Maybe the Apple Didn't Fall Far Enough: Over-Identifying With a Parent

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There’s a lot of discussion these days about inherited trauma—attitudes or fears triggered by knowing what your family member or ethnic group endured. What’s often ignored is over-identifying with a parent’s trauma and reacting out of fear or anger when your own situation doesn’t warrant it.

My mother grew up in Los Angeles but married a Canadian man and moved with him to Winnipeg, a place bitterly cold in winter and mosquito-infested in summer. I witnessed her chronic homesickness and promised myself I wouldn’t let that happen to me. As a young adult, I moved to LA, loved everything about it, and never planned to leave. Then four years after I married, my husband asked me to move to a small town in Oregon because he hated dealing with the traffic, earthquakes, fires and mudslides in LA.

We loved each other, but I fought with him about it. Eventually I agreed to move, but I focused on all that was lost by leaving LA, not on the many things I’d gained by moving to this lovely town. I didn’t realize until much later that the long shadow of my mother’s sadness had defined my reaction to my new home, robbing me of much of the joy and presence I might have found there and obscuring the fact that I had freely chosen it because I loved being with my husband.

The problem of being over-identified with a parent is that the circumstances of your own life don’t match those of your parent, yet you react as if that was the case. I had a client whose father grew up desperately poor. No matter how much money he earned later, the father continued to be excessively frugal. Although his son, my client, became a successful trial attorney and saved almost every cent he made, he couldn’t see how unnecessary his excessive frugality was, or the way it damaged his relationships with his family and friends. He was too driven by the fear of not having enough, although the reality was that he had more than he’d ever need.

How can you discover hidden sources of your motivations?

Look to your parents’ stories, often repeated during your childhood, and notice the connection to your own reactions now. Here are some examples:

• Your mother nearly died in a boating accident, so you fear being in boats, even though you wear safety gear and you’ve never been in danger on the water.
• Your father told you how volatile his own father was, so he was afraid of his own anger, and as a result, you fear your own anger, even when it’s inappropriate.
• Your parents thought the cure for loneliness was having four children. Now you’re afraid that if you have only one child, that one will feel lonely and isolated.

Ask yourself these questions to figure out whether over-identification with a parent has been fueling your reactions without you realizing it:

1. What life lessons from your family trigger the most anxiety or anger in you?
2. What are your attitudes about money and how do they relate to your upbringing?
3. How did your parents resolve conflict, and what was your takeaway from that?
4. Do you have good reason to use the same coping methods your parents used?
5. What is it costing you to continue to act out the fears and biases of your parents?

Thinking about these questions can lead to surprising discoveries. You may realize you’re protecting yourself unnecessarily in some ways that rob you of joy, adventure or financial security. You may see that there are other ways of dealing with conflict that would be more fruitful for you, less stressful and more empowering.

You may be able to let go of fears that are not relevant to your current life, and you’ve been dragging around those stories of your parents for decades. Your parents have given you a legacy of fears, triumphs, loves and failures and they were just making it up as they went along, doing their best with the lot they had been given. Your lot is different, and their solutions are not necessarily your best solutions.

The bottom line is: You are not your parents. Challenge your fears when you realize you have inherited them. Question the source of your sensitivities and anger. Educate yourself on new strategies for handling life’s major demands. Don’t continue to pay the price for someone else’s conclusions when they’re no longer right for you.

Embrace the truth of your own situation now.