Making Peace with Your Parents by Harold Bloomfield M.D

Author:Harold Bloomfield, M.D. [Bloomfield, Harold]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-83226-9
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2013-02-20T00:00:00+00:00

Building a Surrogate Family

By “surrogate family” I mean the emotional support groups that we each need at work, with friends, in community activities and for leisure-time fun. Unless you take stock of what emotional, guidance and nurturance needs are not being met at the present time, you will continue to look to your parents for needs they are not likely to fulfill. Instead of resenting what their parents cannot give them (and no parents could ever provide for all of our needs), those who have made peace with their parents did so by building friendships and networks for support.

Even though Julie had been on her own for a number of years, she still hadn’t developed a strong support network. Because her mother had repeatedly told her when she was growing up, “You shouldn’t wash your dirty laundry in public—what goes on among family members is nobody’s business,” Julie realized that she was unable to confide her problems or ask for help, even from her friends. When her friends were planning weekend adventures or relaxing get-togethers, Julie was frequently “too busy” to join in the fun. Even though she considered herself a proponent of women’s rights, Julie depended on her boyfriends for companionship and was reluctant to join the support groups and stable friendships fostered by many of the women she worked with. On an emotional level, Julie had learned not to trust anyone or let anyone in.

During the months while Julie worked through her feelings of guilt and responsibility for her mother’s problems, she began to explore a number of ways to meet her needs for emotional support. Instead of viewing her co-workers as competitors, she began to let down her social defenses. She chose two close women friends whom she began to have lunch with, confide her feelings to and join for weekend day trips to nearby museums, parks and concerts. At work she began to delegate more to those who had lighter work loads. At night she began to plan relaxing and stress-free activities that were a marked contrast to the nonstop client calls that used to fill her evenings.

As Julie explained, “The more I learned to take care of my needs, the more I stopped resenting my mother for not sharing my interests and values. As I began to enjoy my friends more, not only did my mom not get angry, but she soon began imitating me. As a result of my reaching out to others and asking for help, she’s gotten a little more assertive in terms of confiding in her friends and starting an exercise program twice a week. Even though I don’t try to give her advice anymore, she follows my lead more than she ever did. My clients, too, are learning to depend less on me and meet their own emotional needs. I’m letting my clients grow up. I don’t have to try to save them anymore.”

During the time that Mary lived apart from her parents, she nevertheless provided for her support and

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.