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See ACRONYM page for abbrev.

🧍🏽‍♀️🧍🏽AS ADULTS
1. UNDER-RESPONSIBLE – as “Leavers” 

2. OVER-RESPONSIBLE = the “Stayers” (cont)
We stay in Rescuer mode, because we don’t see that:
• there is much more support & info available that can help us manage life’s stressors
• now our options are much greater, if only we searched them out AND had permission to use them
• but MOSTLY because we don’t feel worthy of being given to

We stay hooked because we’re still needy as long AS:
• the WIC is still psychologically & emotionally in charge of out motivation. It’s using childhood experiences as its only point of reference, ignoring the fact that we’re not little anymore, have many adult experiences, & developed many skills
• we’ve reproduced our early environment elsewhere (being neglected, abused….)
AS –
• we keep taking on responsibilities that are not ours, while in many ways not being responsible for ourself (Serenity Prayer backwards)
• we believe that ‘committing’ ourselves to a job, a place, a group, or to loving another person – means only doing what others want or need, instead of what’s reasonable, & what fits our own personality. This comes from assuming we have to earn love & acceptance.
AS –
• the WIC thinks that if we did honor our own needs above others it would prove how selfish & bad we are – based on what they told us growing up – even that we’re incapable of loving!
How cruel!

Living this way is very stressful AND unsuccessful, since we can never please others completely, especially if they’re self-centered like our parents. Sooner or later we end up failing – again – but keep trying anyway.
Relationships with ‘Leaver’ types is deeply harmful to our Soul / Healthy Inner Child, reinforcing S-H & hopelessness.
But it also has the ‘negative benefit’ of giving our False Self a feeling of power & control. Then we don’t have to face what really happened to us as kids.

The TRUTH is that love cannot be earned or ‘created’ in another person. Ever! It has to be given freely. Either someone already has the capacity to love or they don’t.
It doesn’t mean such a person will love us, only that they’re capable. We say of our parents: “Of course he/she loves me”, but we don’t feel loved by them!  We blame that on ourselves (S-H), instead of acknowledging THEIR lack – which is the truth we keep avoiding.

• We don’t feel loved by our family for a legitimate reason. We were/are NOT part of their internal equation, even when they seem to be interacting with us.
They experienced us as : only an extension of themselves, a source of narcissistic supply, a parent-substitute, an ego-booster to brag about, a daily nuisance, an emotional annoyance ….. but not someone to cherish.
Severely wounded parents have little or no capacity for selfless caring, no matter how much they protest that they do, or how much we or they would like it to be otherwise.

If our parents say/ think/ feel that they love their children – it’s in their narcissistic Inner Child form (C2 —>), having to do with their needs & perceptions. If they were genuinely able to love – from a healthy Adult ego state – we would have felt it!
They would have consistently included us in their responses, acknowledging US as separate individuals for who we are & what WE need, rather than only considering everything from their own point of view.

ACoAs have a very distorted idea of love. We think it’s:
– either a fairy-tale all-consuming feeling, or we don’t think it exists at all
– either being manipulated & controlled by someone, or an obsessive longing for the one who doesn’t want us
– being loyal to a miserable relationship, or it’s something only others get to experience…..
None of these are love. They are addiction, co-dependence, FoA & S-H – copies of our family dynamics. (Post = “Fear is the Absence of Love”

HEALTH =  Being appropriately responsible in relationships requires being clear about our motives, & NOT caught up in the one of the “Games People Play”.
It requires that we provide what our Inner Child needs to heal & become healthy, so we can share our True Self with other appropriate adults.

NEXT: Fear of Responsibility #3