In 1986, a reactor at the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine, exploded. Since the reactor had no containment structure—a dome constructed of steel and concrete to prevent radiation from escaping from the plant in the event of an accident–massive amounts of radiation escaped into the atmosphere and poisoned the surrounding environment. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, two workers at the plant were killed by the explosion while 28 firemen and other workers died within three months after the accident from Acute Radiation Sickness.
When the Chernobyl nuclear accident occurred, 150,000 square kilometers in Russia and Ukraine were contaminated. The town of Pripyat was totally evacuated within 36 hours after the accident. In ensuing weeks, an estimated 200,000 people were displaced due to dangerously high levels of contamination. The immediate 30 kilometers around the plant became known as the “exclusion zone,” an area that is almost completely uninhabited due to high radiation levels.
Besides the physical impact, there has also been a significant psychological effect in the wake of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor event. High levels of apathy, drinking, and suicide resulted from the accident.
Shifting from Chernobyl to Sarah . . .
Sarah grew up in an area high in levels of radiation. If she had been born in Chernobyl in 1986, she possibly would have been exposed to less radiation—psychological radiation, that is. Sarah’s mother and father both grew up in homes where at least one of their parents was a quick “reactor” to perceived slights in the form of emotional explosions that spread radioactive material all over the house. Unfortunately, Sarah’s parents did not build “containment” structures for their own emotions and so, just like their parents, they were very emotionally reactive around their children. Thus, the high levels of emotional radiation in the family system were passed on to another generation.
In family systems where people like Sarah’s parents erupt (or quietly spread radiation onto others with silent treatment tactics), they communicate things to their children that are damaging and untrue. They frequently project onto their children the badness they are feeling or transfer onto them unfinished business from their upbringing. This emotional radiation contaminates their children through demeaning words, irritability, shaking heads, disgusted countenances, raised voices, groans of exasperation, unpredictable rage, and even physical abuse—all delivered regularly. Most children have no protection against such emotional reactivity.
If these symptoms are rare and followed by an apology from the parent, they are not radioactive. Thank God for these healthier parents who have done difficult emotional work (and are continuing to do the work of growth) so as not to pass generational psychological contamination on to their kids. However, if the parents have not chosen to heal their own wounds from their childhood, these contaminating emotional symptoms are common—in the air they breathe. They qualify as generational emotional radiation and will impact the development of the children in the home.
These children who grow up in the emotional “exclusion zone” often will internalize the radiation from their parents and it will impact their psychological development possibly even resulting in significant “mutations.” They will be damaged in the form of shame, through the voice of an internal prosecuting attorney that accuses them day and night.
Over decades of meeting with clients, I have heard many accusing and shaming phrases that have come from the mouths of parents who are human mine fields and are quick to angrily defend themselves at the expense even of their children. Some of these phrases include:
+ You belong in hell with the devil
+ You should never have been born
+ You would be pretty if you lost a lot of weight
+ Why are you behind everyone else in your class?
+ You’re so stupid
+ You can’t do anything right
+ No one will ever love you
+ Your younger sister is much smarter than you
+ I should have put you up for adoption
+ What did I do wrong to deserve a child like you?
+ Your mother left me because of you
+ I wish we would have aborted you
+ My life would be so much easier without you
+ You’ve always been nothing but a burden to us
+ You’re responsible for your mother’s death
+ Are you blind and deaf?
+ You drive me insane with your incessant babbling!
+ You’re just so sensitive and over emotional
+ Don’t be a baby. Stop crying!
+ Shame on you!
+ You were born angry and selfish
+ God certainly doesn’t want you in His heaven
+ You are difficult to love and impossible to like
+ A fence post has more intelligence than you
Most of you never heard words like these from your parents’ mouths. You can’t even imagine parents saying these things to their own child. But many people in this world and in your church grew up hearing comments like these every day. They were repeated so often and with such conviction that the child came to believe that they were true.
I have met so many individuals who have internalized parental accusations and shaming words to the point that it is difficult for them to believe any comments to the contrary. Every negative word spoken to them is quickly “stabled” in a stall in their minds and hearts, but every positive word is turned away as certainly not true of them.
The late Allen Wheelis recalls the power of his father’s shaming words to him in his book, How People Change. He comments, “My father and I have never parted. He made his mark on me that summer, and after his death that fall continued to speak on a high-fidelity system within my conscience, speaks to me still, tells me that I have been summoned . . . that I will be found wanting, still after all these years a ‘low-down, no account scoundrel,’ that I shall not now or ever be permitted to regard myself as innocent or worthy” (p. 73).
In psychological therapy, we often employ Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or some offspring of that theoretical approach to challenge a client’s misbeliefs and replace them with the truth. But often the accusations and shaming words have been branded on a client’s mind and heart over several decades and are almost impossible to erase. Even speaking truth from the Scriptures can be challenging for such a person to receive and believe. Sometimes the shaming parent even used the Bible to demean his or her child.
So, what do we do? Someone needs to sit with the person who has internalized lies and accusations and be a new presence, a fresh voice that will slowly help this individual dismantle the voice of shame that seems so believable. As part of the healing journey, I still believe it is important for the person with the prosecuting attorney in his or her head to know and internalize the promises of the Bible as a weapon to destroy every argument, lie, accusation, and stronghold that creeps up from the pit of hell.
What are some of these promises from God that can help to undo the lies of Satan that can even be delivered from the mouth of parents?
+ “It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed” ~ Deuteronomy 31:8
+ “Fear not, for I am with you;
be not dismayed, for I am your God;
I will strengthen you, I will help you,
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” ~ Isaiah 41:10
+ “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well” ~ Psalm 139:13, 14
+ “He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might he increases strength, even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted;
but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint” ~ Isaiah 40:29-11
+ “The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still” ~ Exodus 14:14
+ “For the mountains may depart
and the hills be removed,
but my steadfast love shall not depart from you,
and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,”
says the Lord, who has compassion on you” Isaiah 54:10
+ “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” Luke 4:18-19
+ “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me” Psalm 23:4
+ “This I know, that God is for me” ~ Psalm 56:9
In conclusion, if you are an adult child who grew up in a family where shame and accusation was the first language, you will need to fight to drive out that internalized voice by inviting into your mind and heart a new truth from a new voice—the voice of Jesus.
There will be a war raging in our souls between condemnation and mercy as long as we live in this fallen world. Sometimes the words of the enemy proceed even from the mouths of parents. These words seek to defy the words of truth and comfort that God Himself has spoken to us. So, destroy these dark strongholds that have sought to destroy you.
Listen not to the voice of those who project shame and badness but listen to the words of truth that proceed from the mouth of God: “So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” ~ 1 John 4:16
