Let’s make a note that here in the first seasons of the 21st century, we have a little problem with relationships. Most of them are boring. The divorce rate is the tip of the iceberg, and is artificially inflated by many who attempt marriage three to nine times. Meanwhile, what’s the real domestic violence situation? What about the insidious problems of jealousy and control, and the repeated incidents of lying to our partners about sex, or concealing our sexual realities from them? What about the countless women who have told me they were used for sex under the age of 10, or were raped and could not say anything about it for decades, blaming themselves?
Could these all be expressions of one thing, namely, the painful, guilt-laden relationships we are conditioned into having with ourselves? This doesn’t always show up as sexual guilt, nor does sexual guilt always show up as what shrinks call “generalized guilt.” But guilt is guilt, and it has a lot to do with sex. For many people, the two words are practically synonymous.
Fritz and Laura Perls, early pioneers of Gestalt Therapy, taught that guilt is resentment turned against itself. Generally speaking, children, being the powerful yet powerless little critters they are, take upon themselves the notion of “fault and blame.” They cannot imagine adults (who are personifications of the gods and goddesses) making an error. If they do, it’s still the “fault” of the child. “If only I would’ve done this or that, daddy wouldn’t hit me.” “If I was more quiet, mommy wouldn’t drink.” And so on. Since they are at “fault,” they are “guilty,” and since they cannot rage against the adults very successfully or have a real impact on the direction of events, they turn the resentment at being pruned, modified, corrected, disciplined, strongly directed, or dictated to, back at themselves.*
That is guilt. It’s fair to say that our lives, so often filled with the idea that we cannot influence the direction of events, so often caught in the web of control, of bosses, of taxes, of children, and yes, of our sexual relationships, are often holographic copies of these original crushing relationships with parents and teachers. Yet as adults, the programming, the patterns, are contained within us. They are internalized. Check it out: do we have especially creative jobs? Dare we say what we feel, go where we want, be who we are, or have sex with who we desire? Or are we pruned, modified, dictated to, and denied out of existence by our own self-control?
* This paragraph co-written with Joseph Trusso, student of Fritz and Laura
Kate, cogent assessment of how our young minds work, and keep on working, even when we are old. I remember the decision I made at 5 or 6. I remember the scene, my “logic”, and what I decided was the best way to fix the situation (healing my parents’ problem so I could be safe). Decisions are powerful, and the ones implanted in our unconscious are the most powerful. Who knew I’d still be contending with that early decision half a century later? Every decision I make now has to pass through the filter of that decision. If it contradicts, I’m in for a struggle. And practically everything I want is in conflict with that 5 year old’s decision.
Eric, so glad you published this chapter on self-love today. It’s just so affirming and clear.
‘Fritz and Laura Perls, early pioneers of Gestalt Therapy, taught that guilt is resentment turned against itself. Generally speaking, children, being the powerful yet powerless little critters they are, take upon themselves the notion of “fault and blame.” They cannot imagine adults (who are personifications of the gods and goddesses) making an error. If they do, it’s still the “fault” of the child. “If only I would’ve done this or that, daddy wouldn’t hit me.” “If I was more quiet, mommy wouldn’t drink.” And so on. Since they are at “fault,” they are “guilty,” and since they cannot rage against the adults very successfully or have a real impact on the direction of events, they turn the resentment at being pruned, modified, corrected, disciplined, strongly directed, or dictated to, back at themselves.*’
Yes. And these little ones, for we are all little once, who are already starting to try to work things out, can also make decisions ‘of a sort’. Of a sort, because they don’t have the brain yet to work this all out, about how they will survive and remain loved within this family, this environment, this world. Because being loved, not rejected and surviving is everything. And because they are child-made decisions they are wonky as hell. Depending on how skewed the decision, therein begins the possibility for the guilt, shame and people pleasing/abusing. And if it’s really bad they might wander into splitting off, the foundations for detachment to reality and psychosis. In the very least projection, game-playing and futile patterns.
And no-one can know, not really, not even the mothers and fathers who believe they ‘know’ their children, because not even the child knows, and they might forget anyway, or hide it so cleverly that it is ridiculously nae perhaps impossible to find. And they can create all sorts of ingenious ways not to find it too. And anyway, they are more often than not, dealing with parents who don’t know what decisions they made when they were small. And on and on. And they all live, at some degree, unhappily ever after, lugging it with them every step and letting that shadow, no matter how tiny it might be, throw itself around. Unless or until they get a good look at it and decide something else instead.