The consequences of family of origin betrayal.

This article examines the main consequences of relationship betrayal that we experience growing up. I will define what we mean by relationship betrayal and then talk about five consequences that can happen.

Relationship betrayal happens when our needs, feelings and desires are betrayed by the people we are dependent on or have a significant attachment to. These relationships include those with family and those we rely on through institutions such as school or health. Extensive betrayal is traumatic because we become overwhelmed by the emotional pain and our safety and trust is threatened.

The kinds of experiences we encounter that betray us, lie along a continuum.  At one end of this continuum is what we call intrusive behaviours. Examples of this involve violent behaviour, physical, sexual and verbal abuse, but there are a lot of experiences that can be difficult to identify.  One example is overprotective parents. This is where the parent is invading the child with their fears about the world and preventing the child from experiencing their own desires. Another example is a parent who provokes debate about everything in order to win and feel superior.  A child in this position doesn’t have the experience or power to ever be right but is expected to try, only to be proved wrong over and over again.  

At the other end of the continuum is neglect. This is where you are treated as if you don’t exist, which may mean that you are quite literally ignored, or you do not remember being hugged, receiving affection or touch. Your physical needs for food or clothing may not be attended to. Another common example is when parents separate and the parent whom the child doesn’t live with, disappears, or has inconsistent contact. These are all examples of neglect.

Build up of emotional pain
All parents at times intrude upon or neglect their children. What prevents these times from becoming traumatic is the ability of parents to provide the space to repair these incidents, and hear the hurt or angry feelings of their children without shaming them. So often there are continuous incidents of betrayal that form patterns of relating in families with no opportunity for repair, or the awareness of repair as necessary.  The build up of emotional pain is one of the consequences of an unsafe and inattentive family environment. The emotional pain builds up because there is nowhere for it to go; there is no comfort. We need human caring in order to process this pain. In this situation children have to do something with their emotions in order to carry on and function in the family. So what happens is they have to stop experiencing the pain and detach in some way from their body.  It is the nervous system that becomes overwhelmed as the fight or flight response (sympathetic nervous system) is activated.

Children have the capacity to dissociate from the pain and will pattern their behaviour around ways to distract. So what ends up happening is a struggle around their emotional life because the emotional pain doesn’t go away, it is just bound up in the body and defended against. Because those hurts and betrayals lie unattended to, it is easy to activate them. So there will be times when you are overwhelmed by emotion and then cutting off again and not feeling. 

Relationships become unsafe
It stands to reason that one of the consequences of relationship betrayal would be that we would experience relationships as unsafe. The more extensive our experience of relationship trauma, the more we will feel that relationships in general are a dangerous place. It is important for all of us to be able to rely on people when we need help, to know that others have our best interests at heart and to generally know that we matter to those around us. Without this safety and trust in relationships it makes it very difficult to deal with stress and traumatic events that happen in our life. Relationships are the way we feel safe in the world, and are important in the way we discharge emotional pain.

Sense of responsibility is distorted
Responsibility simply is the ability to respond to ourself and others. If we have experienced a lot of intrusion or neglect then we learn other people’s experience is more important than ours. Our ability to respond is distorted by putting more emphasis on what is happening for others and needing them to determine our experience. We will also not expect anyone to respond to what our needs might be, and so we have a distorted sense of responsibility for our own needs. This distortion affects how we feel connected to others.

Not taken seriously
Growing up in a family that disregards ones needs and feelings, whether that is from intrusion or neglect, gives the message that you do not matter. The feeling of insignificance sets up a lot of difficulties in ones life: in relationships, in figuring out how we want to live our life, making decisions and expressing our experience to others. It is difficult to take ourself seriously if we were not taken seriously by those growing up.

Shame
Even though this is at the last consequence mentioned it is the most important. Shame is what we carry as a result of needing to hide aspects of ourself. It results from being immobolized with fear. Any action or expression we were unable to take because of fear will result in shame. The preceding points all have aspects that involve feelings of inadequacy to change what is happening. As a child we perceive the world differently to when we are an adult. We see everything that happens to us as something to do with us. When we are being hurt it is easier to blame ourself than the person we are dependent on.  We have to somehow maintain a picture of them as the good parent. This is how we blame ourself and end up feeling shame.