FREQUENTLY, PEOPLE who find their adult problems unmanageable were raised in families where being hypocritical was not an exception but a family rule. What they had been taught to believe in was totally contradicted by what was really going on. When illusion falls away to reveal lies that the family lives, the children feel unsafe and untrusting for a long, long time.
Needing to protect themselves, children come to depend on self-restricting, fantasy-bound, risk-avoiding attitudes and behaviors. Their original innocence is transformed into what Rollo May calls “pseudoinnocence.” This denies feelings of hopelessness, makes the pain of disappointment more bearable, and brings a false sense of order to a chaotic life.
There may have been little else that we, as children, could have done at the time, but out of a life like this, we may gradually develop neurotic ways that continue into adulthood. One of the most restricting fantasies we’re stuck with is thinking that if only we can be really good, surely someone will take care of us.
None of us is who we were taught we are supposed to be.