Myth 1: Kyoko is supposed to make her grandmother and mother happy—and in this incident, she has done the opposite.
Myth 3: Kyoko’s needs and wants don’t matter; only those of adults do.
At age two, Kyoko is unable to consciously process any of this. Nevertheless, she gets the message loud and clear: No matter what Grandma does to me, if I do something she doesn’t like, she’ll be mad at me and not like me—and it will be my fault.
Mika also chastises her daughter, Ayami, using Myth 2. In essence, she tells Ayami, “Your parenting made me unhappy.”
One core purpose of this book is to help you recognize EN when you see it—in both yourself and others—so you are able to name it, heal from it, and grow out of it.
Most of us are clueless about the myriad ways in which EN negatively affects our lives. This is because we don’t recognize or think through our everyday narcissism; it all usually occurs beneath the surface of our consciousness. As a result, we’re often confused, disappointed, or angry—and mystified at the depth of hurt or anger or craziness we can sometimes feel over ostensibly small things.
One core purpose of this book is to help you recognize EN when you see it—in both yourself and others—so you are able to name it, heal from it, and grow out of it.
Unpacking the Myths
The five myths—combined with our human need to belong, to be loved, to be liked, and to be part of community—form the foundation of EN. Let’s dive more deeply into each of the myths.
Myth 1: We Are Responsible for—and Have the Power to Control—How Other People Feel and Behave
Starting when we are young, we are taught that our biggest job—no matter what age we are—is to make our parents and other adults feel happy, proud, successful, adequate, important, loved, and so on. Our second biggest job is to prevent them from acting in ways that hurt us or are harmful or inappropriate in general.
The adults around us initially teach us Myth 1 by saying things such as:
• “Tell your aunt how much you like the lime-green sweater she gave you or she’ll be hurt.”
• “Go with your father or he’ll be disappointed.”
• “If you don’t text him right back, he’ll feel bad.”
• “Mom will be upset if you don’t come over.”
In all of these statements, an adult is asking a child to take care of an adult. These phrases teach children that they are responsible for adults, when in fact it is supposed to be the other way around.
We do this partly to help children learn to be sensitive to the feelings and needs of others. Yet kids also need to learn to be aware of and sensitive to their own feelings and needs, so they can express and manage them in healthy ways. Unfortunately, many of us are not taught to be sensitive to ourselves; instead, we’re taught Myth 3. In practice, sensitivity to others is best taught by modeling rather than words.
In her book Prisoners of Childhood, psychologist Alice Miller writes,
Children who fulfill their parents’ conscious or unconscious wishes are “good,” but if they ever refuse to do so or express wishes of their own that go against those of their parents, they are called egoistic or inconsiderate [e.g., thoughtless, rude, selfish, uncaring].1 It usually does not occur to the parents that they might need and use the child to fulfill their own egoistic wishes.
Over time, we learn to internalize such messages, and eventually our EN becomes perpetually reinforced. By the time we’re adolescents, most of us say similar things to ourselves, as well as to other people in our lives:
• “Don’t go. I’ll be so lonely without you.”
• “I’m disappointed that you don’t like the gifts I gave you.”
• “I’m hurt that you’re choosing not to join us at the party.”
We could say these are simple statements of fact, which state how we feel and what we want. In the EN-oriented world we have created, however, that is not how the statements are usually intended or heard. The message beneath all of them is, It’s your job to take care of me and make me feel good. The way to do that is to do what I want. You’re the one with the power—and the responsibility—to make me happy. It all revolves around you.
Here are some other common examples of how this gets played out:
• If we throw a party and all the guests have a good time, we assume it’s because we were a great host.
• If our boss calls us to her office, we assume we have done something wrong.
• If a neighbor visits us and she’s in a grumpy mood, we assume it’s because of something we said or did in her presence the last time we saw her.
• If we’re a therapist—and, yes, therapists do often struggle with their own EN—we mentally take credit for a client’s improved confidence and focus, when in fact the client did the work.
KELLY AND HER MOTHER
Thirteen-year-old Kelly looks carefully through her closet. She and her family are about to go to a rock concert where her aunt is performing, and she wants to look her best—and her coolest.
She finally chooses a blue leather skirt and a turtleneck sweater. She looks at herself in the mirror and is very pleased with her choice.
When she goes downstairs, her mother looks at her and frowns. She says, “Oh, Kelly, your orange plaid skirt and your orange blouse look so much cuter on you. I thought you’d be wearing that.”
Kelly is hurt and angry. She likes what she is wearing and feels confident and comfortable in it. She’s tired of always having to dress the way her mother wants. Yet she knows that if she doesn’t change her clothes, her mother will be angry and start to pout. (Myth 1)
Kelly has had enough experience with her mom’s pouting to know what will come after that. Dad will ask what’s wrong, and Mom will say, “It’s your daughter. She thinks it’s too much to ask her to wear what I want her to wear.” (Myth 3) Then Dad will be angry and agitated because he doesn’t know how to deal with his wife’s pouting.
Kelly doesn’t want to have to face all of this—or, worse, be blamed for it. So she stomps upstairs and puts on the orange outfit, which she doesn’t particularly like, and which, to her, seems completely wrong for a rock concert. In the process, she ends up following Myths 1 and 3 (as well as Myth 5, which we’ll get to shortly).
Kelly’s parents know she is angry. Yet they don’t care, so long as she changes her clothes.
Now that Kelly is in her orange outfit, Mom is happy and relaxed. As a result, Dad is happy and relaxed, too.
All the way to the concert, Kelly sits in the back seat of the car, pouting and fuming. No one in the front seat cares. And why would they? Their needs are being met.
Here is the message Kelly’s mother sends her, courtesy of her EN—a message that Kelly hears loudly and clearly: You need to dress to please me, not yourself. And if you don’t dress how I want you to, you’ll hurt and disappoint me. Kelly experiences this as rejection. This is a clothing-focused version of Myth 1.
Kelly learns not to stand up for herself as often as she would like to. She comes to believe that the normal results of taking a stand will be shame and rejection, so most of the time she just gives in. Eventually she may find herself struggling with depression.