That shiny happy person

As the website My Horrid Parent says, criticising parents is still taboo, and it is especially difficult to do when the abuse is psychological rather than physical. More often than not you can prove the results of physical abuse, whereas psychological abuse is invisible. It’s hard to quantify and hard to explain. After all, if parents clothe and feed you, make sure you have a good education and give you material things, what is there to complain about?

I have touched on the subject in previous posts, not I hope in a spirit of blame but because I need to untangle the situation. As a child you blame yourself and carry on loving your parents. As you get older you make excuses for them. They did their best. They didn't know what they were doing. They had good qualities as well as bad ones. You understand that the abuse was the result of their own pain.  You try and look at the situation from a karmic point of view and be thankful for the chance to learn and grow. None of that however gets to the root of the problem. It misses the point. First and foremost you have to name the actions for what they were.

And a funny thing happens when you do. Your perspective changes. You flip. You stop being a victim. Suddenly you feel free. Suddenly you are that shiny happy person you always knew was inside you but only appeared when you got right away, preferably to Australia the other side of the world.

I’ve been reminded recently of the pictures of the Dutch artist M C Escher. Is the world black or white, convex or concave, going up or going down? That shiny happy person comes and goes. One moment I see her, I am her. The next I’m not.

Those few of us who do dare to criticise parents feel a kinship. We have struggled through the snow and reached the safety of the pub. It’s cold outside but we have each other.

And I hope that soon the shiny happy person will be here to stay.

And here finally are some Christmas rules that Frog has picked up from Facebook (from a liberal American he follows).

1. Do not go into debt trying to show people how much you love them
2. Do not go home to see your family if it damages your mental health
3. If someone criticises your weight, eat them.