Ways Parents Affect Our Mental Health

The family environment is sometimes that poisoned substrate capable of generating more than suffering. Parents often affect our mental health:  there are dynamics in which our parents plunge us from a very early age into situations of stress, anguish, humiliation or defenselessness. They are very harsh realities that accompany us in adulthood.

Oscar Wilde said in one of his works that hardly anyone is aware of what happens inside a home. Often times, a house with its windows and closed doors is the ideal setting for the most terrifying story to unfold. The one where mothers, fathers or any other family member shapes an invisible drama, the one that often goes unnoticed by the rest of society.

Likewise, there is a fact that should not go unnoticed. The impact of poor parenting and the consequent psychological damage can be passed from one generation to the next, as defined in a study by Dr. Anne-Marie Conn of the University of Rochester Medical Center.

That is, those traumas generated by lack of attachment, abuse, physical or psychological violence or any other condition that affects the optimal psycho-emotional development of the child, does not stop there. It transcends, impacts on mental health, alters even our brain development and can even lead to psychological disorders, those that can in turn affect the upbringing of their own children.

When parents affect our mental health

Parents affect our mental health.  Thus, a safe family environment, rich in emotional nutrients and favoring identities and self-esteem will give us the opportunity to reach adulthood with exceptional psychological abilities. On the contrary, deficient parenting styles increase the probability that our psychological tissue will be seriously affected.

What’s more, we know that today the main cause of the emotional and behavioral problems of the little ones continues to be the family environment and the dynamics that are registered there. In fact, very recently a study was published in the  Journal of Family Psychology and carried out by the University of Texas where it was said that a simple spanking on the butt can have very negative consequences.

Any gesture, word and behavior where aggressiveness is implicit or explicit leaves a mark, alters the child’s behavior and worst of all: this action is imprinted on the child’s brain. Thus, when children grow up in these environments or under the shadow of certain educational strategies that parents assume as appropriate, but are not (spanking, aggressive communication styles, authoritarian education …), they usually present certain characteristics:

• Low self-esteem.
• Assuming that your own needs are not important.
• Understand that expressing emotions is something negative and not correct.
• Accept that these dynamics (aggressiveness, mistreatment, lack of respect…) is something common and even permissible.

On the other hand, the fact of growing up in these contexts makes each experience crystallize in oneself in a certain way. There will undoubtedly be those who can overcome the weight of that dark shadow in their lives. However, a good part of the people are more vulnerable and will see their mental health seriously affected. Let’s see how.

Ways Parents Affect Our Mental Health

One of the most common ways that people end up manifesting the impact of a traumatic childhood, as well as a dysfunctional family, is through chronic stress.

Permanent stress states

When a child lives in an unstable environment, where he does not feel the attachment of a reference figure, where he feels insecure and unloved, he experiences stress. This type of stress is acute at first, but as it lengthens in time it acquires a more incisive, latent and permanent state.

Thus, chronic stress even ends up altering brain functionality, affects attention, memory, often translates into hyperactivity, poor emotional management …

Codependent relationships

Experiencing this lack of affection early makes many of these people crave strong emotional relationships, those where they feel validated and secure. However, the constant fear of losing that bond plunges them into obsessive states, in that fear that leads them to fall into codependent bonds.

Permanent anguish and helplessness

Growing up without the security of a loving family, of an enriching environment where to develop a strong identity, encourages us to grow up with serious psychological deficiencies. Self-esteem fails and, above all, hope fails. Thus, it is more than common to experience chronic pessimism, and that anguish that signals an absence.

Likewise, learned helplessness is a fairly common psychological reality. That where the person assumes that whatever he does will not change anything. He or she assumes that they lack control over their own life.

Psychological mechanisms to “hide” a traumatic past

The mind is skillful. The brain often cannot bear the weight of the trauma and makes use of certain psychological mechanisms with which it can cope on a day-to-day basis without this shadow overly clouding reality. However, what it does is focus on those pathological pictures that define psychological disorders.

The most common are dissociative disorders: it is a type of an alteration where identity, memory and perception of the environment are affected. It is an effect of post-traumatic stress that is quite common and that has as its origin what has already been indicated, the weight of a trauma.

To conclude, as we see parents affect our mental health in many different ways. Getting out of these black holes takes more than time. It implies courage, it implies drawing strength and allowing ourselves that professional and specialized help that supports us in regaining control and creating a healthier, more dignified and satisfying reality.