Dealing with shame ...Part 1

Dealing With Shame

From Douglas Larsen

As You Work Toward Emotional Healing

Survivors of abuse often have to deal with feelings of shame. There is an important difference between shame and guilt, and that is the key to dealing with shame effectively.
Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary defines shame as "the painful feeling arising from the consciousness of something dishonorable, improper, ridiculous, etc., done by oneself or another." And yes, it is a painful feeling, and is very common among survivors of abuse.
For our discussion, we'll make some simplifications. Guilt is an emotion and a legal concept that belongs to the perpetrator, the initiator of an act of abuse. Shame is an emotion that afflicts the victim, the recipient of an act of abuse. Obviously, the perp should feel shame as well as guilt, but often feels neither, so we'll leave that out of this discussion. We'll talk about how victims can deal with shame.
Even if you have worked hard to deal with guilt, and have assigned guilt to the person who abused you, and resolved the fact that no guilt belongs to you, shame may still be making you miserable. Shame rises out of a sense of powerlessness and frustration, as well as the continual feeling of shock that something this horrible has happened to you. Both men and women deal with shame, but experts believe that in general, among abuse survivors, women tend to feel more guilt, and men tend to feel more shame. But generalizations can be dangerous, and let's just agree that both shame and guilt can make people miserable.
Emotional Wound
First, it helps to realize that the actual physical act of abuse is not as important as you think. The physical act, whatever it may have been, was done by the perp to give himself a feeling of power, and to give you a feeling of powerlessness. The act was carefully chosen by the perp, thinking like a torturer, to give you the most emotional pain. So when dealing with shame, don't think in terms of healing your physical wounds. You must think of it in emotional terms, and analyze what your emotional wounds are.
For your physical wounds, you went to a doctor or an emergency room. For your emotional wounds, you have to see a therapist. Many people resist this step, but it is no stranger than seeing a doctor for your bruises or cuts, and is every bit as important.
An aside: I've had physical wounds. A few hours after a major surgery, I was taken to get a CAT Scan. I had a large, freshly sutured incision on my stomach. The iodine solution I had to drink for the CAT Scan made me vomit, and it felt like it was ripping my incision open, and ripping my entire body apart. What's my point? I've had physical pain. Emotional pain hurts more. That's my point.
Powerlessness
The powerlessnes, the fear, the shock of the abuse is behind your feeling of shame. Even if you know the perp is guilty, that doesn't necessarily affect your feelings of shame. You need to realize that the perpetrator worked very hard to ensure that he had all of the power, and you had none. Abusers will use the element of surprise. Abusers will use an age difference, especially when adults abuse children, but also when adults abuse the elderly. Abusers will use weapons. Abusers will use threats and coercion -- "unless you have sex with me, I'll assault your younger sister." Abusers will use economic issues, like threatening to evict the victim unless they comply. Batterers are especially fond of economic power, and will make sure that if their battered wife leaves them, she will have no options for taking care of herself or the children. Abusers will use gender issues to cultivate fear, wherein the man is comfortable with violence and the woman is not, even though there may not be a large difference in their physical sizes.
The thing to remember is that no matter what the specifics are, the perpetrator has taken enormous pains to make sure that this is not a fair fight; that all of the advantages are his, and you have none at all. It is not fair for you to feel that you "should" have been able to do something to stop it. The perpetrator made sure you couldn't. In those circumstances, almost nobody could have. The abuse happened because the perpetrator planned it carefully, and was never, never fair. It's not because you were weak, or cowardly, or stupid.
Let's use a poker-playing analogy. You didn't lose because you were a lousy poker player. You lost because the perp was using a marked deck that he had prepared himself. He made sure he dealt himself four aces, and he made sure he dealt you nothing of value. He cheated, from beginning to end. That card game had nothing to do with your skill at playing cards.

Ingredients of a Healthy Relationship

Creating a relationship is like backing a cake. You must have the right ingredients, in the right amount (not too much and not too little) and you must put them together in the right order. The ingredients of a healthy relationship are as follows:

1. Honesty that engenders trust.

2. Readiness for a relationship (both partners).

3. The willingness to negotiate or compromise.

4. Self-awareness—this means both partners knowing who they are and what they want.

5. Self-esteem—this means both partners feeling good about themselves.

6. Communication skills.

This means:

- Asking for what you want, but not being addicted to getting it.
- Fighting fair. (This means expressing your opinion without attacking the other person.)
- Reporting your feelings.
- Saying what you mean (not beating around the bush).
- Listening, as well as talking.

7. Sexual compatibility. This means similar values and preferences.

8. There should be a recognition of the fact that there are 4 people in the relationship—2 adults and 2 children (1 inner child per adult).

This means:

- That childhood wounds will probably be triggered and sensitivity strategies must be created.
- That rituals from your family of origin must be re-negotiated and new rituals created as a couple.
- And, finally, that the wounded inner child must be kept in check. (In other words, love your inner child, but don't give him or her the keys to the car.)

9. Similar (but not necessarily identical) values about such issues as money, religion, monogamy, and parenting. This avoids needless conflict. Still, you don't have to agree about everything—just what's important to you.

10. Patience and tolerance, but you should never tolerate abuse.

11. It is important to accept the fact that there will be days when the relationship seems very ordinary or even boring. Many people tend to have an “all or nothing” mentality. They either want a relationship to be exciting all the time, or they live with unbearable pain rather than move on. Healthy relationships are sometimes lukewarm.

12. The willingness to substitute “influencing” for “controlling.”

This means:

- Saying something once and then letting it go.
- It also means being a role-model instead of nagging someone to change.

13. The willingness to keep your personality boundaries (even when you feel like losing yourself in the other person). This is how we maintain our self-esteem.

14. Devotion. How can an intimate relationship feel good if we aren't special to each other.

15. Quality time together. At the same time, you want to set aside time for personal interests. Look for balance.

16. Knowing when to stay and when to leave. This means staying when things are going well (and you feel like running), and being willing to let go of the relationship if it is unhealthy.

17. It is also important to have compatibility and “ease” in a relationship. At the same time it must be understood that no relationship is perfect. (Compatibility comes from being alike or from having a high tolerance for your partner's differences.)

18. The willingness to face your problems (without over-reacting).

19. Respect and admiration, but there should also be an understanding that your partner will not always look good to you.

20. Reciprocity (give and take), but you should also be willing to make sacrifices now and then.

21. Realistic expectations about how much of your happiness should come from the relationship—not too much and not too little.

The Progression of a Healthy Relationship

The proper progression of a healthy relationship may vary but here are some guidelines:

1. Develop a fulfilling relationship with yourself before you attempt to have a romantic relationship. Romantic feelings can be like a tidal wave sweeping you out to sea if you are not securely tied to a relationship with yourself. Many of you may want to be swept out to sea, but this is not really healthy, and sometimes it is dangerous.

2. Selection is everything.

- Take your time.
- Do everything you can to keep from being blinded by your emotions.
- Know what you don't want (people who trigger your dysfunctional behavior).
- Be willing to change your mind if you usually “cling” and be willing to hang in there if you usually “run.”
- Look for someone healthy, and observe them objectively before you jump in.
- Look for someone who does not have to change very much too please you.
- Know what you do want. Make a list of the things that are mandatory and the things that are optional. Prioritize your list. Make sure you include things like availability, compatibility, honesty.

3. Dating:

- This is where you find out what this person is really like. Any false fronts should crumble after a few dates.
- Be yourself. You want someone to know who you really are.
- Measure your compatibility during this time.
- Establish trust.
- Hold off on sex if it blinds you to what this person is really like, and keep a lid on any budding romantic feelings. (You may feel them, but don't give them a lot of power by fantasizing too much.)
- Be willing to change your mind if you usually “cling” to unhealthy people and be willing to hang in there if you usually “run.”

4. Friendship:

- See if you can relax and have fun together.
- See if you can count on this person.
- Continue to see if there is enough compatibility to sustain this relationship.
- Build a strong foundation for a future romantic relationship.

5. Courtship:

- This is friendship with “an understanding” that things are going to become romantic.
- Romantic feelings can now have a free reign. See if they mix well with the friendship.
- You can let romantic love blossom now. You don't have to put a lid on your feelings anymore.
- Now you can test your readiness for intimacy. This is usually the time when a fear of intimacy comes up—if you have any.

6. Commitment:

- Now things are getting serious.
- Set ground rules for the relationship.
- Discuss things like fidelity, growing closer, the future, how much time you will have for each other. . .anything that is important to you.

7. Partnership:

During a partnership you should:

- Maintain what you have established up to now.
- Honor the values you have in common.
- Grow as a couple, as well as individuals.
- Get to really know each other and experience intimacy.

8. Switch:

At any point in the progression of the relationship, one partner may experience a fear of intimacy and pull back. Don't panic. Give your partner some space. However, if he or she does not come around in a few weeks, you should move on.

ACA - The Promises

THE PROMISES

1. We will discover our real identities by loving and accepting ourselves.
2. Our self-esteem will increase as we give ourselves approval on a daily basis.
3. Fear of authority figures and the need to "people-please" will leave us.
4. Our ability to share intimacy will grow inside us.
5. As we face our abandonment issues, we will be attracted by strengths and become more tolerant of weaknesses.
6. We will enjoy feeling stable, peaceful, and financially secure.
7. We will learn how to play and have fun in our lives.
8. We will choose to love people who can love and be responsible for themselves.
9. Healthy boundaries and limits will become easier for us to set.
10. Fears of failure and success will leave us, as we intuitively make healthier choices.
11. With help from our ACA support group, we will slowly release our dysfunctional behaviors.
12. Gradually, with our Higher Power's help, we will learn to expect the best and get it.

ACA - The Solution

THE SOLUTION

The solution is to become your own loving parent

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As ACA becomes a safe place for you, you will find freedom to express all the hurts and fears you have kept inside and to free yourself from the shame and blame that are carryovers from the past. You will become an adult who is imprisoned no longer by childhood reactions. You will recover the child within you, learning to accept and love yourself.

The healing begins when we risk moving out of isolation. Feelings and buried memories will return. By gradually releasing the burden of unexpressed grief, we slowly move out of the past. We learn to re-parent ourselves with gentleness, humor, love and respect.

This process allows us to see our biological parents as the instruments of our existence. Our actual parent is a Higher Power whom some of us choose to call God. Although we had alcoholic or dysfunctional parents, our Higher Power gave us the Twelve Steps of Recovery.

This is the action and work that heals us: we use the Steps; we use the meetings; we use the telephone. We share our experience, strength, and hope with each other. We learn to restructure our sick thinking one day at a time. When we release our parents from responsibility for our actions today, we become free to make healthful decisions as actors, not reactors. We progress from hurting, to healing, to helping. We awaken to a sense of wholeness we never knew was possible.

By attending these meetings on a regular basis, you will come to see parental alcoholism or family dysfunction for what it is: a disease that infected you as a child and continues to affect you as an adult. You will learn to keep the focus on yourself in the here and now. You will take responsibility for your own life and supply your own parenting.

You will not do this alone. Look around you and you will see others who know how you feel. We will love and encourage you no matter what. We ask you to accept us just as we accept you.

This is a spiritual program based on action coming from love. We are sure that as the love grows inside you, you will see beautiful changes in all your relationships, especially with God, yourself, and your parents.

THE LAUNDRY LIST

The Laundry List – 14 Traits of an Adult Child of an Alcoholic

1. We became isolated and afraid of people and authority figures.
2. We became approval seekers and lost our identity in the process.
3. We are frightened of angry people and any personal criticism.
4. We either become alcoholics, marry them or both, or find another compulsive personality such as a workaholic to fulfill our sick abandonment needs.
5. We live life from the viewpoint of victims and we are attracted by that weakness in our love and friendship relationships.
6. We have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility and it is easier for us to be concerned with others rather than ourselves; this enables us not to look too closely at our own faults, etc.
7. We get guilt feelings when we stand up for ourselves instead of giving in to others.
8. We became addicted to excitement.
9. We confuse love and pity and tend to "love" people we can "pity" and "rescue."
10. We have "stuffed" our feelings from our traumatic childhoods and have lost the ability to feel or express our feelings because it hurts so much (Denial).
11. We judge ourselves harshly and have a very low sense of self-esteem.
12. We are dependent personalities who are terrified of abandonment and will do anything to hold on to a relationship in order not to experience painful abandonment feelings, which we received from living with sick people who were never there emotionally for us.
13. Alcoholism is a family disease; and we became para-alcoholics and took on the characteristics of that disease even though we did not pick up the drink.
14. Para-alcoholics are reactors rather than actors.
    

    
    

A Desire to Recover

In the past I have looked at my life and wondered how I could ever overcome my past. The amount of abuse I sur- vived, the memories buried deep down inside, and the pain – it was all too much to look at. I often even thought that about myself, ― I am too much!

I have learned not to underestimate the desire to recover and the power it has had and continues to have in my life.  I have looked at memories or traits I had and couldn’t see the path ahead.  I wondered how I would ever get through it. I have also learnt to trust my higher power and to trust that the way will be there when I am ready.  I still need to remind myself of this often.  In the past,  when something bubbled to the surface that I knew needed to be looked at, I met it with stress.  "This is too big!  I’ll never be able to feel this or look at this. It will kill me!"

It has taken me many years, but now I know that my

higher power would not let it come to the surface if I did not have the ability to deal with it.  That would be cruel, and my higher power is not cruel.  My journey has proven this to me.  I can look back over the past 10 years and see how I was gently guided.  At the time, I could not see this, but in hindsight it is very clear.

In the past year, I have been working on resting in that knowledge.  Now, when something new comes up for me to look at, I work at being more relaxed.  I know that I will make it through to the other side.

I am learning this dance with my higher power - if something comes up from my past and I want to heal. My higher power knows I want to heal more than anything. It is a desire stronger than anything else in my life.  When the desire is there, the way comes.  It may not come as fast as I want it, or in the way that I want it, but it always comes.... 

Not Monsters....just Dysfunctional

I came to ACA with the deep, dark secret that I hated my parents.   I knew there was something terribly wrong with me.   People are supposed to love their parents. 
My father, however, was an alcoholic, and my mother raged incessantly.  Both were violent.  They frightened me, and I hated them for it.
My parents' illness affected my siblings and myself profoundly.  I believed if I had been a better daughter and a better person,  my parents would not have acted the way they acted.  Knowing that my behavior as a child had no effect on how my parents chose to live their lives is a wonderful gift.
I thought my parents, my husband, and my children were keeping me in bondage, locked up, and unable to live my life freely.  I have learned in this program that I am the only person limiting my freedom because of my fears.
In ACA I've started coming out of denial.  I discovered others who had parents like mine.   By exposing many of my familys' secrets in meetings, I have changed the impact of my childhood on my life today.   Merely stating aloud,  “My father was an alcoholic,” relieved me of the overwhelming stress of keeping the secret hidden.   I know now that the things my parents did which hurt me so much were not done to hurt me.   My parents' behavior and their choices weren't about me.   I've come to understand my parents were not monsters,....just dysfunctional alcoholics.

I've been able to release many of my fears by using the Twelve Steps as the method and the meetings as a supportive forum.  When I expose my fears to the light of day by telling others, the fears don't seem as bad or evil as they were when hidden within that dark place inside of me.
Confronting my fear was not easy,  but it has changed my life dramatically.   I certainly could never have made this change in myself, by myself.   I thank ACA for being here and supporting me through this. 

The Roles Children take on to help them cope with dysfunction in their homes

These roles include:


1. The Hero: is the responsible child in the family unit who often times takes on more responsibility than one or both parents. They get good grades, are typically popular and they excel in whatever he or she takes on. "The parents use this child as proof that they are good parents. On the inside the hero is insecure, and requires a lot of positive attention to make up for their inner emotional deficit. They generally grow up to be successful adults, although they generally continue to feel inadequate" (Gold, 2009). 


2. The Scapegoat: is the child the family typically wants to hide. They are always acting out, getting into trouble or causing additional conflict. They figure even negative attention is better than no attention at all and use this tactic to their advantage. This child typically has problems in school and is the most emotional and sensitive. They take things personally and get their feelings easily hurt. In addition, the scapegoat is the most likely to have their own problems with substance abuse, have a teen pregnancy or troubles with the law. 


3. The Caretaker: is the child that acts as the families distraction. They allow the family something else to focus on besides their own dysfunction. Typically characterized as the class clown who gives both emotionally and physically. "They often try to 'save' other people, from themselves or from their bad situations. This is the child that is most likely to grow up to be co-dependent, continuing the cycle of dysfunction" (Gold, 2009). 


4. The Lost Child: is the child that escapes the dysfunction with "escapism". They put on a facade of not being emotional, they tend to zone out or daydream. They are often shy and/or anti-social. "This child is likely to become an artist, as dysfunction in real life is usually a great outlet for art" (Gold, 2009).

Identification...Before and After

Every Adult Child Anonymous (ACA) recovery journey begins with identification. Some of us identify immediately with the fellowship name, remembering clearly the parental alcoholism,addictions or dysfunction we witnessed as children.  Others of us identify with the Laundry List but wonder how our “normal” and “happy” childhoods could have created those characteristics in us.  Some of us identify with all 14 traits of the Laundry List, while some of us may initially relate to only a few.

In every case, however, some element of identification brings us to our second meeting, or keeps us reading another page of the fellowship text.  Eventually, we learn if we have the necessary “desire” to recover and the willingness to surrender to the process, one day at a time.  Eventually, we commit to working the Steps and applying those spiritual principles in our lives. But before we commit, we relate.

Identification is a critical first step of our journey.  It's what keeps us coming back.
For those of us introduced to ACA by a fellow traveler carrying the message, we also know the power of hearing and relating to someone else's story.  Identifying with others reminds us that we aren't alone or unique.  We aren't the only ones to have felt such shame and aloneness.  We aren‟t the only ones struggling to reclaim a true self buried years ago in a dysfunctional family system.

Identifying with other adult children also reminds us that we don't have to do this difficult work in isolation.  Every ACA meeting we attend reminds us that others have been where we are today and have made it through to the other side.  Fellow travelers light the way for us to follow, so we can carry that hope for those just beginning the journey.

Eventually, we come to identify not just with "the Problem" but also with "the Solution". 

We see the ACA Promises coming true in our lives. We relate more to stability and serenity, and less to fear and excitement. Slowly and gradually, we find our identification as recovering adult children. 

Denial in Addicted Family systems

Denial is a word that people in recovery use often. It generally refers to an addict who is denying their own increasing use and abuse of alcohol and/or drugs and its affect on their life. Or, it refers to someone around the addict who is denying the progression and impact of an addict's escalating addiction (sometimes referred to as an enabler). The enabler's denial allows the addict to keep using, and it denies the impact that the addict's addiction is having on family members. Denial, in this sense, can lead to considerable dysfunction within the family system, because there is a "cover up," an ever-growing "secret" that family members do not feel free to talk about. When a family is steeped in denial, the person who is trying to say that "the emperor has no clothes on" is generally viewed negatively by those who are not willing to see what's really going on.

Q. When does denial become pathological?

Answer:

• When it alters reality to such an extent that we lose touch with "normal."
• When it forces others to join with us, in living our lie.
• When it's a rewrite of reality that is far enough from the truth, that it makes us live a dishonest life on the inside or the outside.

But are there some times in which denial serves us, or helps us, at least temporarily, to cope with a situation that seems to be more than we are ready to face? Can denial also be in service of preserving our sense of self, our stability and ability to keep going without falling apart?  
So what's the difference between the kind of denial that seeks to rewrite reality, the kind that is a useful natural coping mechanism? And what about the death of a loved one? Is it denial that carries us through the first months when we still feel that the person who died isn't really gone? Is it spirituality and a sense of contact with a world beyond what we see? Isn't emotional numbness a natural reaction to trauma and a first stage of grief and loss? This kind of numbness is not the same as denial, as it does not involve a distortion of reality. It is a coping mechanism built into our human nature. It may contribute to a pathological form of denial if loss is not eventually accepted. But this numbness is generally in service of our survival. It can give us a chance to work through our overwhelming sense of grief toward accepting a loss and reorganizing our lives. 

Not So Healthy Denial:

The kind of denial that becomes problematic is when we "rewrite" a situation or behaviors that we find disturbing because we don't want to see or deal with what's actually happening. It's the endless excuses, the alcoholic in our lives, isn't drunk again, they "simply have the flu, they are overworked, over-stressed or over-anxious and just trying to relax. What's the big deal?" It's when we use a sort of twisted reasoning to make someone's behavior more palatable or manageable than it actually feels. We don't want to connect the addict's increasing unmanageability, or our own chronic anxiety, to living with substance abuse or process addictions. This kind of denial is complicated. It requires constant upkeep, because lots of little things that relate to what we're denying keep cropping up in front of us, and we need to keep rewriting as we go. It's crazy making. It makes us doubt our sense of "normal" and question what we see in front of our eyes or feel in our guts to be true.

These latter types of denial distort reality. And they put family members in a terrible bind: They feel both hurt and envious, jealous because the denier seems to have such an easy time keeping their anxiety at bay and hurt because their sense of the truth is being insulted and , well... denied. Children, in their desperation to belong and assuage their anxiety, may wind up joining their parent in their distortion of reality in order to remain close to them. At some level, they know that they risk losing their parent's approval and love by calling things as they see them. This kind of denial becomes a subtle force that divides families, or a subtle force that creates collusion among some family members while making other family members feel left out and marginalized.

An unfortunate feature of this type of denial is that it becomes habit-forming. This type of thinking does not necessarily disappear when the addict either sobers up or leaves the picture. When spouses or family members, for example, spend years rewriting their anxious or scared feelings, that mental habit gets generalized into rewriting any aspect of life that bothers them. Or threatens their sense of who they are. Or who they need to think they are, in order to feel ... safe. Or secure. Or not as insecure. Or superior. Or not as inferior. Or whatever. 

Unconscious and Conscious Denial

The most unconscious form of denial is when we block our awareness to such an extent that we don't even take in something that's happening. On Sept. 11, for example, Susan called her boss over to witness what she was seeing from her window at work in NYC as the second plane flew straight into the second building and destroyed it. Her boss, who was standing right next to her, insisted that it was an optical illusion. He simply could not take in the reality of the situation. This kind of denial makes the people around it feel like banging the side of their head against the heel of their hand. They are essentially being told that what they are seeing right in front of them doesn't exist. It's crazy-making. It makes us doubt our sense of "normal" and question what we see in front of our eyes or feel in our guts to be true. This kind of denial can also be an unfortunate feature of families in which one or more people self medicate. It is this type of denial that, as a clinician, I feel the most concerned about when I encounter. And as an ACoA (adult child of an alcoholic) myself, I find the most divisive and crazy-making when I encounter it. Freeing a family of this kind of denial is a difficult but beautiful thing. Twelve-step rooms such as Al Anon do it slowly and gently. As we hear other people's stories, our own denial becomes more obvious and the freedom we feel when we can begin to tell ourselves the truth, the emancipation from holding "secrets" is deeply freeing.

ACA - 5 Characteristics

5 Characteristics of Adult Children of Alcoholics 

By Dawn Clancy 01/06/15

Growing up I’d always felt like I was different. Not different as in I had some amazing athletic ability or that I was blessed with a brand of intelligence that made me a shoo-in for Harvard but different in that I came from an alcoholic family that most people I knew couldn't relate to. I remember once at a sleep over, in middle school, where I decided to open up to a select group of friends about my brothers’ heavy drug use. I thought for sure that once I filled them in on all of the sordid details my all access pass to the cool club would be revoked and I would be left to wade through the dramas of adolescence alone. I was surprised and secretly relieved when it appeared that my friends were hardly fazed by the details I shared. Which led me to believe that maybe, despite being both raised by and related to a bunch of addicts, that I really wasn’t that different after all.

Unfortunately, my high fizzled as soon as I found out, a few days after my confession, that my friends had unanimously decided that I had made up everything I told them. So not only was I back to feeling different but thanks to a couple of catty preteen girls I was also labeled a liar.

It wasn’t until I started regularly attending Al-Anon meetings in my 20’s that I was able to connect with other people who had also been affected by addiction. Once I realized that I wasn’t alone, I slowly opened my mind to the possibility that maybe what I feared made me different from other people, really wasn’t all that bad. This realization inspired me to learn everything I possibly could about addiction.

In addition to attending weekly Al-Anon meetings I also sat in on AA meetings. I studied every piece of Al-Anon literature available and after I blew through all of those books and pamphlets I turned to the Self-Help aisle in my local Barnes and Noble. It was through the wisdom of authors such as Pia Mellody and Melody Beattie that my fears and quirks started to make sense. But it wasn’t until I stumbled upon Janet Woititz’s book, Adult Children Of Alcoholics, that I made great strides in my recovery. Janet was the first to list and describe the 13 most common characteristics of Adult Children of Alcoholics or ACOAs. Below, I have listed the five characteristics out of Janet’s original list of 13 that I identify with the most and I have considered how each one has played out in my adult life.

1. Adult children of alcoholics have difficulty having fun

I took my first trip abroad, with my husband, back in 2011. It was supposed to be the trip of a lifetime with an itinerary that included stops in Italy, Germany and Poland. Initially, I was excited but as the trip crept closer I found myself growing increasingly miserable. Instead of anticipating all of the fun we could have, I became preoccupied with all of the reasons why I didn’t deserve to go. During the trip, against the back drop of the Rhine river in Germany and the grand plazas of Italy, I picked fights with my husband and let my mood swings suck every last drop of joy out of the experience. It wasn’t that I didn't want to have fun but it was more about not allowing myself to have fun because I was convinced that I didn’t deserve it.

Once our vacation was over, I thought about the other areas of my life where I sabotaged fun and enlisted the help of my therapist to work through those urges. Her advice was simple, “Dawn, you’ve just got to fight through it and make a deliberate effort to choose fun as often as possible.” I’m still working on this one and every now and again I fall back into my old patterns but at least now I know that I have a choice and that it is indeed okay and even necessary for me to choose fun.

2. Adult children of alcoholics judge themselves without mercy

Organization is not a strength of mine. Sure, I know where all of my fitted sheets are stashed in the closet but when it comes to paperwork and instruction manuals for electronic devices I am a first class mess.

A few months ago, I flat out forgot my debit card’s pin number and after tearing through every drawer in the house, several times over, I couldn’t find the slip of paper I wrote it on.

I could have easily solved the problem by calling my bank and setting up a new pin but instead I sat crossed legged on my living room floor, buried in a pile of random papers, and proceeded to berate and mercilessly judge myself. Over and over I screamed about what a fucking idiot bitch I was and how stupid I had to be to forget something as simple as a pin number.

Like most ACOAs, I grew up blaming myself for everything that went wrong in my family. No matter how clean I kept the house or how strictly I followed the rules, it was never enough to keep my brothers out of jail or stop my mom from drinking herself numb. As a result, I became a Nazi of a perfectionist and even today, as an adult, I am prone to beating myself up over things that are as inane as losing my pin number.

3. Adult children of alcoholics are extremely loyal, even in the face of evidence that the loyalty is undeserved

The last guy that I dated, right before I met my husband, broke up with me because I refused to give him a blow job. The last thing he said, after I tried to explain to him why I was so uncomfortable with his request was, “You should be cool with blow jobs at your age. You’re not in high school anymore.”

Part of me knew that this jerk didn’t deserve an apology or a phone call but I called him anyway, a few days after the incident, hoping to patch things up. Unfortunately, he used the call as his opportunity to berate and shame me. He spent a good 20 minutes going on about how much of a paranoid freak I was, how all of our mutual friends thought I was crazy and how I had too many issues for him to deal with. I hung up the phone in tears, convinced that I had done something wrong and that I was responsible for his reaction. Eventually I realized that I didn’t owe this guy anything and I certainly didn't need to put up with his verbal abuse just because his massive ego had been bruised.

Today, I can honestly say that I am grateful for the blow job incident simply because it forced me to pay closer attention to the quality of men I let into my life and to question why I kept choosing to be loyal to the coke heads, alcoholics and assholes even though I knew they were no good for me.

4. Adult children of alcoholics have difficulty following through a project from beginning to end

I remember being sprawled out on my friend's bedroom floor the night before her wedding. While she was busy packing bathing suits and tanning oils for her exotic honeymoon, I was busy moaning to her about unfair my shitty life was, “God, it’s so hard," I whined to the ceiling. “My career is non-existent, I can’t find a decent guy to date….What the fuck is wrong with me?” Without missing a beat, my friend turned from the lumps of clothes in her suitcase and said, “In all the years I’ve know you Dawn, I’ve never seen you finish anything you start. Maybe that’s your problem.”

Growing up, my parents’ addictions took priority over every thing else. So instead of learning how to break goals down into manageable parts or how to be a problem solver, I learned how to survive in a chaotic environment where guns, drugs and violence were everyday hazards.

Even though today I am an an adult in my 30’s and far removed from the chaos of my youth, I still find it difficult to finish what I start. But at least now I’m not dependent upon the alcoholics I know to teach me that I can take responsibility, show up for myself and find the support I need to follow through.

5. Adult children of alcoholics feel that they are different from other people

Several years ago I had a friend whose mother was a hoarder. Over several cups of Starbucks coffee and wedges of blueberry cake, she shared with me what it was like living in a house where there was barely enough room to breathe let alone a comfortable place to sit. Growing up, she feared, just as I did, that she was different from other people. And the more she shared, the more I realized that even though her mother was a hoarder and my mother was an alcoholic we were both equally screwed up in surprisingly similar ways.

So, maybe being an ACOA doesn't really make me all that different from a person who grew up with a controlling mother or with a morbidly obese father or with a chronically ill sibling. Maybe it’s our perceived differences that make us more similar than we realize.

After all, aren’t we all in recovery for something?

ACoAs: Qualities and Traits

 It has long been clear to me that being an ACoA needs aggressive and long term treatment. Ignoring the damage only allows it to leak out in intimate relationships in ways that make them hard to live in and to manifest in the next generation. That's because growing up with addiction is traumatizing and the symptoms of trauma can emerge much later when we create our own families. This is what PTSD is all about, it's a reaction to trauma that occurs long after the fact.

Following is a list of characteristics that I have been compiling for around twenty years in an attempt to help clients wrap their minds around the toll that growing up with addiction can take.

So here goes, it's a little longer than my other blogs but you can take it in sections.

Problems with Self- Regulation: Broad swings back and forth between feeling overwhelmed with intense emotion then shutting down, characterize the trauma response. We go from zero to ten, and ten to zero, with no speed bumps in between bypassing four, five and six. We become uncomfortable living in the middle range and used to living on the edges. Twelve step programs have found a colloquial expression for this cycling, referring to it as "black and white thinking." 

Hyper Vigilance/AnxietyWhen we're hypervigilant, we tend to scan our environment and relationships for signs of potential danger or repeated relationship insults and ruptures. We constantly try to read the faces of those around us so that we can protect ourselves against perceived danger. When we're hypervigilant we're constantly "waiting for the other shoe to drop," or "walking on eggs shells." Unfortunately, this may also create problems because we may perceive danger even where little exists or become overly reactive to perceived slights, making ourselves hard to be around or even driving a situation toward problems. (see Bessel van der kolk)

Hyper-reactivity/Easily Triggered Living with relationship trauma can over sensitize us to stress. Consequently we may over respond to stressful situations blowing conflicts that could be managed calmly out of proportion; we over react. People who are hyper reactive may become easily triggered. This hyper reactivity can emerge whether in a slow grocery line, in traffic, at work or in relationships. Stimuli reminiscent of relationship trauma, such as feeling helpless or humiliated can trigger old vulnerability; or being around yelling, criticism; even certain facial expressions may trigger a stronger reaction than is appropriate to the situation for the ACoA. 

Emotional Constriction Homes that do not encourage the expression of genuine feeling along with the emotional numbing that is part of the trauma response may mean that those who have experienced relationship trauma have a restricted range of feelings that they are comfortable feeling and expressing.

Loss of Trust and FaithWhen our personal world and the relationships within it become very unpredictable or unreliable, we may experience a loss of trust and faith in both relationships and in life's ability to repair and renew itself. This is why the restoration of hope is so important in recovery. It is also why having a spiritual belief system can be so helpful in personal healing. 

Unresolved Grief  ACoA's have suffered profound losses. There has been the loss of parents to rely on, the loss of family members to addiction and possibly death, the loss of a feeling of safety, the loss of the secure family unit, the loss of trust, the loss of a stable and smooth early development. There are the losses of the comfortable family events, rituals and holidays, and as children the loss of normalcy and the security of knowing that their parents are in the position to parent them and meet their changing needs. ACoAs often need to mourn not only what happened, but what never got a chance to happen.

Traumatic Bonding Traumatic bonds, are unhealthy bonding styles that tend to become created in families where there is significant fear. Traumatic bonds have a tendency to repeat themselves, that is we tend to repeat this type of bond in relationships throughout our lives, often without our awareness. Because it is so deeply disruptive to our sense of normalcy, trauma impels people both to withdraw from close relationships and to seek them desperately. Siblings and other children will often form a trauma bond with each other, much as soldiers in or prisoners do, in a phenomenon referred to as twinning. Children who are lost and frightened may "rescue" each other, increasing their sense of loyalty and bonding. These bonds carry with them a sense of "surviving together" and may create a feeling that loyalty should be maintained at all costs, even if this bond becomes problematic or dysfunctional. 

Learned HelplessnessWhen we feel we can do nothing to affect or change the situation we're in, we may develop learned helplessness, we may give up and collapse on the inside. We may lose some of our ability to take actions to affect, change or move a situation forward. 

Somatic Disturbances Because the body processes and holds emotion we may experience our unconscious emotions as somatic disturbances. Some examples of emotional pain affecting the body are back pain, chronic headaches, muscle tightness or stiffness, stomach problems, heart pounding, headaches, shivering and shaking.

Tendency to Isolate People who have felt traumatized may have a tendency to isolate and withdraw into themselves when they are feeling vulnerable. They have learned to recoil into a personless world and take refuge in avoiding connection.. Isolation is also a feature of depression. Unfortunately the more we isolate, the more out of practice become at making connections with people, which can further isolate us.

Cycles of Reenactment The reenactment dynamic is one of the most common ways that trauma from one generation gets passed down through subsequent generations. We tend to recreate those circumstances in our lives that feel unresolved, perhaps in an attempt to see the self more clearly and master or resolve our pain or perhaps because we are locked in circuits of brain/body patterning that are largely unconscious. We repeat and repeat the relational patterns that are familiar even if they do not work to get us what we really want. 

High Risk Behaviors (van der Kolk) Adrenaline is highly addictive to the brain and may be a powerful mood enhancer and mood alterer. Speeding, sexual acting out, spending, fighting, drugging, working too hard or other behaviors done in a way that puts one at risk are some examples of high risk behaviors. 

Survival Guilt The person who "gets out" of an unhealthy family system while others remain mired within it, may experience what is referred to as 'survivor's guilt." This is a term originally used to describe what soldiers who left mates on the battlefield experienced. This person may become overly preoccupied with fixing their families because the thought of being happy when their families remain locked in dysfunctional ways of living, can be very disturbing.

Shame For the person growing up in an addicted environment, shame becomes not so much a feeling that is experienced in relation to an incident or situation, but rather a basic attitude toward and about the self. Both shame and guilt can be difficult to identify because they are so pervasive, a part of the very fabric of the personality. Shame, for example, can be experienced as a lack of energy for life, an inability to accept love and caring on a consistent basis, or a hesitancy to move into self -affirming roles. It may play out as impulsive decision-making, or an inability to make decisions at all. 

Development of Rigid Psychological Defenses  People who are consistently being wounded emotionally and are not able to address it openly and honestly may develop rigid psychological defenses to manage their fear and pain. Dissociation, denial, splitting, repression, minimization, intellectualization, projection are some examples of these defenses. 

Relationship Issues- Those who have experienced trauma within the context of primary relationships may tend to recreate dysfunctional patterns of relating in the present that mirror unresolved issues from the past. This can occur through psychological dynamics such as projection (projecting our pain onto someone or a situation outside the self), transference (transferring old pain into new relationships (transference)), reenactment patterns (recreating dysfunctional patterns of relating over and over and over again). 

Depression with Feelings of Despair The limbic system regulates mood. When we are deregulated in our emotional system through living with the pain and chaos that often surrounds addiction, we may have trouble regulating feelings such as anger, sadness and fear, all of which may contribute to depression. Research both in animals and in people show that stress or trauma early in life can sensitize neurons and receptors throughout the central nervous system so that they perpetually over-respond to stress. (van der Kolk)

Distorted Reasoning We make sense of situations with the developmental equipment we have at any given age. When we're young we make child like meaning which may be laced with magical thinking or interpretations that are based on the natural egocentricity of the child who feels that the world circulates around and because of them. This kind of reasoning can be immature and distorted. When our family unit is spinning out of control, we may tell ourselves whatever is necessary to allow ourselves to stay connected. We may tell ourselves that our drunk mother has the flu or that our sexually invasive father loves us best. We may deny the truth that is right in front of us in an attempt to make more palatable meaning out of confusing, frightening or painful experiences that feel senseless. We may carry this distorted reasoning into adult relationships.

Loss of Ability to Take in Caring and Support from Others The numbing response along with the emotional constriction that is part of the trauma response may lead to a loss of ability to take in caring and support from others. Additionally, as mistrust takes hold, our willingness to accept love and support may lessen. We're perhaps afraid that if we let our guard down, if we let connection feel too good, we'll only set ourselves up for more pain when the inevitable happens and we're disappointed again and again. So we protect ourselves as best as we know how imagining that by avoiding meaningful connection we will also avoid hurt. (van der Kolk)

Desire to Self Medicate  The emotional, psychological and physiological set up that accompanies relationship trauma, can lead to self medication; in which we seek a chemical solution for human problems. Self medicating can seem to be a solution in the immediate moment, as it really does make pain, anxiety and physiological disturbances temporarily disappear, but in the long run, it creates many more problems than it solves. As addiction creates life complications, we reach for more and more medication to manage the increasing turmoil in our inner and outer worlds. All too often the ACoA becomes an addict, part of getting and staying sober for this person will be facing the pain they carry from growing up with addiction that might trigger relapse. (van der Kolk)