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Or read an excerpt from The Inner Elvis
By Peter O. Whitmer, Ph.D.
sawbuster@prodigy.net

Chapter 5: The Presley Family System
The Three Illusions of Elvis Presley

The battered car rolled westward along Route 78 through the small Northern Mississippi towns of Hickory Flat, Holly Springs, and Byhalia. Seated in front was the entire Presley family of Vernon, Elvis and Gladys. From the outside looking in, it was a scene that could have been painted by Norman Rockwell and displayed as symbolic of family unity, social mobility, and the eternal optimism of the journey toward a better tomorrow. From inside looking out, however, the world seemed a dramatically ominous place where fear and danger hung in the air like a fog.

During the three hour drive from Tupelo to Memphis, there was significance to where each of the three Presleys sat: Elvis was between his parents. On the surface, one might look at this and think of sharing, equality of emotions, and a family system in balance. Just the opposite was true. By age thirteen, Elvis's role was that of permanent buffer between Gladys and Vernon. Like a referee at a boxing match, he was permanently deployed to impose a facade of order onto the reality of chaos. Before leaving Tupelo, tension had become so severe that around the dinner table, the parents would speak to each other by speaking to Elvis. His role was to relay the message to the other parent, four feet away.

Children born into dysfunctional families inherit roles that force-feed misperceptions which distort reality. The Presleys were no exception. With their marriage, unhealthy psychological currents in Gladys's and Vernon's families swirled together to produce a predictable turbulence. After their marriage and his birth, the family system, in combination with other, external events beyond their control, would impact the end product, the adolescent Elvis who emerged during his first years in Memphis.

At age thirteen, Elvis simultaneously and irreversibly crossed the thresholds of both puberty and culture. He would quickly enter manhood in a new land. As he did, he carried within him the legacy of his Tupelo years in the form of three developmentally sequential styles of thinking and behaving. Learned in the bosom of his original family unit, these were habitual - yet illusory - ways of interpreting the world around him. They would define all of his future actions. The "habits" that had worked adequately and fit acceptably within the social context of East Tupelo would quickly become "illusions" in the busier, more sophisticated urban setting of Memphis. At this all-significant juncture in his development - this watershed in his growth toward adulthood, Elvis's psychological baggage was already packed. With the onset of adolescence, and the radical cultural change imposed by the move to a large city, could these three illusions be seen clearly. Each of Elvis's illusions - of unity, control, and of illusion itself, grew from periods in his life defined by a unique psychological motif, a dominant emotional theme. His three illusions can be seen as created by his roles in his own family system. They had the power to control the man he would become.

Logic defies identification of any one causal event as most influential. From a clinical perspective, most of the tributaries were pathological. The three illusions were psychologically tainted and toxic at their source, and would permanently contaminate Elvis's basic view of reality. Paradoxically, the same forces that flowed together to form his maladaptive, and ultimately self-defeating adult behaviors were also the very ones which would stimulate his creativity.

Writings from psychological theory, research and therapy on survivors of early emotional privation are all remarkably consistent in identifying the family-system factors that stunt childhood personality development. The resulting adult behaviors emerge from these early pathological environments have also been pinpointed. But it is absolutely necessary to take into account the "culture of dysfunction" in which such privation, or emotional abuse, occurs. Different ethnic groups, different subcultures, different economic and social realities must be kept in perspective in interpreting and defining precisely what is dysfunctional and what is within acceptable limits for any specific setting.

Speaking of the prime psychological factors in Elvis's years in Tupelo, Janelle McComb, a neighbor of the Presleys, said "I do not understand why people make such a big deal of a poor white boy in the South sleeping in the same bed as his mother until he's twelve years old, when nothing is said at all when the same thing happens in the ghetto up North." She referred to the alarmed reaction of many people beyond East Tupelo to what was interpreted in that town, during those times, as acceptable, if marginal living conditions, an unavoidable reaction to the hard times. Elvis and Gladys did share the same bed, in part because it was dictated by their world of poverty and Vernon's absence. It was a cultural necessity, a living arrangement that made sense then in East Tupelo. It was accepted and condoned. In Elvis's case, the consequences of being part of a dysfunctional family were further complicated by these norms of life in East Tupelo. The child who would create the man was shaped by a culture whose customs would not be acceptable beyond that particular insular environment.

But the fact of "sharing the same bed" is purely descriptive. At the core, certainly, was the fact that the relationship between Elvis and Gladys was too close. Sleeping together was more than "just cozy." If one inspects Elvis's adult personal, sexual and interpersonal behavior, his adolescent behavior, then factors-in the facts of his early years, a clear argument can be made for what is professionally termed "psychosocial incest" or "non-sexual incest." However, the term "incest" is strictly interpreted by some to mean sexual contact and a pre-existing relationship between a related adult and child. Since there is no proof of frank sexual contact, but instead the classic behavioral outcomes that are typically seen in such cases, the most apt term, to be used in this particular case, is "lethal enmeshment."

This syndrome has extensive overlap in its family-system causes and the effects on the adult of frank sexual incest, but exists in the absence of documented sexual contact. Only since the late 1980's, has a considerable amount been learned about children who grow up in eroticized relationships, where children have experiences before they are psychologically ready. The clinical literature is quite clear as regards how lethal enmeshment comes about. There is also considerable clarity regarding what the characteristic adult behaviors are for the untreated survivor of lethal enmeshment. This material has fundamental application to Elvis Presley.

Elvis's illusions existed as mental filters, coloring how he saw his environment. They directed how his behavior would bridge the gap between inner experience and the variety of external realities he would encounter. These illusions acted as his own, idiosyncratic means of imposing a sense of peace onto psychological turmoil. They would give form to the person within him, and, in turn, to his behavior. These three illusions were both the building blocks for his hidden conflicts and the outer facade he would show the world.

The cornerstone of all his subsequent behavior was the earliest illusion, the most archaic and profound in shaping his character. From an indeterminate time before birth, until he was just old enough to walk and talk, Elvis was defined by the "illusion of unity." Within this earliest existence he felt himself a fluid and integral part of both his mother and his dead twin. This illusion provided the most blissful experience of human fusion imaginable. A state of eternal satisfaction, indulgence and pleasure, this is the "participation mystique" of the mother-child bond. At some point in his early cognitive development reality dealt this comforting world of human symbiosis two harsh blows. Awareness of his dead twin was soon followed by a feeling of a sense of imbalance within his family environment. Gladys and Vernon were drifting farther and farther apart. As Elvis grew, he would come to equate his early, vague primal guilt over his twin's death with a more mature guilt - a sense that he was responsible for the rift within his family. Gradually, he would progress from just "feeling" to acting-out these guilt feelings. Subconsciously, Elvis tried to adapt to this reality, and his unique style of adaptation would anchor and direct his adult behaviors.

Elvis's "illusion of control" was a response to the deep-seated dysfunction of his family unit. Like water flowing to take the shape of a container, a family seeks to maintain a sense of stability and protective control over its members. The family is a system, defined by the interrelationships of its members, operating on the principle of balance. When natural emotional reciprocity between members is disrupted, there is an instinctive tendency to overcompensate, to try and restore stability within the system. To do so, both parents and children unknowingly modify their natural behavior and take on new roles in order to quell the interpersonal tensions that cause anxiety. Particularly for a young child, role playing can involve taking on adult characteristics long before he or she is psychologically prepared for such responsibilities. In response to dysfunction the child instinctively makes every effort imaginable to put his family back into balance, to regulate and restore order. It serves his needs by allowing him to live in what appears to be a calmer family setting. Simultaneously, it robs him of his childhood.

Parents, too, play roles that prevent natural, healthy psychological growth. By relating to a child as if the child has been "frozen" at a younger age, parents can do irreparable damage. Typically, such parents need to deny escalating tensions surrounding them. While this style of parenting takes them back to the comfort of an earlier, simpler time, it acts to wall-in the child who then cannot grow in an organic way toward increasingly more individual and adult-like behavior. In an attempt by the family system to restore order, the child is thrust into a role geared exclusively to satisfying the needs of others rather than developing a sense of personal uniqueness and autonomy. In essence, a child growing up in a family system, tossing and pitching with relational imbalances, will develop an identity more aligned with his parent's sense of self. His own unique sense of self will be permanently distorted.

The child develops out of touch with his own real, inner feelings. He has never been offered the appropriate stage on which to play them out, and never had the opportunity to observe "proper" behavior. Still, the emotions of the child do grow. They are not to be denied. They have an existence of their own, a parallel path of psychological reality that lies beyond clear conscious awareness. And they are potent. And like a strong undertow, they determine one's adult behavior. The consequences of unmet early emotional needs will be felt for a lifetime. They are the pivotal sources of the multitude of roles one acts out as ineffective attempts to assuage the lifelong emotional starvation produced by a dysfunctional childhood. Elvis's early, persistent style was to ignore his own emotional cravings, and adopt either the role of the parent or of the infant. Within the family system, this was his way to try and restore a tension-free equilibrium between Gladys and Vernon. Short term, this helped to clear the electrically charged air that, since his birth, had swelled into thunderheads between his estranged parents. The long term consequences would be devastating. By playing roles, he effectively regulated his own emotional state in such a way as to deny his real inner conflict and pain. The life long roadmap for such an abused child is one of repetition. Over and over again, they will use their early styles of coping. A mute, but rigidly compelling language, role playing as a learned reaction to balancing his family system was Elvis's "illusion of control."

Elvis's "illusion of illusion" was an attitude and matching set of behaviors that emerged in the preadolescent stage. This third illusion was based on a necessity to avoid the frightening role of an independent and responsible adult, away from his family of origin. He would create a world as similar as possible to what he had known during his earlier years. In many ways, the world he wished to recreate had, in fact, never ever existed. He dreamed of a dream. His childhood was fraught with dark spirits and harsh realities. But understandably, he chose to idealize and fantasize only about the warmer, more comforting aspects of his early years, the "idealized" childhood that never was. He yearned to construct an existence that would replicate the sense of security, nurturance, inner harmony and simplicity that he had associated with East Tupelo, especially the times when he and his mother faced a world that felt more enjoyable than ominous, where together, they could live in peace. Only this time around, Elvis imagined himself as the person creating the illusion, since that was the role he had learned the best.

In the typical lethal enmeshment paradigm, one finds a step-by-step sequence of behaviors. First, future parents are initially attracted to one another for all the wrong reasons. Usually this is because of an unhealthy fit between their respective relational imbalances. This "fit" appears to provide each with complimentary needs. For example, one spouse may be overly giving, while the other is extremely needy. On their own, each is relationally imbalanced, usually in the extreme, while together they appear to form a stable system. In turn, these imbalances and extreme needs are a clear reflection of dysfunction in their own early developmental environments, their respective families of origin.

The second phase begins after marriage. Their relationship often appears steady until the birth of the first child. This acts to shatter all balance in the fragile family system. Either parent can react. The submerged emotional needs of both parents rush to the surface. The mother, particularly in times of high risk, will be reminded by external, coincidental real-life events of her own deep vulnerability. Because of the great amount of attention and energy that the mother must naturally provide in caring for the helpless infant, when the psychologically needy father turns to his wife, he is turned away. There is only so much love and affection within the system, and he finds himself looking elsewhere to fill his needs.

So, too, does the mother. In the third phase of the paradigm of lethal enmeshment, the mother will turn to the child to fulfill her emotional needs. An overindulging, "smothering" style of parenting is the rule, where the infant is denied normal opportunities to break away, create his own space and develop a sense of self. As a part of this intense early emotional bond, the mother may treat the growing child as if he were still a baby. Termed "infantilization," this acts to meet the mother's most basic maternal needs and psychologically it is a power to be reckoned with. Paradoxically, at about the same time, the mother begins to make subtle demands of her child. Often these are very real necessities, as she has been emotionally estranged and often abandoned by her husband to cope single-handedly. Gradually, the child learns that his place in this re-defined family system requires helping his mother. Both emotionally and pragmatically, by "being there" for her, and by helping her around the house, his family role is changed.

There is nothing wrong with "being close" to a relative, and nothing pathological about acting responsibly. It is when these two factors exist in extreme, and to the exclusion of the child's ability to create a life and identity of his own that permanent psychological abuse is rendered.

Regarding responsibility, as the child grows in this pathological environment, he will evolve from simply performing some parental chores, to a level of internalizing responsibility for these tasks. He finally reaches a point where he constructs his identity around this role. At this point, the child has evolved into a person whose main purpose in life is to meet the emotional needs of a parent. His basic childhood needs of being regarded and respected for who he is are now being held hostage by the demands of his parents. He has become "parentified," by assuming the behavior and the practical and emotional responsibility of the absent parent. Intense loyalty to the custodial parent is always displayed by the child who plays the role of the "little parent."

In the case of mother-son enmeshment, statistically the least frequent and most pathological pairing, the most obvious role he adopts is that of the surrogate husband. In this role, with the father emotionally or physically absent, the child is now acting out a sexualized role. He has become a spousal surrogate. In combination, the emotional experience of an eroticized relationship with an overprotective mother, the sexualized role of acting as a spousal replacement, and the "pseudo-maturity" that comes from a childhood spent meeting others' needs while ignoring one's own leads to "lethal enmeshment." Victims of lethal enmeshment, once aware of the pain and anxiety that is the legacy of their distorted childhood often describe themselves as "both eight and eighty."

The adult survivor of lethal enmeshment is a divided personality. One side remains in hazy, yet profound contact with the world of his infancy. The most visible part plays out the role of pseudo-mature parent. Tension mounts between these two polar opposites, the "split" parts of the child's ego. It is first seen clearly during adolescence with development of a sexual identity.

Typically, the most florid symptoms of incest and lethal enmeshment victims often lie dormant for years, ticking time bombs triggered into explosion by developmental milestones, or other life events similar to the emotional traumas that initially caused this "split" to form. These developmental triggers include the earliest sense of pubertal sexuality, adult sexuality, the death of a close family member, marriage, and childbirth. Survivors of lethal enmeshment often report feeling emotionally overwhelmed because of a job promotion, a stress which suddenly confronts the individual with the essence of their inner conflict. Deep down, he sees himself as an incapable, dependent child under pressure to rise to lofty expectations and the "adult" responsibilities of the new position.

What does the paradigm of "lethal enmeshment" predict for adult behavior? The clinical data are strikingly consistent and parallel to situations where other forms of intense and protracted abuse took place. Whether drugs or alcohol related -or on a purely emotional level, the common denominator is a pivotal and destructive imbalance in the family system. Survivors of lethal enmeshment in particular stand apart because of extreme dysfunctions in interpersonal relationships, and in adult sexual behavior. While enmeshment might be interpreted as the flip side of emotional abuse, and therefore seem less harmful, this is not so. Because of its emphasis on emotional indulgence rather than deprivation, it does, in fact result in a profound distortion and perversion of the personality of the developing child. As with other forms of abuse, the damage done is largely irreversible.

Perhaps the most fundamental and pervasive conflict for adult survivors of enmeshment originates during infancy in response to parental reaction to the issue of "holding on" or "letting go." As the infant matures, very real acts of behavior evolve from his earliest attempts at feeding, trying to crawl, stand and walk. Gradually, one moves from total dependence to total independence. With time, this becomes an abstraction, the essential core of adult self-control, as well as perceptions of power, f loyalty and trust. It is the dynamic that supports and maintains "acceptable" behavior. Confusion over "holding on" or "letting go" is a direct result of mishandling of infantile "boundary" issues which leads literally to not knowing where the child stops and the enmeshed mother begins. Further, the overindulged child, lacking clear and consistent limits placed on his behaviors by a parent never learns effective self-control. As an adult the consequences of this blurring of "boundaries" and "limits" appear vividly and destructively as compulsive overreaction or underreaction. Typically, there is no middle ground, no sense of restraint or modulation, and no real logic to such behavior. Individuals will throw tantrums in one situation, while behaving in an over-obedient manner in another, their responses seem completely out of proportion to reality. Similar behavioral extremes are seen in reaction to other basic, primal aspects of life. Eating disorders, especially bingeing and starving, as well as sexual dysfunctions that reflect powerful intimacy needs and fears are an integral part of this paradigm.

Logically, issues of identity and problems with interpersonal relationships are natural progressions from these basic dysfunctions. Because of his life-long role playing, the adult survivor of lethal enmeshment tends to define himself from the outside-in. He has a fractured sense of self-worth and a self-esteem that is only intact when playing the role that worked best during childhood. With an identity formed wholly by playing roles, rather than being who they are, what is "real" is foreign territory. Being an independent person, or a parent, is fraught with anxiety and conflict. Unfortunately, "playing a role" has always been the only way to achieve any non-abusive closeness. Confusion is such that they are compelled to create a surface illusion of normalcy and competency, since it is only through the eyes of others that the enmeshment survivor's identity is defined. Driven by fear of being revealed as a fraud, they push constantly to perfect and maintain this illusion, while keeping others at a safe distance, away from their vulnerable zone, where they perceive their flaws to be glaringly obvious.

In relationships, the enmeshment survivor is handicapped from the start, since he has constant difficulty in balancing obligations and entitlement. There is little chance for emotional reciprocity. He learned from infancy to be either all receiving or all caring in his relationship with the all powerful, significant other in his world. These individuals have few real friends. They operate under a cloak of secrecy as they have experienced first-hand what no one else should know: their family is different. They are different. They feel guilt and shame. The outside world quickly equates "different" with "wrong." Relationship problems plague the adult survivor who characteristically swings between extremes both desiring friendship and mistrusting intimacy. Relationships start with an intense heat of infatuation, then quickly cool to nothing at all. Male survivors of lethal enmeshment, as adults, invariably repeat their mother's pattern of marrying, dominating, and infantilizing immature partners.

The standard clinical symptoms for these individuals - expression of what they are thinking and feeling, as opposed to how they are behaving - have been termed "disguised presentation" since the patient himself is usually unaware of the original trauma. Many people endure wracking emotional pain for a lifetime without ever being consciously aware of why. The classic symptoms present as a repeated constellation of complaints. Depression, atypical impulsivity, acted-out in spending sprees or reckless promiscuity, and dissociative, or "numbing" behavior as an attempt to deaden pain are strong indicators of this syndrome. The need for numbing behavior, a hallmark of the adult survivor, is a blueprint for addictions of all kinds. Feeling psychological pain, the survivor tries to avoid it by finding some sort of activity that will diminish the sensation or distract his attention from it. Tolerance, of course, builds up, and the survivor compulsively overcompensates. It is highly unusual to find a survivor who is not addictively or compulsively engaged, although drug and alcohol abuse are by no means the only outlet. The out-of-control workaholic is a classic example, one who is doubly reinforced for the adult sensations stemming from childhood abuse. Work walls-off the pain while, simultaneously, the rewards of his efforts boost his self-esteem. However, it is not a panacea. The compulsion is to be the very best. Anything less would be seen as risking acceptance and admiration, by revealing the "flawed" person behind the painfully constructed facade. More work appears to be the only answer.

In examining Elvis Presley's early years, and comparing his circumstances with this paradigm, it can only be said that his, and his family system's fit is classic in every way. But it took the different cultural expectations found in the urban environment of Memphis for many of these relational styles, and their behavioral correlates to come to light in Elvis.

His background is a textbook presentation of the concept of family-as-system and the consequences of imbalance. The dominoes were lined up well before Jesse and Elvis entered the picture. The families that produced Vernon and Gladys, themselves the product of prior generations, when combined with East Tupelo's "culture of dysfunction" set the stage. The death of Jesse toppled the first domino and became the catalyst for both destruction and creativity. Memphis, in a sense, was a crucible. It was an environment that accelerated the pace of what was already an inevitable direction.

***

The twisted ties that bound Vernon and Gladys were silent currents that were set to sabotage Elvis's character development. Both victims of dysfunctional family systems, Gladys and Vernon were drawn together because of their respective needs to care and be cared for, to control and be controlled, and to protect and be protected. As is typical of scenarios that culminate in lethal enmeshment, initially, they seemed to fit like hand in glove. But with the simultaneous birth of Elvis and the death of Jesse, the family system was once and forever thrown out of balance. Because of this rare event, the Presleys could never again operate as a healthy family system. For Vernon, there existed two immediate imbalances. First, in a state of spiritual dysphoria, Gladys's needs were more immediately met by caring for and protecting her living infant. It was no longer just "the two of them." Vernon was afforded less time and affection. Also, he had just fathered his own rival. He had helped create the reason for never receiving any attention from his wife, and he was obligated to support them. His confusion must have been severe. He would have naturally felt both abandoned by Gladys and threatened by Elvis. And somehow, Vernon himself felt the angst of a lost child. Vernon was known to drink. Needing to regulate his own mood, resorting to alcohol would have been the drug of choice. Its effects could have done nothing but add to the level of combativeness between the two young parents.

There was a psychological motif during Elvis's first two years. It was an emotional theme that would color the world his mother would paint. It was the death motif. Like a heavy, dark blue blanket, it covered Gladys and Elvis. In light of Gladys's early experiences with her mother, this repetition may have felt masochistically comforting. It was, at least, an emotion with which she was familiar. With Jesse's death, her grandmother's death, her mother's death, and the death of friends during the tornado in the spring of Elvis's second year, it was as if an emotional plague had settled in. A deep, unsettling sadness pushed Gladys to extremes of neediness. The clinically significant high risk factors that lead to lethal enmeshment were precisely what Gladys experienced during this period: the time of birth; a narcissistic loss; a loss of a relationship.

As Elvis developed the ability to think and understand on a more sophisticated level, he would come to realize that he was an only child and that his mother could not have more children. Guilt over this would have naturally set in, but there were emotional precedents to this. Gladys knew this immediately after birth and as a result Elvis did not became a part of her, so much as he remained a part of her. The foundation was there. Given what is known about the life-long importance of intrauterine bonding, the enmeshed relationship that gradually became obvious between mother and son had its origins before birth. Elvis simply and naturally transferred all his tactile and sensory needs from Jesse, and invested them in his mother. In the usual paradigm for enmeshment, it is exclusively the emotional neediness of the mother that is cited as the initiating reason for becoming overly close. In the rare instance of where he existed before birth with an awareness of another, upon his twin's death, he naturally clung even more tenaciously to his mother, his connection with his lost twin. She had known twenty-two years of life without Elvis. But he could never know a moment of awareness without either Jesse or her. Because there was such a strong predisposition for symbiosis in Elvis, from birth this became a distorted symbiosis. His sense of being joined with Jesse was replaced by Gladys. While this "worked" it was not the original bond for him. Consequently, he was always driven by thoughts of doing more for his mother. This was Elvis's illusion of unity: the closer he got to his mother, the closer he thought he was to his twin. True unity could never be attained.

Elvis had never known any other to exist except as "part" of a dyad. He had to be one part of a duality, to function in relation to another. Life as "one," alone and on his own, would forever be both an impossible goal and a source of abject terror. His most basic identity could never be sharply outlined. Instead, it was diffused and fuzzy, changeable and permeable. From the earliest days, he would always need to be with someone else, particularly with a woman. This could take the form of a "relationship" as is generally defined, but it did not have to. This "need" was more the cravings of hunger than the emotions of love and intimacy. He was as needy of a woman's companionship as he was of oxygen, water and food.

In an enmeshed relationship, the issue of "boundaries" plays a pre-emptive role in all later development. In normal, psychologically healthy development, there is a gradual "weaning" of the child from the mother as his ability to function with less parental control increases. He begins to spend more energy and time "letting go" rather than "holding on." This separation from the mother is both the child's natural response, and is imposed on him. The child is both impelled and compelled to develop his uniqueness. This includes his sexual identity, his sense of identity with an age-appropriate group of peers, and the myriad subtle characteristics that make each human unique. In an enmeshed pair, the realization that mother and child are two separate entities is never fully formed. They are fused forever, feeding each other's delusions and incorporating aspects of each other in their behaviors.

For an only child who is also a twinless twin, the issue of boundaries is exponentially more complex. The survivor has a primal and superordinate awareness of his twin as an extension of himself, and vice versa. He then accepts his mother as the closest possible substitute. Gladys provided a conduit for communicating with Jesse. As the child grows and matures, like a grain of sand in an oyster, he adds more and more protective layers of imposed identity. Rather than real reflections of his self, he chooses artifice as a deliberate misrepresentation.

The dilemma for Elvis, raised inside the boundaries of this strangely united sense of existence was that he knew no alternative. This is the common plight of abuse victims. There is no language with which to articulate their enmeshment. Elvis had no experiential base he could use to stand outside the boundaries of enmeshment and form a healthy personality, uncontaminated by the presence of Jesse and Gladys. The blurring of boundaries from inception readied him to play the roles his family system would soon impose.

The concept of boundaries, which began before birth for Elvis, is key to understanding how his family system roles developed. As a vivid demonstration of the existence and power of human boundaries, under experimental conditions, people have been asked to spit in a cup, then drink the contents they have produced. Few normal people will do this. Once a part of one's body becomes "not" a part, it remains so. This is a clear, culturally established boundary, and to breach it is considered unacceptable, even revolting. How ever, it is not considered revolting to chew one's fingernails, or nervously gnaw on one's own skin, for these can be ingested directly, remaining within one's body boundary. However, for a person to do this to another person's fingernails or skin is considered completely unacceptable. In a similar sense, from the earliest age, Elvis grew up thinking and feeling that he shared physical and emotional boundaries with his twin and, more consciously, with his mother. The power of this boundary confusion can be illustrated. Twinless twins have reported a vaguely exciting compulsion to see objects or people in multiples, where each looks like every other one. One reported that at age four, he was drawn daily to a place in his yard where he could watch a troop of uniformed Girl Scouts passing. When his mother asked what he was doing, he always replied, "I was connecting the Girl Scouts." Years later, he realized the source of this compulsion. Unknowingly, he had stumbled upon an event in the real world that replicated the emotional sense of unity he once shared with his dead twin.

Phyllis Diller, who knew Elvis as an adult, said "if his twin had lived, I am sure that he would have been gay." Her point was that a great deal of Elvis's sex appeal emanated from his androgyny. His twin, Diller thought, could have possessed even more femininity. Elvis's appearance blended cultural stereotypes of both male and female sexual characteristics. His was a beautiful sexuality, rather than a rugged sexuality. This amalgam gave him unique appeal to women. As early as the sixth grade, his teacher commented on his flirtatiousness, and on his "beautiful little dimples." Women responded instinctively to his "anima," or softer characteristics, and found this endearing, close to their own gender's emotions. While finding him sexually arousing, they also wanted to "mother" him. This would soon become a culture-wide repetition of Elvis's early personal experiences. From an early age, Elvis projected anima both in his physical appearance, his speech, and his singing. Some of his ability to sense and respond to what women wanted certainly came from his relationship with Gladys.

Outwardly, at least, he did not seem conflicted about being perceived as "beautiful." His male identity seemed intact. Linda Thompson, with Elvis for all but the last six months of his final five years said, "He was quite liberal and understanding regarding homosexuality. It was a part of Hollywood and the entertainment industry. But I doubt that he had any homosexual relationships." Still, as an adult, sexual dysfunction would plague Elvis. Its origins were clearly psychological, and intricately related to his early enmeshment.

Given the absence of any physical or psychological separation between mother and son, Gladys’s unspoken emotions were transfused instantly to Elvis, as if he were still in her womb. Elvis’ mind absorbed his mother’s grief over Jesse’s death, her religious ecstasy, her strange phobias, and, of course, her anger at Vernon. He understood implicitly that his functioning independently caused his mother rat discomfort, to the point that she actually feared for his life. Death, of course, was no stranger to either mother or son, and Elvis knew with intuitive certainty that his death would also be the death of Gladys.

All of Gladys's psychological neediness - and her compensatory control of Elvis to fill her own needs - percolated to the surface when Vernon was imprisoned in Parchman. In being sent to the Penitentiary, Vernon forever validated his life's role as the family "bad boy." Elvis was three. The overlying psychological motif to this level of development was of vulnerability. With Vernon away, both Elvis and Gladys felt exposed to the world and unprotected. Elvis was especially vulnerable to his mother's needs, poorly prepared to build a separate sense of self from her, and now with little motivation to. Gladys felt fearfully vulnerable for a variety of reasons. In Vernon's absence, she was not even the typical East Tupelo wife. Unable to bear another child, both her roles as a mother, and as a woman were now dramatically limited. This was a narcissistic wound, injuring her deepest sense of self. The traditional cultural roles by which she could define herself had been reduced. She must try harder with the role she had. Further, for the second time in her life she had lost the symbolic protection of the adult male figure in her life. Regardless of exactly what she felt toward Vernon, his being taken away must have brought to the surface many of her feelings of abandonment, dread and incapacitation she had originally experienced with her father's death. In this atmosphere, it was a natural progression that Elvis's role in the family system would change.

Relatives describe a toddler independently running around his small house, but also repeatedly patting his mother on the head in a calming way, asking what he could do to help her. Like any child at that age, but in a much more extreme and complex way, Elvis was under Gladys's control. Already he had begun to be sexualized as the man about the house, and parentified as Gladys's spousal surrogate. The end result was cross-generational bonding, the indelible stigma of lethal enmeshment. Part of his identity remained as an infant, but by this point, he had begun to take charge and play the "caretaker" role. This was the beginning of his illusion of control. He had to react to his mother's needs in order to keep the family system, with its eccentrically fretful mother, and its estranged, absent father, in a semblance of balance.

"Balance" was mutually determined. Gladys depended for her equilibrium on Elvis behaving in a certain way. Whether this did or did not include outright sexual contact is immaterial, as his role was masculinized. Elvis maintained his own equilibrium by responding intuitively to Gladys's needs. He would take on whatever role she silently demanded. Effectively playing this role was the key to unlocking her love. Much of her "love" was, in fact, exploitation. Elvis learned to polish and perfect this role. In doing so, he learned an incredible level of sensitivity to unconscious signals of the needs of a woman.

Lethal enmeshment unrolled like a giant carpet, and new psychological tensions appeared as a part of the pattern. Gladys always feared for her son whenever he was away. She walked him to school even in high school. They would speak on the phone every night for her lifetime. In order for Gladys to feel any hint of psychological comfort and integration, Elvis needed always to remain a part of her, within her boundaries. But for Elvis, especially developing within the cultural expectations for male behavior, there was a greater urgency to do things on his own, to try and shake lose of Gladys. This would always churn-up a sense of ambivalence in him, as at the core these two urges were inseparable in his most primitive awareness. This ambivalence became an important conflict within Elvis, a repetition of the "hanging on" - "letting go" theme from infancy, now making its appearance amidst unusual circumstances. In Vernon's void, the new roles demanded of Elvis were confusing and frightening. At three, he was chronologically a "child." However, his mother's balance depended on him being either an "infant" or an "adult." Dependency, separation anxiety, and a counterphobic compulsion to flaunt his individuality were his natural reactions to this conflict.

Some unusual Oedipal tensions added to this jumble of emotions. In the prototypical pattern, Elvis would have wanted to possess his mother, and banish his father from her, in order to become the sole recipient of her adulation. In normal development, this tension is compounded by fears that the father, bigger and stronger, will punish the child; he ultimately resolves this by maturing, and marrying a woman to replace his mother. For Elvis, there need be no replacement. His father had in fact been banished. Elvis was living out the Oedipal fantasy. Guilt set in with a vengeance. And it ricocheted between both mother and son. In his child-like and egocentric way, Elvis felt he was the cause of his father's being taken away. Also, he must have felt guilt over being too close with his mother. Gladys saw her most angry wishes come true. Vernon’s imprisonment echoed her most viscous thoughts. As they shared everything else, they shared their guilt. Inevitably, as they looked to each other for support, guilt turned to extreme loyalty.

Abuse victims forced to play a role that is out of sync with the natural sequence of maturation, they naturally tend to "split-off" that part of their selves that is emotionally unnourished. Typically, this part of their identity is relegated to a parallel path in their lives, a distant orbit out of conscious awareness. It is dissociated from their awareness. This is especially pronounced when this part of the self is tainted with shame and guilt from an eroticized relationship, such as Elvis and Gladys had. These are powerful emotions for which the youngster is unprepared to deal. They cannot be processed, worked through, and integrated to one's conscious awareness. This is the beginning of an ego-split within Elvis, where his dependent infant experienced a troubled, distant co-existence with his pseudo-mature caretaker.

The negative emotions surrounding the "bad" self remain intact. This is the root of many of the hallmark symptoms seen in adolescence and adulthood. Usually, this is the encapsulation of bad memories of terrible times. The term "toxic shame" is frequently used in reference to the emotions carried by this part of the self. This tainted part of the person is unconsciously mourned for, and the loss flavors everything the abuse survivor does. Carl Jung spoke of this when he said that "all neuroses are substitutes for legitimate suffering." In Elvis, however, the inverse of this was also true. While infantilizing Elvis, keeping him under her constant control and refusing to acknowledge his autonomy, Gladys overnourished Elvis's role as an "infant." Playing this role felt good to him. He enjoyed the sense of being indulged. His sense of vulnerability responded positively to being protected by her. His "caretaker" role gave him validation that he was "good." Yet, given the natural attempts to form his own self, involvement with Gladys felt too good to leave behind. The erotic flavor to this role was a catalyst in creating a sense of conflict, as this felt too good.

During the time Vernon was in prison, Elvis's role of the "infant" was split-off, discarded in favor of the more important role as the parent substitute. He identified, as do all abuse victims, with the power wielder as his primary role model. However, Elvis was unlike the dissociated roles in the textbook abuse victim where one's memories during the period of abuse are blanked-out. Elvis's unique form of enmeshment, including that part identified with his twin, kept him in remarkably close contact with this inner representation of himself. He had immediate access to a naïve, unreal, childlike persona. His mind could travel a well-worn pathway that let him shuttle between the two roles with ease and enjoyment. This was both a blessing and a curse. The strong link between the two selves would impair his ability to behave as a fully responsible adult. It would also require him to fall back upon the most primitive defense mechanisms. He would learn to rely upon denial, magical thinking, and "acting out" to try and solve his problems. On the other hand, he could take what seemed complex and impenetrable, and quickly find a simple interpretation. His easy access to his inner child was the fount of his musical creativity.

The teachings of the Assembly of God church were a foundation for each of Elvis's three illusions. Members "are not to be conformed to the world." The fundamentalist interpretation of this was the daily world-view to which Elvis was exposed. It teaches that Christians participating in the Assembly of God will not believe or behave as non-believers do. Frightened by the bombastic style of the preachers' delivery, and possibly because of this, Elvis read the Bible daily his entire life. While he would also read from other theological and philosophical tracts, the Bible was basic, and the Assembly of God its first and purest mouthpiece. In the same way that people habitually shop at a certain store because they know it carries items they need, the Assembly of God church in Tupelo carried what Gladys needed. It carried what Elvis learned to need.

The very bedrock of the church's philosophy of life held that even though they worshipped a forgiving God, He was indeed all powerful. In East Tupelo during the 1930's and 1940's, if something bad happened to someone, the church quickly and logically re-framed it as the work of the Lord. There was no room for randomness in the fundamentalist world . All things were part of a grander scheme. Gladys was particularly drawn to this way of thinking, because of her reliance on repression and denial to walling-off trauma.

Gladys responded most positively to a religion that reinforced her cognitive style of "walling-off." The Assembly of God actually rejoiced in taking bad things that happened to good people, and presenting them as if essential for the betterment of all mankind. The use of dissociation exists in a variety of religions around the world; it is a culture-bound phenomenon, and can work effectively in the right environment. The church provided her with black and white answers, "compartmentalized thinking" using the litany of the Bible, answering for her questions that would have been overwhelming. Given the events that thoroughly tarnished her and Elvis's early world with themes of inexplicable death and uncontrollable vulnerability, the Assembly of God church kept Gladys from psychic entropy.

The church also reinforced in her and taught to Elvis that the ultimate control of events in one's life does not come from a secular sense of self-determination. The dominating power in life is something external to the individual, not internal. Elvis was taught the perception that any reward he received was less contingent upon his own behavior or characteristics as a person, and more controlled by forces outside of himself. And the way to having this outside force impact you most positively is strict belief in the Bible, and adherence to a code of right and wrong behavior, as dictated by the church.

The concept of "locus of control" underlies how attitudes toward learning, acquiring skills, and achievement of any sort are constructed. The idea of whether a person believes he can make things happen, or that things happen to him - belief in either an internal or external locus of control is basic to human nature. For example, if someone knew that just one news stand sold his favorite magazine, he is likely to return there. However, if he were to find a dollar bill on the sidewalk, he is unlikely to return to that spot if he needed money. The sociologist, Thorstein Veblen equated an extreme belief in an "external" locus of control, as in fate or chance, with a barbarian approach to life. He felt this attitude resulted in an inefficient, unproductive, passive society. The theologian and philosopher, Thomas Merton saw the belief in external locus of control as a defense mechanism, "to serve the psychological function of enabling people to preserve their self-esteem in the face of failure." On the other hand are those who develop a clear sense of confidence and ability to deal with reality. They believe their own skill and internal make-up determines what reinforcements they get from life. Such individuals fall toward the "internal" end of the continuum. While a belief at either extreme of the continuum is pathological, the feeling that one can control the environment is also the knowledge that one can control oneself.

Elvis developed more toward the "external" end of the continuum, and this had an impact on every aspect of his behavior. In determining this, his enmeshment with his mother, where he was completely within her control, was replicated in the teachings of the church that emphasized constraint, self-denial and rigid morals in order to be approved by an "external" God. To Elvis, it was as if Gladys's rigid body boundaries extended to include the church. It all worked as a tightly knit operating plan. In particular, this sense of the causality of events provided him with the right mental crucible for developing "magical thinking" as his way to solve problems. Magical thinking also allowed him to feel comfortable existing with the dual roles of his split ego that included the infant and caretaking adult.

An aura of magic clung tightly to Elvis, his family, and their way of making sense out of life. This "aura" started before both twins had been born. Vernon said he knew something special was going to happen, as he blacked out after the orgasm that he thought resulted in Elvis's conception. Nine months later, in the room where Elvis was born, there were two identical, small glass bottles on a wooden shelf. At the time Gladys started her delivery, one of them shattered and fell to the floor. Truth or legend, the family unit fully believed in paranormal phenomenon.

More than just belief in an "external" locus of control, magical thinking is a normal phase in the intellectual development of all children until around age ten. The psychologist Jean Piaget referred to children during this stage as "cognitive aliens." Bruno Bettelheim wrote about the child's need for magic, and their natural tendency toward animistic thinking and egocentric logic. In the child's mind, if the sun is warm, it must be because warmth is a human quality. Egocentrically, the child believes he is the center of all activity around him. If he is read a story, it speaks to him alone. In one's normal psychological development, however, magical thinking is supposed to be a stage of life, not a style of life. For Elvis they were one and the same.

Carried to extremes, magical thinking itself becomes a form of dissociation. After passing through a prism of magical, fantastic logic, painful, unacceptable events are now beautifully embellished and brightly colored. Elvis's early years provided numerous opportunities to learn this style of thought. His surviving while Jesse died was an irreversible start in this direction. This would never make sense to him. The subsequent distortion of reality testing, given the boundary confusion with his mother, and their instinctive sharing of thoughts and feelings, gave him a predisposition to be attracted to fantasy and fantastic embellishments of reality. In light of the initial trauma of his birth, and the subsequent trauma of his lethal enmeshment, Elvis and Gladys both demonstrated a core characteristic of abuse survivors. Consistent with the belief that the location of powers controlling your fate are external to the individual, they shared the belief that some thing, or somebody could magically change their lives - without their changing behavior. In the literature of abuse victims, this is most frequently heard in their statements such as "if I had money, everything would be O.K.," "if someone leaves me, I'll die," or the thought that physical beauty is tantamount to perfection.

While many such thought distortions are a part of the general culture, children from dysfunctional families believe constantly, literally and rigidly in this manner. They have lost the ability to test reality using real-world standards. And if Elvis looked outside his family to find an alternative perspective, the teachings, speaking in tongues, and 'laying on of the hands' healing methods of the Assembly of God church did not provide it. Instead, it reinforced belief in the power of magic

Growing up, Elvis was not exposed to fairy tales. He was bombarded exclusively by the church's teachings and Bible stories. Both are forms of conveying meaning and purpose in life, teaching children belief systems, fostering personality development and psychological maturity. Both contain stories of people struggling through conflicts and temptations, then making rites of passage.

The form of the fairy tale is such that the child discovers common people as characters, where only the hero has a name. They are structured simplistically, showing good and evil as clear opposites. They present enthralling characters that involve the young mind. Charles Dickens said that "Little Red Riding Hood was my first love. I've always felt that if I could have married Little Red Riding Hood, I could have known perfect bliss." The reader (or listener) of a fairy tale reacts vicariously when his hero is presented with a conflict. He must go out on his own into the world, struggle, and achieve a resolution, often with the temporary help of some form of magic. Then, discarding his magic, the hero leads a normal life, 'happily ever after.'

Fairy tales serve as tools that allow children to see their inner conflicts in a symbolic form. Snarling wolves are the unconscious impulses within. Giants represent parental authority. There is therapy in the child's working through these tales, as he finds others with his own problems, and can use the message in the story to develop his own solutions. He grows by internalizing morals and values. Fairy tales let children ask "Who do I want to be like?" rather than "Do I want to be right or wrong?" They learn how to individuate from their family. They identify first with the story hero, then incorporate selected characteristics into their own identity. Fairy tales offer therapeutic solutions to problems ranging from sexuality to sibling rivalry and the greatest rivalry of them all, the Oedipal conflict.

The Bible, on the other hand, offers no solutions for dealing with the darker sides of personality. The story of Cain and Able, for example, expresses no compassion for the dilemma of sibling rivalry. Such feelings are shown as wicked, and leading only to tragedy. Sexual turmoil and anger, according to the Bible, can be resolved only by repression, the mortar that cements the "walls" of dissociation. Bettelheim discussed the dilemma of growing up with only Biblical stories. "Children," he says, "not having their ids in conscious control, need stories which permit at least fantasy satisfaction of these ‘bad’ tendencies, and specific models for their sublimation." Assembly of God Bible stories, in addition, always stressed that the ultimate reward for leading a good life comes only after death. Staying within the system of the church was, therefore, mandatory. Until he started school, Elvis’ view of the world was completely saturated with his mother’s fervent convictions, church dogma, and Bible stories. He had virtually no other frame of reference.

"All the children loved the Bible stories," said Annie Presley of Elvis's early environment. "We would read a story in the Bible on Jesus or Joseph, and I'd make a story out of that. I'm sure Gladys did too. We would talk a lot about the Bible, make it up as we went along. I recall cooking the family supper and telling stories to the children about "Joseph and his coat of many colors." It was the most important part of our lives. And the stories were just something that was there for you all the time."

Annie Presley also noted that when Elvis could read on his own, he soon found another source of inspiration that was more appealing than the Bible stories. "The Pastor would fuss over our giving kids comic books. But then, his kids would come over and read them." In comic books, Elvis saw a more exciting form of role model, a more immediate embodiment of God-like power, combined with magical abilities: the super hero. He took this to heart. It made sense to him. It also inspired him. In later yeas, after receiving an Achievement Award from the Memphis Chamber of Commerce, in his acceptance speech he said, "In every story I’ve ever read, every movie I’ve ever watched, I’ve always been the hero."

Gladys’s behavior made it clear to her son that he was "special." He was, of course, an ideal candidate for her expectations. Survivor twins, they show a clear tendency to develop a sense of omnipotence. This acts as a defense against thoughts of their death, an emotion to which they feel extremely close, as it was inflicted upon their mirror image. Elvis's boundary confusion was such that as a natural extension of enmeshment with Gladys, he then proceeded to develop with her in the church. Even parishioners noted Gladys's lofty expectations of her son during these years. He believed at some level of consciousness that he was, quite literally, a "child of God." "Elvis clearly had a Christ complex," Larry Geller note. "He felt all his life that he was chosen, that he was a savior. He felt he was put on this earth to help humanity."

From "special" twin, to family "caretaker," to perceiving himself as omnipotent - One of the characteristics that Elvis prized in the powers of God and in the magic of comic book heroes was control — each stage leads logically to the next. Elvis needed to empower himself by emulating the power of God and the magic of comic book heroes. As a victim of abuse, he was desperately in search of control over himself, and control over his surroundings. Without that, he could find no inner peace. Typically, people who have been enmeshed feel a total lack of control. All their lives they have been at the mercy of someone who has wielded great power over them. They yearn to take charge but can never act assertively. Elvis found control in magic. It was an illusion that was intrinsically rewarding.

Escape was the psychological motif of Elvis’ third illusion. All survivors of lethal enmeshment operate under a sense of secrecy. They live in fear that divulging the facts about their family will bring shame and humiliation. They want to avoid their past, yet are imprisoned by it. Elvis wanted to break free from the coils of confusion and impurity that had trapped him. Through his "illusion of illusion," using a magical command of his God-given powers, he could do so. This illusion of magic and of power was his escape hatch. It provided freedom from the real world.

Elvis tested the strength of this illusion when he was ten years old, performing for seemingly no reason at all at the State Fair. He discovered that it worked quite well. He could take charge of all of his inner conflicts, conquer his fears of the crowd, and succeed despite his battered self-esteem. He could squeeze all the turmoil into the shape of a performer. He sang a song that cast a spell over the crowd, while lifting an ominous spell from his shoulders.

Therapy of any sort involves getting in contact with split-off parts of one's being, understanding them, and unleashing them. Elvis's singing put him in the most direct contact possible with his twin, and with his mother. But most importantly, he did this without Gladys actually being with him. As if he needed proof that he finally stood outside the boundary of her control, Gladys's reaction to his performing was to give him a spanking. To him, that was a step in the right direction.

In singing for his schoolmates at Milam Junior High, he again operated within his illusion of illusion. He had found a socially acceptable vehicle for getting in touch with his split-off infant, of communicating with his mother, and replicating the traces of emotions that had been laid down from before his birth. And in standing apart from the crowd while singing, he was cleverly protecting himself from their ever seeing behind his facade. Tennyson said that in the face of death we are "an infant crying in the night . . . and with no language but a cry." Magically, illusorily, Elvis could now face death, with a guitar and with a language. And that unique language, once all his own, would soon become a form of music to be rendered into the global vernacular of an entire generation.

***

Like interlopers into foreign territory where only another tongue is spoken, once in Memphis, the Presley family would try and make themselves understood by speaking more loudly - but still in their own tongue, a vocabulary and syntax of ancient habits, rituals and roles. These patterns and practices would shape how they coped with the challenges of the new land, and were obvious in how Elvis presented himself to others. His affect, in turn, would determine how others dealt with him. As a thirteen-year old, Elvis theoretically had the greatest amount of psychological flexibility to adapt to the new city life. As the family member most profoundly impacted by these three illusions, however, he entered the arena with a significant handicap.

As the Presleys crossed the Mississippi - Tennessee border, they headed away from their past. In many ways, their choice of Memphis, Tennessee, was magically serendipitous. They were about to create their own future. Ahead lay the most rewarding of relationships, something on the grandest of scales. It was as if Elvis were the seed and the city by the river the fertile land that would allow each to grow infinitely richer. In her own way, Memphis was "needy." In 1948, with a population of 237,000, it was, just like Elvis, unique. It was a city with no history, and a people with no sound.