symbiosis

ACoAs: OVER-Controlling Ourselves (Part 4)

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

sileced

I LET THE PP BEAT ME UP – to keep me in line

PREVIOUS: Emotional Over-Control #2

SITEs:  Self-Control (Wikipedia)
▪︎ Over-Controlled Primary Aggressor

See ACRONYM page for abbrev.

AS ADULTS (cont)
• ACoAs were not raised on the handbook “How to be a Healthy, Happy Human Being”, which left our Inner Child-part impulsive, anxiety-ridden, only able see itself & the world thru distorted alcoholic / narcissistic lenses. So, one way to deal with our trauma is to do what they seemed to want – for us to be dead! Some ACoAs try literal suicide, but most do it by PMES forms of self-destruction & emotional starvation.

Being Over-Controlled is NOT related to being Introvert or Extrovert, which are inborn, but rather about ignoring qualities we all share to varying degrees (intuition, intelligence, being perceptive, artistic…) – which were unacceptable in our family.
At the time, it would have made our lives even more miserable if we hadn’t suppressed those characteristics – although some of us couldn’t hide them well enough to escape being attacked or ignored.

Unhealthy BELIEFS of Over-Controllers 
• Everyone is out to rape me mentally & emotionally
• Don’t trust anyone with your feelings, thoughts or dream
• Never let others know how their behavior or actions effect you
• Never show your anger so you won’t get abandoned
• There’s only one way to survive a crazy world – climb into your shell, & stay there!
SO
• I have to keep control of my feelings so I don’t go crazy
• If I lose control, there will be no sanity in my home (or on the job)
• Losing my cool is unsafe, so I avoid conflict at all costs
• No matter what happens to me, I’ll never cry or need anything again
• No one’s ever going to get under my skin or hurt me again
► Do you hear the voice of the Toxic ROLES?)

HOW we Over-Control ourself
a. DEFENSES – Rigidly held defense mechanisms are used to hide from emotions we’re afraid to experience, but the ‘protection’ ends up running our lives:
• Addictions – used as a way to numb the cruel PP voice & to ignore our WIC the same way our parents did, but which actually adds to our suffering

• Counter-Phobia – being attracted to things that are scary while not fully aware of the accumulated terror underneath. Dangerous relationships & activities are seen as fun, which keeps the adrenalin pumping. We’ve stuffed the anxiety into the unconscious, but it needs an outlet, so we rush towards unhealthy ‘excitement’. If we stopped running we’d have to feel all that fear

• Fear of Engulfment, feeling suffocated & over-controlled by someone else’s need & demands. Not allowed originally to develop our own inner boundaries, we end up erecting a very thick wall against emotional closeness so that we won’t get swallowed up again. It keeps everyone at a distance, while longing for connection. The wall gets activated whenever anyone wants genuine intimacy with us, even if it’s what we say we want

• Guilt (post ‘What is guilt?’) – an emotion that controls us TO:
— ensure we never disobey our family’s Toxic Rules
— keep us from learning healthy rules that could improve our life
— prevent us from developing our True Self via S & I, which would unhook us from the family dysfunction

• Over-activity, such as workaholism, controls how much & what kinds of emotions we allow ourself to experience = staying so busy that we don’t have to feel anything ’real’, & using it to cover up S-H & a sense of powerlessness

• Paralysis, mostly our voice – stopping ourself from saying & doing things that would be good for us, because of fear of punishment, fear of abandonment and fear of visibility…..  which prevent speaking up to stop others from hurting us, enhance our self-esteem & move us toward our dreams

• Vagueness / dissociating – staying in ‘la la land’ to not face any reality we’re too terrified to deal with, starting with how badly we’ve been treated by family / school / religion / mates / work…. AND that we’re responsible now for having to care for ourself.
So – we don’t notice how much we spend / eat / drink… how others treat us, how we feel, what we need, how we treat others….

NEXT: O-C Ourselves – Part 4

Loneliness in RECOVERY (Part 1)

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

lonely with cat I CAN STAND THE DISCOMFORT
of loneliness because it’s not forever

PREVIOUS: Adult Loneliness  (#3

SITE: ‘Will I go crazy?”  re. loneliness

TWO STEPS FORWARD….
While all Recovery progress is positive, it’s never in a straight line & doesn’t always feel good – as much as we’d all like it to.  Instead, we move forward at a slow pace, often falling back into old ways & sometimes feeling discouraged, like we’re never going to ‘get it’.

John Bradshaw’s statement that a therapist’s job is to take a client “from their misery into their pain” (from Self-Hate into Abandonment pain) also applies to us individually on our journey thru Recovery.  We need to feel old wounds – a little at a time, & that includes Loneliness.
Is takes courage & perseverance. Recovery (Rec.) creates ‘opportunities’ for feeling lonely, which is a sign of growth as we leave old ways behind!

The middle A : ACCEPTANCE  (PART 2)
The following sources of Rec. Loneliness are part of the process, so they’re normal & to be expected:

1. Accept temporary Rec. loneliness of……
….. separating from childhood damage (our ‘story’). Any form of ‘letting go’ leaves a temporary feeling of depression & emptiness – as it taps into our childhood sorrow & rage, intense fear & emptiness.
It means:S & I
• separation & Individuation (S & I) from the PP voice & our resulting S-H, the Toxic Rules & Toxic Roles. These interlopers clogging our Inner Space have to be replaced with the UNIT (Loving Parent + Healthy Adult).

• gradually letting go of a variety of addictions. When we stop numbing the “hole in the soul”, the emptiness (lack of True Self) lets us feel how alone we’ve been

• outgrowing the compulsion to be symbiotically attached to someone, anyone, which then lets us feel how lonely it is to be with people who are wrong for us. It’s accepting that we all have to live in our own skin (‘existential aloneness’), which is healthy & normal. We do need others & especially out H.P., but not in a desperate, needy-child way.

2. Accept temporary Rec. Loneliness of…..
….. getting to know our IC (especially the Healthy one) – & building the UNIT. We gradually become aware that we do notinner child have a monster inside, but a deeply, desperately HURT CHILD (WIC).

The WIC may always want to be taken care of by someone else, so there’s a loneliness in letting go of other people as potential parents.
Guides, mentors,  teachers, friends…. are appropriate & needed, BUT not in a caretaker role. That’s for us to do, to become compassionate & dependable (trustworthy).
• Any form of dialogue with our younger self will gradually fill the emptiness. Book-ending with the WIC helps shift its focus from past to present-day reality.

3. Accept temporary Rec. loneliness of..…
….. doing fewer & fewer self-defeating things. This can be very scary for a while, so we need patience & faith in the process because:
• it’s disorienting to function in a new pattern, until we get used to it
• disobeying the Toxic Rules can bring with it varying degrees of internal backlash, & sometimes very real disapproval or punishment from disobey rulesothers – mainly the narcissists

• it leaves us wondering who we are. We won’t completely prevent the PP voice from whispering in our ear, but at first, as we stop obeying it, we can feel confused & alone. We think: “Who am I without ‘them’?” if we’re not that Role or Persona we developed in childhood.
The WIC is afraid we’ll have no identity without the old familiar ‘self’, which is mainly made up of defenses.
In reality we were born with a personality all our own & need to strip away the False Identity to find that out.

NEXT: Recovery Loneliness (Part 2)