Problem-Solving

ACoAs: NOT ENOUGH LOVE? (Part 2)

dmtorbi 12-step, ACoAs, al-anon, Alcoholics Anonymous, alcoholism, coaching, mental health, Problem-Solving, Psychotherapy, recovery, self growth, self-help , , , ,

misisng heart


THEY SAY THEY LOVE ME
so why is there a hole in my heart?!

PREVIOUS: “Not enough Love?” #1

SITE: Can’t Fall In Love? 10 Psychological Issues That Could Be Stopping You

 

Where do our fearful, LOVE-LIMITING beliefs come from? (cont)
From THEM
a. Parents ISOLATING (see Part 1)

b. Our parents INTERACTING with the world:
▶ Focus – while some parents may have said they loved us, our experience was very different. The real message sent was that we didn’t count very much, leaving us deprived, because they consistently gave their ‘love’ to anything/ anyone but us:Screen Shot 2016-06-17 at 10.41.42 PM
— TO their spouse/ mates, parents, friends, religion, community
— TO their addictions, jobs/ careers, hobbies
— TO one or more of our siblings (dead or alive!)

▶ Looking ‘Good’ – some parents, who also had all the above issues, created a facade for the public which made them seem healthy, even ‘wonderful’ – to others, such as being:
• amusing, friendly & well-liked at work
• respected public figures in their careers
• pious & scholarly in their religious circle
• popular in the local social networks, clubs, groups

• admired for doing community service, helping others in need, generous with their time & possessions ….   but at home, with their own children they were abusive, controlling, demanding,  raging, insensitive, neglectful, perfectionistic….. which left us very confused, and even more convinced that others were ok but we were unlovable!
EXP: More than one of us had a parent give our toys or clothes away to others kids / families without telling us or considering how betrayed & devastated we would feel, just to make themselves look good!

IF a PARENT:
Strapped girl▪︎ constantly teases or makes jokes at the child’s expense, “all in good fun”
▪︎ doesn’t take the child seriously, belittling any effort, wish or dream
▪︎ ignores, shushes, neglects (not warm, affectionate, responsive)
▪︎ over-controls, watches the child’s every move, always correcting
▪︎ narcissistically treats the child as an extension of themselves, rather than seeing them as a legitimately separate being
▪︎ puts down, verbally harasses, judges, criticizes
▪︎ uses a child as a mate / parent substitute or ‘friend’ (emotional incest), to make themselves feel better, stave off their own abandonment fears, loneliness & self-hate….

…. then that child will be so love-deprived, that not only will they feel unloved for their Core Self, they’ll also conclude they don’t have the capacity to give love either – just like the parents. This creates great anxiety, with the fear of allowing themselves to connect with others.

EXP: While doing FoO work, Jenna had a dream: She’s 3 or 4 yrs old, standing in a big room in front of a huge life-size octopus she knows are both her parents.  As their arms undulate towards her she hears their seductive voices: “You’re so beautiful, you’re so smart, you’re so sweet…”

She loves to hear what they’re saying, but knows that if she lets the arms enfold her, the suckers will slowly draw out the vitality of her life energy to nourish themselves. She’s paralyzed – to stay is to die slowly, to run away is to die quickly. Since she’s too little to leave them, the only option she has is to split off her essence & hide it in a ‘gray space’ in her mind – as the arms circle her ….

✶✶ In this dream Jenna saw why she’d been missing the joy of life for so long! Her essential self was wonderfully alive, full of love, beauty & generosity – which her needy parents had been drawing on. Now she was in the process of reconnecting with that essence. It wasn’t gone, just hidden. Now she could reclaim her birthright & shine!

NEXT: Healthy Adult / Loving Parent – #1

ACoAs: NOT ENOUGH LOVE? (Part 1)

dmtorbi 12-step, ACoAs, al-anon, Alcoholics Anonymous, alcoholism, coaching, mental health, Problem-Solving, Psychotherapy, recovery, self growth, self-help , , , , , ,

Screen Shot 2016-06-17 at 10.39.57 PM

THEY CHEATED ME –
&  now I’m left out in the cold

PREVIOUS: “Fear is the Absence of Love”

REMINDER: See ACRONYM page for abbrev.

 

An ACoA CORE ISSUE is the conviction that:
• there’s not enough love in the world – for us
• we don’t have the ability to love, OR
• we don’t have enough love to offer others, or go around

EXP: Manda wants to study Veterinary Medicine but hesitates because of a fear-based belief: If she takes care of other animals & gives them her affection, she won’t have enough left over for her own dogs, which she adores (& eventually her children). 💙 NOT true!

LOVE – some observations:
Science is finally studying it, & Spirituality has always maintained that we can’t live in harmony without it   (definition of LOVE) :
1. Love is first & foremost an emotion, & all emotions are psychic energy generated in the brain, so it has no limits “…love sides inside the very cells of our physical body, hidden away until we learn to access it…”
2. Love is expressed in words & actions – not just “feelings” (bottom of pg 14)

3. Love can be nourished & enhanced by consistently interacting with positive & joyful ‘people, places & things’ (PPT)
4. Love is a healing force – for mental distress, physical ailments & emotional wounds (re. bi-polar illness) (music album) (Book:”Healing with Love“)

5. Healthy Love includes: good boundaries, a strong sense of worth, mental clarity, a connection to a H.P. & a generous spirit
6. Healthy self-love (a deep sense of value) is created from unconditional acceptance by ourselves & someone important to us

7. Developing healthy self-love allows up to have the inner resources to share with others in a non-toxic way
8. The more we share healthy love with others the more love we get back, so we feel safer & more comfortable in the world, which strengthens our capacity
♥                                         ♥                                           ♥
Where do our fearful, LOVE-LIMITING beliefs come from?
Screen Shot 2016-06-17 at 10.40.44 PM1. FROM THEM: our needy & abusive FAMILY (& often other sources such as school, religion, the community…)
• It’s helpful to remember that the adults we grew up with also had:
✓ active addictions  ✓ cognitive distortions    ✓ emotional problems such as depression, NPD, co-dependence…..
✓ fear of abandonment    ✓ self-hate  …..

• These dysfunctions combined to make our parents very fearful (Es), with a ‘deprivation mentality’ (Ts) & a deep sense of lack (As).  To survive without Recovery for themselves, they used whatever was in their environment to get by – each other, their work, their addictions – but most often they used their children as a source of vitality – like vampires!

a. Our parents (P) being ISOLATED from the outside world:
✓ FoA (fear of Abandonment) – since they never dealt with their own losses, they emotionally & mentally crippled their children to keep us attached & loyal for a lifetime. This was done by neglecting, berating, controlling & belittling us, AND sometimes also over-praising us – for their benefit – all of which prevented the development of legitimate self-esteem

✓ Being “Tight Knit” – Many of our Ps didn’t want us to get involved with others outside the family because it would take us away from focusing on them, but when they socialized, it was at our expense!

✓ Addictions, Shame, Fear of Risk – alcoholic families are typically a closed system – they generally don’t reach out to be of service or help the community, NOR participate in outside activities for fun & PMES nourishment

✓ Narcissism – all Ns feed off of the attention & ‘service’ of others in order to keep their facade in tact (‘Malignant Self-Love’ – Dr. Sam Vaknin, about male narcissists, + Links )

🔻 Children need to FEEL loved. It’s not enough that Parents (Ps) think or say they do. If they ‘show’ it in self-centered ways – even without beatings, molesting or physical torture – they definitely fail to get the message across.

NEXT: Not enough Love? (Part 2)

“FEAR is the ABSENCE of LOVE”

dmtorbi 12-step, ACoAs, al-anon, Alcoholics Anonymous, alcoholism, coaching, HEAL & GROW for ACoAs, mental health, Problem-Solving, Psychotherapy, recovery, self growth, self-help , , , , , , ,

Sscared fish 

LOVE vs FEAR
I don’t know what love is, so how can I tell?

PREVIOUS: How ACoAs Abandon Others #3b

REVIEW: ACRONYM page for abbrev.


WHAT DOES this quote MEAN?
• Like so many popular ‘spiritual’ saying there’s some truth in it, but not the whole story, so we can easily get confused & also misuse it. Love & Fear are both Emotions, see. T.E.A.
Generally, it means that if we did have enough love in our life, we won’t be afraid = loved by a Higher Power, by family, by pets, by friends…  Yes, these are to be desired & cultivated.
BUT the reality for ACoAs is that we are fear-based, no matter how much recovery we may have. There are 2 separate issues re. this quote:

1. Fear is created in CHILDHOOD by genuinely being in danger!
• As kids, ACoAs lived in an atmosphere of constant trauma, subjected to fear-inducing experiences (mental, physical & emotional) practically every day of our childhood.
AND there was very little comfort or validation of our reality. On the contrary, if we told anyone or complained, they said we were over-reacting, making it up, being disloyal, AND it was our fault “What did you do?” Even if anyone believed us, they didn’t / couldn’t help, so we had to suck it up.

EXP:  A lot of our childhood was like being:
— a 5 yrs old, dropped off in the middle of a huge traffic intersection at rush hour, left there in our underwear, told to not whine & ‘JUST COPE’ !!  How cruel !

All that pain & terror got pushed down, so where did it go?  Yes, in large part, psychologically, it went into the unconscious. But physically – the chemicals generated by terror & other painful emotions got stored in our body – in our organs, our muscles, choking our aura, meridians & chakras.

2. Fear is created NOW by outer events & inner thoughts
a. Present-day reality. There are many real-world stressful events we’re faced with in life requiring a clear mind, much human help & Spiritual support. .
It’s normal to be fearful when WE:
• are overwhelmed by too many things needing our attention
• find out we’re very sick, & sometimes – don’t know the cause…
• hear / read about traumatic world events ….
• have a lot of emotional turmoil (visiting family, getting married or divorced…)
• loose something very important to us (apartment burns down…. )
• see someone we love is in danger (a child, a pet …)

BUT for ACoAs, such events can easily trigger the pain of past trauma, pushing us over the limit of our scarce reserves. So our emotional reaction will be much bigger than that of less wounded people.

b. Toxic Thinking. Fear will always be generated by harmful thoughts – our inner world of beliefs babad voicesed on negative family rules (CDs) – the harsh, scary things we tell ourselves, creating more terror on top of what we’re already carrying from our past.

Terror & S-H are behind ALL rage and ALL obsessions. WE:
• are convinced someone’s angry at us or can’t stand us, when they didn’t say hello or give us a compliment …..
• are so used to things not working out, & having anxiety as our constant companion, that we create mental drama when it’s not called for…
• believe we’re “dying of cancer” when we’re not seriously sick (especially when not feeling well but don’t know what’s wrong)
• assume others will react to us the same way we think about ourselves – badly !
• project only painful outcomes on to situations & relationships
• worry about future catastrophes & abandonments, which may never happen & which we will have no control over

Daily childhood abuse & neglect (unprocessed) accumulate in deep reservoirs of hidden pain, which most people call anxiety, because on the surface it doesn’t seem to be connected to anything obvious. HA !
As long as this backlog remains frozen, the pain:
a. drives much of our behavior, our thinking & interactions
b. causes physical & psychological ailments ….

… but in Recovery, much release work can be done, which definitely helps!  We can get to a place where we live more in a state of calm rather than upset. There will always be some residual ‘old’ fear that shows up thru the years when we’re under stress – never being completely rid of all original abandonment terror. This should not be a surprise, since there was so much of it.  We need to be extra kind to ourselves.: “Feel the fear & keep going”, but softly, softly.Screen Shot 2016-06-17 at 10.34.08 PM

“Fear is the absence of Love” is about :
— not having loving safe parents, originally
— the scary thoughts which torture us
— not searching out people who can be good to us, &
— not believing there’s any safety in the world – for us !

HOWEVER when we practice nurturing our Inner Child, connecting with the peace of a loving H.P. & with healthier people, our overall fear level diminishes, especially the unnecessary suffering we’ve been add to the ‘pile’.
➼  We can’t always control or eliminate old fear, but we can be in better charge of that we THINK & what we DO about it.

NEXT: Not Enough Love? – #1

ACoAs – ABANDONING OTHERS (Part 4a)

dmtorbi 12-step, ACoAs, al-anon, Alcoholics Anonymous, alcoholism, coaching, mental health, Problem-Solving, Psychotherapy, recovery, self growth, self-help , , , , ,

 Screen Shot 2015-06-16 at 6.53.22 PM

I FEEL SO BETRAYED —
they’re not who I thought they were!

PREVIOUS: How ACoAs abandon others (3b)

See ACRONYM page for abbrev.


REVIEW – Idealizing inevitably:
• sets up the idealized person or event to fail, because no one / no situation can fulfill our unrealistic expectations to be perfect, to make up for all our losses, to be all the things our WIC never got at home & which are still missing in our life.
• This guarantees that we’ll be disappointed, sooner or later.
Basically we’re asking them to rescue us. It’s a way of using others. We ask too much of a person or situation, which nothing can possibly live up to, even if it’s healthy!

7. UNDER-VALUING
This topic is about how we diminish others.  All ACoAs in this category are very angry, some express it by being passive-aggressive, by perpetual crankiness, or by endless whining. 
When we feel let down by our fantasy of a person – (boss, teacher, lover, friend…), or situation (marriage, job, home, party, holiday…), we flip to the opposite extreme.
This defense often kicks in with someone/ thing new, but not exclusively. It’s about wanting to be taken care of instead of taking care of ourselves – while not having to ask!

HARSH reactions to over-valuing (idealizing ⬆️) as a ‘life-style’ – finding fault (F.F.) with every situation we don’t like, all the time.
a. Endless complaining (F.F.) can be a sure sign of narcissism (N), & comes from our needy WIC or PP, since we manage to make everything about us – somehow. Keep in mind that all wounded people have some N. in varying degrees, so do not use it for more S-H. Instead. Work on healing it

Constant complaining is part of the Victim Role, taking everything personally, assuming anything we don’t like is the ‘universe’ being against US. We ignore that there are many other reasons for things being as they are, so we discount other possibilities.

We’re always judging the ‘other’ as bad, because:
• everyone & everything always lets us down, causes us trouble, is never there for us the way we want – so f-them!
• it doesn’t fit some rigid notions of correctness from our PP, even though the original parents never lived up to those standards
• we see everyone as exactly like our family, so they must be equally bad, which scares the WIC
EXP: “I can’t stand that / it’s not good enough” means I know better, can do better….
• “They’re so stupid” means I’m superior to all you little people, and if I were doing it / running things, I would handle it much better….
• “How can they do that to me, no one ever listens to me….” means they’re not doing the job I want them to – of being the good parent

b. Projecting our S-H onto the ‘world’. If I hate myself, I’m sure everyone else does too – or will, if I give them a chance! Just like a liar or thief believes everyone else is a liar or thief, even if it’s just in their heart. So ‘I’ll hate all of you first, that way I don’t care if you hate me – I won’t get hurt anymore!’  Better to keep everyone at arm’s length than to be vulnerable.

ACoA IRONY: everything we think & feel is ONLY from our point of view (we assume no one else’s is valid) – other people’s needs don’t count, we don’t consider their limitation & don’t really want them to have boundaries, so we can be symbiotic.Screen Shot 2016-06-05 at 5.39.42 PM.png

At the same time, because we’re emotionally starving, our focus is completely outside of ourselves, dependent on ‘people, places & things’ (PPT) as the source of our nourishment & for our sense of identity. They are objects, not beings. If they don’t act the way we want, we feel justified in raging at them.

(POST: People should treat me better, but I won’t let them”).

NEXT: ACoAs abandoning others #4b

ACoAs – ABANDONING OTHERS (Part 3a)

dmtorbi 12-step, ACoAs, al-anon, Alcoholics Anonymous, alcoholism, coaching, mental health, Problem-Solving, Psychotherapy, recovery, self growth, self-help , , , , , , , , , , , ,


YOU’RE THE BEST!
Even if I have to make you up

PREVIOUS: ACoAs abandoning OTHERS (3b)


See ACRONYM page for abbrev.

 

6. IDEALIZING
DEF:
• Another dysfunctional way to cope with the painful fact that our parents were not safe (nurturing, emotionally honest, mentally clear…)
• A way to survive back then. Some part of our child-mind had to make them perfect, without flaws – to deny how angry & scared we were at them, & still are
• A form of splitting off the good parts of ourselves & the bad parts of them – an overt or covert toxic agreement in childhood, with the family, that we were the bad ones & they the good ones.

All small children idealize their parents, which helps them feel safe. If they grow up in a healthy family this safety allows them to cope with reality, gradually able see the adults more realistically, with both weakness & strengths.

But for us – from the very beginning our parents disappointed us when we most needed them to be our ‘gods’ so we’d feel protected. Not only did they not help us deal with the outside world, but were the ‘enemy within’.  (➡️ IMAGE from “See Mom for who she is, not who you want her to be”

To compensate now, some ACoAs idealize others, even strangers, as a way to shut out the WIC’s earliest terror still lurking in the bushes of our unconscious, BY:
a. Putting anyone – who we feel is important – on a pedestal (parent, teacher, lover, friend, boss…), not able or willing to acknowledge their real personality, including human limitations & damage (character defects) – UNTIL that person does something that pushes a big button in us, & then we feel rage at them. The illusion we created is shattered & we can’t tolerate it. So we punish them &/or cut them off.

EXP: Carol started a new class & was immediately in awe of the professor.  She began staying after class, asking all sorts of questions, unconsciously flirting a little. The teacher became less & less responsive or available.  Carol kept trying to hold his attention, but finally felt the rejection, became very angry & stormed off, telling everyone else what a jerk he was.

b. VARIATION: Making a new lover the “Answer to all my prayers!” Screen Shot 2016-06-11 at 6.51.05 PMBelieving ‘This is the one!” OR immediately making a new friend into a BFF, without taking the time to find out :
• are they actually who they seem to be?
• who this person really is (character & type)

• how you’ll feel about them, in a year or less
• what personal problems they may have
• how their ‘issues’ are going to affect you
• how will your issues impact them?
• AND, if we’re fundamentally compatible!

➼ To know that, we need to have a clear sense of ourselves, good boundaries, reasonable self-esteem, not too much anxiety about abandonment, tolerate imperfections & have the ability to ‘go slow’. PHEUW!
BTW, we may find someone willing to play out the fantasy with us (some for a while, some much longer), because they too need to be symbiotic, feel needed, overly-important…anything to not focus on themselves & their issues. This does not diminish our responsibility for playing our emotional games.

CAUSE:
• This kind of ‘jumping into’… comes from an intense need of the WIC to symbiotically attach, to fill the emptiness left by inadequate mothering in early life.
The human person we now choose to idealize will:Screen Shot 2016-06-11 at 6.51.46 PM
— EITHER be someone who is similar in damage to our own family – the hope being that this time we can fix them & so get their love & approval, even if we can’t get it from our family.
We only end up (unconsciously) playing out our abandonment / victim role – since we can’t fix others or con them into loving us

— OR someone who is or seems to be completely the opposite of family – stable, competent, smart, nice….so we can finally be taken care of!  Even if they do, for a while, we pay too high a price – being controlled & staying immature.
But usually such people are too healthy to rescue us at all, so we get disappointed again, but not as much.

• Either way we’re trying to get from others today what we couldn’t get originally, but no one can’t make up for our losses! We need to heal from the inside.

NEXT: ACoAs abandoning others (3b)

ACoAs – ABANDONING OTHERS (Part 2b)

dmtorbi 12-step, ACoAs, al-anon, Alcoholics Anonymous, alcoholism, coaching, mental health, Problem-Solving, Psychotherapy, recovery, self growth, self-help , , , ,

 

THAT’S NO WAY TO FEEL!
You’re too much for me.  I don’t want to hear it.

PREVIOUS: Abandoning Others (2a)

See ACRONYM page for abbrev.

 

5. REPRESSING Others’ EMOTIONS (cont.)
d. Insensitivity —> have INappropriate responses when hearing any expression of emotional distress (“I’m really upset / scared /worried…”), such as:
• come up with thoughtless, unfeeling, unsolicited or unnecessary ‘solutions’ (the most common mistake!)
• ignore it completely, or blatantly change the subject
• stop calling or visiting – just disappear for a while without explanation

In this case the ACoA is trying to stop someone’s emotional discomfort with a ‘practical fix’, so we don’t have to deal with ‘messy’ emotions – theirs & ours! BY:
• giving them a ‘chin up’ lecture, telling them it’s not all that bad (when it is)
• trying to take their mind off of the hurt (may be helpful – sometimes, with some, but not recommended as a first option)
• promising that something good will ‘come out of this / it’ll Screen Shot 2016-06-05 at 5.57.54 PMturn out OK’ – which we can’t possibly know or deliver

• say ‘It’s OK’, when nothing is changing in reality (like a parent or spouse’s drinking / drug use)
• minimizing the extent of their pain, by NOT believing the depth of their suffering with comments like:  “It can’t be that bad?!” / “You’re just being dramatic”
OR
• pretending the sufferer has NO responsibility for the pain they’re currently in as an adult (like, marrying yet another addict / not dealing with a health problem until it’s too late / getting fired from yet another job…), just to make them feel ‘better’

• giving unsolicited ‘helpful’ suggestions which have nothing to do with the issue at hand OR not the point of the pain
EXP: After surviving the devastation of her apartment burning down, which destroyed everything including her 2 cats & 2000 books — a woman heard various insensitive things like :
• “You should be grateful. At least you weren’t killed!” • “So, what did you learn?” • “So, just get another cat?!” • &, some just laughed!
ARGHHH @**!!! %@%

CAUSES of REPRESSING
Re. US: clearly, these are similar to ways we were abandoned by our various caretakers – Screen Shot 2016-06-05 at 5.55.53 PM& not just by our parent. Also by teachers, baby sitters, religious leaders, other relatives….
• Emotions were either not tolerated at all, or ONLY certain one were acceptable – usually ‘pleasant’ ones (see Toxic Rules)
Re. our Family:
• we were taught to ‘take care of others’ at home, because they couldn’t or wouldn’t be responsible themselves or us, so now we’re just following the script. It has become our identity. (‘Rescuing’)

• we saw how incompetent our parents were in many ways, & how un-able they were to deal with THEIR emotions – so we project that incompetence & inability onto everyone else in our life, without even realizing it!

• we could NEVER fix our family, stop their pain, make them whole – SO we compulsively try to do that with others in the present, desperately trying to quiet our fear & guilt
• we think we have to protect & fix everyone, or they too will fall apart, like our family.  But we’re only trying to keep OUR world from falling apart!Screen Shot 2016-06-04 at 9.27.20 PM

➼ We deeply believe that if we allow ourselves or others to FEEL too much, that we (& they) will go crazy or die! This comes from our early experiences & is now firmly embedded in our Wounded Inner Child (WIC).

However, the real issue is that we never learned how to ‘house’ & process pain, nor do we know how to comfort ourselves. Feeling all our emotions can be painful but not dangerous. Suppressing them is!
See 2 POSTs: “Accessing & Accepting Emotions“

EFFECT
Re. US  • we stay stuck in the past, can’t express our True Self or gain serenity
• we lose out on the knowledge, connections & love that comes from treating people as equals, rather than as being one-down to us
• we perpetuate & increase our own abandonment – because others Screen Shot 2016-06-05 at 5.53.59 PMwill become angry, resentful, abusive or just avoid us
Re. OTHERS
• without realizing it, we’re being arrogant, presumptuous, narcissistic
• think we’re mind-readers, have magical powers, can do the impossible (this is typical ACoA grandiosity)
• we’re mistreat others, encouraging symbiosis & dependency, negating their rights, adding to their abandonment experiences

NEXT: Abandoning others #3a

ACoAs – ABANDONING OTHERS (Part 2a)

dmtorbi 12-step, ACoAs, al-anon, Alcoholics Anonymous, alcoholism, coaching, mental health, Problem-Solving, Psychotherapy, recovery, self growth, self-help , , , , , , ,

Screen Shot 2016-06-11 at 6.37.49 PMOH, NO! DON’T BE UPSET!
I can’t stand it when you’re
in any kind of pain

PREVIOUS: Abandon Others (#1b)

See ACRONYM page for abbrev.


5. REPRESSING Others’ Emotions (Es)
ACoAs are often guilty of mistreating others in the same ways they were by family & other authority figures. To the degree we are still repressing our own Es, we try to suppress the Es of others. Many of us can’t tolerate anyone being in emotional pain or going thru a hard time, especially if we care about them.
(ACoA website Site Map, pg. 24-26)

REPRESS BY:
a. Assuming – sure we know how someone is feeling, emotionally – without asking, OR not believing what they tell us they’re experiencing, & then insist we know better (what nerve!)
EXP: At a wedding celebration, Sam saw cousin Annie sitting alone, arms crossed, withdrawn, & assumed she was angry. Not bothering to check what she was really feeling, he started lecturing her about her unsociability, how inappropriate her attitude was, & that she was 
bringing everyone down … when actually she was deeply sad, feeling lonely & missing her ex!

EXP: When I cried intensely at my father’s memorial service, a relative accusingly told me I was being ‘fragile’ – as if weeping made me weak & therefore unacceptable (I know they were punished for crying, as a child).  Actually, I always feel clearer & stronger after letting out some pain – it’s a strength, not a weakness!screen-shot-2016-06-11-at-6-46-58-pm

A variation: 
Deciding we ‘absolutely know’ someone’s angry at us, or jealous of us,  or upset with us in some other way – of course, without checking – and then obsess about it, gossip to others, worry, prepare a defense or rebuttal, avoid them OR confront / attack them…
BUT, actually

• our assumption may only be a projection of our own S-H & FoA
• OR, we did pick up some emotional vibe from them (ACoAs always have their antennae up for trouble or rejection) but what the other person was really feeling was not what we thought!

EXP: As a therapist, during a sessions, if I strongly express an opinion about certain topics (that inner-abuse coming from the Introject or self-hate is NOT OK ), or if I’m not smiling or being light-hearted – it is often misunderstood by a client as me being angry – at them. NOT! I’m just strongly indicating how serious something is.


Another variation:
Ironically, some ACoAs can’t tolerating anyone else doing well. They try to stop others (mates, children friends) from feeling good, because “misery loves company”!
EITHER: they create dysfunctional situations for others, to keep the chaos & misery going we’ve been conditioned to feel as ‘normal’
OR: be consistently enraged & abusive or withholding & silent, whenever someone expresses enjoyment, happiness, excitement, peacefulness…to make them feel bad (again) – to be like us

b. Arguing – acting out a pattern of anger & fights with someone 
arguing, fightingclose (mate, child,  friend, loved parent…) when it’s time to separate,
 even for a few days.
• First – fighting, saying cruel or stupid things
• then later doubling the abandonment by denying being upset, or underplaying it all — thereby negating the pain we caused & the other person’s real experience.

This is done to keep us from feeling our own abandonment pain, which would make us feel vulnerable.  Being angry –
• gives us a sense of power & makes the ‘bad feelings’ an easier way 
to leave, BUT
• it’s dishonest & disrespectful to ourselves & the other person
REMINDER – even tho’ we can’t technically abandon another adult, the term is always used here to express ‘not being there’ for others emotionally

c. Negating – directly discounting someone’s E. experience:
— “You don’t really feel that way”// “Don’t feel like that” negating
— “Don’t say that” // “That’s no way to talk”
— “That’s not a nice thing to say”….
EXP: When telling a religious friend at a conference about the ongoing pain from her childhood trauma, Jen was told: “You shouldn’t feel that way!”.
Fortunately Jen had been in Al-Anon long enough to respond: “Well, I don’t ‘should’ on myself!”, then smiled & walked away.

NEXT: ACoAs Abandoning others (#2b)

ACoAs – ABANDONING OTHERS (Part 1a)

dmtorbi 12-step, ACoAs, al-anon, Alcoholics Anonymous, alcoholism, coaching, mental health, Problem-Solving, Psychotherapy, recovery, self growth, self-help , , , , , , , , , , , ,

 mean teacher

I DON’T KNOW WHY YOU THINK THAT
(since I never would!)

PREVIOUS: Abandonment Pain Now #3


See ACRONYM page for abbrev.

ABANDONMENT STYLES covered:
1. Symbiosing, 2. Controlling, 3. Ignoring, 4. Copying, 5. Repressing other’s Emotions, 6. Idealizing, 7. Undervaluing

ACoAs are usually focused on how much we got abandoned, without realizing we’re just as prone to do that to others.
Not surprising, since everyone copies what they learned in childhood. We treat ourselves & others the way we were treated & the way we saw adults treat each other.
➼ Each style derives from a combination of :
• The original role models (parent, siblings & other relatives, teachers…..
• Our own native personality, forming the type of defenses we choose.
BTW – even tho’ we can’t technically abandon another adult, the term is being used here to express ‘not being there’ for someone else

1. SYMBIOSING
CAUSE : Many ACoAs raised by controlling narcissists were trapped in the state of ‘one-ness’ with one or both parents. We may have felt safe & loved at first, but slowly were engulfed by the needs & demands of unhealthy adults.
As we grew & began developing our own personality, we were slapped down, cut off or rejected outright.
The only option we had was to stay enmeshed, without the chance of developing ourselves fully.

RESULT: As adults we look for anyone we can mesh with, to prevent a terrifying sense of aloneness & abandonment carried over from childhood. Trying to connect with others this way is actually a form of abandoning them, because we’re not connecting with them for who THEY are, only for what our needy WIC wants them to be – for us. (“Symbiosis“)

2. CONTROLLING
• Putting severe limits on what someone can & cannot do when they’re with us (what they wear, where they sit, how they talk, what emotions are OK…)
• Constantly telling someone how they should live their life or how they should be doing something (whether they asked or not)

NOTE: This is not the same as asserting appropriate boundaries regarding what works for you or what you don’t want to be around
CAUSE
• ALL controlling behavior represents our disowned fear accumulated from childhood on into the present
hiding the mess• Trying to micro-manage everything & everyone around us so we don’t have to feel vulnerable, as in our unsafe & chaotic family, & later in bad jobs or bad relationships

• A defense mechanism designed to make us feel powerful & the world be more predictable, by hiding our inner mess, trying to make everything exactly the way we want – SAFE.
As long as we refuse to or can’t deal with the underlying cause of this compulsion (& being controlling IS compulsive, fueled by intense anxiety) we won’t be able to stop

EFFECT
Regardless of the underlying reasons, this pattern is:
• arrogant. We’re convinced we know better than everyone else, about everything,  AND have the right to make others do / be what we want
• disrespectful to others!  We’re implying, consciously or not, that we don’t care about the effect our controlling has on the other person – we trample on their needs &/or wishes, because only our needs matter!
If we did care, we’d think twice about continuing.
• insulting. We believe they are too incompetent, weak & stupid to make their own choices or figure things out for themselves

✶ Of course, trying to be in control of others instead of ourselves – never works. Not only does it not alleviate our underlying terror, but makes others withdraw or be resentful & angry at us – so us feel even more unsafe & alone

HEALTHY “Separation & Individuation“Screen Shot 2016-06-11 at 6.34.14 PM 
• Acknowledge that each person has their own way of doing things & the right to make their own mistakes. We are NOT their Higher Power!

• ASK, ASK, ASK: what someone wants, what they need, how they feel, what works for them, what their taste is….
We do not have to supply any of it IF we can’t, don’t want to or it’s not appropriate. Just keep in mind that others are separate from us, & that’s not bad – their differences do not negate who we are!
• Be willing to deal with our own damage, our accumulated pain & toxic patterns

NEXT: ACoAs Abandoning others (#1b)

ABANDONMENT Pain, Now (Part 3)

dmtorbi 12-step, ACoAs, al-anon, Alcoholics Anonymous, alcoholism, coaching, mental health, Problem-Solving, Psychotherapy, recovery, self growth, self-help , , , ,

⬆️ “LEAVING for BUSINESS” – Designed & created by DMT

PREVIOUS: Abandonment pain, NOW (#2)

STYLES of reacting to old abandonment (Ab)

1. UNDER – aware (Part 2)
2. OVER-aware
On the other hand, ACoAs can be hyper-attuned to the slightest slight, even when it’s completely unintentional or accidental. Everything that hurts them is taken as a personal affront, meant to humiliate & punish. This is the Victim position of the WIC (co-dep triangle), who believes everything is about itself – the narcissism of not even imagining that others are concerned mainly with themselves, not us!

Fear of Abandonment (FoA) rules our life:
• For all ACoAs, our default position is that we will always be abandoned, sooner or later – it’s just a matter of time
• We look for (Ab) everywhere, real or imagined. There’s an element over-awareof paranoia, which is always based on genuine childhood danger & trauma  (Post: ACoAs – Projecting)
As a result:
• we may deliberately make ourselves un-available OR un-likable, so we won’t become attached, & then have to re-experience being disappointed
• OR we desperately cling to people (even if it doesn’t show) & we watch them like a hawk for any hint of disapproval, anger, lack of attention… which might signal imminent abandonment

EXP: As Cicilia was walking downtown she noticed her friend Joe across the street, who didn’t even acknowledge her, much less smile or stop to talk. The ‘sensitive soul’ became enraged, & feeling invisible, obsessed about the slight for a few days & eventually fired off a nasty note, breaking up the friendship! (Sensitive souls can be very harsh when hurt!)

It turned out that Joe was so preoccupied in his own head he never saw Cici, but she didn’t bother checking it out first – just assumed that it was deliberate & disrespectful. Looking at her scathing email, Joe knew this was not the first time she had over-reacted. He decided it wasn’t worth arguing about it or justifying himself, again. If she couldn’t communicate more reasonably – then so be it.
Healthy: an appropriate reaction from her would have been: “I saw you on the street today & you didn’t say hi. What’s up?”

ACoA IRONY: We’re desperately afraid of being abandoned &Screen Shot 2016-06-14 at 10.26.56 PM yet tend to only focus on things in our environment that are potentially abandoning, while ignoring all the positive strokes being provided by:
— people giving us complements, anywhere
— kudos & rewards at work
— friends, mates, children… who do love us

Re. OVER-SENSITIVITY
• Whenever we feel devastated, self-hating, hysterical, paralyzed … but can’t figure out what’s bothering us – we need to remember that: “ALL roads lead to (Rome) old abandonment pain”. No matter how real-life, practical or serious the current event (rational), we can definitely say the situation is pushing a very big AB button.
This triggers Self-Hate.
Realizing that, we can then look for what has recently happened to open our old wounds. This can lead us to the source of the pain, with the opportunity to do some loving repair work with the WIC.

• It’s always helpful to remind ourselves that ‘If it’s hysterical, it’s historical’, because the intensity of our feelings is usually not in proportion** ⬇️ to the present situation which was somehow similar
to repeated childhood abuse or neglect. We can react with tears or rage. Either way it’s a window into what happened to us as kids – so it’s very useful info.

• The pain we feel at the moment can be from a real event (a job loss, a breakup, being in a fire) – any one of which of is stressful. BUT ACoAs react much more intensely than less-wounded others – who may be hurt, upset, have some sleepless nights… while the ACoA will be depressed for a long time, beat themselves up cruelly, become suicidal….

** ACoAs have a hard time accepting that extreme emotions are ‘out-of-proportion’, because in that moment they FEEL so real, we can’t see the bigger picture. We don’t want to hear we’re over-reacting!
IMP: That makes us so angry because we think we’re being told that our feelings aren’t real or legitimate. NOT SO. It is NOT a negation of our emotions – only being realistic about the origin of the intensity.

NEXT: How ACoAs Abandon Others – #1

ABANDONMENT Pain, Now (Part 2)

dmtorbi 12-step, ACoAs, al-anon, Alcoholics Anonymous, alcoholism, coaching, mental health, Problem-Solving, Psychotherapy, recovery, self growth, self-help , , , , ,

under-awareDON’T BOTHER ME –
I’m busy ignoring reality!

PREVIOUS: Abandonment Pain Now  (Part 1)

SITE: Understanding the Pain of Abandonment

See ACRONYM page for abbrev.


DEFINITION (cont.)
Screen Shot 2016-06-12 at 5.26.43 AM

REVERSING – ACoAs also tend to get our extremes backwards:
▪︎ being emotionally under-sensitive to ourselves &/or others in situations which a healthy person would definitely be upset about or at least register as ‘off’
EXP: ACoAs running into traffic as the light turns red, taking home a stranger we just met who talks a good game, not catching an insult….

▪︎ being emotionally over-sensitive – internally as S-H & externally as fear & rage at others – to all sorts of situations that others don’t even notice or are not bothered by, because they’re not ‘real’ or not about us
EXP: a passing glance from someone we interpret as dislike, not being included in some event, someone forgetting to bring us a promised book….

Screen Shot 2016-06-12 at 5.27.17 AMJUMBLING – we don’t seem to be able to make a distinction between important & unimportant issues in life, so that…..
….. being ignored, someone not being available, not getting the information we need, death of a loved one, other people’s damage, a missed phone call, not being able to find something in our home, being late, being dumped, losing a job…..
ALL seem to have equal importance or value – we’er either being numb to it or overly upset! (See Part 1) 

Adult SYMPTOMS of having been Ab. as a child
• Emotional: anxiety, being frozen (deer in headlights), depression, hopelessness, loneliness, paranoia, rage, resentment, sadness, terror…

• Psychological: avoiding responsibility, blaming, co-dependence, CDs (cognitive distortions), denial, fear of intimacy, idealizing or under-valuing others, lying, manipulating, procrastination, poor communication, withholding…..

• Behaviors: clinging, choosing alcoholics /addicts, fighting, isolation, lateness, raging, self-sabotage, self-harm, suicide attempts, under-earning withdrawal…..

STYLES of reacting to old abandonment
1. UNDER-aware – Mentally
At one extreme ACoA experience being mostly insensitive TO:
a. how we feel about all sorts of things, whether trivial or intense, what our very real needs & wants are, what we’re good at… We continually abandon ourselves, just like they did

b. the many ways some people are unkind, unfair & insensitive toward us. We ignore being ‘dissed’ as a result of :
• being so used to abandonment (Ab) in childhood that we don’t even feel it
• not knowing about the concept of (Ab), so can’t verbalize it, even if we do notice a twinge in our gut

OR WE:
• may notice it (as a thought), BUT blame ourselves, assume we deserve it, don’t have a right to ask for more… (our Self-hate)
• may notice it but pretend it’s not happening (denial), because it would be too painful AND we’d have to stand up to them or leave

• make excuses for the other person’s bad behavior, the way we had to excuse our family enabling). No one at home took responsibility for their abuse & neglect, so now we don’t hold anyone else accountable either
• don’t want to say anything because we don’t know the difference between confrontation & assertion, & we don’t want to hurt their feelings or start a fight

➼ Many ACoAs have a disconnect between their head & their gut, between thinking & Screen Shot 2016-06-14 at 10.17.08 PMfeeling.  Whether an under- or over- sensitive type, we all DO register the hurt of being discounted, disrespected, neglected or attacked.
However, emotionally disconnected ACoAs are:
• either – totally unconscious that someone has ‘stepped on our toes’, OR
• it’s as if we’re wearing a defensive invisible collar – LIKE the big plastic medical kind, used on animals so they can’t scratch their ears. We can see over the top, but NOTHING below the collar.

EXP: Someone can stick a verbal knife in your gut, BUT a with a smile or as a ‘joke’. You can only see the ‘nice’ face, but not the dangerous hand (the mean words). You notice the pain BUT because you can’t see anything below the plastic collar, you think there’s something wrong with you. After all, everyone else is ok & you’re the crazy ones, right?
NO!!

NEXT: Abandonment pain now (Part 3)