Guest Post Breaking Free of Being the Perfect Child

Today's guest post is by Paul Taylor. This is the fourth post in which a writer recounts his or her own experience in a family with a problematic history, as well as its aftermath. Itillustrates a couple of themes of my blog very well: a family role that must be played by a member – or else - and the existential horror and despondency people feel when they try to break away from it. His criticism of cognitive psychotherapy for this sort of problem is also right on.

It is hard being the perfect child. According to my family, I was born perfect. I was quiet and obedient and always willing to help out. From the time I was very small my family relied on me to be the good, responsible child. Although I was not too much older than my siblings and cousins I was relied on to make sure they were safe, happy, and cooperative too.

As I got older and some of the extended family moved away my responsibilities changed. I was now supposed to go to school and do all my work without complaint or question, answering any inquires about what I was learning with an in depth explanation. Then I was supposed to help my younger brother complete his school work while also teaching him what he missed in class due to his ADD. After that came helping with chores like ironing, laundry, dishes, yard work, vacuuming etc. That I was also supposed to do without complaint for as long as it took. 

Every member of the family had set chores and I was expected to not only do mine, as quickly and quietly as possible, but also “help out” with everyone else’s. That meant doing the dirtiest, hardest or most complex jobs while they watched and shook their heads –feeling helplessly confused all the while.

If I finished everything I was then expected to have “family time” which consisted of sitting around the television, watching something my brother and I were not interested in. I was supposed to keep him quietly entertained so we could “be a family.” If, by chance, there was time left over before bed I snuck in reading a chapter or two of my books, which were my only escape from reality.

When I got into my teen years and nothing changed, I began to become uncomfortable with the arrangement. 

I had not made many friends outside of school before then, of course, due to my packed schedule. When I attempted to make plans with friends and let my family know ahead of time, some emergency inevitably came up: a last minute project, a chore that had to be done RIGHT NOW, or just a guilt trip of “not being with your family.”After a few attempts I decided it was not worth the effort and went back to my routine.

Finally when I reached my twenties I realized that my life style was not normal. I started to try to pull away. I knew that I wanted to become my own person and not just the person they told me I was. I wanted to make choices based on my own needs and desires instead of doing what would make them happy or what would not get me in trouble with my family. It was very hard for me to break out of the thinking patterns that had formed from my many years as the perfect child. 

I constantly had to remind myself that I was not responsible for anyone else’s happiness or emotional welfare. I could not change anyone no matter how much I did for them or how much I loved them. In fact I was only allowing them to continue to suffer because they never had to grow as long as I picked up their slack.

At first I planned to move out. I started to squirrel away money for an apartment and shopped around near my work during lunch to see what I could afford. Then a few weeks before I decided I would make my move, a family member had to have emergency surgery.

Well, of course I couldn’t leave then. There was an actual sick person to take care of; the house had one less person to help with clean up, and the person that did not work and stayed home needed a break in the evenings. It was only reasonable.

Six months went by and I decided that I would take a smaller step towards being independent. I planned on going on a trip by myself for two weeks. I would use the money I had saved to pay for the gas, and I had a tent so I could just go on a road trip and camp along the way. I got permission from my work and was all ready to go. I decided to give my family two weeks’ notice so that they could adjust to the idea.

Bad idea.

As I started to pull away, my family teamed up against me. From telling me I was wrong in my thinking to guilt trips to outright anger and abuse, they piled on the difficulties and tried to make me conform to their way of thinking; the way that was easiest for them. I fought back for a while but eventually got worn out, and found myself being sucked back in.

I postponed my trip indefinitely.

However, this time I was aware of what was going on around me. I felt like I was living in another world. I watched in horror as I went through the same day-to-day routine of being the perfect child and cleaning up the messes they left behind. I felt disconnected from reality and just went through my days with a kind of hopeless, formless, pointless movement. Somehow I thought that as long as my body was moving I was still all right and functioning.

What I did not realize is that I had become seriously depressed. I had been depressed in the past but had repressed the dark times in my life to the point where I did not even remember them happening. I tried to function on auto-pilot without my own conscious approval. However, this time around the auto pilot would not engage. I had become too self-aware to let my brain slip into a waking coma.

It got to the point where I would be driving and would consider just letting go of the wheel and seeing what happened. After all, it did not matter one way or the other. What was the point of living like this?

After having several similar thoughts, I sought professional help. Although it did help to have my irrational thinking pointed out to me, it did not help in the sense of giving me something concrete to do.

“Move out,” they said, “Get away.”

Well, that is all well and good for someone to say, but the practicality of it was beyond me. I had been beaten down by the combined forces of my family. From bills to pay to broken down cars to guilt trips and attacks of hysteria I had so much to deal with that even planning a way out was beyond me.

I checked out. I really did. I went to work every day and somehow managed to crank out my job with no brain power. I got home and took care of the chores and bills and things that needed to be done. I chatted pleasantly about the weather, feigned listening attentively to problems, and worked steadily until it was time to fall into bed and start the whole day over again.

Weekends and weekdays were indistinguishable except for the physical activity required. It was much more restful at work, sitting at a desk, then at home running errands, cleaning up messes, and trying to pretend everything was fine.

Hopeless does not even begin to describe it.

I tried to express to my family why I was so angry, or stressed, or just listless. Their solution:

“Just stop thinking so much. Everything will work out.”

Eventually I got fed up with the whole thing. Working with friends I came up with a way to get out of the house. One day I just moved, taking only a couple of bags of clothes and tossing them in the trunk of my car I left.

After the meltdown, things changed. I was still the ‘perfect child’ in some ways but I learned the benefits of boundaries and getting away from people. The physical distance helped me to create a personal space where I could feel safe and grow. It was still very hard for a long time but it has gradually gotten better. My family still attempts guilt trips and manipulation but now that I have time to see things as they really are I can resist them and deal with them in a healthier way.

Author Bio:

Paul Taylor started www.babysittingjobs.com which offers an aggregated look at those sites to help families find sitters and to help sitters find families easier than ever. He loves writing, with the help of his wife. He has contributed quality articles for different blogs & websites.

Breaking Depressions Fear Cycle

In my previous article I discussed how depression causes what Doctor Weekes calls a ‘fear-adrenalin-fear cycle,’ where the fear, flight or fight reaction to depression causes more adrenalin to flow. This adrenalin is what causes depression’s symptoms. In addition, the more we fear, flee or fight, the worse we become, as the additional adrenalin produced prolongs symptoms and produces new, even more alarming ones.

I mentioned how the first step in stopping the cycle is to recognize that it is this cycle that causes the disturbing physical, mental, emotional and spiritual sensations.

In this article, I outline a system that can begin to slow and eventually stop the flow of fear related adrenalin. Although the system is simple and presented quite clearly in God’s word, it is so ‘unnatural’ that it does not occur to us if lost in a state of anxiety. (The natural reaction to depression is to fear, flee or fight the symptoms.)

Prior to putting into practice the technique that stops the cycle, Dr Weekes explains the importance of facing and examining the symptoms that are troubling us. She writes, 'I have no doubt that you are tensely shrinking from the feelings within you and yet, are ready to “listen in” in apprehension?...Now examine and do not shrink from the sensations that have been upsetting you. I want you to examine each carefully, to analyse and describe it to yourself...Do not tensely flinch from it. Go with it. Relax and analyse it…Now that you have faced and examined it, is it so terrible?' (1) That is, although the symptoms feel unbearable, we can put up with them.

How to Break the Fear, Flight, and Fight Cycle:
1. Accept each of depression’s symptoms as being part of our life, instead of fearing, fighting or fleeing them
2. Learn to live with the symptoms as part of our life, as if they were background music
3. Let time pass while trusting that God is in control (2)

Our first reaction to these steps could be, “But I don’t WANT to learn to live with these disturbing sensations - I want them to go away!”

And there lies the irony of it all. It is only when we accept those sensations, learn to live with them, and let time pass, that the flow of adrenalin begins to diminish. And as the flow of adrenalin diminishes, the symptoms lose their intensity, shorten in duration, and slowly begin to disappear. Accepting them instead of fearing or fighting them is the way to make them go away.

The Bible has many scriptures that illustrate this technique.

Verses for Acceptance:
Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. James 1:2-3

Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18


Verse for Learning to Live with the Symptoms:
Philippians 4:12-13 ‘I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.’


Verses for Letting Time Pass while Trusting that God is in Control:
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.” John 14:1

Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him. James 1:12

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear…Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” Matthew 6:25,27

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. Proverbs 3:5.

Speaking for myself, I knew the Bible verses that told me not to fear, that I should be content, and that I should rejoice in the midst of my sufferings, yet trying to put them into practice through sheer will power alone did not work. However, once I understood that by putting those verses into practice I would break the fear-adrenalin-fear cycle, those verses suddenly came alive to me.


Letting Time Pass

Less me stress that breaking the flow of adrenalin does not happen overnight. However, my life is a testimony to the fact that it does happen. Dr Claire Weekes says, “Accept it [the symptom] as something that will be with you for some time yet – in fact while you recover – but something that will eventually leave you if you are prepared to let time pass and not anxiously watch the churning during its passing. But do not make the mistake of thinking that it will go as soon as you cease to fear it. Your nervous system is still tired and will take time to heal, just as a broken leg takes time.” (3)

It is important that we keep ourselves busy as we let time pass while waiting to heal. We should go out of our way to find constructive activities that interest us and get lost in them. Physical exercise, such as swimming, aerobics, circuit, walking or jogging, can also be of great help.

Within a month of my reading “Self Help for Your Nerves,” a significant number of my symptoms, especially the physical ones, had diminished or ceased altogether. Over the next six months, I joined a new church, became a musician in a home group, started teaching Sunday School, and engaged in normal social activities again. Some of the symptoms took longer to fade away, but by reacting to them in the correct way, they no longer had the same power or intensity – I no longer feared them. Some symptoms, especially those that required I retrain my thought processes, lasted longer, but in time, they too faded away.

While in the midst of depression, we think we have no future and no hope. But in Christ, we always have hope and a future. 1 Corinthians 2:9 "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him."

Hope enters our lives again when we know that it is only a matter of time (whether weeks or months, or in the case of some symptoms, years) for our nervous system to recover from this cycle. When I read “Self Help for your Nerves,” hope flooded through me, as you can see from this diary entry:

28th July 1990 -
This book has taught me how to react so that the merry go round will be stopped. And it’s teaching me how to react whenever it strikes again in the future.


The Importance of Surrender

To recover from depression we need to surrender every aspect of our life, including our desires and will, to Jesus. Romans 8:28 assures us that God is trustworthy. ‘And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.’

At the end of World War Two, the Allies demanded that Germany surrender to them unconditionally. That meant the Allies set all of the terms of the surrender and that Germany could not make any demands of its own. We sing, “All to Jesus, I surrender,” but do we really surrender everything? (I am pointing a finger at myself here too!) For when suffering comes along, instead of surrendering all of our will to Him, we typically react by fearing, fleeing or fighting - because we do not want to be where we are. Yet, by reacting like this, we make the suffering worse as this causes more adrenalin to flow.

When we accept what we are going instead of fearing, fleeing or fighting it, when we learn to live with it, and let time pass, we can find rest again. "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28.


(1) ‘Self Help for Your Nerves,’ Doctor Claire Weekes, Angus & Robertston Publishers, 1989, p21.
(2) ‘Self Help for Your Nerves,’ Doctor Claire Weekes, Angus & Robertston Publishers, 1989, p19. Note, Dr Weekes includes 'floating' as a step in the treatment technique, whereas I wrote 'learn to live with it.' In my case I found the 'floating' concept hard to grasp, but easily related to that step (or my interpretation of it) when I thought of it as 'learning to live with it.'
(3) ‘Self Help for Your Nerves,’ Doctor Claire Weekes, Angus & Robertston Publishers, 1989, p22.

All verses from NIV.