JUST CAWS # 8 A Theory of Everything 4 'Trauma-induced Personality Disorder'

These posts are becoming increasingly difficult to write, not just because of the emotional content but because there is so much detail to edit and condense. I have written only what is relevant to my ‘theory of everything’ and to understand what happened to me while under the therapeutic supervision of CAMHS art therapist, Sally Mungall between September and December, 2021.

In my post, JUST CAWS # 7 A Theory of Everything 3 'Intergenerational Trauma', I referred to the traumas suffered individually by both of my parents while they were very young. My focus here is on my mother and how her maladaptive response to a gross violation shaped her parental attitude towards me.

‘…studies highlighted that a maternal history of maltreatment negatively affected parenting skills (Greene, Haisley, Wallace, & Ford, 2020; Martinez-Torteya et al., 2014; Moehler, Biringen, & Poustka, 2007; Plant, Jones, Pariante, & Pawlby, 2017; Savage et al., 2019). For instance, a mother's history of sexual and physical abuse was associated with less confidence and higher control in the parental role (DiLillo, 2001), less parental competence (Banyard, Williams, & Siegel, 2003), and less maternal emotional availability towards offspring (Kluczniok et al., 2016). Likewise, evidence suggests that mothers with a history of neglect and emotional abuse are more likely to respond in a negative way to their children (Wright, Laurent, & Ablow, 2017), by exerting high psychological control towards the child (Zalewski, Cyranowski, Cheng, & Swartz, 2013), showing low reactivity to infant crying (Reijman et al., 2014), or exhibiting signs of hostility during interactions (Bailey, DeOliveira, Wolfe, Evans, & Hartwick, 2012). Moreover, parents exposed to physical abuse are at risk of using the same strategies with their children (Simons, Johnson, & Conger, 1994). Indeed, in the same cohort as the current study is embedded in, a history of maternal childhood maltreatment was associated with behavioral problems in early childhood up to age 6 via maternal hostility and maternal harsh discipline (Rijlaarsdam et al., 2014).’ - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0145213423002090

My mother’s parental competence was compromised, catastrophically.

She possessed severely limited maternal agency.

But, what do I mean by parental competence and maternal agency?

The role of a mother might seem obvious to most and often taken for granted. We expect mothers to be nurturing, providing warmth, comfort, emotional support, morals and values. We expect to be held.

Most importantly, we expect mothers to provide love.

‘A child’s early years are characterized by rapid cognitive, emotional, and physical growth. The parents play a crucial role in ensuring the health and safety of the child. A mother’s competence and ability to make deliberate decisions and conduct activities that benefit her child’s physical, cognitive, emotional, and social development are referred to as maternal agency.’ - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11141950/

As a way of coping with the trauma of her ‘violation’, my mother had regressed, reverting to the child-like behaviours, emotions and thinking of her pre-traumatic state. While regression might be useful in the moment, reliance on it creates more problems than it solves, manifesting in low mental resilience and stunted emotional growth. When regression becomes the permanent solution to avoiding shame, guilt and painful memories it can evolve into personality disorders. I am almost certain that my mother’s regression turned into Narcissistic Personality Disorder. It is true that I am no clinician and only a psychoanalyst is properly qualified to diagnose personality disorders but my mother’s social dominance, entitlement, exploitative behaviours, hyper-sensitivity and difficulty in tolerating disagreement all point to NPD. It was her impaired emotional empathy that was particularly corrosive to her ability to mother.

To make matters worse, my mother’s regression was reinforced, first by my father and then by her children. My father inadvertently enabled her maladaptive behaviours and modelled this for my three younger siblings and me. We all gravitated around mental illness though none of us understood what mental illness was. It was a grotesque parody of a family though at the time we thought it was normal.

And then, when I was around ten years old, I went to live with my aunt. My parents had lost their home and I stayed with my father’s sister. I was with her only for a short while but the experience was revelatory. My aunt was kind, thoughtful and attentive. I felt cared for and I felt emotional availability. She was motherly and I fell in love with her.

When I was handed back to my parents I found myself changed. I had a new model of a mother that my own mother didn’t match and the cognitive dissonance was hard to fathom.

Over the following years I saw my mother’s dysfunction though I didn’t have the words to describe it. I didn’t understand psychology and had no concept of mental illness but I reacted to her infant like behaviour with a mix of loathing, contempt and anger. I refused to be emotionally manipulated and she was fearful of my autonomy. She resented me, resented my attempts to better myself. In her eyes I became the enemy. I belonged to that other group. If I was no longer supporting her dysfunction then I was the ‘other’, another dangerous male who belonged to the same category of abusers and violators. But I wasn’t an abuser or violator. I wasn’t responsible for what happened to my mother. I hadn’t even been alive when my mother had been violated.

Foundational to my ‘theory of everything’ is the understanding of the work of reputable figures in the field of developmental psychology, none more so than Donald Winnicott. Winnicott was best known for his work on the ‘true self and the false self’ and his ideas on the ‘good enough parent’.

Winnicott's work with children and their mothers led to the development of his concept of the "holding environment". He claimed that "the foundations of health are laid down by the ordinary mother in her ordinary loving care of her own baby". Central to this was the mother's attentive holding of her child. The "mother's technique of holding, of bathing, of feeding, everything she did for the baby, added up to the child's first idea of the mother", as well as fostering the ability to experience the body as the place wherein one securely lives. This concept of holding extends beyond the mother to family and then to the ever-widening circle of family, friends, school and social life and is essential to healthy development.

I don’t remember ever being held by my mother. Indeed, I have absolutely no memory of being told that I was loved.

If I had been told that I was loved then that would have been ‘good enough’.