In her recovery memoir, reviewed in The New York Times Book Review on February 28, “With or Without You,” Domenica Ruta describes growing up with a mother, who threatens survival by encouraging Ms. Ruta, to join her own drug-addicted existence. To exemplify the profundity of this destructiveness, Ms. Ruta describes a mother so overjoyed when Domenica began smoking pot, that she gifted her a bag of it for Christmas.
Sadly, the
situation described in Ms. Ruta’s recovery memoir, isn’t as rare a phenomenon
as one might presume. We
psychiatrists/psychotherapists treat people who have received confusing or destructive messages during
their developmental years from their parents, teachers, culture, etc.
To overcome the
extreme of a destructive message, the individual has to acknowledge a terrible
incongruity: that the life-granting parent also wants to destroy, to a greater
or lesser extent, physically, psychologically or both.
Scott Peck, best
selling author of The Road Less Traveled, also wrote a less popular volume, People
of the Lie (1983). He used the
word “evil” to describe people who fail to take responsibility for their destructive
tendencies, instead projecting them onto others, including their children.
The necessity to
excise a parent like a gangrenous limb, is too horrendous for most of us to
comprehend. Yet to survive, Ms. Ruta had to distance herself from her mother
both psychologically and physically, and hasn’t spoken to her since 2006.
She describes
her mother as suffering from “a
spiritual autoimmune disease.”
“In my head that’s how I make sense of
it,” she writes. “It attacks everything in the body, including
self-preservation, spiritual connection, love, friendship.”
In one way, Ms.
Ruta is more fortunate than some of my patients whose parent(s) never own their
actions or attitudes. Domenica’s
mother said about her book, “She lied about nothing. She told the painful,
honest truth.”
Conclusion:
Parenting requires courage to face ourselves, including a tendency to want to
destroy. Acknowledging the existence of the dark side of our nature helps to
lessen the burden for both parents and offspring.
Dear Reader, I
welcome your comments. Jsimon145@gmail.com.
I believe that the capacity to acknowledge the presence of evil is so important, both in the professional activity of the psychoanalyst and for one's personal and spiritual life. I am grateful for this article, Jane. The "capacity to destroy" and annihilate is a difficult one to recognize and appreciate.
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