We currently live in an environment where we are asked to separate from other human beings as much as possible. Our routines have been forcibly altered. This has a great impact on our mental and emotional health. Even those of us who like to stay in for a few days and shut out the rest of the world have noticed the negative impact on our well-being. I’m not a mental health professional and these are only my opinions but here’s what I’ve deduced…we all need to be seen, heard and we all want to feel unconditional love.
I wanted to write this post in a completely different manner then how I’m going to proceed, but then stuck to my principle question by asking myself how I can write my opinions in a more constructive or quizzical manner rather than one that casts nothing but judgement and shame. I know my posts aren’t free of those last two items and this one surely won’t be, but I did want to think about this topic much more universally.
When I think about unconditional love, it’s not typically associated with the love shared between two spouses, what we commonly refer to as romantic love. Sure it can exist there, but I’m thinking more about that unconditional love we have for a parent or a child. Maybe it’s what we feel for a lifelong friend. For some, it can even be a feeling they carry for humanity in general. It’s a type of love that we give. It’s not perfect but it’s there in some way all the time.
To focus more on this, I’d like to talk about the unconditional love a parent typically feels for a child. I don’t have children, so it might be easy to judge me because I’m writing about this. I don’t even study the parent-child relationship much outside of the context of my own family, but over the last few years, I’m more sensitive to the dialogue within tv shows between parents and children, I listen more intently to interactions when I’m out in public and I listen carefully to friends when they talk about their own parents and can often understand my friends’ behaviors more because of it. I have become more interested in this relationship and I do have parents of my own as well as parent-in-laws.
When I know that an adult has had an extremely traumatizing childhood, and I know that adult relatively well, I can clearly see the damage that has been done. I think children can live in any household and not have much in terms of material items, but if they feel an unconditional love from a parent who does their best to care for that child, then the child has the ability to be successful, well-balanced and happy.
I think when this loving and caring environment doesn’t exist, it has long-lasting, and too often unrecognized, negative effects on the adult. I’ve seen the way someone can lash out at others and deflect constantly. We think of them as crabby, negative, grumpy, and scary. I think they are just children deep inside who are hurting and craving that love they never received. I also believe they are unable to understand their own feelings. They never had a chance to feel safe about who they are and who they would grow up to be. I also think that with a lot of hard work, it’s entirely possible for them to grow into that person, but too often I don’t think they are able to get that help. It’s possible that I’m making too general of a statement based on my own personal life which is why I’m reiterating that I’m not a mental health professional, these are just my opinions.
So here’s the part where I’m going to openly judge.
I originally wanted to write this post completely about the current President of the United States, Donald Trump. I believe Donald Trump is completely incompetent. This is my opinion of him both as an elected official but I also believe this to be true about his business dealings. I believe he was given a lot of money and has spent his life bullying his way into more, not necessarily earning it. I also want to note that, according to the internet, his businesses filed for bankruptcy six times between 1991 and 2009. Six times! This is not a trait that is typically associated with someone who is successful in business.
However, it’s the current health crisis that has many of us non-supporters shaking our heads and praying that the overall structure of our government will mean that smarter and more competent leaders will be able to orchestrate a decent response to this pandemic. I’ve watched over and over again how Trump has stated that he’s in control of this, his briefing ratings are higher than other “reality show”, he’s not responsible for anything and he won’t help anyone who won’t say thank you (or let’s call a spade a spade – kiss his ass).
He is a clear narcissist.
I think it is deeper than that. I don’t think he’s a smart man in any way but I also think he’s a scared child. According to the internet, he was sent to a military boarding school at the age of 13. This is a difficult time for children, we know this now, but may have not understood it in the middle of the 20th century. I’m going to guess that Donald Trump is a very sensitive person (and I mean that in a very respectful and kind way) and was probably a very sensitive child. He was a boy in the 50s, sensitive boys were not respected, liked or understood in the 50s. I’m wondering if he loved to get hugs from his mom and wanted to play with puppies instead of wrestle or play baseball? I have no idea, I’m just wondering. I wonder if the stereotypical organization of a military school meant that a sensitive young boy in the middle of development was bullied and teased to the point of extreme emotional trauma? I wonder if his parents sending him away to live in that environment left him feeling abandoned and alone? I wonder if he never felt that unconditional love as a child that we all need?
It’s clear to me that he’s constantly asking for praise in the way that a child would bring home a picture from school to show to their parent, expecting to hear that parent give praise for whatever stick figure was on the page. He looks up to dictators with hopes that they will allow him into the club, much the same way a child who is constantly bullied wants to win the affections of their tormentors so he will feel cared for instead of attacked. His well-documented assaults on women, physically and verbally, say to me that there is a grown man who is looking for the adulation of all females as a substitute for true, unconditional love from just one. Did Donald Trump have that unconditional love from his mother that a child needs? Was he seen by his father as a joy or only an obligation?
To me, Donald Trump behaves like a child because he is still one. Not in an immature manner like we might associate with many 22 year-olds, but in the emotionally traumatized way that is a result of a child never feeling emotional safety and security. He will continue to lash out at those who challenge him, (as they should toward anyone in the office he currently holds), because he only wants to be loved. I think (again, I’m not a mental health professional) he has some extreme abandonment issues. He will never be able to be any type of leader while his one and only emotional need is to feel unconditional love. He will never know any type of love if he is never able to understand that the deep, deep need cannot be fulfilled by external shows of gratitude and praise from others.
As I write this, I’m thinking to those adults in my own life whose childhoods were damaged in some way. Some more severely than others. I have been questioning for a long time why those same people have supported Donald Trump unconditionally. When I think about one particular, abused woman who supports him unquestioningly, it causes me extreme stress. I’ve been asking myself, “How can that woman support this man when he has the same behaviors that her childhood abuser had?” I think I can say two things. The first being that he does have those character traits and although wrong, there might be a familiarity in them that she is unable to see or cut ties with. She is very damaged by her childhood and is unable to understand that. The second is that perhaps she’s unknowingly drawn to the potential trauma that may be buried within him. Perhaps she sees a fellow child in adult form who is feeling the same type of pain? I don’t know if either are correct, but thinking that this could be the root of her support does help lower my stress over this question. I should clarify at this time that the support she shows is extreme.
I hope that the one good thing that comes out of all this stress, illness, fear, death and isolation is that we are forced to stop and think. We need to evaluate ourselves, our society, our world and especially our leaders. I hope that when elections happen in November, we will remember who stepped up and who did not. I hope that we can find a way to identify those people who are traumatized and should not be in office because of it. I know this is wishful thinking but to quote the last line of The Shawshank Redemption “I hope.”
