One of the most difficult cases I've ever taken on as a mediator was one where I not only had a technical conflict - because I knew one of the parties personally - but I had a visceral response to the plight of one of the other parties. My conflict was waived by the parties because they didn't trust anyone else in the area to help them. They were so overcome by social shame that the fact that one of the individuals counted me as an acquaintance was not even an issue. This, however, did not alleviate my distress on the behalf of one of the three clients, the adult child of the other two, her parents. The adult child who, as an adult, was having a revelation: she had been abused as a child. Moreover, she felt she was still being abused by them. As the mediation progressed into two and three sessions, I came to the conclusion that she was absolutely correct. To my amazement, my presence among them did not deter the ongoing abuse. The parents were so oblivious to the nature and effects of their treatment of their daughter that the abuse occurred repeatedly right in front of me.
The family - or, this portion of it; there were other offspring - had actually come to me for help overcoming an impasse regarding the disposition of a deceased relative's remains. This issue had several legal and emotional technicalities that I won't discuss; they are immaterial here. In fact, the shame they were enduring because of related events was of little consequence compared to the reality that unraveled across the mediation table from me. Over the course of four separate meetings I watched two otherwise intelligent, socially adept, presumably non-ignorant people insult, denigrate, belittle, and dismiss their daughter, who, at the time, was thirty-seven. She was a tall, strong, accomplished woman, but in the presence of her parents she repeatedly became small and quiet over the course of each hour. Although voices were never raised, profanity never used, and hands never made into fists, the pain inflicted was just as severe as if they had been. What was most alarming and unbelievable was how, when, as the presumed neutral party, I brought the discussion around to what I was seeing, the parents seemed confused and befuddled. I came to understand that in their view - which seemed to be born of some agreement between the two of them that this behavior was acceptable - words could not be abuse. They were entitled to their opinions and to voicing them. And if their opinion was that their daughter was a disappointment, or her attitude or behavior inadequate, there was no reason not to say so. They viewed it as their job to tell her each time she failed them, which she seemed to do, no matter what she did, every five minutes.
She was out of line if she had an opinion that they did not share. It was okay if Mom and Dad didn't agree on everything - they would work it out - but it was a violation if she disagreed with either of them. It was an impossible standard to meet. So inevitably she was "making things up" or "being difficult" (which she wasn't; she was as respectful and patient as can be) when she made a point not made by one of her parents. In their view, it appeared, she was not entitled to a differing idea from theirs.
The aspect of their treatment of her that I found most peculiar was their repeated attempts to dismiss her ideas and thoughts completely, as if anything she might have to say was simply irrelevant and unworthy of consideration. If she said something that they didn't like, they would deny its importance right down to the ground. If she recalled something they might have to answer for, the reply was "don't invent things" or "that never happened" or "I never said that." This is called gaslighting - to tell someone over and over that what they see and remember are not real. Instead of saying,"hmm, I don't remember it that way" or even just "are you sure?" - which invites an explanation, they just dismissed her assertions out of hand. It was incredibly distressing to watch the repeated attacks on her intelligence and honesty, as if she was either stupid or making things up. I imagined how hard it would be as an adult to maintain her sense of solidity, of sanity, of worth, if this had been done to her her entire life. How she grew up not just assuming that she was always wrong and they were always right was a miracle to me. But, although she wasn't as assertive or critical of their tactics as I would have liked, she never relented. She let their preposterous insisting stand without much argument, but she never stopped recalling things or mentioning past discussions, which, after all, were relevant to the mediation issue. I took note of this refusal to completely fold in the face of their assaults. I concluded she was made of sterner stuff than I had first thought. She was letting them try to convince her of her wrongness, but she never fell for it.
She called them out periodically by saying "that hurts my feelings" or "that was hurtful." She was infallibly met with "you're too sensitive." When she protested that perhaps they were being insensitive (something I found myself agreeing with), they were deeply offended and defiant, telling her that this was clear evidence of her self-centeredness. Evidently they really did think that she was entitled to no thoughts they didn't share, and if she had them anyway, she was self-centered. How dare she have her own thoughts! Even worse, standing up for herself was the direst of sins; it was confirmation of their repeated point that she thought too highly of herself. One of the lines often used was "your (sibling) would never be so (fill in the blank)." The siblings were routinely held up as the standard to which she was held and failed to meet. The repeated unfavorable comparison of one human being to another is textbook abuse. A person cannot be another person. If I am a failure because I am not my sister, I am destined to fail because I can never be my sister. If you will only love and approve of me because I am my sister, then you will never love or approve of me. To tell me that I have failed as a person repeatedly, because I cannot be who you would prefer me to be, is 100% abuse. If you've done that to me as I am forming my identity, you are ensuring that I will always feel unloved and unwanted. This is cruel, and it is abuse.
We threaded our way through the presented issue by way of negotiating a discussion that was rarely civil and never cordial. I admit I was repeatedly shocked and disgusted, not to mention dismayed, by the way these parents repeatedly ganged up on their daughter. Their own child. A human being they had brought into the world without her leave, and who, presumably, had been the subject of this treatment her entire life. By now it was such a habit - of thought, feeling, and behavior - of the parents that they gave it not a thought. The daughter's reactions were also a habit - she protested occasionally and weakly, taking a stance of protectiveness both physically and in tone and word the majority of the time. She never lost her temper, something I began to wish that she would do. Instead of sequentially accepting their treatment of her, I began to dearly wish she would finally stand up and tell them off. But so long-standing was her habit of taking it, and, I imagine, of hoping against hope that they would finally someday see her value, that she never lost it. She never returned their ugliness. She was clearly the better person. Instead of bitterness and resentment, she had the strength of character to not be cruel right back to them. In response, in an astonishing show of despicable character, when she failed to give them the hateful retort they seemed to be attempting to evoke, they would up the ante. Their cruelty would increase. The outrageous nature of their words and tone would increase. It was quite a spectacle to watch. Each time they appeared in my office I found myself emotionally drained and exhausted by the time they left. Their actual mediation issue was not the problem. We dispensed with that in a relatively typical, practical way. The problem was the fact that I could not escape the idea, indeed eventually the conviction, that these parents were truly bad people. The very person of whom they should have been the most protective, a lovely human being they should rightly have loved and treasured and nurtured, they instead resented and bullied and attempted to knock down. As bullies do, they needed to make their own daughter small in order to feel strong and relevant and big. The reasons for this were unknown to me; I did not know them well enough to guess. But it really doesn't matter why parents abuse their children. What matters is that they do. There is never a reason good enough to make cruelty toward one's child okay. I ruminated on this each time I saw them to the extent that I began searching for a therapist to whom I could refer the daughter.
As we were approaching the end of our concluding session, a remarkable thing happened. Upon later reflection, I hoped that it was a signal of impending enlightenment and, I further hoped, freedom. The parents - first the wife, then, following suit in solidarity, the husband - stood up to imply that our time was up. The daughter stayed seated. She looked at me and did not look once at her parents. For a brief moment, she shut them out, acting as if they were no longer there. I remained in my seat as well, unsure of what was happening.
I am paraphrasing here, because my memory is not perfectly exact, but here is what she said:
"Ms. Robbins," she said, "I would like to apologize for the appalling behavior of my parents these last few days."
The parents were suddenly standing stock-still in shocked silence. I could only nod.
"They have always treated me this way. As a child, I thought it was my fault. If your parents don't love you, you must be pretty bad, you know?"
The husband 's face had turned red and he began to protest angrily. Unprofessionally or not, I held up a hand to silence him. He was so surprised, he obeyed.
"The good thing is," she continued,"I'm not like them. My children know every day when they wake up that there is someone who loves them more than anything in the world, and that that person is me. They know I would never hurt them and that I would never want to. They have never had a doubt that the thing I want most is for them to be happy. And so they are."
I was stunned enough that all I could do was nod again and murmur some affirmation or other.
She smiled. I will never forget that beautiful, authentic, ironic smile.
"Please forgive them," she said. "They are very sad people. They are very sad that in spite of their attempts to make me sad, I am not. They keep trying. But I am not. I wish I had parents who love me, but I don't. The best I can do is love them anyway."
And she stood up, walked past them, and left.
I don't remember the moments after that. I have rarely been so stunned at the end of a mediation. I know I got paid somehow so someone had the presence of mind to perform mundane tasks. I do recall that there was no more discussion of the matter, and eventually the parents had left my office. Later that night, I actually shed a tear.
The significance of this episode to me was that, as a mediator, I was tested on my ability to conduct an effective mediation when the most pressing issue was not the one being mediated but the side issue that made conducting it so fraught. It was also the sudden confrontation of a truth I had never spent a lot of time considering in such an extreme sense. Abuse, physical or not, is a family dynamic that does not necessarily end due to age or maturity or even realization of its reality. It is a habit, a cause, and a consequence. It is the subjugation of one inherently valuable and love-worthy human being to the fears, insecurities, and inhibitions of another. It is the ultimate cruelty in bullying. Abuse is the attempt to control another person by destroying them. When the victim is a child and the perpetrator a parent, the cruelty is unimaginable to those of us who know what love is.
The other truth that confirmed itself is that, contrary to the sticks-and-stones rhyme, words absolutely can hurt as much as fists.
The daughter in this scenario was an uncommonly strong, graceful person who did not debase herself by returning the abuse of her parents. In a way, she did them no favors by pulling punches. On the other hand, she remained triumphant by remaining good. I have no idea what happened once they all left my office. I only can hope that she went on to deprive them, in their remaining days, of her shining light, leaving them in their self-imposed darkness.
