Healing From a Critical Parent
If we grew up with a parent(s) or caregiver(s) who were critical of us, we tend to feel more anxious, have feelings of inadequacy, and/or having to feel like we have to be ‘perfect’. Developing romantic relationships can be very challenging because we feel like we must constantly defend ourselves and end up becoming critical ourselves. Children are very attached to their parent(s) or parental figure(s) and this has a heavy influence on seeking their approval. This makes it difficult for children to not take their parents comments deeply personal. Authoritarian parenting can train a child’s brain to overemphasize mistakes and when a child is criticized for making a mistake, the brain learns to internalize that parental feedback which becomes a trigger for anxiety. This leads to children never feeling like they are good enough and as adults this leads to not feeling adequate in their work life and interpersonal/romantic relationships.
Our parents or care givers did the best they could with what they knew. This is not to say that their actions and behaviors were ok and to minimize your feelings, but it is best to understand this. To work through having an overly critical parent, it is best to not blame our parents but to gain a better understanding of yourself. As an adult, we can understand our inner world and to make positive changes to how we react to situations. In order to do so, lets first understand these feelings.
Understanding Our ‘Raw Spots’
According to Dr. Sue Johnson, one of the founders of Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) expressed, “We never like to hear that something is ‘wrong’ with us, or that something needs changing, especially if this message is coming from the loved one we most depend on.” As humans, our initial reaction is to perceive that as criticism. Dr. Johnson talks about something called “raw spots”. Our raw spots develop from past hypersensitivities in which our needs were unmet or repeatedly neglected, ignored, or dismissed. “These sensitivities frequently arise from wounding relationships with significant people in our past, especially parents, who give us our basic template for loving relationships.” Once we understand our raw spots, we can better communicate them in and in response the receiver is able to understand our needs and respond in the way we truly need.
However, we live in a society where vulnerability is synonymous to weakness. We are naturally reluctant to confront our vulnerabilities. This leads us to suppressing our emotions and feelings, bottling them up, and then later coming out in anger and frustration. How many times have you had something bother you, but not want to share it with anyone in fear of
1. Not understanding what you are feeling in that moment to express it.
2. Worried how the other person may perceive you if you share it.
or
3. Fear of having your feelings dismissed or invalidated?
I am sure that throughout your lifetime, you have felt all three of these many times and you are not alone. It is so important for us to work on this because if we do not understand how or why we feel the way we do, then how will anyone else be able to? This is a challenge for the person on the receiving end because they do not know how to react or respond in a way that is supportive to you. If we do not know how to communicate, then nobody feels heard.
Dig Deeper
It is important for you to understand the impact having a critical parent had on you and how that carries over into your current interpersonal relationships. Some questions to ask yourself:
Am I easily upset when someone offers suggestions or feedback?
Do I become critical of my partner and others as a way of keeping myself safe and distant?
Can I allow someone to be there for me when I need emotional support?
Do I tend to interpret many comments from others as critical?
As you recognize the challenges you are facing, you can work towards sharing deeper feelings with your partner and/or the people closest to you.
Understand That Criticism Is About Projection and Loneliness
“Hurt people, hurt people.” This is a cliche quote with so much truth in it. Critical people are stuck in a perpetual cycle of projection, pain, loneliness, and disconnection. They have been hurt at some point in the past when they have felt vulnerable and they are still carrying this wound in their subconscious mind. Often they are afraid of facing the pain they feel around this and don't know how to deal with the discomfort and emotions involved, or perhaps they are not even consciously aware of it. The criticism that pushes people away further prevents them from experiencing the deep connections with others that would reduce their loneliness and heal the very hurt they are avoiding by criticizing others.
Having a critical parent can damage your self-confidence as an adult. Our criticisms and judgments of others are really just projections of unhealed, unaccepted, or unacknowledged parts of ourselves. Parents cannot help but see themselves in their children, so when you started acting in ways that triggered your mother or father's shame, hurt, sadness, or loneliness they are likely to have felt their unhealed pain. So it is not surprising that a critical parent will most likely take this out on their own children. When you understand that the parent who criticized you was actually hurting inside and as a result their judgments and criticisms shut down their own self-expression, you can start to feel more compassion towards them.
Understand That Your Parent’s Criticism Was Never About You
Your parent’s criticism always came down to some unhealed and often denied emotional wound from their past in which they projected onto you. When your natural behavior reminded them of their unhealed pain, it was easier for them to criticize you and get you to stop acting in that way than it was for them to heal their pain. Unfortunately this taught you that your natural way of behaving was somehow bad and wrong. A self-aware parent will realize that their children are their best teachers because children know exactly how to trigger a parent's unhealed emotional pain, and triggering the pain is necessary in order to heal it.
However, a parent that lacks self-awareness or who is simply overwhelmed by the magnitude of their unhealed issues is likely to do anything they can to stop you reminding them of how hurt they are inside. Hence such parents can become the harshest critics of the very children they love so much. If a critical parent has wounded you deeply it's helpful to remember that the criticism and the wounding were never really about you. It was always just a projection of something your parent had not dealt with in themselves. Lets help better understand this:
Acknowledge the intent behind the criticism
Needless to say, criticism from your parents does not feel good, but it is often coming from a place of wanting to help you be happier. (I know shocking, right?) This might be misguided or grounded in the idea that what makes you happy and what makes your parents happy is the same thing.
Regardless, it can be helpful to share with your parents that you understand their intentions while sharing how you feel.
For example, you may say, “I know that you offer suggestions about my love life because you want me to be happy and that it comes from a place of deep caring, but it hurts my feelings when you make constant digs about me being single.”
Consider cross-cultural factors
Many cultures have a deeply embedded belief that a parent’s job is to promote growth in their children, even their adult children, and that they feel the best way to do this is through criticism. This can be particularly challenging for first/second-generation Americans whose parents immigrated from another country and were raised with very different cultural norms and values.
Empathy
Sometimes, empathy can be used to understand why a parent may be overly critical. If someone grew up in a family or household where everything was criticized, or the child felt like they needed to be “perfect” to avoid abuse or criticism, they learned that criticism is “normal” within a family. Most of the time this means that the person learned that “love” equates to criticism. Though this is not healthy, it happens more often than people think. This is not by any means excusing their behavior. However, when we can have understanding and empathy as to why someone functions as they do, it can help us take their criticism less personally.
Allow Yourself To Be Angry
It is safe to say that it is unfair that many children bear the burdens of their parent's unhealed wounds. Insecurities get passed on from parent to children by critical, judgmental parents who are too afraid to take accountability and deal with their own issues. If you've been on the receiving end of this, it is ok to be angered by this.
As a child, being angry with a parent can be scary because we were dependent on them for our survival. Alienating a parent through anger could lead to abandonment and as children it is important for us to feel safe. As an adult, lets now realize that the problem was them denying their own emotions, resulting in the destructive way they ended up expressing it onto you. We are not excusing the behavior, but we are taking ourselves out of the equation because in reality it has absolutely nothing to do with us and it is their problem.
Learn To Express Your Feelings
One of the most damaging forms of childhood criticism is when we were criticized for how we felt. Our feelings represent our deepest experiences and if you encountered criticism when you expressed them as a child, you may have learned that it was not acceptable to express yourself, or even to be yourself. This may have looked like your parent’s saying, “Stop with the crocodile tears”, “ Oh stop with the crying, I will give you something to really cry about”, “Stop with the act”, or “Don’t be upset, there is no reason to be upset.” (Can you tell I am triggered right now) haha.
Being able to express unpleasant emotions freely allows us to accept our experience of life and of ourselves much more deeply. It also frees us to feel the pleasant emotions more deeply including love, peace, happiness and joy. While anger is a useful defense mechanism, it is often a cover for fear, hurt, and sadness. In Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) Dr. Sue Johnson calls these our primary and secondary emotions. Our primary emotions are the fear, hurt, sadness, etc. and the secondary emotions are the anger we feel. We want to work on eliciting those primary emotions which are the underlying causes of the anger. The best way to express your true feelings is to be direct about them. Avoid passive-aggressive or indirect expressions of how you feel. Do not just assume that other people should know how you are feeling: learn how to be direct and tell them. Learn to say:
“I feel really hurt when you say that” or “I feel sad when you say ______ to me”.
Acknowledging your true feelings in the face of criticism helps to break the vicious cycle that critical people take on themselves. It removes blame because you are taking the blame away and just stating how you feel. Now before you go and say, “I tried this already and it didn’t work”, yes you may be right. Trust me, I empathize with you completely on this. Sometimes we may share how we feel and we can use all of the “I” statements in the world yet the other person still may respond in defensiveness. The important take away from this is not how they respond, it is how you authentically express yourself. When you express your true feelings in the face of criticism you exercise courage, and exercising courage builds your confidence and empowerment.
Set boundaries
You are allowed to compassionately but firmly set boundaries and ask for what you need. Effective boundary setting starts with an ask. Such as, “Mom, please don’t make comments about my weight. It makes me feel bad.“
If the ask falls on deaf ears, you may need to slowly turn up the volume on your request: “When you make comments about my weight, it makes me want to visit you less often. Other than these comments, I really love visiting you, and it breaks my heart that I’ve started dreading our time together.”
And, if necessary, “Mom, I love you, but I’ve asked you not to make comments about my weight. I’m going to leave right now because these comments really hurt me. This isn’t a punishment, it’s just my way of taking care of myself. I look forward to seeing you again soon.”
Give Yourself a Time Out
Some parents are so deeply wounded that even a true expression of hurt and sadness in the face of their criticism may trigger their defensiveness instead of their compassion. For a parent like this, you may need to take some time out and learn to express your true feelings in a more supportive environment first.
Having your own individual therapist or being a part of group therapy can be tremendously valuable in having your feelings and emotions be validated. In my professional recommendation, finding a psychodynamic/psychoanalytic therapist would be helpful in healing this trauma wound. Therapy helps you become more open with yourself and others. Over time you learn how to express rather than repress. Because as we all know, when we repress and internalize our feelings that builds up and eventually needs to come out… and usually when it comes out, it is not in the most productive way and can lead to now you becoming the critical parent/partner/friend.
In order to understand and accept why critical parents can be so triggering, it’s important to know that parents who are critical in adulthood were often critical and overbearing in childhood. As a result, the adult interactions with parents can be super-charged by a long history of negative interactions. A few steps can be very helpful in addressing the current negativity as well as working to heal wounds from the past.
Here are some tips that may be helpful in these moments:
Journal about the criticism from your parents. Allow yourself to notice childhood patterns and current themes. The goal is not to blame the parents but simply to know where and how the patterns arose. Think about how strong and resilient you have been throughout your life.
Journal about all of your good qualities. This will allow you to feel more self-compassion and overall self-awareness. This awareness will increase your self-esteem and allow you to feel more empowered.
When you interact with a critical parent, step into the role of being an adult observer rather than the hurt, criticized adult child. As a result of working on your self-awareness, you will slowly but surely become less triggered and reactive when interfacing with a critical parent.
Don't Listen To The Critical Voice In Your Head
We often internalize our parent's criticisms as a voice in our head that is constantly monitoring and judging our every move and everyone else’s. We all have a voice in our head that is going on and on to some degree. The volume with which our inner critic speaks to us is directly correlated to the amount of suppressed and unhealed emotional baggage we have hidden in our subconscious. The job of the critic is to try and contain this emotional stress so that we can avoid experiencing the pain associated with it. So as long as our inner critic keeps us in check, we don't have to deal with painful criticism from other people.
Unfortunately this is a recipe for disaster. This leads to chronic stress, anxiety, depression, and overall unhappiness. To free yourself from the negativity of your inner critic, you need to stop giving it the power to control you. Once you learn to express the emotions that you've been holding in for many years, you will start to release some of the fear, sadness, pain, and anxiety that keeps the critic relevant. Over time you will find the voice of your inner critic getting softer and softer until you eventually forget that they were ever there. You have the power to control this, not them.
Become Aware of How You Talk to Yourself
As hard as we might try to not end up being like our critical parents, to some degree we cannot help to take on some views and coping strategies of the parents who raised us. If you had a critical parent, chances are you end up becoming critical of yourself. Perhaps this manifested into avoiding close relationships or not letting anyone get too close to you in fear of them knowing who you truly are, maybe you formed a cynical view of the world, or maybe you distance yourself from people after you find faults in them… Did I just trigger a nerve in you? If so, the first step towards dropping your own critical nature is to acknowledge it. WE ARE ALL HUMAN. PERFECT DOES NOT EXIST. There are people out there who will love and accept you for who you are unconditionally. Your flaws are what make you, you.
The sheer weight of carrying an internal critic is exhausting, whether you focus the energy out on the world as cynicism or in on yourself as perfectionism and low self-esteem. Accept yourself for who you are. Learn to love yourself and others will begin to see the same in you. Get the emotional healing you need to heal your internalized anger and accept yourself and the world exactly the way it is without projecting your insecurities onto everything and the people around you. Know that this is not genetic and is a learned behavior. You have the power to rebuild your confidence and get to a place where you are grateful for the lessons that your critical parent taught you instead of recreating their flaws in your own life. Be the one to give yourself the validation you always wanted and needed.
How Do I Share How I feel Without Being Critical To My Partner?
First, I want to empathize that it is much easier for us to criticize than to be vulnerable and express our deeper fears and needs. It is more common for us to tell our partner what needs to be changed by them than to help them understand why we need a different response or way of connecting.
John Gottman studied couples who were successful in their long-term relationships. One thing he found was that they transformed their criticisms into wishes. Rather than pointing out a fault in their partner, their conversation began with expressing a need or desire.
Rather than starting the conversation with a harshened startup using “You never…” or “You always…”, share with your partner your fear and desired outcome of the situation. Making the problem the problem and not the person. An example of this is, “You never take out the garbage unless I ask,” you can say instead, “It is really helpful when I know the chores have been done. I feel like things are running smoothly and I’m less stressed.” Another example is, “You always drive so crazy!” … Instead you can say, “I get nervous when we drive fast. It reminds me of the accident I had years ago. It’s hard for me to let go of that, and it’s really helpful when we go a bit slower.” By externalizing the problem it leads to less blame and criticism, in which your partner does not feel like they need to automatically defend themselves.
How to Avoid Being a Critical Parent to Your Children?
We like to think that we aren’t critical parents ourselves. However, we might not always be aware of how we come across to our children. It is not all that unusual for parents to replicate the style with which they were raised. Growing up, our surroundings and our environment shape who we are and that carries over into adulthood. Increasing your self awareness can help you change the conversations and dialogue with your kids. On the other hand, many parents recognize how their parents’ communication styles impacted them and may make a conscious effort to raise their children differently. Either way, becoming in tune with ourselves and understanding our own feelings and projections will help create a new dialogue of how you communicate with your children.
Cited Sources:
https://upjourney.com/how-to-deal-with-critical-parents-in-adulthood
https://www.apeacefullifecounseling.com/critical-parent/
