GriefSPEAK: All grown up, in the shadow of our childhood – Mari Nardolillo Dias

by Mari Nardolillo Dias, EdD, contributing writer, grief and grieving

We are all a product of our environment. In fact, the family that we’re born into is our very first group and the role that we play in that group is the role we tend to play in all groups going forward.

There are names for these roles – most notably the golden child, the one that’s seen as perfect or exceptional; the scapegoat or the troublemaker, are blamed for family problems and acting out; the lost child, the one that might be withdrawn, quiet and overlooked, potentially due to focus on other family members; the peacemaker and the mediator who tries to resolve conflicts; and the mascot/clown, who tends to lighten the mood.

Now these are not all inclusive but we certainly recognize these key roles that we see in family relationships. What I find is that regardless of the role you play in your family dynamics, children tend to create a survival mode very early on. If there’s any trauma in the home, whether it’s an absent or volatile parent or parents who argue all the time, if there is substance abuse in the family, any abuse, (actually, any abuse) the child finds a way to survive that situation. It is their choice. Perhaps they chose to be anxious because they made a correlation between “if I’m anxious and I go in my room, it’ll stop. At least I’ll be prepared.

Whatever that survival mode is, we tend to take it from childhood to adulthood. However, the trauma no longer exists in adulthood. So without evolving, what we do is go back to that survival mode that we used in childhood when we’re faced with any kind of anxiety or conflict as an adult.

In someone who struggles with anxiety as an adult, feeling overwhelmed every time there’s a new activity, we will find anxiety was their childhood survival mechanism, in addition to the feeling of being unsafe. Anyone who has experienced a trauma tends to be hyper-vigilant, analogous to sitting at the end of the seat, waiting for the next shoe to fall. They wait for something to happen, because as a child, whatever it is, a death, etc., the reaction is “this was my safe world. Everything was predictable. Now, this happened, and I wasn’t ready for it. If that can happen anything can happen. And so I must always be on guard and ready. Of course my response would be “to what end.” You can’t control it simply because you’re prepared. However, if you’re prepared for it, you might have convinced yourself that you won’t be as shocked or traumatized because you feel ready. Prepared.  And of course, that’s cognitive dissonance.

Survival in life, rather than surviving a death is rooted in childhood roles, rooted in childhood survival mechanisms that we take with us to adulthood. Until someone points out that those survival mechanisms not only are not going to work as an adult, but they are not even germane to the situation. You’re not five years old anymore. You’re an adult and you have new coping mechanisms. Hope you’re all surviving life.

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Dr. Mari Nardolillo Dias is a nationally board-certified counselor, holds a Fellow in Thanatology and is certified in both grief counseling and complicated grief. Dias is a Certified death doula, and has a Certificate in Psychological Autopsy.

She is Professor of Clinical Mental Health, Master of Science program, Johnson & Wales University. Dias is the director of GracePointe Grief Center, in North Kingstown, RI.  For more information, go to:  http://gracepointegrief.com/