hopeless

ACoAs ‘FEELING SORRY For’ (Part 1)

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

THEY NE-E-E-ED ME! How can I turn my back on them?

PREVIOUS: HUMOR #6

SITE: Meditation for compassion (“loving kindness”)

1-a. For OTHERS – POSITIVE
“Feeling sorry for” someone may be generated by any situation we personally identify with, or simply caring about the plight of others who are less fortunate. We may or may not be able to do anything practical for the millions who suffer, but on a one-to-one basis, at the very least we can LISTEN to someone who needs a caring heart & ear, without advice or judgment

☆ Empathy : a visceral / emotional experience of another person’s emotions – an visceral mirroring, like tearing up at a friend’s intense sadness or deep loss

☆ Compassion:  “a human emotion prompted by the pain of others. More vigorous than empathy, it gives rise to an active desire to alleviate another’s suffering. It is often, though not inevitably, the key component of altruism ….”rescuing

☆ Altruism: an action that benefits someone else without expecting repayment.
BUT – does not automatically include personal empathy or compassion, like making an anonymous donation for tax purposes

DEF : ☼ Doing good to others, regardless of self-concern, a behavior that costs the Giver while benefitting the Receiver.
☼ A traditional virtue in many cultures, & a core aspect of various religious traditions”, it’s considered the highest form of love (Agape) – putting aside our own needs to help someone else.

➼ For this type of ‘feeling sorry for’ to be legitimate – the recipient of our concern must be truly in need of help AND not have the ability to do for themselves – at least temporarily.
This is not always easy to determine, especially is it’s someone we care about, if they’re still acting out of the victim role.
See “Rescuing” -vs- “Healthy Helping”.
💙

1-b. For OTHERS – Negative
For ACoAs, the core problem is that we feel sorry for the wrong types.
While we may have a strong caring & compassionate side, which we use for others instead of for ourselves, we misplace our sympathy by focusing it on narcissistic people (parent, spouse or lover, BFF, sometimes a boss, teacher…) who are a bottomless pit of needs.

i. WHO: Anyone who is –
☛ emotionally & practically irresponsible. This can not be emphasized enough!  These are people who are unwilling to use available resources needed to help themself, hooking us into do it for them! This can be in practical ways, but most often they want to be taken care of emotionally

☛ abusive, abandoning, narcissistic (but often charming) – because they prey on our desperate need to stay attached & feel special. It allows them to “feed on” us without having to give back.

☛ who acts like they need / love / value us, but if we take care of ourself before them  by setting boundaries or disagreeing, they’ll throw us under the bus in a heartbeat!
This way of being treated is so familiar from childhood, we think it’s normal & there’re acceptable, so we suppress our angry at the betrayal!

• POTENTIAL does NOT count – when it has to do with others!  We’re attracted to selfish people because they’re familiar, & we can rescue them & feel superior.
BUT as long as they refuse to develop their latent capacities – we end up drained, feeling inadequate, disappointed & angry – just like we did as kids.

ii. CAUSE
• our damaged need to feel special (counter feeling powerless)
• copy what we learned from a para-alcoholic parent (usually mom)
• don’t want to face who this (current) person really is, because then we’d have a different relationship with them, or have to leave

iii. WHAT
Their unhealthy behavior patterns TRIGGER our WIC to:
• (E) feel sorry for them (they’re manipulating this), the way we felt sorry for family members who we tried & tried to fix, but never could

• (A) act out our pre-programmed training to rescue & enable them
• resonate our WIC with theirs, feeling their pain – so we take on the Good Parent role, for them – but not toward ourselves

Instead, we need to be with people who are ALREADY in the process of taking care of themself, & therefore can be available to us without causing a lot of drama & stress.

NEXT: Feeling Sorry for – #2

ACoAs: RESPONSIBILITY (Part 1a)

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

responsible??IT’S TOTALLY UP TO ME
to make everyone happy!

PREVIOUS:
Re. book “Trauma & Recovery”

 

WHAT IS IT? 
In its simplest form, Responsibility (R) is first of all : Honestly admitting, to ourself what we feel, think & have done – or – not. (T.E.A.).
It includes acknowledging both our limitations & our gifts, our ignorance & our knowledge. And if possible, always doing this without guilt, without judgment, without shame.  MOST of ALL – without self-hate.

DISTORTION  = ACoAs grew up with a great many cognitive distortions CDs , so it makes sense that we would carry them into our adult lives – as if they were the truth! One of these has to do with the issue of Responsibility (R). 12370991801134292684yyycatch_people_biz_-_male_sad.svg.med

FEAR of Responsibility 
For many ACoAs, R. is a dirty word, both an absolute requirement & a hated burden!  We take responsibility for others’ actions & emotions, while in many ways not being responsible for ourself, hating ourselves (S-H) for the very things that make us human.

We believe we MUST take care of others instead of ourself, or someone will die & it’ll be our fault.  We’re overwhelmed by the heavy weight of it but believe we can’t escape. We were not taught healthy R. – which is taking care of ourself – so we find convoluted ways to avoid self-care.

👼🏼 🫃🏽 CHILDHOOD ORIGINS,  creating our aversion to R (FoR)
1. “I tried to fix them so they’d be OK”
GOALs:
✦ To stop them from suffering & make them happier, AND
✦ To make them ‘well’ so they would stop hurting us…..
….. AND be able to take care of us, the way all children need

COMMENTS – We were forced to be responsible (R) for our unhappy, angry, crazy, drunk parents, & sometimes siblings & extended family members. Many of us had to be the ‘designated adult’ even when we were very little, because of the adults’ incompetence, selfishness & addictions. We got the RULE loud & clear “Everyone else’s needs are more important than mine”.

• We understood early on that they couldn’t cope, so we had to be R. for ourself, to not ‘bother them’, to be self-sufficient
• We felt a great burden to fix their problems, make them feel better, to give them what they wanted – even when it was presented in the form of Double Messages.
• We were R. for doing whatever they wanted, how they wanted it, yet having to figure it out alone, because they didn’t say, or changed the rules arbitrarily, endlessly confusing us

• We may have lived with one parent who was totally irresponsible & we swore to never be like that, AND/OR with an over-R. parent, which we copied. Yet, some of us may have resented the responsible one for being too controlling, & adored the careless one, for being charming.

2. “I failed to make them better & so to stop my pain”
REALITY
✦ It should never fall to a child to have to try healing their parents’ damage, in a role-reversal of being the little grownup
✦ No one can cause an adult to “heal & grow”. People can only improve their life if they’re willing to do the work required to change. In any case, it’s not something for a child to do, who needs to be cared for

COMMENTS: No matter how hard we tried we were never able to create a genuine improvement in our parents. This was devastating for us, because we needed them to be mentally sane (T), emotionally stable (E) & consistently dependable (A).
As kids we desperately wanted to stop hurting, AND get our needs met. So we made every effort to please them & minimize the damage they could do us, but nothing we did worked

Our ‘failure’ left us with 2 conflicting states: failed hope
• Hating ourselves: We concluded that something was profoundly wrong with US – we weren’t smart enough, attractive enough, perfect enough…. to have an impact on the adults

• Hating them: We did/do in fact love our parents very much – no matter how they treated us. However, years of abuse & neglect gave taken their toll, building & building our helpless rage, which we had to deny.

NEXT: Fear of Responsibility (Part 2)