acoa recovery

ACoAs: Loneliness in Childhood (Part 2)

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

Screen Shot 2015-07-12 at 1.16.35 AM I’VE BEEN PUSHED DOWN SO LONG
I don’t know if I can get up

PREVIOUS: Lack of Comfort #2

SITE: NEGLECT (effects & related factors)

 

CHILDHOOD CAUSES of L. (cont)
3. FROM Family DYSFUNCTION (cont)
a. Parental Neglect
b. About Parents

c. TO FEEL SAFE
Consider the Ab. loneliness of….
…. having to hide from parents, siblings, other relatives, baby sitters, neighborhood kids…. because they were bullying & beating on you, subjecting you to unfair & unusual punishment, verbal & physical attacks, sexual abuse, teasing, unneeded enemas, sadistic mind-games, not allowing you to have your feelings (“I’ll give you something to cry about!”)…. & no one to protect or help you

• You carried around constant terror all by yourself, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Where could you go for safety? Under the bed, or table, in the closet, the neighbor family, in your room, at the library, at sports? Someone may have known what was happening to you, but they didn’t/ couldn’t intervene, so you were still trapped with the abusers

Consider the Ab. loneliness of….
…having to constantly fend off boundary invasions, mental & physical.  It may have seemed that you weren’t alone (someone was always around – in your face, in your business, in your space…), so how could you be lonely? But they were not really WITH you, at all – rather: at you, using you, controlling you

It was all about their neediness: getting into every nook & cranny of our body & mind, watching you all the time, fussing with your looks, clothes, actions, even your facial expressions (“look ashamed / wipe that look off your face”….).
OR it was all about one-upping’ you, competition between you & a parent, or between siblings – for attention, knowledge, friends, skills….

Consider the Ab. loneliness of….
…. having to play out a Toxic Role  – Hero, Mascot,  Scapegoat, Lost Child – to serve the family sickness:
– only allowed to ‘use’ a small % of yourself & having to hide or cut off the rest
– never having the freedom to find out who you really are as a whole person
– not allowed to develop at your own pace & for your own benefit ….

Consider the Ab. loneliness of….
…. hiding family sdysf. ROLESecrets, present & past.
SPOKEN – “Don’t let anyone see those bruises / Don’t tell anyone daddy’s in jail, that brother Johnny’s in a mental hospital or a drug addict, sister Suzy’s a prostitute, that daddy isn’t really dead….

UNSPOKEN – never ever bring up the drunkenness, fights, neglect, beatings, incest…. that went on behind closed doors. And then there were the secrets you somehow intuited but didn’t have any facts about, but found out about years later – like about a sibling before you who died, that Grandpa killed someone, mom was raped, grandma cheated on her husband….

d. FROM SHAME  
Consider the Ab. loneliness of….
…. having to hide yourself from everyone, especially outside the house – because you were soooo bad that you couldn’t let anyone know the ‘real you’. If they got to know you, you were convinced they’d hate you just as much as your family did – & that would have been too much to bear (see Self-Hate posts)

Consider the Ab. loneliness of….
lonely child….. having to hide your family from the rest of the world, because they were drunk, crazy, dirty, raging, seductive (with everyone) or just not there to make a home you could bring others to. You were ashamed of them & where you lives, so you stayed late at school, in the library, at a friend’s…. or lone, anywhere but there

Consider the Ab. loneliness of….
…. never able to trust the very adults who were supposed to be taking care of you – parents, older siblings, other family members, babysitters, school & religious leaders
• They were unreliable, messed with your mind, were sexually inappropriate, cruel, stupid, crazy, high….
• They’re too busy with their own concerns – having a good time, working, ‘using’, cheating…. to be there for you
• No one was honest about how they felt or what they really thought. No one was direct & clear. You never knew where you stood.

NEXT: L. in Adulthood (Part 1)

ACoAs – Loneliness: Lack of Comfort (Part 1)

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

“NOBODY LOVES ME,
everybody hates me,
I’m going to eat worms & die!

PREVIOUS:  Not enough Love? #3

SITE: “Why Love is Not the Cure for Loneliness … and what’s far more important

REVIEW posts: “Abandonment pain, Now”

QUOTES
• “Anger is a manifestation of a deeper issue… and that, for me, is based on insecurity, self-esteem and loneliness.” ∼Naomi Campbell
• “Loneliness, and the feeling of being unwanted, is the most terrible poverty.”  ∼Mother Teresa
• “…..the distressing feeling when one’s social relationships are perceived as being less satisfying than what is desired….” See article above
• “What loneliness is more lonely than distrust?” ∼George Eliot

Def. of LONELINESS (L)
• Dejected or desolate by the awareness of being alone, without companions. Separation between persons or groups
• Feeling a strong sense of emptiness, yearning, distress and solitude, from an inadequate quantity or quality of social relationships
• Sadness resulting from being forsaken or abandoned
• Social pain – a psychological mechanism meant to alert people to being too isolated, which can motivate them to seek social connections
(SITE: ….. 3 Factors of Loneliness)

ACoAs
✶ Loneliness is a universal phenomenon, since humans are social creatures by nature. But too much of it is crippling.
• Most people think that loneliness is ONLY about external scarcity – not having friends or someone special in one’s life. Human beings definitely need others –
“No man is an island” – for support, companionship, information, touching, mentoring, sex, love, fun, sharing creativity….

… BUT ACoA loneliness is not mainly about missing a physical presence. We know this is true because healthy people can be alone & not feel lonely.  However, ours is primarily an internal lack, from not having been comforted & nurtured as kids, which became a big ‘hole in the soul’, & then is acted out in our life-choices, SUCH AS:

a. With too much unresolved old pain, we’re so uncomfortable being alone with ourselves that we either keep very busy (over-doing, rescuing others….) or find endless distractions (social media, addictions, – to not have to feel / deal with out anxiety & rage

b. This is then reflected in who we pick to be with. Being with the ‘wrong’ person is very lonely indeed – even when it’s someone we love – if they’re always in their own inner world, with little or no room for us.
In that case the loneliness is even greater because there’s the illusion of companionship, but with no real connection

PAST
a. Health: While some children naturally need more time by themselves than others (Introverts), all need guidance & companionship – when learning new info, doing chores, trying out new skills, playing, performing… AND most of all – to not be alone with painful emotions!
Trauma is not only caused by the actual distressing events, but from having to cope with the resulting fear & pain alone!

In difficult times – whether from a skinned knee, being bullied by peers or the loss of a parent – kids need 4 main things:
💔 comfort for any/all emotions the child may be feeling!
📿 physical / medical care, when appropriate
🤔 validation that a situation was legitimately distressing, without hysterics & over-dramatizing
👄 words for what actually happened, & a way to understand it

comforting✶ When children experience these comforting (E) & informative (T) interactions from loving parents &/or other caretakers, self-comforting skills gradually become internalized, so that as adults they know how to take care of themselves, & self-soothing becomes automatic.
By carrying that ‘togetherness’ internally for the rest of life we’re never truly alone. This modifies the level of hurt & eliminates panic whenever we face difficulties & losses as adults.

NEXT: Lack of comfort #2

ACoAs: NOT ENOUGH LOVE? (Part 2)

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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)

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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”

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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 3a)

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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 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)

ABANDONMENT Pain, Now (Part 3)

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⬆️ “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)

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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)

Our Wounded INNER CHILD (Part 2)

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OW>OW<OW EVERYONE’S HURTING ME!
Ow, Ow, Ow!

PREVIOUS: OUR WIC (Part 1) Raising ourselves

POSTS: The Introject /  Negative Benefits 

SITE:”When Your Inner Child is Running the Show“


WHO IS this INNER CHILD ?
Our Adapted Child (which everyone has) became our WIC by absorbing the Toxic Rules of our family, and is now determined to keep acting out the patterns we learned in our family & society (Repetition Compulsion), no matter how sick or self-destructive, by either being:

• Compliers – who are the good obedient adult-children, (over-responsible / people-pleasing) who are desperately trying to earn the family’s love they never got, who suffer a variety of stress-related illnesses from suppressing their own needs & emotions  (POSTS :” Secretly Angry ‘Nice People”
OR
• Rebellers – who feel compelled to copy their terrible training, but hate it & desperately try to resist. They are oppositional (always say NO, even when they want to say YES) in a futile attempt at disobeying the Toxic Rules & having some personal boundaries. But they do it in such self-defeating & self-destructive ways that end up causing even more harm!

Wounded Inner Child’s (WIC) in charge
We never learned from our family INTERNALLY to be a Healthy Adult or Loving Parent (The UNIT) to ourselves – our role models being mainly other people’s PP and WIC!
So when CoAs become adults, our Wounded Inner Child, in symbiotic slavery to the Bad inner Parents, is still the main persona running our life, in the form of the False Self.

The WIC in charge has kept us alive so far – but not well :
• it doesn’t really know what it’s doing, so it’s always faking it
• has learned to trust no one, even people who are OK
• is in endless terror, (consciously or not), from birth – on
• is stubbornly loyal to the family, even if it kills us
• is smothering the Natural Child with S-H & shame

✶ AND – is secretly very proud of it’s ability to survive the odds, which gives it a strong determination to keep the reins of power! Since it has no better inner guide to rely on, it is not going to let go just because we ask it to!
These are some reasons why Recovery is so long & difficult.

This cannot be stressed enough:
Without family-of-origin Recovery (FoO work), the WIC ego state still dominates our life** in all T.E.A. ways, with the deadly combination of S-H & fierce loyalty to the Negative Introject (PP), via Cognitive Distortions (CDs).
This is true even though, for many of us, our various defense mechanisms which are layered on top of the original damage – make it seem as if we’re managing ok.
But no matter how externally talented, successful, competent, & accomplished we may be – if our thinking & emotional reactions are mainly coming from an old place – we are still not Screen Shot 2016-06-11 at 9.45.08 PMpsychologically free.

** So it’s inevitable that much of the time we’re emotionally immature in how we respond to people, places & things (PPT)!
Keep in mind: As long as we don’t have a fully functioning Loving Parent, plus a stronger Healthy Adult, the real voice in charge of us is the PP.

The easy way to tell which is which is by listening to how we talk to ourself —
a. the PP belittles us in the “YOU” form : “You should have known better. Why didn’t you_____”
b. the WIC in S-H always talks in the “I” form: “I’m such an idiot. I should _______ ”
The WIC consistently carries out the attitude & commands of the Screen Shot 2016-06-11 at 9.43.08 PMPP. So whether we’re in Rebel / defiant mode or playing Victim, we’re hooked into the family dynamic.

Without a Healthy Adult in charge:
• we don’t handle our life properly
• we let other people’s WIC or PP mistreat us
• the healthy Natural Child doesn’t get to develop & shine
• we can’t be the best we were born to be

Without a Loving Parent always available, the WIC:
• is at the mercy of our PP, with the damage it causes us
• is’s run by its S-H & distorted thinking
• feels constantly scared & vulnerable
• is terribly lonely & desperate to be rescued

NEXT: Abandonment Pain, Now #1