| Families do not communicate primarily by language. | | | | wouldn't care. They have turned off all emotion to |
| That might surprise you, until you consider that | | | | avoid the pain of walking on eggshells. One piece of |
| humans bonded in families for millennia before we | | | | research on children in abusive families might startle |
| even had language. Even today, the most sensitive | | | | you. Witnessing a parent victimized is usually more |
| communications that have the most far-reaching | | | | psychologically damaging to children than injuries from |
| consequences to our lives occur between parents | | | | direct child abuse. In my own family, that was |
| and infants through tone of voice, facial expressions, | | | | certainly true. I have only the faintest memories of |
| touch, smell, and body posture, not language. Though | | | | child abuse - a small hole in my skull and a |
| less obvious than interactions with young children, | | | | knocked-out front tooth - but I have vivid |
| most of your communications with your older children | | | | nightmares of seeing my mother ignored and |
| and with your husband also occur through an | | | | dismissed as well as demeaned and terrified. Seeing a |
| unconscious process of emotional attunement. You | | | | parent abused is the more profound form of child |
| psychologically and even physically tune in your | | | | abuse. When it comes to the more severe forms of |
| emotions to the people you love. That's how you can | | | | destructiveness, purely emotional abuse is usually |
| come home in one mood, find your husband or | | | | more psychologically harmful than physical abuse. |
| children in a different mood and, bam! - all of a | | | | There are a couple of reasons for this. Even in the |
| sudden, out of nowhere, you're in their mood. Quite | | | | most violent families, the incidents tend to be cyclical. |
| unconsciously, you automatically react to one | | | | Early in the abuse cycle, a violent outburst is followed |
| another. Emotional attunement, not verbal skills, | | | | by a honeymoon period of remorse, attention, |
| determines how we communicate, from our choice | | | | affection, and generosity, but not genuine |
| of words to our tone of voice. If attuned to a | | | | compassion. (The honeymoon stage eventually ends, |
| positive mood, you are likely to communicate | | | | as the victim begins to say, "Never mind the damn |
| pleasantly. If you're in a negative mood, your words | | | | flowers, just stop hitting me!") Emotional abuse, on |
| will be less than pleasant. Now here's the really bad | | | | the other hand, tends to happen every day. So the |
| news. Due to this unconscious, automatic process of | | | | effects are more harmful because they're so |
| emotional attunement, your children are painfully | | | | frequent. The other factor that makes emotional |
| reactive to the walking-on-eggshells atmosphere | | | | abuse so devastating is the greater likelihood that |
| between your husband and you, even if they never | | | | victims will blame themselves. If someone hits you, |
| hear you say a harsh word to one another. Everyone | | | | it's easier to see that he or she is the problem, but if |
| in a walking-on-eggshells family loses some degree of | | | | the abuse is subtle - saying or implying that you're |
| dignity and autonomy. You become unable to decide | | | | ugly, a bad parent, stupid, incompetent, not worth |
| your own thoughts, feelings, and behavior, because | | | | attention, or that no one could love you - you are |
| you are living in a defensive-reactive pattern that | | | | more likely to think it's your problem. All Forms of |
| runs largely on automatic pilot. No fewer than half the | | | | Abuse Have in Common a Failure of Compassion |
| members of these unfortunate families, including the | | | | Whether overt or silent, all forms of abuse are |
| children, suffer from clinical anxiety and/or depression. | | | | failures of compassion; he stops caring about how |
| ("Clinical" doesn't mean feeling down or blue or | | | | you feel. Compassion is the lifeblood of families and |
| worried, it means that the symptoms interfere with | | | | failure of compassion is the "heart disease" of a |
| normal functioning. You can't sleep, can't concentrate, | | | | family's emotional life. It actually would be less hurtful |
| can't work as efficiently, and can't enjoy yourself | | | | if your husband never cared about how you feel. But |
| without drinking.) Most of the adults lack genuine | | | | when you were falling in love, he cared a great deal, |
| self-esteem (based on realistic self-appraisals), and | | | | so now it feels like betrayal when he doesn't care or |
| the children rarely feel as good as other kids. They | | | | try to understand. You feel as if he's not the person |
| are ten times more likely to grow up to be resentful, | | | | you married. It may not seem it from your |
| angry, or abusive adults. If the family is violent, | | | | day-to-day interactions, but your husband probably |
| children are ten times more like to become abusers | | | | loves you. His emotional reactivity indicates that a |
| or victims of violence as adults. They are also at | | | | strong bond still stirs the guilt and shame that, |
| increased risk of alcoholism, criminality, mental health | | | | tragically, he blames on you. The fact that he loves |
| problems, and poverty. The most common symptom | | | | you is both good news and bad news. Love by itself |
| of children in families who walk on eggshells is | | | | is so focused on how we feel that it masks the |
| depression. But the signs can fool you; childhood | | | | differences between people. The very intensity of |
| depression looks different from the weeping, | | | | love can make the person you love seem like little |
| withdrawn, or sullen adult version. In children the | | | | more than a source of strong emotions. In other |
| disorder resembles chronic boredom. Children normally | | | | words, it seems to him that you cause his emotions. |
| have high levels of interest, enjoyment, and | | | | If he feels good, you're on a pedestal; but if he feels |
| excitement. If your child is not interested in the | | | | bad, you're a demon. Compassion makes us sensitive |
| things in which children are normally interested, lacks | | | | to the individual strengths and vulnerabilities of other |
| enthusiasm, and is seldom excited, he or she is | | | | people. As he learns to feel compassion under stress, |
| probably depressed. Another common symptom of | | | | your husband will see that you are different from |
| these children is anxiety, particularly worry about | | | | him, with your own temperament, sensibility, |
| things that children do not normally worry about, like | | | | experiences, longings, hopes, and dreams - all of |
| how their parents are going to get through the | | | | which he probably did see when you were falling in |
| evening with each other. Many kids have school | | | | love and his level of compassion was naturally high. |
| problems, show aggressive tendencies, hyperactivity, | | | | Love by itself buries differences in the shadows of |
| and either over-emotionality -- anger, excitability, or | | | | how strongly we feel. Compassion shines light on our |
| frequent crying that seem to come out of nowhere | | | | differences and lets us appreciate and sympathize |
| -- or the polar opposite: no emotions at all. In the | | | | with loved ones. Love without the sensitivity of |
| latter condition, they can look like little stone children; | | | | compassion is: rejecting (of who you really are as a |
| you could slice up a puppy in front of them and they | | | | person), possessive, controlling, and dangerous. |