Ms. Lin, 39 years old, came to seek help due to “long-term low mood, anxiety, and tense relationship with her daughter”. She claimed to love her daughter very much, but felt angry towards her daughter and later fell into deep self blame and guilt. The daughter said she controls, but the mother is not aware of it.
There is no mother who does not love her child. In a family, a mother cares for and takes care of her child in every detail, from food and clothing to academic pursuits. The word ‘meticulous’ is definitely not an exaggeration. But a strange phenomenon has occurred: I care about taking care of you, but I cannot touch your emotions, cannot respond to your feelings, and only care about quantifiable “grades” and “homework” …..
Ms. Lin’s problem is not a lack of parenting skills, but an automated response where ‘what is not available cannot be given’. Ms. Lin’s way of ‘loving’ children is a distorted ‘love’ driven by old traumas.
The first is the neglect of repetitive emotions. My daughter has emotions, but she blurts out: why cry, what’s the big deal. Be stronger! She couldn’t understand the child’s sadness, only felt that this emotion was a ‘trouble that shouldn’t exist’.
Perhaps it was her daughter’s vulnerability that triggered Ms. Lin’s own unresolved sense of helplessness. She was never comforted by her mother in her childhood, and instead of responding to her daughter, she directly resorted to rough suppression.
Secondly, there is a repeated intrusive relationship. She demands that her daughter’s grades be outstanding, but without seeing her happiness, she completely projects her anxiety about “achievement” and “value” onto her own child.
Thirdly, there is a lack of empathy. My daughter is crying and fussing. Her reaction: Enough fuss, start doing homework. She couldn’t squat down and view her unhappiness from a child’s perspective, comforting her own child. Because she has never been seen or comforted by her mother, she has lost the ability to recognize and respond to emotions, and her response has always been to “solve problems” rather than emotional connection with the child.
Ms. Lin does not love children, but in the “toolbox” she loves, there are no important tools such as “empathy”, “mirror reflection”, “accommodation”, and “comfort”. She can only move forward with the ‘only’ familiar script.
In psychology, this is called ‘intergenerational transmission’ and is an unconscious phenomenon. Breaking this intergenerational cycle requires awareness. Not being able to see “is a form of acquisition, and” seeing all “is also a form of acquisition. Even if she has never had it before, Ms. Lin can create new experiences for herself and her children.
May Ms. Lin and her daughter be happy and reconciled.
Ms. Lin’s journey may be long, but after all, there is already light.