Sanctuary for the Abused
Tuesday, November 19, 2019
Covert Incest
When Parents Make Their Children Partners
Covert incest occurs when a child plays the role of a surrogate husband or wife to a lonely, needy parent. The parent's need for companionship is met through the child. The child is bound to the parent by excessive feelings of responsibility for the welfare of the parent. As adults, these children struggle with commitment, intimacy and expressions of healthy sexuality.
There is no physical, sexual contact in this form of incest. Yet, inherent in the relationship is an archetype of feelings and dynamics more comparable to young love than a nurturing parent-child alliance. They become psychological or emotional lovers.
Many books and movies depict these children as heroes and saviors. Surrogate partnerships are romanticized by the culture and seen as a noble journey. Mom's little man, daddy's little girl, the golden boy and princess are a few of the names given to this role. However, there is a tremendous tragedy that befalls these children: the demand for loyalty to the lonely and needy parent overwhelms the child and becomes the major organizing experience in the development of the child's life.
It has also been labeled emotional or psychological incest, but these labels mislead by implying an absence of sexual damage. In fact, the developing sexuality is the major casualty of covert incest. Sexuality is the battlefield where the demand for loyalty to the parent and, the wishes of the developing self, clash.
Feelings of entrapment and guilt weave themselves into the developing sexuality. Erotic urges toward a love object other than the parent are experienced as disloyal. Forced to declare loyalty to the needy parent, the developing sexuality is shrouded in feelings of overstimulation, danger, engulfment, rage, ambivalence and shame. In order to survive and function, the child splits-off their sexuality from the developing self.
Many problems arise from the feeling of disloyalty caused by covert incest. Common consequences include:
* difficulty with attaching and separating in relationships
* avoiding relationships
* difficulty making commitments
* premature ending of relationships
* sexual addiction or compulsivity
* sexual dysfunction
* confusion regarding sexual orientation
* absence of sexual feelings or desires
* difficulty identifying personal needs
* being loyal in situations or relationships which are chronically difficult, neglectful or traumatic
* difficulty ending relationships.
Sexually addicted families and other dysfunctional families create a vacuum in functioning that leaves a child vulnerable to being in the role of a surrogate spouse to a lonely, needy parent. Covert incest is an important link in understanding the generational patterns of sexual addiction and incest occurring in families.
For more information on covert incest, refer to the book Silently Seduced: When Parents Make their Children Partners, Understanding Covert Incest, by Kenneth M. Adams, Ph.D., Health Commuications, Deerfield Beach, FL (1991).
ORIGINAL
Labels: abuse, adult children of narcissists, boundaries, children, covert incest, manipulation, narcissists, parents, partners, triangulation
Wednesday, September 05, 2018
If I Am Missing or Dead
I was sent a copy of this book to review. The first thing I have to say is that it provides plenty of what every abuse victim needs: VALIDATION.
Victims tend to be brainwashed by their abusers and live locked into the closed system of logic presented by these abusers. They also become brainwashed by abusive family dynamics.
Ms. Latus tells her story honestly and clearly. Her father had no boundaries when it came to his sexual appetites. His children unfortunately, were raised to believe that this was acceptable. Like many abused children - it takes many years (if ever) before they realize this and by then they are often victimized by one abusive personality after another. In this case sex became confused with healthy love. In short, the family dynamic produces a perfect victim.
Latus herself married a man more interested in her body and their sex life than in her as a person. He preyed on her low self esteem for many years before they divorced. He even coerced her into 2 disfiguring breast enhancement surgeries - not even waiting until she was healed from her surgeries to have sex with her.
Her sister - of the title - was killed by her last abuser - whom she met online. Her sister also suffered from low-self esteem, looking the other way for every red flag. She turned to food for comfort and like many abuse victims - made a wall of fat between her and everyone else. Highly thought of at work - she could not find her way out of the dysfunction before someone smelled a victim and eventually killed her.
Latus' book weaves between her own abuse issues and her relationship with her late sister and family. As I said - it provides the validation so many abuse victims need. This book proves that things are not always as they look on the outside - and victims are NOT ALONE!
- Barbara
CLICK THE IMAGE ON TOP TO PURCHASE
AMAZON.COM Summary:
At age 37, Janine Latus's younger sister, Amy, was strangled to death by her live-in boyfriend, bundled in a plastic tarp and buried beside a remote country road. It was a wretched end to a too-short life, one frequently marked by disappointment, sadness and struggle.
In the hands of a less gifted writer, Amy's story might stand only as an encomium or a cautionary tale: a glimpse into the life of one abused woman, representative of thousands like it. But Latus weaves a double strand. Part memoir, part biography, the book (which grew out of an article in O Magazine) explores Latus's own relationships with abusive men—and her eventual emancipation from a marriage riven by emotional and physical violence.
Latus has a spare, economical style, softened by an undercurrent of humor and marked by a total absence of self-pity. When on a ski vacation, a boyfriend brutally beats her, breaking several of her ribs and her nose—and then makes love to her, in a twisted form of penance—Latus doesn't wince in the retelling. She lets ambiguities and contradictions abide: she loved her husband, even as he humiliated and hurt her. Had things been slightly different, she seems to say, she—and not Amy—might have perished at the hands of her partner.
Unforgettable, unsentimental and profoundly affecting, Latus's book resonates long after the final page is turned.
SOURCE
Labels: abuse, beating, brainwashing, coercion, covert incest, escape, if i am missing or dead, janine latus, manipulation, murder, psychopath
Friday, December 29, 2017
Covert Incest
Relationship problems are endemic amongst covert incest survivors. They often fall for the wrong type of partner—someone who is a replica of their invasive parent. Thus, their emotional needs remain unfulfilled which leads to unhappy relationships.
Because of the conflicting emotions that result from growing up with an invasive parent, survivors usually find themselves both attracted and repulsed by members of the opposite sex (or same sex, depending on their sexual orientation and gender of the invasive parent).
In addition, since the atmosphere in which they were raised was sexually charged, it is common for survivors of covert incest to use sex as a means to intimacy. This can result in sexual addiction or other types of dysfunctional behaviors as an adult.
Covert incest can persist all the way into adulthood. As long as one remains in such a relationship, it is impossible to form healthy relationships with others. Unless the close bond with the invasive parent is altered, the parent will continue to interfere in the life of the child, causing problems to arise in relationships.
If the invasive parent refuses to change the nature of the relationship, there may be no other recourse than separation. This separation can be temporary or permanent. What is important is for the child to set firm boundaries which the parent cannot cross. Depending on the severity of the situation, it may even be necessary to permanently separate from the invasive parent.
SOURCE
Labels: covert incest, invasive, narcissistic parent, overbearing, replacement, separate
