Bryn Collins - The Toxic Parents Survival Guide: Recognizing, Understanding, and Freeing Yourself from These Difficult Relationships

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
is available through the Library of Congress

2018 Bryn Collins, MA, LP

ISBN-13: 978-07573-2104-7 (Paperback)

ISBN-10: 07573-2104-6 (Paperback)

ISBN-13: 978-07573-2120-7 (ePub)

ISBN-10: 07573-2120-8 (ePub)

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

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Publisher: Health Communications, Inc.

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Cover design by Larissa Hise Henoch
Interior design and formatting by Lawna Patterson Oldfield

CONTENTS

Knowing others is intelligence;
knowing yourself is true wisdom.
Mastering others is strength;
mastering yourself is true power.

Tao Te Ching

For Rod

Prologue

Its your first relationship and, when youre a baby, your most important one because its how you stay alive.

Over your life, this relationship will have highs and lows. It will be among the most complex relationships you will ever have. In the great majority of cases, it will endure despite whatever happens. Like it or not.

For some lucky people, it will be a relationship filled with great rewards and much joy. For many people it will be a source of frustration, puzzlement, confusion, anger, attraction, and rejection interspersed with joy. And for some very unfortunate people, its an unending nightmare or a vast frozen wasteland.

For those of you who fall among the lucky people, good for you! You won the lottery. Why are you reading this book?

For the many who spend a lot of time, energy, and often money to figure out this relationship, you have come to the right place. Were going to roll up our sleeves and figure this out together. Well work toward positive management of these emotionally unavailable relationships as well as ways to feel better about yourself in the context of this primary relationship and the rest of the relationships in your life. Maybe you and your friends can find something else to talk about.

For the people who have endured nightmares or wastelands, we will explore some tools for you to use to break the chains that hold you stuck in the mess you didnt create but have had to live with. We will also talk about how to finally walk away from the toxic relationships once and for all.

We all have relationships with our parents. They are with us our entire lives, even after they no longer live. We need some different ways to deal with our parents dysfunctions so that we dont suffer and dont pass along emotional unavailability to the next generation.

Just a quick note: The examples I use in the book are based on real cases or a compilation of real cases. Nobodys name is real, and details have been altered.

Introduction

Joyces story:

The house phone was ringing as I came in the front door of my apartment, laden with my newly purchased second round of grad-school books that weighed a ton and had depleted my checkbook. I also had a bag with fresh fruit and veggies from the corner market and another from the fishmongers shop across from my building.

I knew who was calling. I dumped my packages and snapped the lock on the door.

Hi, Mom.

So, what trouble did you get into today? There was a note of humor that overlaid the usual accusation.

Im a grad student again, I responded, determined to ignore the bait.

I suppose you need money. Again. You know, were not made of money. This time the accusation was clear.

No, Im good. But thanks for the offer. We both knew it wasnt an offer, but I didnt want to escalate the situation by mentioning they hadnt paid for any of my education since undergrad fifteen years before.

Are you sure this is what you want to do, this graduate school? You havent done anything with your last two degrees.

I sighed. She apparently didnt need my help to escalate.

Mom, I taught for two years after undergrad and...

And then you followed that man and wasted three years of your life. She had hated my boyfriend, particularly when we moved across country, and had chosen to ignore my several economic successes in those three wasted years, including a popular local television show on which she had been my guest several times.

I paused and took a deep breath. She didnt notice.

And then you came back here and did nothing for another year. Again, choosing to ignore the successful small business I had started that continued to sustain my grad school habit.

And then, of course, you couldnt just stay with us. You had to go running off to New York. Nice girls dont go to live by themselves in New York. Are you still thinking of being an actress, or was that just another failed flight of fancy?

I took another deep breath. Mom, I really dont want to get into this again. Ive had a long day and I have some studying....

Well, I suppose I shouldnt have any expectations. Big dramatic sigh. After all, youve always been my problem child. That would be the kid with the 3.75 overall in high school and college who never missed a curfew or broke any rules. I was that problem child.

You never could just do what other kids did. Look at Virginia. She has two beautiful kids, a darling husband, and a wonderful teaching job. Shes done something with her life.

My blood pressure was rising and the temptation to lash out was almost overwhelming. In the back of my head I could hear my therapists voice telling me not to feed into her conflict quest. I took another deep breath.

breathe... and dont engage!

Mom, Ive got a lot of reading to do and my groceries are getting warm.

Okay, well, we love you and we miss you.

And that is a good example of an emotionally unavailable parent.

In this book well look at different types of emotionally unavailable parents, how emotional unavailability happens, how to manage the relationship and let yourself off the hook, and finally how to be an emotionally available parent.

1

Emotional Unavailability Defined

At its most basic, emotional unavailability is that feeling you have when someone holds you at arms length and tells you its your fault or smothers you out of your own life and experiences and then tells you its not good enough.

Obviously, life isnt that simple, so lets break it down. People who are emotionally unavailable are unwilling or unable to invest emotions in a relationship. This takes many forms.

Sometimes emotional unavailability looks like busy-nesssomeone in your life who just doesnt make space or time for you while reassuring you by telling you how important you are to them. They are always overcommitted and have an excuse for not interacting with you.