Cassandra "Caz" Stark

I find TV shows interesting – especially family or friend dynamics with five primary characters with lessons to learn.

Lately, I’ve been on a Boy Meets World throwback marathon.

Like many family sitcoms of the era, the characters all have lessons to learn. In the case of Boy Meets World – five family members at home always mirror the arc of the five characters at school. On one side of the learning curve, we have Mom and Dad. On the other side, we have Minkus and Feeny.

Shows like this get me thinking.

People go on and on about, “This isn’t the movies. This is real life.” Anyone who feels responsible for the lack thereof will immediately tell us there are no knights in shining armor or caring superhero.

I call BS (belief systems)!

For some reason, especially in America, we end up on a conveyor belt of disproving and defensive arguments for no other reason than we all got fed the same BS that “this isn’t the movies.”

I disagree.

What’s wrong with believing you are a hero or that heroes exist?

We’ve been to space. You can too!

And you don’t have to be born into royalty to become a princess.

Art mimics life, mimics art.

Ironically, when art mimics too closely to the life we insist is the reality check we’re all dealing with, we’re offended by the commentary. Shield your eyes! Damned film school hippies and their dramatic honesty.

There’s truth in everything.

As a kid, I’d spend hours watching Boy Meets World marathons on the Disney Channel. My little kid’s critical thinking levels dropped me off at the curb of, “Man, I wish my life was like that.” Curb appeal… until you realize no one came to pick you up.

The thing is, even when I could put 2 + 2 together, I didn’t want to. Not recognizing why my life wasn’t a TV show was none other than means of survival. But now, as an adult, I can rewatch these shows with all arms and legs inside the regressive moving vehicle at all times. Because I am older, I get so much more of what the ideal was for the parents. I also can look back and see the BS of my own family dynamic.

In this TV show, the dad is the head manager of a grocery store. The mom is a realtor. Both parents work to meet ends. The house is nice, but clearly not large. Nothing about it screams, “I gotta have that!” In fact, few of these shows ever do. Some level of struggle is required for character arcs to exist. The audience won’t believe the growth if the character doesn’t somehow simultaneously not have it all yet while also miraculously having it very easy. Think: Carrie Bradshaw – tiny New York Studio apartment, somehow affords all those shoes and nights out.

Sure. Life isn’t easy. Making these choices as a parent or receiving them as a child is not so well rehearsed. But they can be!

The human condition is to want the character arc but get stuck in the squalor of the struggle we identify with. We would do ourselves better if we went further and noted what it was we wanted about the situation.

When I talk about wanting what they have, it isn’t so literal. The reason the formula works is that it is vague and a part of every show we know and love. It works because we can all relate to wanting things to come to us with ease and desiring unwavering support from people who never leave our side. If they do, it hurts like hell and divides everyone in an attempt to figure it out. We all want that connection, level of love, attention, and support.

At 11 years old, I just wanted to be able to make a mistake and talk it out, like Corey. I wanted what I had to say to be heard. I wanted to figure things out on my own, not by myself. I wanted to know it wasn’t the end of the world – that I could try again. Siblings tease each other. Friends fight. Parents sometimes miss the point. Smart kids get wrong answers. Weird kids say smart things. It all exists in TV, and it is all ok – not because it is unrealistic, but because lessons are allowed to be learned by all.

In this case, lessons aren’t all on Corey. It isn’t his full responsibility. No. Teachers, parents, siblings, friends, and all have a part in learning.

At 11, I watched the show with very different eyes. At 11, it felt like an art film. Those damned screenwriters and their ideal families! I had to ignore it to survive the family dynamic I was being taught – we all have family values, but those kinds of loving and understanding values don’t exist. Say what? That doesn’t seem right. But kids of “valuable” families don’t argue. Ok. If you say so.

If Corey made a mistake, I couldn’t see past it. I was overwhelmed with fear for him. I spent the rest of the short episode wondering what he was going to do or how he was going to fix it. At 11, he was a character playing a role, and so was I.

The thing is, I’ve since learned that family “roles” in real life are evidence of serious trauma and neglect wrapped tightly in a stinky bun of enmeshed relationships between child and parent. Enmeshment says, “You are responsible for my feelings.” Parents with unchecked anxious behaviors step into heavy love-abuse cycles formed around whether or not they are feeling good or bad. (And when it is really bad, they tend to only remember all the sketchy AF love they give and that if you have a problem, you’re to blame! If you’re dealing with this, your parent has jumped right past Anxious Behavior and leaned hard into a highly dismissive level of Narcissism.). Not so unwittingly, parents, the emotional state becomes the perceived responsibility of the child, which can cause serious hypervigilance or even somewhat of a misguided Savior complex.

Next time you see a kid making pretend cupcakes, crawling onto their parent’s lap, trying to feed them pretend little tasty treats of happiness all while coaxing the parent to please by happy — you’ll think twice about what responsibility that small child feels for the emotional state of their parents. What seems cute from the outside, can become life-threatening to that child as they attempt to navigate the adult world with those same insecure behaviors.

Know this. (And if you don’t know it yet, I hope you’re well on your way to doing the work to add to your Know-ing.) It was not on you. It was not your fault. It is not your responsibility. No action can make up for the inaction toward you. How your parents, coaches, teachers, bosses, and spouses felt has absolutely nothing to do with you. What you did or didn’t do. Ya, even that…

If your parent s so angry, they tell a waitress she’s got to be the slowest person they have ever met – you are not responsible for calming your parent or consoling the waitress. I know this is a lifetime of hard work to overcome. I really do. There’s a lot of What If’s to that. I encourage you to explore them all in your BeMoJo.

As an adult, you have a choice. Choices are informed by adding to your Know-ing. As a child, the reaction you have when a parent threatens others, themselves, or you – is complicated AF.

Stress response goes into overdrive, causing damn near permanent damage and manifesting as an autoimmune disease later in life because some aspect of your mind-body experience as a child started fighting itself to survive). Survival instincts kick in. So you jump to hide-or-seek mode. Hide from it or seek out the person you need to fix/console/make better. Keyphrase: Need to. This is why we are careful with Need to’s in The BeMo Practice. In almost all cases, that Need To BS (belief system) goes way, way, way back, to the two-dozen times you had to leave your favorite restaurant – the one with the cake and the sparklers – to never return, and somehow you were made to believe it is all your fault for being hungry. (If that resonates with you, I am sorry. Please know that I am holding you in my thoughts.)

Ya. It’s complicated AF. But I promise you’ll get there.

Life mimics art, mimics life, becomes art.

Today, I can safely watch a show like Boy Meets World without flashbacks or nightmares because when Corey’s parents take each other aside for a long embrace and a concerned conversation, I know I have that. When one of the kids melts a toy in the toaster oven, much like something I’ve done half a dozen times this week (and just this morning), the Mom smiles and says, “Well, I’m glad the house didn’t burn down.” And I know now, I do that too. It isn’t the end of the world. It isn’t worth fighting about. There is no need for blame-shame here. I do not have to continue the love-abuse cycles or operate in enmeshed relationships in order to feel valued.

Working through the FUNCK and daring to Imagine Future has been my exposure therapy.

That doesn’t mean I don’t make mistakes. It doesn’t mean I don’t still slip up, dissociate, and fall into desperate transference – using once familiar words said to me and turning them instead on someone else I love and trust. Sometimes those evil BS (belief system) words resurface, and I find myself saying, “Yous stupid piece of shit,” to the smartest person I know. But… I come out of it faster now. I still don’t need to fire myself, leave, insist the relationship is through, and start shopping for short-term rentals. I don’t have to save others from my existence anymore. How? Because my Know-ing has become a lot stronger than any feeling. Even if I make that big of a mistake, feeling like it absolutely cannot be taken back, and it is the worst thing ever because I am the worst thing ever… However true that feels, I know where these words come from. I know why they surface. And that has been the most important thing to know in order to forgive myself, allow, and move forward.