Trait Five

"We live life from the viewpoint of victims, and are attracted by that weakness in our love and friendship relationships."

This Trait was hard for some of us to relate to. "Don't call us victims," we thought. "We made it through hell and back. We were tough." The idea that we marched through the world choosing sick people was almost offensive.

It took awhile to come out of our denial. We learned about para-alcoholism and codependency and that, without help, we were destined to continue recreating the past.

We started seeing the truth in our daily lives - how our feelings of hopelessness very often had come from thoughts like, "The world is too big for me to handle," and "I just can't make it." We recognized that we felt like victims who were being taken advantage of. We noticed how we habitually avoided people who seemed self-confident because we didn't know how to talk to them, and they didn't seem to "need" us. We'd felt uncomfortable around them but didn't know why.

When we understand that we are truly powerless over other people, but not ourselves, we discover our willingness to change. The 12 Steps give us a blueprint to follow to become self-confident and assertive - the very type of person we had always avoided but secretly wanted to be all those years. We begin to attract others who are self-confident.

On this day I will be aware when I feel unequal to others. I will stop and affirm that I am just as important as everyone else.

Abandonment

"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."

Many of us wish we did not perpetuate certain family disease traditions like abandonment, but we do so anyway. We may have abandoned someone on purpose as an outlet for our anger, or as a form of retribution. No matter what the reason, we are now in recovery to break the cycle of this multi-generational family disease the best we can.

The idea of not abandoning others may feel like a foreign concept. Maybe we just don't know how to stay, how to feel safe long enough to be intimate. It can feel terrifying to get close to others.

Being with fellow travelers in this program is a first step in practicing what it's like to tolerate intimacy. It's also where we can learn to communicate, resolve problems and forgive in ways we were never taught. We perform a real act of courage when we do things differently in recovery.

We can practice; we can do it. This is our living amends - a gift to ourselves and others in recovery, and perhaps to our families as well.

On this day I will practice new, trusting behavior. I will continue to learn healthier ways of communicating that will keep me from leaving others for the wrong reasons.

Letting Go

"To ask an adult child to surrender control is like asking someone to leap from an airplane without a parachute. Without recovery, an adult child can live in terror of letting go."

A counselor once said the reason adult children have such a tight death-grip on everything is because we're afraid if we let go, things won't be okay. Fear holds us in bondage. We learned it so well growing up from those we loved most. As children we were afraid to go home, afraid to leave home, afraid we did something wrong, afraid we weren't good enough, afraid somebody was going to get hit or kicked, or we feared for our lives…and the list goes on.

In the past, when things happened in our lives, we felt guilt or shame. We learned how to hold our breath and expect the worst. Today, in our recovery program, we learn many new behaviors, including letting go with the help of our Higher Power, our support group, our sponsor, and the roadmap of the Twelve Steps.

We learn to love and accept each other just the way we are. When conflict arises - and we know it will - we, as adult children, have the opportunity to practice each and every day how to become actors, not reactors, until we feel safe and comfortable.

On this day I will remember the slogan, ‘Let Go and Let God,' asking my Higher Power for the strength to relax and reflect on the things I am powerless over.

Intimacy

One casualty of our dysfunctional families was our ability to share intimacy. In our oftentimes dangerous families, intimacy led to vulnerability, which became an open invitation to be hurt and hurt again. We learned to protect ourselves by shutting down our natural need for intimacy. Our false self took charge to protect us from the harrowing pain of a multitude of unmet needs.

As we engage in the process of recovery, we begin to feel comfortable with other ACAs, learning to express our needs at meetings. We may need to be discerning in deciding with whom to share our most treasured hurts, but share them we must if we are to regain our ability to share intimately.

The process of recovery requires us to become our own loving parent, relieving from duty our most ardent defender, our critical inner parent. Only then will our Inner Child begin to feel and express all the hurt inside.

As we grow comfortable with the uncomfortable absence of our critical inner parent, we build trust that our loving parent will guide us in knowing when and where to share intimately. Our internal intimacy translates into outward intimacy, and we are made whole once again.

On this day I will help my Inner Child feel safe so that my freedom to share intimacy can grow. I will practice sharing intimately with others I have learned to trust.

Relationship Anorexia - April 13

 "Many lost children practice ‘relationship anorexia.'" BRB p. 135

Adult children learn a lot of things growing up in a dysfunctional home. Unfortunately, one of the primary things we learned was not to trust. We learned to place a wall around us for protection from pain.

This wall follows us into adulthood and shadows all of our relationships with acquaintances, friends, co-workers, and most importantly, our intimate relationship with a partner/spouse. We find that, unlike our family of origin, a healthy relationship calls for a degree of trust, something so foreign to us that our safety feels threatened.

When given the choice to let down our guard and allow someone to breach our protective wall, some of us choose to either prevent or end a relationship. We fear failure but sabotage our own success.

As we get emotionally stronger in our ACA recovery program, we start removing the bricks from our wall, knowing that now we can accept what life brings us with the love and support we have for ourselves, as well as from our Higher Power and fellow travelers.

On this day I will continue to grow emotionally with the knowledge that ACA and my Higher Power will guide me in gaining the strength to trust others.

Body Shame - April 11

"Body shame is not reserved for our weight or shape." BRB p. 441

As children, many of us were cruelly mocked by our families for how we looked. Fodder for jokes were our facial features, body parts, voice, hair, nails, ears, teeth, ethnicity and more.

In order to survive, many of us acted as though this didn't bother us. But secretly we hung our heads in shame. To find a way to fit in, we ate differently, wore bangs, covered our ears, washed our faces relentlessly, and wore clothing to cover up the parts they laughed at. But it usually didn't work - shame and abandonment were the bookends for each day. We lost everything when they abandoned us, because it taught us to abandon ourselves. Our bodies were just another part of ourselves that didn't belong to us.

During the recovery process, we begin to see brief glimpses of our True Selves at meetings as we hear ourselves in others' stories. We finally start to feel acceptance, one hug at a time. Reading the ACA literature confirms that we aren't crazy. Our childhoods may have been stolen, but we survived, somehow. It is with that survivor strength that we doggedly work our program. Gradually, as we look at ourselves, we start to do the most important thing imaginable: we accept our own appearance.

Emotional Pain - April 10

 "Our experience reveals that there is value in emotional pain. With support, and with gentleness, we can find our healthy pain and its healing release, just as we reclaimed our tears." BRB p. 212

Recovery brought us many new realizations. We came to understand that to protect ourselves during childhood, we had to shut down. This didn't happen for just one event or one day; we had to put a clamp on ourselves for years.

Our reactions to pain were normal under the circumstances. Just as our bodies protected us by recoiling from a hot stove, they protected us another way. When we received the maximum limit of emotional pain tolerable, our bodies distanced us from that pain: healthy recoil. We were most likely unaware of this shutdown. Over the years, so many moments, hours, and days were lost, and eventually, we lost ourselves. We may have even wondered, "How does a normal person feel stuff?"

In recovery, as we begin to uncover the pain, we sometimes feel overcome with an indistinguishable number of emotions. We might think something is wrong or something bad is happening. But we are told by those we trust in ACA that getting in touch with our healthy pain is a good thing.

Thank goodness we have our meetings. We sit together like children who have all escaped a fire. There is comfort in going through this together. We recover our pain by talking about it to others: a great way to heal.

On this day I embrace my healthy pain, remembering that I have a lot to release and process. I feel myself gradually being becoming healed.

Hypervigilance - April 9

"Most ACA members have some form of PTSD, which is often expressed in our hypervigilance of our surroundings or our acute monitoring of comments or actions of others. This behavior is a carry-over from growing up on guard much of the time." BRB p. 160

In recovery, many of us become very aware of how we feel strong emotional and physical triggers by certain things and we don't always know why.

Through our discovery process, we find the underlying trauma that causes this state of hypervigilance. The strong, deep emotions that surface may overwhelm us like a raging sea.

To soothe ourselves, we learn to lie under warm blankets, drink hot tea, and take long baths. We activate our inner loving parent, doing whatever it takes to honor our hurt Inner Child. Our motto has become, "I will take care of me first!"

We dialogue with the wounded parts of ourselves that need love. At first, our Inner Child may seem to scream with rage, "Where were you all these years? How do I know you won't abandon me like everyone else?" But we have the courage to listen to this wounded part, no matter what the cost. We let go of abusive relationships and rearrange our lives to give ourselves more space for healing. We know we are worth it.

On this day I put myself first. When I am in a PTSD tunnel, I will not minimize it to look good for others while I am suffering inside.

Copyright © 2018 by Adult Children
of Alcoholics / Dysfunctional Families
World Service Organization, Inc.
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