Babies CANNOT Be Spoiled, Suppression Of Emotions Causes Abuse

           Aletha Solter writes that a baby CANNOT be spoiled on pages 30-31, and if they are ignored when they cry or made to shut up they will feel that they are unlovable and they have to shut off their hurt feelings in order for love. They will learn to suppress all their life from this, and won't know why they have such a hard time with trusting others with their deepest pain. Unless they look back at their childhoods of course. 

            This gets me really angry, because when I was working at a daycare and was holding the 6 month olds when they cried, my coworker snapped at me that I should not do that, let them cry on their own or else "they will become spoiled." She could not see that they were helpless and just babies who needed love, and she saw them as devils and manipulators. It was so sad, but as I told her, "You were probably not loved at that age in your life because you think this..." She laughed, and continued to mock me. I was furious, and this was one of the things that caused me tremendous stress during my pregnancy. Shortly after that, I started mysteriously bleeding and had to be rushed to the hospital and was put in the emergency labor unit. I would not be surprised if my body was just trying to defend itself from her attacks on my emotional health. 

            It also happened when my sister was visiting with her little one-and-a-half-year-olds, and my mother and I were sitting with her in the kitchen while her babies were put to bed in the other room. One of them was crying pitifully that he was scared and wanted the door open more, saying "Open it... Just a little.." and my stubborn, vindictive older sister was flat out ignoring him because "he has to learn." Yeah he had to learn who is boss- that she was the controller of his every move and he had no say in how he felt if it went against her ideas. I couldn't take it after a few minutes, and said nicely to her, "Maybe you should open the door a bit, what can happen?" To which she LOST her temper and gritted at me, "Don't tell me how to be a mother." I was shocked at my sister's cruelty, and even more shocked at her anger at my suggestion.

          But I guess I should have known. That she had anger problems when things didn't work out perfectly as she planned. She could never understand emotions, was always trying to get me to shut them down, calling me a baby and MOCKING me at 7 years old when I asked her for a sandwich and she refused to help me, so I went about trying to place my cheese bagel in the microwave even though it was too high for me to reach and she scoffed at me. She said, "Ha you're trying to make me do that for you? Nice try I won't." And I stubbornly kept holding the plate up, deep shame and rejection welling up inside my stomach. 

That's the memory I have of my lovely ten year older than me sister.

            And let's not forget my grandfather who used to come every night for dinner and eyed me every time I poured something, just waiting for me to mess up so he could scoff appreciatively, "Huh!" As if his predicament that I was a careless and clumsy good for nothing slob came true. Looking back, nobody said anything about this abuse and my father even encouraged it, watching me too as if it was the most fascinating moment of history on TV. My mother just sternly warned me not to over pour, because you know how grandpa gets....

             As she always does now. Warns "Not to say too much," you know how your older sister gets...or your brother or your father.... I think this is what she tells herself when she lets everyone get away with being a grown baby and acting like a 5 year old screaming for their favorite cereal. She always has to be nice, ironically, and this encourages their rude and abusive behavior. Perhaps she is too proud to let them know they are hurting her, or she herself was subject to having ignored emotions so she cannot stand up for them now, or she is blindsided to the emotional outburst showing a serious sign of unhealthiness. Whatever the case, she enables the bad behavior and reinforces the belief that the person cannot act their age. 

          I think this is why I have such a hard time defining my own threshold of abuse tolerance at me. I saw others treat me like a doormat and it considered okay, and my mother told me I had to accept other's abuse as it came and I did not have the right to say no. My older sister even told me, when my mother was angry at me for buying a movie behind her back through my father and she was ignoring me instead of punishing me, that this was how she acted. She could not say when she was upset, she just acts passive aggressive and waits for her anger to pass. I guess this was how she was brought up with the knowledge that anger was unallowed.

          Anyway, Solter also says on page 53 that if the tears are let out straight after the trauma, there is less of a chance of people having PTSD later on in life that is characterized by emotional problems. This is because babies do not yet have the accessibility to suppress their emotions and the more they can let them out, the less suppressed they will learn to become. Too bad I am already so suppressed from my babyhood that I do not even seem to know how to do it any other way. It's emotion, push down, later more provocation and EXPLODE out on the person.

            Ralph Smart says in 10 Signs You Are Being Manipulated By A Narcissist, Sociopath or Psychopath that manipulators always make you question your self because they are just rotten people that want to put everyone down. So you find yourself feeling wrong all the time, and you question your beliefs around them. This is very toxic because they destroy your ability to think clearly if you are not conscious of their workings.

            I have begun to see that my husband and I attracted each other because we were both brought up not to see others clearly. We both expect others to act perfect for us, and are terrified of making mistakes because it'll cost us loss of love. Therefore when we make mistakes we wait for the other shoe to drop right away. And drop it does, believe me. We also cannot see each other's good usually, because we are so busy trying to survive that we take it for granted when we are not jumping each other's throats. But when we stop to think about it, we are grateful for each other because we know nobody else would take us the way we are now.

           And that is not true love, my folks. Stay tuned because the working on ourselves will come and we may soon see the light of how great we both really are. All my life I was looking for an idealized partner or person, because I wanted to feel great that someone so great loved me. But it ain't exist if I don't believe it, and the worst is not true either- that I don't deserve to be loved for who I am. I do and I will be loved, when I love myself.

Love, Peace