Through my work with other trauma survivors, I have been surprised to learn how many similarities our stories share. The external circumstances are often different. But the beliefs we gain, the emotions we carry and the abusive strategies used against us are similar. It is eerie how similar they are. This week, there has been one particular theme with my clients which illustrates those similarities. Many of us are struggling to get out from under the affects of a phrase used repeated in childhood.
“You should be grateful for all I have done for you.”
There seems to be a ridiculous notion in the belief systems of most abusive parents that their child should be grateful for their raising. The idea that a child has any understanding of their parent’s obligations in raising them is ridiculous. The child didn’t choose to be born (least of all to abusive parents). The child didn’t sit down at the table with the parents and say, “Let’s discuss how much this is going to cost and how exhausted you are going to feel.” The child has no idea they are a burden because they are not supposed to be one. The child is a child. They are here and they want to live life. They didn’t know they would start life in emotional and financial debt at the hands of their parents.
So why do abusive parents do this? I have some ideas.
It was done to them. A generation of parents doesn’t wake up one day and decide to do and say ridiculous things. We have been spewing nonsense about gratitude from children since humans created the spoken language. But that doesn’t mean we should accept this antiquated and abusive perspective. We have brains so we can ask questions.
If they exaggerate what they do for the child, they can fool themselves about how great they are. More than likely, our abusive parents were never appreciated for much of anything. This is one of the patterns that led to their addiction to power in the first place. They had to look for little scraps of love wherever they could find them. In many cases, they to get those scraps by making a big deal out of the things they do, looking for positive feedback in any way they could get it. This became an addiction and was projected on to their children. It becomes the child’s responsibility to feed their ego.
If the child believes they owe the parents, they are more easily manipulated. Let’s face it. A parent is going to have an easier time convincing a child to do whatever they want if that child feels obligated to the parent. This “contract” can last an entire lifetime with adult children feeling like they owe aging parents who were abusive.
If a child believes that everything comes at a cost, they won’t ask for help. This belief doesn’t solely apply to the parent/child relationship. Abusive parents will make it clear that all relationships come with contracts. Children learn that it isn’t safe to ask for anything. And that includes asking for help to escape their abusive environment. They already feel like they are in debt and they don’t want any more obligation.
How does this affect the adult child?
We hold energetic contracts with abusers. One of the most challenging aspects of recovery is the separation from our abusive families. The act of saying goodbye is not really the problem. The problem is the internal contract we hold in our system. Whether it is the karma kid or the love seeker, we have inner parts who consider themselves indebted to their abusive families. This debt may represent the simple acts of keeping them alive or for little scraps of love they felt here and there. But this is a difficult contract to break internally.
We inevitably hold the same beliefs with our children. While it is powerful to break the abuse cycle with our families, it is also necessary to break the belief cycle. Even if we don’t abuse our children, these beliefs can be passed down from generation to generation creating difficulties in navigating the world. We need to make sure our children know they are not obligated to us for raising them. We need to ensure they know they aren’t owned by anyone. They are their own person and they get to live life with freedom.
We can’t ask for help or assistance without feeling we owe others. As I mentioned before, this belief gets applied to others. We won’t ask others for help because we don’t want to owe more than we already do. So we run ourselves into the ground trying to handle everything. This becomes worse when we have children. We go to bed exhausted every night from trying to manage life on our own, but we feel relief we don’t owe anyone.
We extrapolate it to the universe. When we hold this belief, we believe it applies to everyone. And everyone includes the universe. This can be tied to hopelessness on a deep level. Even if we could escape the contracts of our parents and others, how could we ever escape the contract with the universe? We are stuck. What we owe the universe will vary depending on our childhood beliefs. But it leaves us feeling like we can’t be free.
The next time you feel compelled to give or seek gratitude, take a step back and watch your thoughts. Is that gratitude coming from a place of freedom? Is it given freely? Or do you feel obligated to another person because they may have helped you out? Take a look at the contracts you have created in your life. And free yourself from them. Obligatory gratitude is not real. It is only real when it is given freely.
Excellent, as always! Wow! This is so helpful and so timely! I still feel I owe my parents. And I want to break this internal contract!!!! I want to be free!
I know you will break it Andrea!
Wow! Wow! Wow! Soooo true. I was told I should be grateful for the air I breathe. That hurts to the core and I have struggled with gratitude throughout all of my life. I know on a spiritual level that by expressing gratitude I manifest more into my life, however, this is challenging when gratitude has always been connected to obligation!! HUGE!
There is nothing I want more in the world than to be grateful for all that I have, yet I struggle because part of me says “f@#* Y&#!” I have a right to my basic needs being met and I was told over and over that I should be grateful – when I do have a right as a child to be fed, nurtured, housed and I have a right to breathe. Like you stated – I did not ask to be born! (Although apparently I did choose – I have to talk to my higher self about that one Ha! Ha! LOL).
I am learning that gratitude is a process, just like all the other false beliefs and programming I need to rework. I remind myself to have patience. It will unfold as I work. I can be grateful, have gratitude for the clarity in that knowledge. See – there’s gratitude (and no obligation) within myself 🙂
Thank you for your powerful message today.
Thank you Wendy. You are right. Real gratitude is a process. It is an organic experience when it comes. It not a decision in our heads. The more work we do to feel and let go of old emotions, the more room it has.
The last time I had communication with my parents I stated ‘I owe you nothing’. Freedom!
I love that!
is this why I get so angry about gratitude journals/lists?! I get so mad when people tell me to practice gratitude… like I’m not grateful??! I think the word is charged for this exact reason, I have always been accused of not being grateful! for being treated horrifically! and now people tell me snidely that the cure to my pain is gratitude…
Being lectured about gratitude is a huge trigger after childhood trauma. It is understandable that you would be angry. Gratitude is not a cure for pain. Gratitude is something that organically comes as we heal our emotions from the past.
“Gratitude is not a cure for pain. Gratitude is something that organically comes as we heal our emotions from the past.”
Thank you.
Thank you for this! I am in no contact mode since I got married and now that I have a new first baby I am constantly being reminded of the cruelties that I suffered through childhood and it breaks my heart. I have a constant fear that I am not allowed to be happy and free, that I don’t deserve to live my own life. My parents told lies about me to everyone in my family so I feel alone and not supported most of the time. It’s also very confusing and difficult to trust other family members from my husband’s side. How do you really do it on your own? Is it possible that I came here to live without my family of origin? I sometimes need validation that I’m doing the right thing although deep inside I know it’s true.
I’m grateful for finding your site and reading all these empowering stuff about trauma. It took me some time to call myself a trauma survivor!
Hi Liyan, Thank you for your comment. It is so difficult to be a parent and be no contact with your family of origin. I completely relate to everything you say. It is incredibly isolating. It does get better as you heal. That I can tell you from my experiences. I do offer assistance in several ways on my site and my Facebook pages if you want some additional support. It is a very powerful step that you can call yourself a trauma survivor.
I actually thought while growing up that is should be grateful to my mother for at least providing a roof over our heads and a bed to sleep in. I had such a horrible, abusive, drunken, irresponsible father, that I actually felt indebted to my mother for providing these basic things, seeing my father was such a loser and scum bag. Have you ever read “Angela’s Ashes?” The father in this story was so discustingly irresponsible and neglectful. My own father rises to this.
However, one day I woke up and realized that it was my mother who married this perverted, irresponsible, disgustingly, abusive man! It was her, and her disgusting, irresponsible choices that put us in this horrible position in the first place!!! I can’t even tell you how much rage I feel at times. At her asinine choices that visited Hell upon six children. And I actually felt grateful that she provided a roof and a bed!
Thank you Catherine. So many abusive parents try to make us grateful for the “roof over our heads”. It is incredibly confusing when the roof is over a constant war zone of abusive experiences. I am glad you see this tactic now.
This was something I’ve been chewing on for the past month now. I’m in a place where I am so heartbroken, my parents paid for my med school fees (a field they kinda pushed me in to) and I graduated with 0 debt. That’s been on my mind more than ever, now that I’m considering going ahead with some personal choices that will lead me to being ostracised by the family. (Very religious Muslims, they made their limits clear with me).
Then another voice in me gets pissed. “Are you really worth that much $? The money they spent consoles you for how you’ve been treated? Are you really only worth that much?”
This post gave me some hope. Maybe I can overcome this. Thanks Elizabeth
Thank you Zee. You are worth so much more than that college money. Love to you.
I grow up with a verbally and physically abusive step dad. As a child I remember saying to my mum how unhappy I was and her response more than once was ‘well he takes us on nice holidays’! And another one was ‘he earns good money’! He liked to shout in my face ‘I took you on’! He didn’t. He stole us from my wonderful, kind, loving dad and for that I was meant to be grateful.
I heard some similar things from my stepfather (although he didn’t shout which made it confusing too). My mother loved to talk about what a great guy he was for taking me on. But he was a pedophile. So I would have rather he walked away.
Elisabeth, you are so right when you say that we share so many similiarities as trauma survivors and I think one of the reasons is that all of our personalities are so similiar; we are compassionate and empathic to a fault.
This article hit really close to my heart, especially the paragraph you wrote on “energetic contracts” and I have to admit that you’ve got me thinking. I said goodbye to my family of origin some time ago, but something has been holding me back and I think it’s the “internal contract” you mentioned. Whether it’s the “karma kid” or the “love seeker,” I know that if I could figure out how to break that internal contract, I’ll be able to move forward more easily, instead of struggling with how to let it all go. Thanks for sharing! xo
Thank you Davina. These contracts are so detrimental to finding our freedom. I recommend writing from any unconscious message telling you that you cannot live or succeed without them.
You’re welcome.
Elisabeth, thank you. This is so helpful. You just described my childhood.
Thank you Mandy! I am sorry you had to deal with that.
This thing, this gratefulness thing, is so much of the reason I don’t even believe that I was ever abused. It wasn’t that overt in my family, so I don’t even know. I just know I’ve always felt that if I am not extremely grateful all the time I deserve to die, beacuse that’s what my mother made me feel. The problem is that I don’t actually remember what she used to say. I remember the tone of her voice but not so much what the actual words was…
Try to write from it and see if you can access them. If you start by focusing on the fear, you might be able to get them down on paper. Many times when I can’t get something worked out in my head, the writing clarifies it. But you will have to trust yourself and not try to censor or edit it.
These are the same children who ask these horrible parents if, they are in their will and beneficiary in their will for their pension. Articles like these make me sick.
This is precisely what an abuser would say. They love to use money to justify their horrible treatment of others.