How A Controlling Upbringing Can Affect Us In our Romantic Relationships

Understanding the prolonged effects of early trauma

No one gets out of childhood completely unscathed. Believing we can enter adulthood totally unaffected by our earliest experiences suggests little more than naiveté and toxic positivity. It also minimizes the “little t’s” and “Big T’s” that many of us have experienced throughout the course of our childhood. I’m not saying that “all” of us experience trauma. I’m also not going to minimize the effects of trauma on a child, their siblings, or how it may affect them later in life.

You’ve probably heard the analogy that two siblings raised in the same household can have completely different memories, experiences (and traumas) experienced in their childhood. If both siblings recall a shared memory, chances are one sibling will experience it differently from the other, whether or not traumatic memories are involved.

This points to trauma as a product of environment, and not necessarily heredity hitting the replay button. Yet, heredity can have its effect on us — anyone who has a family history of addiction or mental illness knows all too well that where we come from is just as important as how we’re raised.

Controlling Environments

Many kids are raised with parents who are controlling, hyper-vigilant, even paranoid. Some may over-catastrophize small things or have a habit of over-analyzing day-to-day happenings. Others may have razor-sharp focus in scanning an environment for potential dangers while up-playing worst-case-scenarios and downplaying facts and reality.

These are the caregivers who have unmet basic needs for security and predictability dating back to their own unpredictable childhoods. They may have grown up where inconsistent and chaos were served at the dinner table.

These are the parents who may believe in conspiracy theories and wind up instilling the same outlandish theories in their own children who may now grow up dismissing facts and science for what their parents taught them as “right”.

These are the caregivers who believe the world is out to get them, and that no one can be trusted. Their adage is, ….”You’re either with me or you’re against me.”

Many may rule with an iron fist, have fundamentalist beliefs and parent their children based on shame, propaganda and fear.

These are the parents who micromanage their children’s lives, how their kids dress, how they wear their hair, who they socialize with and when they’re expected to be home. They may interrogate their children’s’ friends who come over while embarrassing their kids in the process. Or, they may forbid dating, place unrealistic demands on their kids to call them with status updates, or may shame their child for wanting to advocate for themselves by flexing their autonomy.

Boundaries are constantly violated and dismissed with the excuse that they’re “looking out for their child’s best interests” as rationalization.

Underneath the over controlling exterior, is a fear of losing control.

Many parents and caregivers who are overly controlling and possessive also battle uncontrolled anxiety, uncontrolled (or undiagnosed) mental illness, and uncontrolled paranoia which play into their need to establish control in theirs and their kids’ lives. In addition to control issues, these parents are often emotionally shut down, rigid, authoritarian in their thoughts and behaviors, and dismissive and reactive towards their kids. Some may use shame, blame, and brutality as “go to” responses and patterns in re-establishing control.

Caregivers and parents who are overly controlling also overcompensate for their own deep-seeded feelings of inadequacy, fears, and shame that are projected onto their kids. In essence, this becomes the blueprint for how unresolved childhood trauma is carried and perpetuated as inter-generational trauma.

Their emotional outbursts and inability to self-regulate become the foundation for instilling fear and trauma in their children.

The Aftermath of Growing Up Being Controlled

Aside from the feelings of resentment and contempt we may feel, we often battle self-hatred for feeling angry and resentful. This in itself can become cyclic. We blame ourselves. We self-sabotage. We “chase” idealization as a way of momentarily tapping into our unmet basic needs to feel wanted, loved, seen and heard. We may exist; but we struggle to live.

On one end of the spectrum we can fear “living” if it was learned as foreign and banned as shameful. On the other end of the spectrum we may lack an ability to regulate our own emotions once we get a taste of freedom and autonomy. We may find ourselves in one toxic relationship after another, and may not understand why. We may fall hard and fast for narcissistic or controlling partners.

And, still not understand why.

Growing up feeling powerlessness is the foundation of trauma. If we were to peel back the layers of our parents’ or caregivers’ earliest experiences, chances are they experienced a sense of powerlessness which resulted in them being controlling in their adult lives and parenting style.

Equally common are the following:

Emotional Unavailability. Because of feeling powerless over our personal space, our life, our body, and our choices, we may emotionally shut down around others. We may push prospective partners away or battle feelings of engulfment and a need to “run” when feeling trapped in a relationship. It’s not uncommon to hear that people have a hard time getting to know a person who is emotionally unavailable, or that it feels like pulling teeth to get them to self-disclose or emotionally share themselves with others.

People Pleasing. Many who grew up feeling controlled and only receiving attention or validation based on what they do for others may learn their “worth” as tied into pleasing other people while dismissing and ignoring their own needs.

Because being controlled may feel “comfortable”, many are at an increased risk of being manipulated, used, or smeared by narcissistic or predatory types who use them for their own needs.

Distracted or “Scattered”. Growing up controlled means that our every move has been orchestrated ahead of time for us. We don’t have a say in what we want to do or how we want to do it. This can predispose a child to growing up feeling confused, scared, and unable to advocate for themselves.

Many may struggle making simple decisions for themselves — chicken or steak for dinner? They may “freeze” when confronted with more important decisions such as where to go to college, what to major in, and where they want to live. Equally concerning is when an inability to make decisions for themselves results in doing nothing when they should, or making arbitrary (and bad) choices for themselves regarding their intimate relationships.

Repetition Compulsion. Because of fears of abandonment or rejection may have been instilled for not complying with being controlled, many grow up fearing abandonment. As a result, they find themselves in relationships where they are covertly controlled, manipulated, or used, and ultimately..abandoned. If pain was served as “normal” in childhood, it will feel comfortable in their adult lives.

When unhealed, childhood conditioning shadows our adult relationship choices. Partners may be unconsciously chosen because they resemble an abandoning parent, or we may find ourselves cycling from one relationship to another trying to fill a Mother or Father Wound with our partner.

Lacking Self-Advocacy. Because of early trauma and a controlling environment, we may struggle understanding what we want in life, who we are, or how to tap in to our patterns and habits. We may live in survival mode, shame, and self-blame.

Many lack the ability to believe in themselves, their personal power, and their skills. Others have lived their lives in the shadows of their parents or caregivers’ demands based on what they “should” do with their life.

Some may fear walking away from what others want in exchange for what they need for themselves, while others may find themselves feeling stuck in relationships or situations where coercive control continues because it was learned as “comfortable” earlier in their life.

Healing the Ties That Bind (and Control)

A hard truth is that trauma occurs in relationships, yet we cannot heal in isolation.

In order to heal from any unhealthy adaptations learned as a result of attachment trauma, we have to establish a sense of safety for ourselves, which may include first defining what safety means to us as separate from what we learned as “safe” or “comfortable”. Learning where our boundaries need tightening is also important as we learn and master our Self-Discovery and self-advocacy.

This may involve walking away from relationships we thought we couldn’t live without. It may mean re-defining what healthy and emotionally available mean to us when it comes to our intimate relationships and our own sense of Self.

And, it often means being OK during the “cocoon phase” of trauma recovery, as choosing our Self over “attaching” to another is where we learn independence over co-dependence, and where we learn that healthy relationships are based on shared connection, not shared trauma.