Poem of the invisible

This will be a very general presentation, addressing the broadest phenomenon in psycho­dynamic therapy: the unhealed injuries of the past immanent in the present. Our focus is one species of this. For the sake of clarity by comparison, some of the obvious logics would be childhood physical abuse leading to later rage acting-out and depression; maternal immaturity and paternal incest pointing the way to Borderline Personality, failure to launch, codependency, etc. Here we’ll take a look at the oft-seen parental neglect and the unpreferred, minimized child.

This can seem subtle, during the growing years. A parent is jazzed by the real or imagined qualities of one child. The younger sister is ill or impaired, has periodic surgeries, gets the most poignant attention. The son looks like his father, the hated ex-husband or boyfriend, and is criticized by the mother while the siblings are acceptable. There are several children and one is quieter and makes no waves. What happens to the child who is now invisible, bypassed, stigmatized? Everything. Every molecule adapts to low-level starvation. Every brain cell adapts to unfairness. The real self stops fighting for prominence. Time passing becomes her enemy, solidifying and progressively encasing stifled pain.

We fast-forward to her twenties or thirties. You hardly see anything wrong because she’s got her own life, has certainly not written off her family, participates in its activities. But things are worse, actually. She still feels, sotto voce, invisible, because she is: Parents are talking to the grown persona of accommodation. Brothers and sisters don’t notice what’s unpleasant to see: their old inferiorized sibling. She is moody, and anger sometimes erupts, cause unknown. Old stale family voodoo, hypnosis, dynamics are still there, with a coat of contemporary paint. One senses the only way for her to move on is to clap loud enough to break everyone’s ear drums, say something terribly cold and terminator-like, and leave that home and those people and that life.

This is not what happens, because we are needy. So there will be moods, a sense of insubstan­tial­ity, decayed nostalgic feelings in the here-and-now. The words do exist that she could say to these people, words that rewind all that time and take everyone back to her nature, the child, that was not seen or respected.

Feel the words that are waiting.