ALL THAT ATTENTION
makes my head hurt!

PREVIOUS: FoC – Part 3b

3. SELF-SABOTAGING re-enactment (cont)
Some POSITIVE things that interfere with our willingness to Commit :
a. Fear of self-care / b. F of being treated well & loved / c. F of our Power

d. F of Visibility. To the WIC, C. to anything means everyone can see us, in all our imperfections & ‘badness’.
If we combine Fears OF: Abandonment + Compromise + Losing Control + Making mistakes + Responsibility, we end up with is a deep terror of being fully visible. It would mean exposing ourselves to the whole world as undeserving frauds, “Who do you think you are?” echoing in our head. The assumption is that everyone else is also like our family, who will punish us for daring to have an identity of our own

e. F of Receiving – To the WIC, C. to others means making oneself vulnerable. AND it exposes us to good things we never had before, which will open the floodgates of need & longing – & drown us!
• We’re hungry for recognition & nourishment, but are forbidden. Our injunction against Receiving is bone deep, especially for the Hero & Lost Child.  TOXIC Rules include:
“Do everything yourself / I’m not important or valuable / I have no rights / No one actually sees me….”.
To ACoAs, Receiving IS: > breaking family rules, > weak & needy, > selfish & greedy, when others are suffering, > getting something I don’t deserve, > arrogant, presumptuous

2 broad categories @ Receiving:
• Getting something because we actually asked. Being direct about
what we need is not only forbidden by the PP, but the WIC also believes that: 👎🏽 If we have to ask, then getting it doesn’t count!

That only applies to infants who can’t talk – they’re totally dependent on adults to know what they need. Of course, many of us didn’t have available, nurturing parents, so we’re still stuck back there, in the emotional infant-toddler stage, waiting, waiting…..
But this passivity is not appropriate for adults. It is our responsibility to know what we need & then ask for whatever we can’t supply for ourselves.

• Getting something without asking, because someone generously offered, because they want to! Naturally, with our background of abuse & deprivation, the WIC doesn’t believe anyone would give us something ‘just because’. Since we’re unworthy, everyone must have an ulterior motive & it’s up to us to figure out what they want.

f. F of Success – To the WIC, C. to achieving our deepest goals means the sure loss of a connection to our family. (See Point c. in #3a). This refers to fulfilling our heart’s desire – what we were born to do. But even if we do follow the Right Path we’re more likely to keep from being as successful as we’re capable of – so we “Don’t get too big for your britches”! True success would mean disobeying a basic Toxic Rule “You always have to struggle, but never get there” !

g. F of Peacefulness. To the WIC, C. to anything good means being bored to tears. ACoAs are adrenaline junkies, ‘addicted to negative excitement’ (#8), always creating or inviting situations that make life more complicated & stressful. That includes those of us who are isolated & withdrawn: their form of excitement is mainly internal – the mental ‘spinning’ of obsessive self-hate & worry. Both types create unnecessary drama, re-enacting how our parents functioned + the chaos they created.

• To be calm, quiet, peaceful makes no sense to ACoAs & make us anxious! 🧐 Without constant ‘agida‘ we feel empty, which we call boredom. Actually it’s healthy, but we have to get used to it, by filling it with love for ourselves. Even if the compulsion to be a ’drama queen /king’ is unconscious, it’s up to us to replace it with a saner way of life

h. F of Higher Power (God, Spirit, the “Universe”….). To the WIC C to any form of ‘power grater than ourselves’ is guaranteed obliteration (death of Self). ACoAs are ‘afraid of authority figures” #1. This comes from what John Bradshaw reminded us of – that children transfer their experiences with parents (the original ‘gods’) to their concept of a Higher Power. If they were dangerous – then obviously so must God be.

NEXT: Recovering from FoC #1