I CAN’T GIVE UP
the only ‘truth’ I know

PREVIOUS: ACoAs & S-H #2

QUOTEs:
🔻 “I won’t sleep if that’s what it takes to not wake up as myself”
∼ Casey Renee Kiser, Hold Me Under: Poems to Drown to

😰”To keep my mind occupied when I can’t sleep – some people count sheep. I self-loathe.” ∼ Rainbow Rowell, Attachments

🥶 “Hostility, malice & sadism are the result of helplessness & self-loathing – all produced by adaptation to a hypercritical social reality, & are not attributable to innate aggression.” ∼ Arno Gruen, Swiss-German psychologist

FoO = Family of origin

1. DEFINITION
2. SOURCES of Self-Hate (S-H)

3. PURPOSE of S-H is TO:
• keep from risking any change via S & I (fear that letting go = being forever alone)
• keep us attached to the family (stave off deep loneliness)
• prevent us from dealing with ‘ugly emotions’ like our rage, envy, longing, hopelessness….
• protect our fantasy of having good, loving, safe parents
• protect us from feeling the reservoir of old abandonment pain
• protect us from Growing up, taking care of ourselves (we want to be taken care of! no matter the cost to ourself or others)

WHY is it SO HARD to GIVE UP S-H?
The above reasons are all part of the answer, but the MAIN one is that:
It gives us a FALSE SENSE of POWER! How?
Since every child is self-centered, which is human-normal, they think everything is about them – that whatever happens in or around them has to do with them.
The child’s logic says: “I’m in pain, & somehow I caused it. Therefore I CAN / must stop them from hurting me, if I can just figure out how!”

• Then we spend the rest of our childhood (& well into adulthood, until Recovery) trying different ways to FIX whatever the problem was & may still be – re :
US – by re-inventing ourselves (must be the origin of this USA craze), trying on different ‘personae‘ (be the perfect kid, the trouble maker, the helper, get good grades, be invisible, don’t have any needs, be funny…)
AND re :
THEM – by trying to make our parents see reason, get sober, get help, leave the marriage, get taken care of by us, cover up for them, fix their ‘craziness’, cater to their every whim….

Unfortunately NONE of our EFFORTS WORKED! In most cases ‘they’ didn’t change, didn’t listen, wouldn’t stop – drinking, raging, being unsuccessful, molesting, beating us, leaving, cheating, berating, controlling….!
But we kept trying, always asking: What’s wrong with ME?

• Even if some of our parents did stop drinking,
— it was NOT because of our efforts. We assumed their ‘sobriety’ was, because we were extra good, prayed really hard or badgered them into it
— very few were willing to do the deeper work to become healthier human beings, so mostly they were just “Dry Drunks”. So their unhealed narcissism kept on hurting us.
RESULT -in us- was an intense feeling of failure!

• This is why so many ACoAs believe we’re FRAUDS – that people will eventually, inevitably FIND OUT.
Q: Find out what?
A: “Since I couldn’t make my parents/ family get well, be happy & be there for me – I’m not capable of and NEVER will be able ably to -succeed at anything else!” (WIC logic)

It’s an assumption ACoAs are not usually aware of, but glued to us by anxiety, and believed both by the less accomplished AND the most outwardly successful ACoAs, pre-FoO Recovery. Unfortunately, what we don’t realize is that the fundamental premise is false :
No child
— ever caused the adults’ messes
— was ever responsible for making them better! AND
— can fix anyone else

NEXT: ACoAs & S-H #4