Having Empathy For a Parent Who Emotionally Abused You As a Child

Stockholm Syndrome is a fascinating phenomenon. If your life is in the hands of your violent captor, and you acknowledge their power to inflict unspeakable suffering onto you, then the terror will eat you alive. You will go mental. Luckily, the brain has a cutoff. It floods you with positive emotions, and gets you to attach to your hostage taker, and to use that to persuade them not to hurt you. By morphing yourself into an ally, into the opposite of a threat, you regain a sense of power in a helpless situation.

Precisely the same thing happens to a child with an abusive parent. Even in a loving family, a child understands subliminally that their life is in the parent’s hands. The child’s chances of survival increase if they can be submissive, cooperative and loving. To top it all off, the child idealises the parent and convinces themselves that the parent can do no wrong, and commit no harm. The parent is perfect, they are all-good, and by extension, they are safe.

A child idolising their parent in such a way is one side of a dynamic known as ‘splitting’, which is a tendency to see others as either all-good, or all-bad. They are either putrid, evil people deserving of hate, or they are perfect and can do no harm. There is no in-between.

Children in their vulnerable state cannot afford to see their parents as capable of evil. So they see them as infinitely wonderful, powerful and wise. They do this even if they must deny reality. It is necessary for the child’s mental and emotional well-being.

In the case of abusive parents, the child’s terror spikes considerably. As a result, the splitting defence increases to match, along with the child’s delusion. More terror means more psychological instability. With their fragile minds and extreme vulnerability, the child has no choice. They drift into their imagination and become attached to the idea of their abusive parent as all-good.

As this child grows into adulthood, splitting remains unconsciously lodged in their mind. They continue to see the parent as benevolent to the point of denying reality. Even when they come to realise that their parent was and continues to be abusive, they reason it away. They irrationally declare their love for the parent, knowing deep down that they do so for their own sanity. This is understandable.

Many people do not allow themselves to see their parent as they are due to the emotional storm that emerges with this reality. Rage. Grief. Sadness. Despair. Shame. Trauma — all the emotions you pushed away so you could feel good about your parent. This will be extremely difficult to process. It takes courage, energy, patience and effort to move through this initial storm. In some cases, denial can be the only thing protecting you from psychosis and madness.

Danger lurks for those who dare to approach the truth. You will need to move at your own pace to avoid being overrun. Trauma is no game. Yet beyond the danger also lies opportunity.

One fascinating outcome of healing childhood wounds and facing the truth is the capacity to see beyond the splitting defence. Reality emerges, and reveals itself to be multi-faceted. You come to see the situation from your parent’s side. With empathy, you not only see but feel the pressure of being ill-equipped to parent. The exhaustion of the sleepless nights trying to keep up financially. The wish to give your child everything, but failing to even keep your cool over breakfast. The inadequacy you feel compared to those other ‘perfect’ parents in the community.

With empathy, you also gain a vantage point and witness what life was like for your parent when they were a child and dealing with horrible abuse. You see how they had no opportunity to process their own trauma, and suddenly they were forced to sweep aside their needs and be the perfect parent. Our generation has opportunities for healing that our parents could barely dream of.

Your empathy helps you understand your parent’s plight. It should also hopefully enable you to see that it was not your fault. It was not about you. The truth was far more complicated than your ‘all-good’ and ‘all-bad’ lens could capture. Sure, your parent’s behaviour was sometimes horrible, and can be judged as pretty damn bad. Yet the underlying reality goes beyond this. It simply was. And it hurt. It still does.

This should not be a pass for the parent. Be careful not to let your empathy muddy the truth. Your parent was abusive, and it had real consequences on you. Acknowledge that. Process it at your own pace. Decide what you need so you can heal.

If your parent is still alive, decide what shape your relationship with them will take for the time you have left. Yet only do this when you have processed your past and shone a light on the truth.

People are capable of good and evil. Yet ultimately, we have to decide how much of their core is good. Are they redeemable? Can you work with them by setting boundaries, accepting limits, and demanding mutual respect? This is difficult to gauge when you have spent a lifetime with a distorted view of your parent. Without the truth, you cannot determine their core.

Take your time with it. It might be that your parent is too hardened in their ways, and will only play-pretend to be loving, hoping to keep you open and connected so they can use you for narcissistic supply. They will turn your empathy against you while never being vulnerable themselves. Watch out for this.

Empathy is not a tool for denial, it is a torch for lighting up the nuances of reality. It should help you gain the perspective you need to see the truth from your side and that of your parent’s. It should help you find forgiveness — so you can heal, move on and live the life you deserve.