Where does the impulse to "sweep it under the rug" come from? Is this a helpful impulse?

Shame almost never works… I have that ‘sweep it under the rug’ impulse too, it’s been instilled in me from 40 years of conditioning from my family.

When I was seeing a counselor to work through issues (parents divorce, mom remarrying and going off to trot the globe with new hubby, leaving us kids home alone for months at atime) my mother dismissed it as unnecessary… “why would you need to see a shrink? you’re perfectly fine!”

I wasn’t fine… and I still go back every once in a while for a “front end alignment” when certain things begin affecting my life.

It’s STILL an effort for me to not sweep things under the rug…. but the alternative (for me) affects not only my happiness, but that of those around me… so I CHOOSE to face my problems head on now.

I am more for being able to discuss problems.

Example: My husband’s family seems to walk around with quite a bit of shame. Since culturally, it seems, people do not discuss things outside of what is considered the “norm” they live silently assuming their family sucks more than others. It also shows up as a general theme that they don’t discuss thing seven with each other, not just the outside world. They also seem much more judgemental to me, which I think is part of the process. They judge, and then when that similar thing happens to them, they are less likely to admit it, so they live with shame again. I rather talk things through, clear the air, admit when I am wrong. But, people like me when dealing with people like then get trampled all over when something happens. If I admit to having made a mistake or wanting to clarify something, I don’t get back, “we all make mistakes,” I get more like, “see, JLeslie is awful, look what she did, I’m not going to talk anything over with her, what’s to talk about she admitted she was wrong she apologized.” When they make a mistake nothing is said, sometimes they don’t talk to each other for YEARS, and eventually someone gets married and everyone starts talking again. Drives me crazy. I have to say I have conformed to their style at this point when dealing with them. I don’t discuss much, and I have decided to just be a “yes” woman when with them, to be very passive. I wonder if they overcompensate for their shame now that I write this? they have to feel good about themselves, so they criticize others to make them feel superior?

One of the greatest things I had growing up was I knew my friends families were nuts also. I didn’t feel jipped or like I got a raw deal, even though there were definite things in my family that were dysfunctional. I had a significant amount of mental illness on my fathers side, and I don’t remember anyone talking negatively about them or judging. I feel little shame I have to say, and like to be able to be open about my experiences.

People I know who have moved to USA after living in cultures where everything was hidden, seem uncomfortable at first with American openess, seems we ask what they consider very private questions that we seem to pry quite a bit, and we share more than expected about ourselves, but eventually they come to find it very freeing I think.

Julia Baker said on Designing Women, “In the south we don’t ask if you have crazy people in your family, we ask, what side are they on.” I love that quote.

I think it is instinctual to avoid pain. Repression (sweeping under the rug) is usually a lot easier than dealing with painful issues. And as a short term solution, it enables one to keep on functioning as normal.

And sometimes it is the key to survival if one is powerless to effect change. Also as a survival mechanism it does work. It’s just not good as a long term solution because it can’t be maintained.

I grew up in the typical chaos that occurs in an alcoholic family system. But until I got older, there wasn’t anything I could realistically do to effect change. So by constantly burying my nose in books and spending as much time in extracurricular activities away from home I was able to cope and function pretty well. And well enough to end up with a full scholarship and get the h*** out of there.

But repression is not a healthy way to continue living. My shrink explained it thusly. Repression takes a tremendous amount of energy which we have in abundance in our youth. As one gets older there is less energy available for repression so that’s when things start to fall apart.

What began as a valid survival mechanism has now developed into a dysfunctional habit for coping with life.

There was a lot of truth in that. Learning new habits is difficult and scary so some people choose to keep sweeping stuff under the rug ( repression) because it worked so well. The problem is you end up with a really lumpy rug.

I decided to start dealing with stuff but it sure wasn’t easy and it was really extremely rough going for quite a few years. I sometimes wondered if I was going to crack up totally sometimes.

However, when all is said and done it was well worth it. But it’s a heck of a lot of work.

I suppose it’s all in how it is done. I err on the side of processing just about everything, but I think that gets to be a trap as well—sometimes it’s better to just focus on the positive.

In Thailand, the saying goes, “Anything too big to be swept under the rug is furniture.” I’m sure it’s not a perfect society, but I like that sense of acceptance.

I thought you were being literal. I sweep stuff under my rug because I am too lazy to clean.

My family has a habit of airing everyone’s dirty laundry. There have even been several blow-outs on holidays. I think it’s good. We all really know eachother. And even if we are not so close, we are very intimate.

My wife’s family are definitely repressors. My wife says everyone knows, but nobody talks about it. She has little knowledge about her family, and she says she thinks my family is closer, even if we sometimes have it out with eachother.

AA and Alanon talk about the elephant in the living room and it is pretty much what you are talking about. I, like @kevbo, analyze everything. I once heard an AA speaker say he analyzes spaghetti. That can get you into trouble too, but I would rather get into that kind of trouble than from the elephant business.

For me depression is often repressed anger so I think get it out, look at it, get pissed if you need to, figure out what you are going to do about it and then get on with life.

But it took a lot of counseling to get me to that point. And I wish the rest of the world would hurry and catch up with my enlightened position, because it makes it difficult when I want to be honest and discuss and everyone else just wants to ignore in the hope that “it” will go away.

I always thought it was self evident, “Don’t air dirty laundry” and such.

I think it’s more along the lines of not airing dirty laundry in public, the last two words being the operative caution.

Airing stuff in front of uninvolved parties is not helpful ( unless it’s a trained therapist or counselor, obviously). That’s unhealthy for obvious reasons.

But never airing anything within the family and repressing and pretending it away solves nothing and is an unhealthy way to live.

@Buttonstc “in public” = good point. However, pretending it away often does offer a “public” solution, such as in very public entertainment or political families. One has to judge the importance based on the needs of the entire story. This is true when you are talking about the rise (and fall) of a civilization, a religion, a government, or a family. There are times/circumstances when sweeping under the carpet it actually the most logical solution.

I was once involved in a relationship where things were swept under the rug continuously. It was our signature, you might say. We were both young and had never learned to talk constructively about potentially painful issues. In the end it is almost inevitable that piles swept under rugs will trip up those who live in close proximity, it certainly did us. While I can see that on occasion it might be useful to sweep something under the rug until a more convenient time arises for discussion, as a general rule I do not think it is a healthy way of relating with others.

Apropos my previous post, given the opportunity again I would probably describe sweeping something under the rug until a more convenient time more in terms of making a conscious decision through mutual agreement to put something on hold until each person has the opportunity to think things through in their own mind.