How many of you know the real reason why your parents had you in the first place? You’ve never asked?

Let's pretend you've got a mother who loved to play with dolls when she was younger. Now, look at a four-year-old child with a doll. They feel a sense of self-esteem in the pretend game they're playing. It feels good to them to imagine that this doll needs them for something, and that they can meet those needs.

The problem here, though, is that the four-year-old can put the doll in the corner and just leave it there while they do other things they want to do. The doll's not crying, and it isn't suffering in any way. It's almost like the only thing that gives that doll animation is when it's being interacted with.

You can see where the problem would come in if this is the type of relationship that a parent would expect from a child.

If you've ever seen a four-year-old with a doll, you notice they love to dress to match it. The doll basically becomes their mini-me. So many parents are having children with this exact expectation: that the child is going to be a mini-me, that the child is not going to have needs when it's inconvenient for the parent to have those needs, and that the child can't actually have a sense of self.

Not only that, this type of parent becomes really frustrated when the child's needs are incongruent with the parent's needs. The parent essentially expects the same thing to happen with the child that happened with the doll: I want to put it in the corner when I want it in the corner. I'm not going to feed it according to its schedule, I'm going to feed it according to mine. And that leaves a child in a completely powerless state.

If you grow up in this type of household, you become literally like a toy to your parent. I want you to think about the horror of this.

One of the best ways to conceptualize this is to imagine the movie Toy Story. Think about the two children in that movie. You've got Andy, who's the "good" kid, and you've got Sid, who's the "bad" kid, right?

I want you to see that even the good kid has zero attunement. The movie basically starts with a scene of him taking this little toy and running around with it. There's no attunement to the experience of that toy; it’s just, "this thing is here for my use." Now, what the toy gets out of it is this very special relationship. But he basically has to trade his identity for the very special closeness that he gets with this child.

Now, do you notice the other kid, Sid? What does he do when he unwraps a toy and is unsatisfied with it? He either throws it in the corner of the room, or rips it in half and blows it up.

These are the two types of parents that you get if you have parents that wanted a doll instead of a child. Basically, they wanted an animated doll. "I want something that can interact with me, but according to my needs." It's a terrifying experience, and it's one that the majority of children are actually experiencing today.

When your parents have this type of a relationship with you, you do not have your own needs. You do not have your own thoughts. You can't have your own preferences, and you can't have differences from this parent, because it's a threat to them.

Now, there are two ways that this goes. Either you become the kid who can comply, or you become the kid that can't. And both lead to disastrous ends for adult relationships.

If you're the child who can comply, it's almost like you're the doll who can control its animation. And by doing that, you end up in a void. You have to get rid of yourself completely for the sake of that very special relationship. You might have an impulse or an urge that defines you uniquely, but you don't get to have it. So you're taking all those aspects and hiding them, and what is at the core of your self-concept is a deep and visceral shame. Because you know what you really are, you just can't ever show it.

You're going to watch people live their lives and succeed, and you're going to resent them, because you know you gave your life up for that very special closeness. But that closeness feels like suffocation. It literally feels like you're being eaten by a spider because you know your parent is basically feeding off of you. In adulthood, you're going to be the person who pushes people away. You are desperate for closeness, but you have learned that closeness means enmeshment. So you will continue to sabotage relationships over and over. At first, you love them and want them near you, but after a while, you're like, "no." And pushing them away becomes the only way you can feel yourself at all.

Ready for the other road? The other road is: I couldn't suppress myself.

This happens when a child is highly sensitive. If a child has a nervous system that is a certain way, they can't actually suppress their emotion. The emotions feel bigger than them, and they are never going to get what we call "regulation" from this type of parent. The parent is never going to come in and help them deal with those emotions.

Because they can't suppress it, that child will be rejected. There is no other path. When the kid is upset—which any child would be with a parent that doesn't see them—they exhibit distress. That causes shame in the parent, so the parent deflects the shame and makes that kid "the problem."

Now, that kid is not only not being regulated, they don't have a place in the family. They get dislocated from belonging in the group, and a different kind of void develops. This void is: "I have nowhere to belong, and I am literally starving to death."

So, this type of parenting leads to these two types of behaviors. The child who can comply is like a doll used by that parent for a very long time, because its animation fits perfectly with what the parent wants. The other is the toy that gets shelved.

As you progress through your own emotional healing, you're going to have to wake up to the fact that this is the horror you have lived. And you will continue to live it in your adult relationships until it becomes healed. You will be the doll that is continuously shelved. In the beginning of a relationship, it will seem like somebody is interested in you, and then the minute they find out who you really are... what are they going to do?

They pull away. Now you're emotionally starving to death all over again, and that person you had closeness with is completely unavailable.