Judith G. Arndell, Psy.D
Secret Pains gives hope for persons who were left behind by migrating parents or just simply abandoned by a parent. This book focuses on how the unresolved hurts and emotional pains resulting from abandonment affect your personality, your relationships, and your adult life. It offers tools, strategies, and insights for letting go of past anger and emotional pains and recommendations for embracing a happier and more fulfilled life.
Dr. Judith Arndell, Psy.D. is a clinical psychologist on the island of St. Martin, Netherlands Antilles, in the Caribbean. Dr. Arndell has 20 years’ experience in the field of psychology and has a fulltime private practice where she provides psychological testing and therapy to adults and children with emotional/psychological difficulties. Dr. Arndell conducts workshops on topics such as stress management, anxiety management, and letting go of past pains. She is co-founder and president of the Ujima Foundation, which operates a residential therapeutic facility for “at-risk” boys. In addition, she works as part-time faculty with the University of St. Martin. In April 2008, Dr. Arndell was given a Royal Decoration by Her Majesty Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands for her service to the community.
Children that are left behind, depending on the age (especially during the first five or six years of their life), never develop the natural, emotional bond between mother and child. The child often forms an emotional bond with the adult raising him or her. In some cases, the child sees the parent—the mother in most cases—during special holidays or vacations; however, this is never enough time to develop that emotional bond between mother and child. In other cases, the mother leaves and never returns, and the child has no contact and loses all emotional attachment to the mother. In cases where parents never return, children experience a strong sense of hurt, pain, and emptiness. This pain, hurt, and emptiness often exist in the form of rejection. Because the feelings of rejection are so overwhelming, the children may develop poor self esteem and low self confidence. There is also the risk of children developing little connection with others, further impeding their adapting and relating to their environment.
An often overlooked factor in migration is the child’s longing for the closeness of the mother’s love. For the parents who indeed kept in contact with their children, it is often their hope that someday, once their lives are settled, they will reunite with their children and resume some form of parent – child relationship. In some instances, parents and children reunite, but the reunion is not void of turmoil, struggles, and stress. What we usually find happening is that the child is reunited with the parent during the pre-adolescent and adolescent stages, thus between the ages of 12-14 years. At this stage of development, the child that has been left behind may begin to change and display his or her emotional hurts and pains by acting out and becoming unmanageable to caretakers. Because of emotional issues and behaviors displayed by the child, the caretaker may feel that he or she is no longer able to care for the child, and this becomes a reason the child is sent to live with the parent or parents. Once the child moves in with the parent(s), it then becomes much more difficult for the child to cope with the emotions, such as the inner anger, that is ravaging through his body. At this critical stage of development, the child is left to adjust to the new parent(s) and parenting styles and, at the same time, put into perspective his/her own adolescent changes. The child is at this time basically living a life filled with emotional turmoil.
At the time when the child is taken to live with the parent, the bonding that should have taken place in the earlier stages of this child’s life is now forced to happen. Both parent and child are plunged into an uncomfortable situation. A woman is now trying to be a mother to “her child” who she does not know and with whom she has no emotional connection. On the other hand, the child is desperately trying to relate to and connect with a stranger who is her/his “mother” and with whom she/he has had no emotional contact or connection. Although there may have been that deep-seated longing for connection by both the parent and the child, it is necessary for both to know and understand that the development of an emotional connection will take time or it might never develop.
