jane knew she had to get help in therapy.

Jane told her psychotherapist that, unlike when she was a child, she felt mature enough now to understand that focusing only on her looks was shallow.  She wanted to feel good about herself regardless of her looks.  But what bothered her the most was realizing that her parents, especially her mother, valued her most for her looks and now that her looks had changed, she felt emotionally abandoned by her parents.

After Jane's psychotherapist listened to Jane describe her presenting problems, she discussed the role of the golden child and how Jane's childhood history reflected that Jane was placed in that particular role in her family.

Looking at pictures that Jane brought in of her appearance before and after the surgery, the psychotherapist also recognized that, although Jane's looks changed somewhat after the surgery, Jane's view of herself was distorted.  Jane's appearance was nowhere near as changed as she believed it to be.

As they continued to work together in therapy, Jane's psychotherapist helped Jane to see how she was affected by the rigid role that she was placed in as a child primarily by her mother.

She also helped Jane to see that, although her mother's extra attention prior to the surgery was gratifying to Jane, it was also very damaging because her mother valued Jane for her outer appearance rather than who Jane was as a person.  Although Jane's view of herself was distorted, it did not meet the criteria for body dysmorphic disorder.

In addition, her psychotherapist helped Jane develop insight into how the focus on her looks kept Jane from developing her inner world.

When Jane's psychotherapist assessed that Jane was ready to work on the affect of her traumatic experiences related to her family, she recommended that they use EMDR therapy to work on the trauma (see my article: How EMDR Therapy Works: EMDR and the Brain).

The work in therapy was neither fast nor easy because Jane was attempting to see herself in a new way and to overcome long ingrained patterns.  But, gradually over time, Jane developed a stronger sense of self as she worked through her traumatic experiences of growing up in a dysfunctional family.

She also realized that the change in her appearance wasn't nearly as big as she originally thought.  In addition, she learned to value herself for her inner qualities rather than focusing on her external appearance.  This gave her the self confidence that she needed in her interpersonal relationships and in her career.

Conclusion
Adult children of dysfunctional families often carry the emotional burden of their childhood trauma into adulthood where it has a negative impact on their sense of self, their personal relationships and, possibly, their career.

The impact of growing up in a dysfunctional family can take many different forms that might not become apparent until adulthood.

Getting Help in Therapy
A skilled psychotherapist can help you to overcome traumatic experiences so that you can live free of the impact of your traumatic family history (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy).

Rather than struggling on your own, you could get help from a licensed mental health professional (see my article: How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

Unburdened by a dysfunctional family history, you can live a more meaningful and fulfilling life.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist (see my article: The Therapeutic Benefits of Integrative Psychotherapy).

I work with individual adults and couples.

I am a trauma-informed psychotherapist, and one of my specialties is helping clients to overcome traumatic experiences.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Grief: Who Are You After Your Parents Die?

I'm continuing a theme about grief for the loss of both parents that I began recently (see my articles: Grief: The Emotional Impact of Losing Both Parents, You Continue to Have a Relationship With Your Parents Even After They Die, and The Emotional Pain of Clearing Out Your Parents' Home After They Die).  In this article, I'm focusing on changes in how you see yourself after your parents have died.

Grief: Who Are You After Your Parents Die?

As I mentioned in prior articles, nothing can prepare you for the loss of both of your parents.  For most people the experience of feeling like an "orphan" can be devastating--no matter what kind of relationship you had with your parents.

Relationships, including relationships with your parents, are a complicated mix, rather than being "good" or "bad."  So, when the last parent dies, adult children's feelings can also be mixed: Sorrow for the loss and a sense of relief that they're no longer suffering and there is no longer a need to worry about parents.

Who Are You After Your Parents Die?
Your primary identification as a child is as your parents' child.  This identification continues through adulthood, although usually in combination with other identifications: husband, wife, mother, father, friend, teacher, and so on.

So, at the point when you have lost both of your parents, you can feel that part of you has gone with them:  You're no longer anyone's son or daughter--at least, not in the here-and-now.

Most people don't anticipate the loss of this identification, and after their second parent dies, they struggle with loss and question who they are now that their parents are no longer around.

Much also depends upon the separation-individuation process that children go through.  This is a process that starts in childhood and progresses through adolescence when children identify more with peers than with their parents and strive to be their own person.

But some people struggle with the separation-individuation process for a variety of reasons, as I will demonstrate in the fictionalized vignette below.

Depending upon the individual and the quality of the relationship with the parents, this can be a time of doubt and soul searching.  For other people, it can be liberating.  For others, it's a combination of doubt, soul searching and liberation.

Fictional Vignette:  Who Are You After Your Parents Die?

Ida
Ida was an only child.

Throughout her life, she had an ever-present awareness of the sacrifices that her parents made to come to the United States from their native country where they were harassed and oppressed because of their religion.

As a child, Ida wanted to be a writer, but her parents were vehemently opposed to this.  They wanted her to be a teacher or an accountant, preferably as part of a union so her job would be protected.

They told her many times of their own struggles when they came to the US as immigrants--how they were looked down upon for their clothes, their traditional food, and their foreign ways.

They both went to college in the US, studied hard and chose "practical" careers.  Her father became an engineer and her mother became a teacher.

Not wanting to disappoint her parents, Ida became an elementary school teacher, like her mother.  She loved the children and the feeling that she was making an impact on their lives.  But she still longed to write.

Being a teacher gave Ida little time to write.  She often came home feeling exhausted from a full day at school.  Here and there, she wrote short stories that she told no one about, especially her parents, who would have ridiculed her for wasting her time.

When she was in her mid-20s, she got married to another teacher she met at a union meeting.  They had two children, and soon after that Ida had even less time to write, other than a few occasional snippets.

Although she was happy with her husband and family and she liked working with the children, she still longed to write.  She felt she had many stories in her head.

When both of her children were in college, Ida had more time to write the short stories that were in her head.  So, she would spend a couple of hours a week secretly writing.

Grief: Who Are You After Your Parents Die?

She still carried her parents' voices in her head that writing was a waste of time and she should spend her time on more "practical" matters.

Over the years, Ida had written several short stories that she would have liked to have published, but her parents' ideas about the impracticality of writing were so ingrained in her mind that she remained in conflict about it.

When Ida was close to retirement, her father died unexpectedly.  It was such a shock to her mother that she became emotionally incapacitated, and Ida and her husband took her in.

After her mother moved in with her, Ida was even more surreptitious about her writing.  Sometimes, she would get up early in the morning before her husband and mother got up and spend a half hour writing.

One day, her husband walked into the kitchen unexpectedly while Ida was typing on her laptop.  Ida became so startled that she closed her laptop abruptly.

When her husband asked her what she was doing, she responded with hesitation that she was writing a short story.

Rather than being disapproving, as Ida expected, her husband was thrilled and asked her why she was so secretive about it.

When Ida explained how disapproving her parents were about her desire to write, she was delighted that her husband encouraged her.  He even offered to take over more of the household responsibilities so she could have more time to write.

But even with the extra time and her mother spending more time in her own room, Ida continued to feel conflicted about writing.

Although she knew that she was an adult and her parents could no longer tell her what to do, she still felt a sense of disloyalty to her parents when she wrote because she felt she owed them so much.

When she spoke to her husband about this, he suggested that she speak with a psychotherapist who could help her to sort out her longstanding issues related to her parents and writing.

Soon after Ida began therapy, her mother died.  Although Ida knew that her mother's death had nothing to do with her attending therapy or her writing, she still felt guilty, as if she had betrayed her mother by talking about her in therapy.

Gradually, Ida began to work through her grief and these related complex issues in therapy.

Over time, her therapist helped Ida to grieve the loss of her parents.

Her therapist also helped Ida to understand that she had not achieved sufficient separation-individuation from her parents as an adult due to her sense of obligation and guilt about their sacrifices.  As a result, Ida was overly identified with their ideas about who she should be instead of trying to be the person that she wanted to be.

Developing her own sense of self was neither quick nor easy.  After Ida retired, her therapist encouraged her to join a writing group so she could be around other writers who might be struggling with similar issues and who would be supportive.

Grief: Who Are You After Your Parents Die?

The combination of attending her weekly therapy sessions and attending the weekly writers group helped Ida to come into her own (see my article: Listening to Your Inner Voice to Discover Your "Calling" in Life).

Although she struggled at times with her own internalizations of her parents' prohibitions, she was writing every day.

Her husband and other people who knew saw the difference in her.  They told her that she looked much younger and happier than she had been in a long time.

As time went on, Ida felt more confident as a writer and she submitted her stories for publication.  She also had a greater sense of well-being because she was being her true self and doing what she loved (see my article: Becoming Your True Self).

Conclusion

Losing both parents can be a devastating experience regardless of your age or your relationship with them.

After the loss of the second parent, adult children often question their identity, especially if they had problems individuating before their parents died.

The time after a second parent dies can be a time of confusion, soul searching and a search for a new identity.

For many people, it's a time to discover their own voice and their true selves.

Getting Help in Therapy

The mourning process can be a confusing, lonely time even if you have many people around you.

Losing both parents can create a sense of being an "orphan" with all the feelings that go with that.

Part of that mourning process is often coming to terms with your identity now that your parents are gone.

Many people feel freer to pursue endeavors that their parents might not have approved of when they were alive.  

Other people have so internalized their parents' prohibitions that, even after their parents are dead, they continue to feel too guilty to go against their parents' wishes.  

To go against their parents' wishes makes them feel that they are moving further and further away from parents that they are missing.

Seeing a skilled psychotherapist can help you to work through the grief of losing your parents.

An experienced therapist can also help you to work through guilty feelings about finding your own voice and being your own person (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy).

If these issues resonate with you, rather than struggling on your own, you could benefit from working with a licensed mental health professional who can help you to overcome your struggles so you can have a greater sense of well-being (see my article: How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

About Me

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples.

I have helped many clients to work through grief and their own individuation process so they could lead more fulfilling lives.

To find out more about it, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

See my other articles about grief.

Grief: The Emotional Pain of Clearing Out Your Parents' Home After They Die

In keeping with the theme of coping with grief for deceased parents, I'm focusing on the emotional pain of clearing out your parents' home after they die in this article (see my articles: Grief: The Emotional Impact of Losing Both Parents and Grief: You Continue to Have a Relationship With Your Parents Even After They Die).

Grief: The Emotional Pain of Clearing Out Your Parents' Home After They Die

Going back to your parents' home after they died can be a very difficult experience, especially if you grew up in that home or have an emotional attachment to that home.

Many people describe the experience of going back to their parents' home after their deaths as being somewhat surreal.

Even though you know logically that your parents are dead, on an emotional level, you might feel that either your mother or father will be entering into the living room at any moment.

You're surrounded by all the familiar things that you've always associated with your parents--their furniture, their pictures, their clothes, their keepsakes and all the memories that this home holds for you--and yet, they're not there.  On an emotional level, it just doesn't add up.

Sometimes, adult children have to clear out their parents' home before they're psychological ready to do it.  There might be pressing financial, legal or family issues that compel them to clear out the home soon after their last parent dies.

Generally, it's better to undertake this task with a supportive and understanding friend or relative rather than someone whose attitude is, "Let's just get this over with" and who lacks tact and sensitivity about what this process means for you while you're grieving.

Before you even start, it can feel overwhelming, especially if your parents accumulated and had difficulty letting go of many possessions.

It's not unusual for elderly people to hold onto possessions that have no sentimental value and have no monetary value.  Their holding on is more about a fear of letting go and, in many cases, a sense of loneliness.

For most people, going through the process of clearing out their deceased parents' home brings up many memories and can deepen your grief.  This is, after all, part of the grieving process.

During this time, it's important to be kind to yourself and not to rush through this process as if you're running a race.

In Joan Didion's book, A Year of Magical Thinking, she writes about going through her husband's possessions after he dies and hesitating about throwing out his shoes in case he comes back and needs them.

When she had this thought, she wasn't delusional.  She knew, on an objective level, that her husband was dead.   But this is the kind of thought and emotional response that many people have when they're clearing out a deceased loved one's possessions.  It's part of the grieving process.

The mourning process has different levels, and everyone has their own subjective experience of it.

You can know objectively that your loved one is dead but, on an emotional level, it can feel like s/he is still alive because the loss hasn't sunk in yet.

A Fictional Vignette About Clearing Out Your Deceased Parents' Home

Beth
Beth's parents died within a year of each other.

Her mother died as a result of undiagnosed cancer, and her father died several months later of a heart attack.

While her father was alive, he continued to live in the same house where Beth and her older brother grew up.

Her father took her mother's death hard, and Beth and her brother, John, worried about him.

Even though he knew how to cook for himself and he was still physically capable of taking care of himself, he hardly ate and he was beginning to hoard mail, newspapers and other things that were getting in his way.

Beth visited him once a week, cooked nutritious meals for him that he could heat up, cleaned the house and generally took care of things.  But when she came back the following week, she noticed that he barely touched the food and he began to accumulate mail and papers again.

Although she felt exasperated, she tried to be gentle with her father because she knew he was suffering emotionally.

When she went to her parents' bedroom, she noticed that he was keeping things on the bed that belonged to her mother--scarfs, a blouse, a pair of gloves.

When she asked her father about it, he told her that it comforted him to have these things around him and he felt less lonely with them around him (see my article: Comfort Objects From Infancy Through Adulthood).

Two months after her mother died, Beth broached the topic with her father about going through the mother's clothes and giving things away, but her father wouldn't hear of it.  He wasn't ready to let go of the mother's possessions.

He talked about how close he felt to Beth's mother when he went into her closet and smelled her perfume on her clothes, and he wasn't ready to give that up.

Beth suggested that he could decide what to keep and what to give away.  She said that maybe he wanted to keep a few items of her clothing until he was ready to let go, but he refused to budge.

Soon after that, Beth moved in with her father because she feared for his health and well-being.  She also knew that he was very lonely.

With Beth there, her father started eating more and they often watched TV together.  Her father also began showing interest in doing gardening again, which Beth thought was a good sign.

Then, one morning, when she went to her father's room to wake him up for breakfast, she was unable to wake him up.  She immediately called 911.

Within an hour, the doctors in the emergency room pronounced him dead.  They thought he probably had a heart attack in his sleep.

Both Beth and her brother were shocked and grief stricken.  Their father seemed to be doing well, especially compared to how he had been when their mother first died.

A week after the funeral John called Beth and said he wanted to go through their parents' possessions as soon as possible, "Let's get it over with."

Beth knew she wasn't ready to clear out their parents' house.  It was too soon for her, and she told John this.

John agreed to wait a few more weeks, but when Beth went to visit her parents' home a week later, she found John going through her parents' things and she felt enraged.  She couldn't believe he didn't keep his word.  She also felt like John was violating a sacred space.

John was stunned by Beth's reaction.  From his perspective, he was only getting a start on the process while Beth readied herself to join in.  He thought he was doing Beth a favor.  He didn't see it as any kind of violation.

Beth looked at the piles of things that John made of her parents' things--what to keep, what to throw out and what to donate.

John assured her that he wasn't planning on getting rid of anything before she had a chance to look at everything.

Beth knew that John loved her parents very much and, in his own way, he thought he was being helpful.  But she also knew that John tended to be uncomfortable with his own emotions, and clearing out their parents' home was a way to do it quickly with the least amount of emotion for him.

As they were standing there confronting one another, Beth had the sense that her parents would come into the room at any moment and say to John, "What on earth are you doing!?!  Those are our things. Put them back."

Beth was taken off guard as to how strong this feeling was and she wondered if she was losing her mind.  Of course, she knew her parents were dead, but her sense of their presence was very alive.

After they talked it over, John put everything back in its place, and they agreed to meet in a month to go through their parents' possessions.

When a month had gone by, Beth still didn't feel ready emotionally to go through her parents' possessions.  Her grief was still fresh and, on an emotional level, she could hardly believe that she no longer had parents.  But she wanted to keep her word to John so, at the appointed time, she met him at their parents' home.

John's idea was that they would go through all their possessions in two days, but after a few hours, Beth was exhausted and she had to go to sleep.

When they resumed the process the next day, they agreed to go through the things that had least sentimental value first:  Old mail, newspapers and other similar things.

With that behind them, they started going through their parents' clothes, which was much more difficult, especially for Beth.

As they were going through their mother's clothes, Beth remembered how her father cherished them and wouldn't let go of them.  She had this nagging feeling that her father would suddenly come into the room and be upset with them--although she knew, of course, that he was dead.

The process was much slower than John would have liked.  He would have liked to plow through their parents' possessions to make decisions about them, but the process made Beth so sad that she couldn't spend a lot of time doing it.

By the end of the week, Beth contacted a psychotherapist because she was feeling worse than the day her father died.

Grief: The Emotional Pain of Clearing Out Your Parents' Home After They Die

Beth learned from her therapist that everyone grieves differently, and she was having a normal reaction to losing both of her parents.

She also told Beth that, even if it seemed that John was avoiding dealing with his grief at this point, he might feel it much more acutely later on.

Gradually, Beth and John went through their parents' possessions.  As hard as it was for Beth, she was able to throw out things that they decided not to keep, give away or sell.

Beth took pictures of the inside and the outside of the house before they sold the furniture.

They kept all these pictures and the pictures that their parents had taken over the years, and Beth made two albums--one for John and one for her.

With the furniture gone, the house seemed empty.  Beth walked through the house and felt like the ghosts of her parents were hovering around.

Beth wondered:  Would they approve or would they be angry?

But she also knew that her parents had each gone through the same process when their parents died.

Within a month of putting the house on the market, the house sold to a young couple with children.  Beth felt immense sadness that the house was no longer part of the family, but she also hoped that the new family would make happy memories of their own.

Throughout this process of letting go, Beth kept her weekly therapy appointments.  These appointments helped her to go through the mourning process.

As her therapist told her, her brother experienced his grief most acutely soon after the house was sold.  He would often call Beth to talk about their parents and how difficult it was not to have them around any more.

A year later, when Beth drove by the house, she noticed that the new family had removed the porch and the house was painted a different color.  Although this was painful for Beth to see, she knew that she would always have the good memories of her childhood home.

Conclusion
Aside from being a practical matter, clearing out your parents' home after they die is an emotional process which is part of mourning.

Siblings in the same family might have very different reactions to clearing out their parents' possessions because each person grieves in his or her own way and time.

It's important to recognize that this is a process and it will bring up memories and feelings you might not be prepared for at the time.

You might feel like you're delusional if you feel like your parents will suddenly appear in their home, even though you know they're dead.  But you're not delusional.  This is common and normal.

Even though they are inanimate things, possessions are often imbued with memories and emotions, so be gentle with yourself.

Getting Help in Therapy
As I mentioned in a prior article, whether you had a good or a bad (or anything in between) type of relationship with your parents, you will still feel grief.

The process of going through your parents' possessions can be challenging for you in unexpected ways.

Family and friends often don't know how to be helpful, beyond a certain point, and might not understand the mourning process.

Getting help in therapy can help you through the mourning process.

Rather than struggling on your own, when you have a time and place in therapy to talk about and integrate your feelings about the deaths of your parents, you can through the mourning process without feeling so alone.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples.

I have helped many clients through the mourning process.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Also see my: Other Articles About Grief