Self-awareness And Healing Controlling Behaviors

Page 216, The Invisible Force: 365 Ways to Apply the Power of Intention to Your Life, written by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer:

"Be aware that learning to identify ways in which you're creating your own obstacles can be tremendously enlightening."

I have been blessed to use books like this one at different stages in my healing to give me more self-awareness. Only though self-awareness does healing have a chance of happening.

I used the 12-Step programs of Adult Children of Alcoholics and Al-Anon to give me self-awareness too. Those meetings taught me about self-worth, dysfunctional behaviors and the dysfunctional family system that resists all change. 

Those meetings introduced me to the books Codependent No More and Beyond Codependency both written by Pia Melody. I learned about abandonment and my own controlling behavior. I was able to identify a behavior that was causing me major unhappiness in my life---controlling.

Trying to control everything and everyone in my life in order to feel safe only created more obstacles for me to overcome during my healing process. The stress that I was creating for myself with my own behavior was unbelievable. The perfectionism and responsibilities that I put on myself were too much, but I didn't know how to live without them. In the dysfunctional family system of my childhood, I was the family hero and taught that I had to be perfect or I wasn't good enough and I was always at fault. I was also given the responsibility to make everyone else happy, often at my own expense. All of those set me up to become a controller as an adult. Add on that I thought if I could control everything that I would be safe from abuse.

The 12-Step slogan "Let Go And Let God" helped me tremendously. I made lots of mistakes and lots of apologies as I changed my controlling behaviors. I used affirmations like the one above to help me see and change my behavior. I did lots of writing and talking to friends and in 12-Step groups as I figured things out and got new self-awareness. I looked at the lies of my abusers and at the lies that I told myself. While learning to love myself, I looked at what was my responsibility and what was not. I read every book I could find about incest, alcoholic family systems and codependency. 

For 3 years, I used a God Box to teach me the principle of "Let Go And Let God". If you don't like the idea of God, use the Universe or your own Higher Self. Call the box whatever you want or don't call it anything. Do what is necessary to let go of the stuff that is not yours to handle. I will leave a link at the bottom of the page explaining how the idea of a God Box works.

You don't need the stress of trying to control the world. The world is much too big for one little person to manage. You are doing yourself and those around you a disservice by trying. Healing doesn't have time to happen when you are too busy trying to control everything else. 

All controlling does is take you away from what you are feeling and is a distraction from what is going on inside of you. Controlling behaviors keep you focused on others, not on yourself. Healing needs you to focus on you, not on your abuser's current behavior, not on what your spouse might be doing today, not on your friend that goes from drama to drama. They will all survive without your help/interference. Without your attention/advice, they might even start to look at their own lives with a sense of self-awareness. Become an example of what healing looks like by focusing on and healing your own stuff. 

Let go of the fears of childhood that keep you trying to control everything. Look at those fears, one at a time. Become friends with your fear. See fear for what it is---mostly unrealistic and from your past. Help your inner child to see that you don't have to live in that fear today and she/he doesn't either. 

Know that you can't control another person, unless they let you and that isn't healthy for you or for them. You aren't meant to control others. You can offer better guidance by the example of how you live your own life. Others never have to follow your example or your words. Don't resent them when they don't. Giving advice sets you up for resentment when people don't do what you tell them to. You need to acknowledge to yourself that you really don't know what is better for another person. That person may need those experiences to grow, to see their own value, to learn a major lesson, or to learn what love really is. They may miss those lessons if you step in and try to fix everything for them.

Years ago, a very wise lady told me that when I try to fix things for others, I am, in effect, telling them they are too stupid to do it for themselves. I didn't like what she said. I never wanted anyone to feel stupid because of my words or actions. My parents did that to me as a child. I did it to others, until I learned not to.

Look at where your controlling behavior comes from and the fears that cause it. Then you can free yourself of those fears. You can stop controlling what isn't yours to control. You can't control other people no matter how much you may want to.

What can you control?
Your fears
Your words
Your thoughts
Your attitude
Your reactions

Look at your world through the eyes of gratitude instead of negativity. Use affirmations. Learn to meditate and find peace within your center. Learn to love yourself. Forgive yourself for the mistakes of the past and for the mistakes you will make as you learn to let go of controlling.

Changing any behavior takes time, persistence, focus and self-awareness. Give yourself all of those. Practice kindness and patience with yourself. You deserve both.

What changes are you afraid of? Why? What would happen if you make those changes? I assure you, you won't die. Keep telling your inner child that she/he is safe. Today you can keep her/him safe. You are strong, courageous, and wise when you listen to your own inner voice. Learn to love yourself. Loving yourself creates true safety.
I am Patricia.

Related articles:

ASCA Anonymous @
http://www.asca12step.org

The Secret---Affirmations Change Your Life @
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2007/08/secret-affirmations-change-your-life.html

Al-Anon and Adult Children of Alcoholics Played Major Roles In My Recovery From Incest @
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2008/01/al-anon-and-adult-children-of.html

Surrender---Using A God Box @
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2008/01/surrender-using-god-box.html

Dialogues With Dignity And 22 Ways To Love Yourself @
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2012/01/dialogues-with-dignity-and-22-ways-to.html

Fear Is My Fear @
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2009/01/fear-is-my-friend.html

Resources For An Incest Survivor And Adult Children Of Dysfunctional Families @
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2012/04/resources-for-incest-survivor-and-adult.html

How Would You Describe Yourself?

I was asked to describe myself to a group recently and decided that I would share my thoughts here with you. I like and love who I am today. I had to work to let go of the negative thoughts of the past and to learn to give myself value. Here is how I see myself today.

I see myself as a strong, caring woman who has learned that it is okay to be vulnerable and to open my heart to others. I have a great sense of humor that has helped me through some hard times. I can laugh at myself and see that I am very human. I make mistakes and do my best to learn from them so I don't repeat them because life has a way of bringing back lessons over and over again until we learn them. I love people. I am an extrovert but also need my quiet time to think about what I am going through and what I am feeling. I am quite vocal on things that I care about. If something isn't important to me, I don't waste my time. I am long-winded with my words, especially my writing. Focus is sometimes hard for me because I can see that a path can go in a lot of different directions and I want to walk down all of them just for the experience. I have grown from a shy, scared little girl into a strong, outspoken woman that has been called names a number of times for my outspokenness and for refusing to let another person control me since I escaped my alcoholic, rageaholic dad's control. Today I am more in balance with who I am than I have ever been before and I very much like and love that person that I have become.

Well, here I go with my flaws. I am stubborn which can be good depending upon the situation. I have a temper and it can flair up quickly without warning because I still sometimes let my anger build too long before voicing it. I am better with this and I am still learning to just say I am angry rather than holding it in until I explode like a volcano. If you lie to me, I will shut you out of my heart so quickly and I won't tell you why. I was lied to as a child by most of the adults in my life. Trust isn't easy for me. Once I trust you, I am loyal to a fault. I am outspoken and some people, usually those who want to control me, don't like it. I won't be controlled by anyone else. When I get scared, I get controlling. Now, I see the controlling for the fear that it is and I work on correcting the issue and addressing the fear. When I get angry, I still have a tendency to yell at you, another one I am greatly improved and still working on. I am honest to a fault and sometimes I hurt the feelings of others unintentionally because of it. I don't beat myself up for any of these any more. I used to.

I learned a long time ago that if I wanted to heal from incest or anything else that I needed to take a long, honest look at myself so that look has to include the shadow parts of myself that I might not like. I do need to acknowledge them if I am being honest with myself. Then I can decide if I want to keep those straits or if I want to work to change those parts of myself.

How would you describe yourself? Be as honest as you can. It's okay if you don't want to share the answer here. Write it down for yourself.
Patricia

A Dad Issue From My Past Still Affecting Me Today

As the holidays are fast approaching, I have noticed several things from my past coming to the surface. My mom has been in two of my dreams recently. Rarely does either of my parents show up in my dreams. Two nights in a row is a sign of something but I am not sure what, other than the anniversary of her death is coming up on November 20. Maybe this will be a year that I do some more grieving. Maybe there is something that she is trying to teach me but I don't know what it is yet. I will wait to see if I get anything more from her or my dreams.

Everywhere I turn for the past few weeks, some survivor is talking about the silent screams of their abuse. I am familiar with those silent screams held inside of you as a child being physically, sexually abused by an adult. You hold the screams in because of the fear that once they start, you may not be able to stop them. You hold them in because, if your abuser can't deal with your tears, he certainly can't deal with your screams of pain and horror over being raped by a grown man when you are just a small child. You hear the screams in your head but no one else does but another survivor who has them too. I know those silent screams are still there inside of me but have no idea what to do with them other than acknowledge their existence like I am doing now.

Over the past few days, I have been part of two conversations in different groups. In both conversations, I expressed a difference of opinion to the other person's opinion. Both times, my opinion was rejected, which is their right. What is not their right or anyone else's is to say that I am still in victim mode or creating drama just because I voiced a different opinion. I got angry. In talking it out with some friends, I realized that the source of my anger was an old issue from my dad and his controlling behavior. As a child, until I left home at 19, I was not allowed to have a difference of opinion with my dad.

Expressing my opinion is important to me as an adult. I work hard to not do it in an aggressive, abusive way like my dad did with his laws that he stated in my childhood. Everything my dad said was to be accepted as law in our house. He was the dictator. I am not a child to be ruled by anyone today. I am an adult and I do often have an opinion. I respect the opinions of others and I hope they will respect mine.

I can't change or fix another person. I can try to understand them and their view point. I don't mind that others have a view point different than mine. Those differences are what make the world an interesting place to me. When another person starts name calling or treating me like I am inferior to them, then I feel as I did as a child who was not respected, not listened to and not allowed to have an opinion. Don't call me a victim or say that I am creating drama just because I express an opinion different than yours. I have learned not to strike out at a person in anger. I will regret what I say each time. I have learned that if I am angry, it is my issue, usually from the past, that I need to work on.  Usually I work on an issue by writing about it, as I am doing now. The other person's issues are not my business.

Another person's air of superiority can only affect me if I am feeling inferior. I have come to know that a superiority complex means the person is feeling inferior inside and afraid of others seeing it. I know because I used to do this with a sarcastic tongue. What we often see in others is because it is also a part of us. I have been there, done that, when I was younger so I know the fears behind the superiority and the sarcasm. Both keep others from getting too close so they can't hurt you. Today if I use sarcasm it is only in fun and never to hurt someone else.

We all have our own issues to deal with sometimes on a daily basis. Just know that your issues are yours. If someone else triggers you, it isn't their responsibility to fix it or you. It is yours. If you are angry or scared or sad because of something that was said or because of a situation you are in, look to yourself, usually your past, to find the answers. If you concentrate on the other person and what they said or what they did, you won't heal you. You will just add more woundedness to what you already have. My computer says that "woundedness" isn't a word. Well, it should be. Neither is "thriver" and again, it should be. As survivors, we are changing the world, one person at a time. We are inventing a new vocabulary to help us do it. Hope you are loving this late Sunday afternoon, my friends.
Patricia

Are The Effects Of Incest A Life Sentence For A Survivor?

Sharing some more of my Tweets on Twitter from several weeks ago. Tell me what you think.

The sad fact of my life is that at age 60, my abusers are all dead but the effects of incest live on in me.

I have done many years of healing work and am in a good to great spot most of the time with my incest issues behind me.

Even with healing, sometimes an issue will pop up and catch me by surprise and I find more grieving to do.

More grieving, more healing, more anger and fear to feel and then let go of because of the incest in my childhood.

A Survivor's work is never done, at least in my experience. Joy and peace do exist and I enjoy them when they are here.

And I still have those moments of fear come up when something triggers a memory or a feeling from my inner child.

I live with hope and laughter in my life and I still am a work in progress.


Tomorrow is my dad's birthday. He died January 6, 2000. Because of the length of time that he sexually abused me, I count him as my main abuser and most of the issues that I have worked on came from the abuse done by him.

My dad was born in 1931 as the 3rd oldest of what would become a family with 12 kids. He quit school in 5th grade when he went to work in the fields with his dad to help feed their family. I don't know if he had been a good student or not. When I was older, I realized that he could barely read or write. He could write his name. As for his intelligence, I don't think he was very smart. He came from a family with alcoholism and codependency in it just as I did. My grandfather when I was older would start drinking on Friday evening as fast as he could cash his pay check and get to the store to buy beer. When I was growing up, we spent lots of weekends at their house. I was always afraid of my grandfather because he was loud, a big man and a mean drunk. He would drink all weekend. On Sundays, he would drive back to town to buy more beer even though it was against the law back then to sell alcohol on Sundays. You did not want to ride with my grandfather when he was drinking. I rode with him one time with my siblings.  I cannot understand how he was never in an accident or stopped by a policeman for drunk driving. He was all over the road. Whatever direction he looked, the car went. That was before you had seat beats in cars. He never drove over 40 miles per hour. Neither did my dad. This was also before you had interstate highways.

None of this is told to you as an excuse for my dad's behavior but to give you a little bit of background to his life and mine. I can feel sad for the child that he was and I can see where some of his patterns of behavior came from. I can see why he grew up into a frightened man who felt that he had to control everyone around him to feel safe. I did the same thing until I realized that control didn't make me safe or make me happy. For awhile, I copied what I saw as a child. You have to have awareness of behaviors before you can change them. My dad never saw that he needed to change anything. I have learned that control hides fear - lots of fear.

When you face your fear, you can give up the need to control. Letting go of fear makes room for you to start to heal.
Patricia

Denial: Pretending Everything Is Okay Doesn't Mean Everything Is Okay

Most of the time denial is not helpful. Sometimes it is. Denial can actually save a life or at least a person's sanity, for awhile, when that person is living with abuse on a daily basis like many children do.

Using denial to leave the abuse behind at home helped me to feel safe each day when I went to school. I always loved going to school. I hated summers and holidays that I couldn't go to school.

I had teachers who cared about me and helped me to feel proud that I could excel at something and make good grades. I didn't get that praise and acknowledgment at home.

On the other hand, those same teachers didn't recognise that I was being abused at home. I had no physical signs of abuse on my body but even if I had, I don't know that the teachers could have or would have done anything about the incest in the 1950's and 1960's in America. A man had more freedom then to do as he pleased with his wife and children and often the law would not intervene. The awareness of abuse just wasn't there or if it was, it was rarely acted upon.

Pretending that everything is okay when it isn't, as an adult, is not helpful most of the time. The very same denial, that protected me as a child, worked against me as an adult. Denial comes at a high cost to the human body and mind.

Holding back emotions, hiding from memories, refusing to see the abuse that is going on or went on in the past - all of these can cause stress that wears out the body and harms the mind of the victim. I didn't know how much energy it took to hold on to my denial until I let go of it.

Holding in emotions rather than feeling them takes tremendous mental control. Your body carries all of that stress whether you want to accept it or not. The stress of shutting down emotionally can do harm in the physical realm of the body by causing symptoms like high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes and many other conditions.

If you are in denial, stop. Give your mind and body a break. You deserve to have a full life. That doesn't happen when you are in denial. For you to heal, and you are definitely worth taking the time and effort to heal, the denial must go. Yes, letting go of the denial, initially, hurts more. That stage doesn't last. You can get past the hurt. You can survive feeling the hurt. Then as you let go of the hurt, through feeling it, you will heal.

As you heal, joy and peace become a possibility that you can open yourself up to. Ask any survivor/thriver, if letting go of the denial and feeling the pain was worth what they have today. They will tell you that it was. Please do this for yourself. You are worth it.
Patricia

Related Articles:

Resources For An Incest Survivor And Adult Children Of Dysfunctional Families @
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2012/04/resources-for-incest-survivor-and-adult.html

Childhood Memories @
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2007/10/childhood-memories.html

Dialogues With Dignity And 22 Ways To Love Yourself @
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2012/01/dialogues-with-dignity-and-22-ways-to.html

Memories Of A 19-year-old Incest Survivor

My dad was too much of a dictator who never wanted his kids to be out from under his influence to voice the words, "Do what I say or get out." His words were, "Do what I say or else." The "or else" was left to the imagination. My biggest fear was that "or else" meant a beating or death. In my family of origin, getting out was not an option that we were offered. My dad would have been happy if none of us ever left home.  I would have left home at 17 when I graduated from high school but my parents wouldn't sign for me to go into the Air Force like I wanted to. I couldn't sign up on my own until I was 21 years old. By then, my life had already taken a different path.

So instead of leaving home and going into the Air Force, at 17, I lived at home and rode back and forth every day with my mother to go to a small junior college for the next two years. My mom would drop me off at 7:30 a.m. on her way to work. After classes ended for the day, a friend would drop me off at the place that my mom worked where I would sit in the car and wait until she got off work.  Near the end of my second year, I applied for student loans at the four year college of my choice and as soon as I received confirmation of the loans, I started making plans to leave home.

I had no place to go but I knew that my mental state was so bad that if I didn't leave soon, I would have had a mental breakdown.  I also knew this was my first and only chance to escape my dad's control. He was not going to willingly release me from his control. I had to take drastic steps and run away, even though I was considered an adult at 18 years old.  I ran away at the age of 19, the day after my last tests at the junior college.

Before moving on, I want to revisit my first dates at 19 while I was still living at home. My first date was with a boy that I met at the junior college. I had known this boy since we first met in the 8th grade but my family moved when I was in the 10th grade to another town. I met this boy again in my freshman year of college. We would sit and talk in the student union during breaks between classes. The second year, he asked me out. He came to my home and met my parents before our date.  He and my dad instantly hated each other. They recognised each other as dictators and controllers.  I was allowed to go on that date where I submitted to being sexually abused that night. I wasn't asked if I wanted to be sexual. I didn't say no. I didn't say anything, just like when I was being sexually abused by my dad. I didn't know that I had the right to say no. It just wasn't a choice that I even considered. I had been groomed well by my dad. Even though this boy hurt me physically, I didn't make a sound of any kind just like I had silently endured the sexual abuse of my dad for 6 years. I thought in order for either of them to love me, I had to give in to their sexual demands whether I wanted to or not.

I think that I went on 3 or 4 more dates with this boy but I never asked my dad for permission after the first time. I knew that he would have said no. I had a girlfriend at college who let me come and stay the night with her after the dates with this boy. I don't think my parents ever knew about the other dates. I never told them.

On my first date, this boyfriend took me to his younger sister's house and asked her to give me some of her clothes to wear because he didn't like the pants suit that I had put together for our date.  I was so proud of that pants suit but he didn't like it. I thought I was "in love" because he talked to me and paid attention to me. I couldn't see that in many ways, he was like my dad, holding in rage and wanting someone weaker that he could hurt and control. He made the statement to me, on that first date, that he should just take me away from my dad. I thought it was an odd statement, but I didn't realize that it wasn't about me.  It was about them, not me.  They both thought that they owned me, as a possession, not as a person.  Both wanted to chain me to them and never let me go. 

Only by the grace of God, did that boyfriend not ask me to marry him.  I would have said yes and become a battered wife. On our dates, he never hit me but he did sexual things that he shouldn't have. I was too afraid to say no. He never once asked me to have sex with him. He just assumed that I would go along with whatever it was that he wanted to do and I did because of the incest.  I didn't know what was normal, especially dating normals.  I had never been allowed to say no so I didn't even think about saying no.

Just before I did leave home at 19, God put a lady in my life who gave me a place to live and helped me get my first job until I went off to my 3rd year of college. That lady saved my life. I will put a link to a post that I wrote back in 2007 about this lady at the end of this article.

I knew that if I didn't take the chance to leave right then that I would never have gotten out from under my dad's control. Walking out that door, knowing that I wasn't going back, was the most frightening, most courageous thing that I have ever done in my life.  My dad never intended for any of his children to get out from under his control.  A year or so later, my sister ran away too. I don't know the story of my brother leaving home.  I will have to ask him the next time that we talk.  My sister wasn't as lucky as I was.  She did fall for another abuser - one that verbally and physically beat her for years before she finally walked out.

I had two other dates before I met my husband.  Both of them, unknown to me at the time, were probably well on their way to becoming alcoholics.  I saw one on Facebook in the past few years and he is divorced and totally alone with no responsibilites of family (his words) now.  I thank God that I didn't get in deeper than a few dates with him. 

Until we learn otherwise, we tend to repeat in our adult relationships what we saw and learned from our parents and our relationships with them. Because of my low self-worth from the incest, I could just as easily have married into an abusive relationship like my sister. Thank God that I didn't.  If not for the lady that God put into my life that took me in for those few months before I went away to a four year college, when I left home, I could have easily fallen prey to some sexual predator or gotten into prostitution to feed and clothe myself when I got desperate enough. Instead my life has taken a much different road to where I am today with a kind, generous, stubborn husband of 39 years. (Can't have you thinking he is perfect, he isn't, but neither am I.)  There are so many possibilities that could have lead a different life than the one that I have today if I had never learned that it is okay to say no and to know that I have value other than as a sex object for some man. I grew to realize that sex does not equal love. I have been truly blessed by the many people who have come into my life since I was that 19-year-old incest survivor. Thank you to all of you.
Patricia

A Related Article:

The Most Influencial Person---#2---Survival @
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2007/06/most-influencial-person-2-survival.html

The Laundry List of Adult Children Of Alcoholics

My very first meeting of Adult Children of Alcoholics I was given a packet of information which included what was called The Laundry List.  It is a list of characteristics for Adult Children.  This list works for Adult Children of any dysfunctional family. 

From Becoming Your Own Parent, The Solution for Adult Children of Alcoholic and Other Dysfunctional Families, by Dennis Wholey, Bantam Book, New York, New York, 1988, page134-135:

"The list came into being in the mid-1970's in New York City.  It was authored by Tony A., a member of Alcoholics Anonymous.  The list of characteristics resulted from his own written personal inventory.  It was presented to a group he belonged to at the time, an offshoot of grown-up Ala-Teen members called Hope for Adult Children of Alcoholics."

Here is a list of the characteristics for Adult Children of Alcoholics from the above book and from the list that I was given at my first ACA meeting back in January 1989:

1. "We became isolated and afraid of people and authority figures.
2.  We became approval seekers and lost our identities in the process.
3.  We are frightened by angry people and any personal criticism.
4.  We either become alcoholics, marry them---or both---or find another compulsive personality, such as a workaholic, to fulfill our sick abandonment needs.
5.  We live life from the viewpoint of victims and are attracted by that weakness in our love and friendship relationships.
6.  We have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility; it is easier for us to be concerned with others rather than ourselves; this enables us not to look too closely at our faults.
7.  We get guilt feelings when we stand up for ourselves instead of giving in to others.
8.  We become addicted to excitement.
9.  We confuse love and pity and tend to "love" people we can "pity" and "rescue."
10.  We have "stuffed" our feelings from our traumatic childhoods and have lost the ability to feel or express our feelings, because it hurts so much.
11.  We judge ourselves harshly and have a very low sense of self-esteem.
12.  We are dependent personalities who are terrified of abandonment, and we will do anything to hold on to a relationship in order not to experience the painful abandonment feelings that we received from living with sick people who were never there emotionally for us.
13.  Alcoholism is a family disease, and we became para-alcoholics who took on the characteristics of that disease, even though we did not pick up the drink.
14.  Para-alcoholics [co-dependents] are reactors rather than actors."

When I first read this list of characteristics, I could circle eleven of the fourteen as pertaining to me---#1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14.    I grew up in a home with a dad who was an alcoholic and a mother who was a para-alcoholic or co-dependent.  I grew up to become co-dependent.  I married another Adult Child of an Alcoholic.  Almost all of the young men that I dated before I met my husband are possibly alcoholics today.  I took on some of the characteristics of my dad and of my mother even though I choose not to drink because I carry the gene for alcoholism.  Both of my children also know that they carry this same gene.

I went into those first ACA [or ACOA]  meetings knowing that I didn't have a clue as to who the real me was.  For years, I had stuffed feelings down deep inside of me where I wouldn't have to feel and I could deny that the alcoholism and the incest wasn't still affecting me.  My family was dysfunctional because of the alcoholism and also because of the secret of incest.  I also discovered that I had major control issues and abandonment issues.  When I left home, I started to be controlling so that I wouldn't feel the abandonment.  If I was in control, you wouldn't leave me.  The reality is that it is a miracle that I didn't push my husband away with my demanding control of our lives.  In promising myself that no one was going to ever have the control over me that my dictator dad had when I was a child, I became the rigid controller in my life.  After ten years of living that way, I realized that I was not happy with being "in control."  The reality was that I was very much out of control and becoming more and more fearful by the day instead of feeling safe like I wanted.

Can you relate to any of these characteristics?
Patricia

Childhood Issues Can Create Dysfunctional Relationships For Adults

I am reading a book called Becoming Your Own Parent, The Solution for Adult Children of Alcoholic and Other Dysfunctional Families.  The author of this book is Dennis Wholey who also wrote the book The Courage to Change.  I read both of these great books back in the 1990's when I was first involved in recovery and 12-Step meetings.  If you haven't read them, I encourage you to check them out.  They are both a great resource for Adult Children from dysfunctional homes.

Today, I visited one of my favorite blogs Emerging From Broken written by Darlene Ouimet.  In choosing to tell her own story of recovery from abuse, Darlene is constantly told that she is also telling the story of others, both women and men, who read her blog.  She often tells bits and pieces of what could be my own story of incest.  For awhile Darlene has been writing about the lies that formed her belief system during her childhood.  She talks about the dysfunctional family that gave her this false belief system.  Darlene posted two blog articles this week talking about dysfunctional relationships.

Here are the links for Darlene's two blog articles:
Standing up to Dysfunctional Relationship:
http://emergingfrombroken.com/standing-up-to-dysfunctional-relationship/
Standing up to Dysfunctional Relationship Part 2:
http://emergingfrombroken.com/standing-up-to-dysfunctional-relationship-part-2/

Click on the above links and go read the blog articles.  Be sure to take the time to read each of the blog comments too.  They are well worth your time to read.  So many of us know what Darlene is talking about - the dysfunctional family system and its effects upon us in our adult relationships.  Many of us recreate those childhood relationships when we are adults.

Here I am going to paraphrase,combine, and add to my comments that I left on each of her blog articles.  Much of the information also comes from the book Becoming Your Own Parent that I mentioned above. 

Dennis Wholey quotes a number of expects in the field of recovery in his book in explaining the differences between a healthy family system and an unhealthy or dysfunctional family system. One of the experts that Mr. Wholey quotes is "Therapist, lecturer, and consultant Terence T. Gorski, M. A." (page 175)  On page 176, Mr. Gorski says about dysfunctional families that "The norm is struggle, chaos, confusion, and pain.  Relationships chew you up.  Sometimes a relationship gets really good for a short period of time, but doesn't last.  It returns to the norm of being a painful, horrible place to live."

Continuing on Page 176, Terence Gorski says, " In a dysfunctional home the child learns that relationships entail a difficult, painful struggle; they temporarily feel good, but will rapidly decay back into a difficult, stuggling, and painful situation.  The child learns that at five or seven or ten or fifteen years of age."

"Children from dysfunctional environments often end up in bad relationships because they believe on a fundamental level, 'I'm not worthy of being loved and the only way I can get somebody to love me is to trick them into believing I'm somebody that I'm not.' "

On page 177, Mr. Gorski says, "People who come out of a dysfunctional home unconsciously either re-create their family of origin or the polar opposite.  A person either blindly conforms with, or blindly rebels against, what he or she was unconsciously taught as a child.  In both cases there is no free individual choice."

Also, on page 177, Gorski says, " In making the decision to conform, the child decides that the family of origin is good and he or she therefore is bad.  To be good, the child must make the family right.  In making the decision to rebel, the child believes that the family is bad and he or she is too good to live like that.  To be good, the child must do the opposite, whether or not it is in his or her best interest."

Here is part of my comment to Darlene's first post, "Something that I have found true for me is that when I work on my own childhood issues, the relationship issues with my husband often take care of themselves.  I don't say that to mean don't work on your relationship issues.  Believe me when I say that you should work on any abusive or dysfunctional relationship issues that you have.  Many, if not all, of my relationship issues came from my childhood issues.  Relationship issues are often built upon the lies about love and respect that we were taught as children.  Mine sure were."

In my childhood, my dad played the role of dictator and rage-aholic.  My mom played a role of being passive-aggressive.  She was mild and meek, following my dad's lead.  She allowed him to make all of the decisions in our family life.  I saw my dad as strong and having all of the power in their relationship.  I saw my mother as weak and powerless.  I did not want to be weak and powerless like my mother so I chose the role of controller and that left the passive-aggressive role for my husband to fill.  I promised myself when I left home that I would never be controlled by another dictator like my dad.  In rebelling against my dad's control in my childhood, I stepped into that role in my marriage.  I thought if I could control everything and everybody that I would feel safe and not be so afraid.  It seemed to work for a little while.  My husband and I both played our roles well in the beginning.  Nothing about those early years of our marriage made me happy.  I can't speak for my husband and his feelings about those early years but I doubt that he liked it much when his brothers called him henpecked.  I doubt he liked it any better than I did when his grandmother asked early on which one of us was going to "wear the pants in the family."  I didn't see myself as a controller back then and I was very hurt by her comment at the time.  I was continuing the belief system unconsciously as Mr. Gorski talked about in the quote above.  By making myself the strong and powerful controller, I abused my husband as my dad did my mom with his controlling.  By choosing to marry a passive-aggressive person, I also chose to continue the cycle of abuse.  My controlling was right out there in front for everyone to see.  Passive-aggressive behavior is much more difficult to see and overcome because it is more hidden.  It can sometimes be more destructive because it isn't out in the open. 

I want to share with you here, just in case you didn't take the time to go and read the comment section of Darlene's second article, the comment that I wrote about dysfunctional families assigning roles:  "Dysfunctional family systems assign roles to each of its members.  The roles are not flexible and are not up for discussion.  The system is very rigid.

Someone is always the scapegoat.  The scapegoat is the one who is always wrong, always blamed for everything that goes wrong in the family.  The quickest way to become a scapegoat [as an adult] is to dare to be the one to want change, to be the one who demands that the truth be told instead of continuing to believe the lies and secrets of the family.

The dysfunctional family system will do everything possible to keep the family system in tact, even resorting to disowning the one who wants to change or the one who suddenly is willing to share the family 'secrets.'  Yes, it hurts to be that person and you are worth the end result that you get - freedom from abuse."

I remember being hurt once by a comment one of my uncles made about me being an Adult Child of an Alcoholic.  It wasn't want he said.  It was the derisive tone of his voice that hurt.  I haven't been disowned by my family for breaking the silence of abuse.  I was the one who chose not to have contact with my dad for over ten years before he died because he was still an alcoholic and I wasn't convinced that he wouldn't do something to try to hurt either of my children.  Many Adult Children are disowned by their families when they decided to talk about the family secret of abuse and dysfunction.  Many of us are labeled as crazy, drama queens and troublemakers because we refuse to continue to play the roles assigned to us in our dysfunctional family of origin.  Many of us decide to stop playing those roles when we realize that the role is not who we are and we realize that in playing the role, we somehow lost ourselves.  Finding out who I am is what most of my journey of recovery has been all about.
Patricia

Lost Pieces And Abilities Cause By The Pain Of Incest

I am putting a Trigger Warning here because I don't want you to go on if you are already having a bad day with your own stuff if you are an incest survivor.  The following is a very important piece of my puzzle that has been missing since I was a little girl being raped first by my uncle and then for years by my dad.  I don't know how young I was when I made the decision to shut the visuals out of my mind.  Please proceed at your own risk.

I just had one of my biggest ah-ha moments of my entire journey through recovery from incest.  A big event that I had totally forgotten or just didn't get the significance of until now.  This came about because of a post that Darlene from the blog Emerging From Broken made on her Facebook page.  I am going to share part of that post here to set the scene for my ah-ha moment and then I will share my comment back to Darlene.  Here it is:

Emerging From Broken "She packed up her potential and all she had learned, grabbed a great pair of shoes and headed out to change a few things.". . . .

There was more to the quote from another person but this is the part of the quote is was the catalyst for my understanding.  Now here is the comment that I made to Darlene.

Darlene, rereading the above thought "She packed up her potential. . . " just gave me an ah-ha moment.  I am not a visual person.  I don't usually see images in my head.  I can imagine what the image looks like in my mind but the pictures don't form for me.  I just realized why.  I have always wondered why I don't get the visuals that everyone else does when I shut my eyes. It is because as a little girl, I shut my eyes to the abuse.  I literally closed my eyes so I couldn't see what was happening to me when I was being raped.  I not only shut my eyes but I went deep inside so that I couldn't "see" or feel it. I must have closed a door when I did that.  Someone told me to see a big movie screen in my mind with pictures flashing on it.  That doesn't work for me either.  I see nothing.  I can imagine in some far away place that it is there but I just don't see anything in my mind's eye.

Wow! is what I keep hearing over and over in my mind.  This is really big and is going to take me awhile to process.  Thank you.


Wow! When I recently said that I was starting a new chapter in my recovery, I had no idea (I still don't.) what that meant or what would be coming out when I opened the door to the abuse from my uncle.

When I was typing the above comment to Darlene and these thoughts were coming into my head almost faster than I could type, I could feel panic and a part of me quit breathing all together.  That part is still holding her breath.  It feels like a part of me died that first day of the abuse.  Before that I may have been a very visual person.  I have no way of knowing.  Tears are just out of reach, slipping in and out.  I know there is some crying and grieving to do with this new chapter and I am open to it.  I can't push the tears out of hiding and I will allow them their expression when that child feels safe and needs to let go and just howl out her pain.  As I am typing, I have to keep telling myself to breathe.  Some part of me is so afraid of this whole thing being exposed to ????  Exposed to the world? Exposed to me? Exposed to ????  I keep going blank.  That door isn't opening yet.  I know the little girl, the inner child has to feel safe for that to happen.  She gets frightened each time that we do something like this. 

Today I will stay as open as I can to these feelings that are trying to come out.  In order to do that, I have to let go of the tight, tight control that I held over my feelings as a child.  I could not feel these things as a child and survive.  It was just too much to feel.  The pain - both the physical and the emotional pain - was just too much for the little girl that I was to feel when it was happening.  I don't think that I formed different personalities as some survivors did.  I think that I just shut down certain parts of myself.  I let them die. 

This is still so hard.  I have the tools today to do this.  I will not go off and binge eat like I have done in the past.  I will face this head on.  I will call people.  I will email people and ask for support.  I will cry when needed which makes it very hard to type. I will not run from this.

I want to share this process here because, again, I hope that it will help some other survivor to open up and see maybe something similar in themselves.  I want to show you that this work can be done.  Also in sharing, it gives me the feeling that I am not alone in doing this myself.  Sharing my pain eases it for me.  It gives it and me value.  I will go back and put a Trigger Warning at the top of the page.  I don't want to set off anybody else with triggers.  If you are having a bad day, I don't want to add to it.

The tears are gone for now.  I think this is enough for now for you and for me.  I need to sit with this awhile and see what else comes.
Patricia

Dysfunctional Family Systems

There is an interesting conversation going over at Emerging From Broken.  You will find this article at the following link http://emergingfrombroken.com/?p=796 .  Several of the comments at the end of the article are mine.  This article is going to be an edited version of one of my comments plus some others thoughts that I have had on the topic of Dysfunctional Family Systems.

There are quite a number of books written on the topic.  I visited Amazon.com earlier to see what was available and quit after page 17 of the list.  Two of the best, in my opinion are Healing The Child Within:  Discovery and Recovery for Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families, written by Charles L. Whitfield and Healing the Shame That Binds You, written by John Bradshaw.  Two others that were life savers for me are both by the same author Melody Beattie Codependent No More and her second book called Beyond Codependency.  I highly recommend each of these four books.

This is just a small definition of what it means to grow up in a dysfunctional family system.  For more information, read any of the four books that I mentioned above. 

In dysfunctional families, the individual members don't talk about what is wrong or what's missing from the family system, things like communication and trust.  They don't usually love themselves.  Sometimes there is neglect of individual needs.  The child doesn't have a healthy adult to model how to take care of themselves so the child doesn't learn this.

In some dysfunctional family systems, there are secrets that everybody knows but nobody talks about.  In my family that secret was alcoholism.  In A.A. and Al-Anon, they call this having an elephant in your living room that nobody wants to see.  The elephant (alcoholism in my family) is there.  Everyone walks around it like it isn't there.  Nobody talks about it.  Another secret that some of my family members either knew about or suspected was incest.  Everybody knows not to talk to outsiders about what is really going on inside the family.  I learned in Al-Anon that we are each only as sick as our secrets.

Everybody is afraid of change.  The dysfunctional family system is very rigid and doesn't allow for change in any form.  Anybody that dares to want to change comes up against resistance from the other family members, sometimes resulting in being ostracized or cast out from the family.  Nobody welcomes change.  Often if you get into recovery as an adult, nobody in the family acknowledges that you have made changes in yourself, that you are different.  They continue to see you in the role that you were assigned as a child.  That can be very frustrating especially for survivors who have worked really hard to make these healthy changes.

Nobody feels supported by the other family members.  Feelings are not shared.  There are often unexpressed, unfelt emotions. Emotions are often ignored or stuffed rather than acknowledged, especially fear and anger. There is usually a lot of underlying stress.  Any time you have secrets.  There is stress.  There is sometimes loneliness even when the family is together in the same room because nobody feels connected to anybody else.

Each member is assigned a role to play in the family.  Some of these roles are family hero, scapegoat, family maintainer, peacemaker, the invisible child, the sick child, and others.  Some people play more than one role at a time.  I played hero, family maintainer, and peacemaker at different times. I was also my mother's emotional protector at least by the age of 3.  I have a very clear memory of this.

Everyone is fearful, often without knowing why.  Sometimes, as in my case, the fear is so deep that I didn't even realize until I was 19 years old that I lived in daily fear for my life and sanity.  I didn't recognize the fear because it was constantly, always there in the fabric of my life.  I don't remember a time that I wasn't fearful.

In my dysfunctional family, my dad was a dictator of what we did, what we thought, how we acted.  He dictated through his rage.  Not all dysfunctional families are this extreme.  Some are.  Some are not.  Some families are so disconnected from their feelings that nothing seems wrong on the surface.

These are just a few symptoms of living in a dysfunctional family system.  The family system is more important than any of its individual members.  Nobody is supposed to become a separate individual as they are expected to in a health family system.  There is no separation in a dysfunctional family system.  Everyone is so emeshed that there are no healthy boundaries.  I used walls to keep you out and to keep me protected.  This separation was such a big issue in my family that I waited until I was 19 to run away from home.  My dad was not going to let me leave if he had known in advance.  I told my mom that I was leaving.  My dad came after me two days later.  He threatened suicide if I didn't come back home to live.  He didn't commit suicide and I didn't go back home to stay.  I went home for the weekend to say goodbye to my sister and brother.  I left for good on Monday morning.  I knew in my heart that if I didn't run away that my dad would never have let me escape from under his rule.  Again, this is an extreme example of a dysfunctional family system.

These are just some of the symptoms of growing up in a dysfunctional family system.  There are many more.  Not all families have all of these symptoms.  Do you personally know any families that don't have some dysfunction?  I know some that are working on getting healthier.  Our society is full of families dealing with addictions and codependency.  Some families are healthier than others.

You may ask why am I willing to write a blog about incest, about my own dysfunctional family system.  Why am I making all of my families dirty laundry public?  Some might say that I am being judgmental of others when I talk about my own recovery and my very unhealthy childhood in a home with incest and alcohol.  I am not doing that.  I am sharing what my journey has been like for me. 

Many of us are choosing to go "public" with our issues and our recovery.  You might ask or even demand to know why I would do this to my family.  I am not doing this to anyone.  This is what was done to me and to many other abuse survivors.  Incest is just one of many abuses that are happening to the children of countries around the world.  This abuse will continue unless I and other survivors start to speak out.  Breaking the silence of abuse means that I sometimes get attacked because others don't like having all of this "family" stuff being aired in public.  You won't shut us up any longer.  The survivors of abuse are beginning to speak out on their own behalf and on the behalf of those who are still afraid to speak out. 

I thank Carla Dippel and Darlene Ouimet for speaking to others through their blog Emerging From Broken.  By thanking Carla and Darlene, I am not claiming that they have been abused.  That is for them to decide.  Not me.  I am thanking them for being an inspiration to me personally.  I always welcome comments from my readers.
Patricia

Resistance Is Futile---How Do You Deal With Change?

From Daybreak, Meditations For Women Survivors Of Sexual Abuse, written by Maureen Brady, Page for April 19:

"Letting go is a never-ending process of relating to my resistance.

When I let go of my nearly unrelenting need to control, my belief that I can bend even iron with my will, I am released into serenity and trust in a power greater than myself. Then, almost immediately, I drop the most powerful lesson I have learned and take up my willfulness again. I ask myself in some bewilderment, why would I do this?

To some extent my need to control may have become excessive and obsessive because the loss of control in the sexual abuse was so great that I needed to make up for it. But regardless of my story, it is also a very human characteristic to grasp for control. The way to work with this is through a daily practice of noticing what I am clinging to---a thought, a feeling, a memory, a determination to make a situation come out a certain way---and uncurling my grip as a gesture of release and watching what I am clinging to float away. Releasing my willful attachments creates space and sustenance for my soul."


How often do you resist change? I find myself resisting change just about every time that it comes into my life. I deal better with smaller changes than I do big ones so that is some improvement. I have to remind myself, to use a phrase from Star Trek Next Generation, "Resistance is futile." Resistance just makes change harder and slower but change still moves forward anyway despite my resistance. Often resistance just gives me a headache and it still doesn't stop the change from happening.

Resisting change is very much about the need to control---your environment, other people and their behavior, and your reactions to those people and environments. If you are controlling then you can feel safe. Controlling, as I have said many times before, is just an illusion that you are in control. Life, the Universe, God---these are what are really in control. Your choice is to go with the flow or to resist. Going with the flow doesn't mean that you don't have dreams or make plans for your future. Going with the flow means that you don't resist the change that Life sometimes throws at you when you don't know what the bigger picture is. It means letting go of the need to control what isn't my responsibility in the first place.

You might be interested in reading the article from the blog The Rat Race Trap written by Stephen Mills at the following link:

http://www.ratracetrap.com/the-rat-race-trap/an-optimal-balance-to-your-life.html . The article is called "An Optimal Balance to Your Life. Part of my above paragraph came from my comment to Stephen's article about balance.
Patricia

Intimidating, Wanting To Be Right

Itimidating, wanting to be right---do I come across that way to you?

If I do, I apologize. That is not my intent with this blog or the many comments that I leave on the blogs of others.

I had a conversation with a friend recently and she told me that I end most of my conversations with her with the word "So." She says that she believes that I do it subconsciously. I do it so often. I asked her to say something about it when I do it. She is right. I do it without thinking about it. I even caught myself starting to say "S0." at the end of my next statement to her.

Here are my thoughts on the topic:

I can use the word "So?" as a question to get you to voice your opinion.

I can use the word "S0." followed by a blank space to give me a moment to think of the next word or statement that I want to say but lost in my train of thought. I have a lot of senior moments where I lose my whole train of thoughts. I have a mind full of thoughts that I want to share so they get jumbled sometimes because I can't say them fast enough, especially when I am excited about something.

I can use the word "So." hoping to stimulate your own thought processes on the topic.

I also use the word "So." hoping to gently help my friend come out of her comfort zone and grow with me. Maybe that is wrong. I just like her company on my path. Maybe that is a part of controlling that I still need to stop doing. Relationships can be so confusing sometimes, maybe most of the time.

I have struggled with the ego part of me that wants to be right all of the time. I may still be slipping back into that as my friend thinks I am. I don't consciously say, "I am going here. I am right. You are wrong." Sometimes I do still act without thinking about it. I need to pay more attention to my thoughts and my motives.

Most of the time I choose to see our viewpoints as being different, no less right or wrong than the other person. I don't have to convince the other person that they are right and I am wrong. How dull would we all be if we thought the same way about everything? Differences are stimulating in a person and in a conversation.

I don't have to change you and you don't have to change me.

The above is an example of how my thought processes work. I can see that we both can be right in our assessment of my use of the word "SO." I can see where we can both be wrong in our assessment of our conversations.

I don't know what you think of this as subject matter for an article unless you leave a comment and tell me. All of the above was in my head and needed to get out. Thanks for listening.
Patricia

Purpose and Personal Power for Incest Survivors

The past week was rather hectic for me. We had family come to visit for 3 days just before we left Hot Springs for a weekend trip to meet up with friends from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. We met them south of Shreveport, Louisiana for a Civil War Reenactment of the Battle of Mansfield, Louisiana and the Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana. That is my husband's and son's current hobby. They dress up as soldiers and march and participate in battles from the Civil War. None of us believe in slavery of other human beings. It is a terrible thing that happened and it is a part of the history of the United States in the 1700 and 1800's. I sometimes dress up in period dress as a southern belle and participate in the dances. We meet people from all over the U. S. and sometimes even Europeans who come over to participate in the reenactments. The reenactments are supposed to be a big event in England and Europe right now. It is another way besides video games for men to play war games. Cooking around campfires and sleeping on the ground either in dog tents or under the stars is fun to do occasionally. I would not want to do it all of the time. Actually I have done that as a Union soldier in one of my past lives. I died at the Battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia of a gun wound to the leg. I bled to death, but that is a story for another time.

In the past few weeks because of reading the two Byron Katie books that I mentioned in my previous two articles, I have started to look at any incest issues that I may still have that haven't been addressed. I have also searched out other incest or child abuse survivors online who have blogs. I found one new forum just for child abuse survivors and joined it. I have been reading stories written by other survivors and joined the discusssions that were listed in the forum. I also sent my last article "Incest Is One Of My Stories" ( http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2009/04/incest-is-one-of-my-stories.html ) to the April edition of the Child Abuse Carnival which comes out on April 17.

Since I am again working on my issues, I started reading one of the daily meditation books that I have which is written by Maureen Brady and called Daybreak, Meditations For Women Survivors Of Sexual Abuse. It is a wonderfully encouraging and yet realistic look at sexual abuse written by someone who has also survived the abuse. It is a Hazelden Meditation Series book. I want to share the April 6 daily reading with you.

"Purpose April 6
I will take the time to focus on my purpose and realize my path is being guided by my higher power.

We each have a purpose. Mine may sometimes feel elusive but that is not because it has disappeared; it is because I have lost awareness of it. My purpose is guided by a design of which I can see only segments at any one time. I trust I am exactly where I am supposed to be, and I do not need to do anything but wait if I cannot see an open door before me.

One of my jobs as an incest survivor is to regain my personal power. My relationship to power was distorted by the perpetrator's abuse of it. When I am living in my past, I become powerless again. I feel weak, prone to victimization, and crumble easily at the thought of needing to take action. But in the present I can learn to come into my power. It is not a power over, in which someone else must be oppressed. It is the power of being present in a relationship of oneness with the universe. It is the power of my faith in the notion that if I seek guidance, I will intuitively know the next right thing to do. It is the power of deeply knowing my spirit is fully entitled to the life I have been given. I do not need to barter for this power by giving up parts of myself."



The above passage was so important to me that when I read it the first time, I put 4 large handwritten stars on the page to call my attention back to the page for any future readings.

Before I got into a recovery program, I knew nothing about personal power. I knew about power over another person. I lived my childhood up until I was 19 under the power of my abusive father and the apathy of my mother who played the role of victim. I knew about abuse of power and I knew about victimhood. To survive, I built walls around the inner person that lived in FEAR. When I first started in a recovery program, I learned how unhealthy walls were for keeping you out but they were also keeping me in as a prisoner of the abuse and all of my fears.

FEAR was the voice in my head that told me that the universe was not a safe place. FEAR was the voice in my head that said to not trust you or myself because you couldn't protect me and neither could I.

The opposite of fear is fearless. Fearless is taking stupid risks that can get you hurt or taken advantage of again. Neither is healthy. I have given away parts of myself because I didn't know that I had the choice to do otherwise.

Personal power means having an opinion without having to weld power over others or without using that opinion and power to hurt others. In the beginning, I did both of those things. I discovered that learning new ways of behaving sometimes means swinging like a pendulum from one extreme of behavior to its far opposite until I find the middle and balance where my actions are no longer extremes. Personal power is about not allowing others to hurt you. It also means not using your power to hurt others. Personal power gives you the freedom to be yourself and also allows others to be themselves. Personal power is not about controlling others. Live and let live is one of the slogans that I learned in Al-Anon that I use today.

For any child abuse survivors who are interested you can find a forum of child abuse survivors at the following link. You have to sign in with an email address and a password.
http://childabusesurvivor.ning.com/
Patricia

More Family Patterns of Behavior Means More Awareness

Who Would You Be Without Your Story? Dialogues with Byron Katie, Edited by Carol Williams, 2008: "If there's someone who makes your blood boil, thank him. He's showing you what you need to know to become a kinder person. He's doing the best he can, and so are you."

Those are the words that Byron Katie opens her new book with. It is the perfect way to start my story of the recent two day trip that my husband Daniel and I went on last week. I am not writing about the trip. I am writing to share with you what I learned about myself.

Daniel is an adventurer. He swears he has Daniel Boone somewhere in his ancestry. He doesn't. He just wishes he did. He just shares the adventurous spirit and the same first name. When you go on any trip with Daniel expect to be tired when you get home. When I was younger, I recuperated much quicker than I do today. He puts as many activities and miles as he can possibly squeeze into each day.

On our recent trip, we went to Fort Smith, Fayetteville, Van Buren, and Bentonville in northwestern Arkansas and from Bentonville headed northeast to Springfield, Missouri. We spent the night in Springfield so we could tour the Wilson Creek Battlefield and National Park to do research on the Civil War battle that took place there on August 10, 1861. It was the second major battle of the Civil War. Daniel had some ancestors that fought there. Because of his hobbies of genealogy and Civil War reenacting, Daniel has become a little bit of a Civil War historian. This was research for a book that Daniel is writing about one of his great-grandfathers who fought in the Civil War as a Confederate soldier from Arkansas.

When Daniel asked if I wanted to go with him on this two day trip, I told him that I would go only on the condition that I could be home to watch the TV show Ghost Whisperer at 7:00 p.m. on Friday night. He said we would be. We were home at 6:00 p.m. Friday evening but only because I threw a tantrum and held him to his word.

Here is what I learned about myself: I still want what I want when I want it. I can be unbending and unforgiving when I don't get what I want. I can still rant and rave to get my way. I can feel guilty about my behavior afterwards. I do know how to apologize even when Daniel and I both know it probably won't be the last time that I will go off on him.

When I saw and heard what I was saying, that is when the ability to change came about. I can only change what I am aware of.

I still don't like that part of myself that can throw a temper tantrum when she doesn't get her way. I also no longer beat myself up for the behaviour. I need to be able to bend more and at the same time not be a doormat to others. I also don't need to treat others as my doormat. I don't have the right to treat others that way. I do have the right to stand up for myself. I can also do that standing up for myself with patience and kindness for myself and for the other person. I don't have to beat the other person up with my anger and words. It is ok to be angry without acting on that anger.

I can acknowledge that, yes, I lost my temper again. I can look at the reasons for losing my temper. How can I change that part of me or at least change how that part of me reacts to stress and anger?

Why did I lost my temper this time? I felt disappointed at the possibility of missing Ghost Whisperer. I felt disappointed that Daniel wasn't going to keep his word. I felt that he thought his time was worth more than mine. I felt devalued as a person and partner in our marriage.

What childhood pattern did this come from? My parents would say they were going to do something and then they wouldn't do it. I never had a say so of any kind in decisions made about me during my childhood. Younger children don't need this as much as an older child does. Decision making is how we learn to make decisions while having the safety net of parents to tell us that those decisions are appropriate or not. If you aren't taught decision making, you don't learn that decisions have responsibility and consequences. Chaos reigned in our household. Nobody was dependable. Nobody's word meant anything. They never did what they said they would. They yelled and screamed when they got angry, which was often. As a child, I felt that I had no value as an individual. Everybody else had more value than I did.

What did I find out about myself on this trip? I still sometimes react like the child living that childhood. Do I have to continue doing it? No. Will this behavior of mine stop immediately since I am now aware? Probably not. Why? Because I am not the perfectionist that I once was. Each time I become aware of it quicker until finally I will stop this particular behavior. Writing about it helps to reenforce the awareness. Do you still have some behaviors from childhood that you struggle with? How can you become more aware?
Patricia

Responsibility and Adult Children of Alcoholics

From "Opening our Hearts, Transforming our Losses," Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, 2007, page 61:

"If we were in the role of defending or protecting other family members, we may have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility for those around us. Blaming ourselves for the alcoholic's behavior can weaken our self-esteem and lead us to believe that every conflict is our fault. Likewise, if we assume others are out to hurt us, we might habitually guard ourselves against real or imagined threats.

'I felt personally responsible for everyone's unacceptable behavior.'

Often the coping mechanisms we learned as children in order to survive get in the way of our developing meaningful and trusting relationships as adults. Identifying how we were affected by alcoholism is not about blaming the alcoholic or other family members for all our problems. Rather, it's about taking responsibility for our struggles so we can begin to heal. As children, we may not have had the power to change our circumstances. Now that we are adults, we can make that decision for ourselves."


I could take the above statement, "I felt personally responsible for everyone's unacceptable behavior." a step further and say the I felt personally responsible for everything that went on in my world and for everybody that was in my world. Because of my dad being a dictator when I was a child, I felt so out of control of my life. The result was that when I left home, I stepped into that dictator role and became a control freak. When I first started working on myself in Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACA) and Al-Anon, that was the first thing that I discovered about myself. I was a control freak.

Where did the control freak come from? She came out of my feeling responsible for everything and everybody. She came from my fears of failure of being responsible. For the first half of my life or more, fear was the main emotion in my mind and in my body. Fear was in control of my life. I certainly wasn't.

Responsible wasn't what I was. Super-responsible was what I strived to be. That meant if you came into my sphere of life, I tried to fix you and whatever your problems were. I didn't do it in a mean way. I just wanted to help. That was what I told myself and you, if you asked. You see, my feeling good about myself came from helping you. If I could fix you then I had some value in this life other than just taking up space. I didn't know that I was telling you, by my actions, that you were too stupid to think and act for yourself. Al-Anon taught me that, when I was ready to hear it.

That was the day that I stopped doing everything for my children and husband. Of course, being an Adult Child of an Alcoholic that meant I went to the other extreme. Instead of doing everything for them, I did nothing for at least a year or more before I realized that wasn't healthy either. Of course, I wasn't home much either. When I wasn't working with my husband on a parking lot, I was probably in an Al-Anon or ACA meeting or reading a book about being an ACA. Going to meetings all of the time was also an extreme, maybe a healthier extreme but still an extreme. I went to a lot of meetings over the next 10 years. Finally I realized that there were some things that I could do that weren't me being controlling or super-responsible. They were appropriate things for a parent to do for their children. Doing extremes of behavior and feelings is a characteristic of being an Adult Child. It is called All or Nothing Thinking.

I am talking about my life from the view of an Adult Child of an Alcoholic, but these issues are the same for an Adult Child of any kind of dysfunction. Dysfunction is always fear-based.
Patricia

Related Articles:

Let Go And Let God---Al-Anon Slogan
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2008/02/let-go-and-let-god-al-anon-slogan.html

Boundaries And Inappropriate Behaviors
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2008/04/boundaries-and-inappropriate-behaviors.html

Growing Up With Alcoholism In The Family
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2008/09/growing-up-with-alcoholism-in-family.html

What Does Forgiveness Mean To Me?

As you all know, I have been reading several books on the subject of forgiveness and I have been sharing information from those books. Well, I am reading another book called "finding forgiveness, A 7-Step Program for Letting Go of Anger And Bitterness" written by Eileen R. Borris-Dunchunstang, Ed. D.

The book gives writing exercises which I am going to do to see what emotions come up for me and to see if I have any more forgiveness work left to do. The first journal exercise is to write about what forgiveness means to me. So here goes.

What does forgiveness mean to me? Forgiveness means not being in extreme emotional or physical pain because of the tension of holding in all of my rage. It means not making myself sick from the stress of holding it all inside of me like a volcano or a pressure cooker with the pressure set too high, just waiting to blow up.

I had to quit writing for a minute because I started coughing so I have some resistance to doing this exercise. I am willing to be willing to do these exercises and the forgiveness work that follows.

Forgiveness means letting go of the rage and seeing the hurt underneath that the rage has been covering up. I am in a safe place and in a safe relationship that allows me to do this work now.

Forgiveness allows me to nurture and love myself without blame or guilt getting in my way.

Forgiveness means I can let go of the need for revenge and hate and realize that justice doesn't always happen in the manner that I expect it to.

Forgiveness means feeling compassion for myself and others who have lived with incest and other forms of abuse and survived. It is also feeling compassion for those who didn't survive.

Forgiveness, for me, means seeing my dad, Raymond, as the wounded child that he was. Raymond hurt so bad inside that he couldn't control his reaching out and hurting others. I can clearly see that Raymond only felt in control when he was controlling others. He was a frightened child stuck in his own pain and not knowing how to get out. That is why he drank and became an alcoholic. I can only imagine the fear and guilt that Raymond lived with daily. I can feel compassion for the frightened child that was Raymond.

I can't tell you the date or time that I started forgiving Raymond. It was a gradual process of letting go a little at a time. It doesn't mean that I don't sometimes find myself angry at what he did. More often, today, I sometimes find myself sad because of the way the incest affected my childhood and my life as an adult.

Grieving is part of the process of forgiving. I have grieved for the parents that didn't love me the way that I wanted to be loved and cared for. I have grieved because I didn't love myself enough. I have grieved because I was so afraid. I have grieved because of the imaginary family that I always wanted that never existed. I have grieved for the young woman who wanted to be a virgin on her wedding night. I have grieved for the girl who wanted to be honest and wasn't because of the family secrets that she was forced to keep. I have grieved for the little girl who just wanted her daddy's and momma's love. All of this has been a part of the process of forgiving that I have experienced.

Forgiveness has also been about the freedom to become me --- to come out of hiding and out of fear which keeps me from really living.

Forgiveness has become a gift that I have given myself. It had nothing to do with Raymond and everything to do with me.

Forgiveness, for me, was a change of attitude. Where I once saw darkness, I now see light. Where I once had tears, now I have laughter. Joy is part of my life today. Fear rarely visits.

Forgiveness enables me to see the lessons that I have learned that make me the wonderful, powerful, loving, compassionate woman that I am today. Today I have the courage to reach out to others.

Forgiveness has released hate from my life. I no longer hate myself or my body. I love me.
Patricia

Related Articles:

Acknowledging Your Grief And Releasing It --- http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2008/08/acknowledging-your-grief-and-releasing.html

Grieving Again --- http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2008/08/grieving-again.html

Forgiveness Starts With A Decision --- http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2008/08/forgiveness-starts-with-decision.html

Healing And Letting Go Of Repressed Emotions --- http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2008/07/healing-and-letting-go-of-repressed.html

Forgiveness, Done In Layers --- http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2007/ 06/ forgiveness-done-in-layers.html

Breaking The Silence---Incest May Be A Part Of My Life Series---Part 4 --- http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2007/08/breaking-silence-incest-may-be-part-of.html

Family Secrets---Incest May Be A Part Of My Life Series---Part 5 --- http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2007/09/family-secrets-incest-may-be-part-of-my.html

Forgiveness Is For You, Not The Other Person --- http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2007/09/forgiveness-is-for-you-not-other-person.html

Prelude To Forgiveness --- http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2007/09/prelude-to-forgiveness.html

Childhood Memories ---http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2007/10/childhood-memories.html

Compassion Begins With Me --- http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2007/11/compassion-begins-with-me.html

Compassion, The Ultimate Act Of Love --- http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2007/12/compassion-ultimate-act-of-love.html

A Day In The Life Of An Incest Survivor --- http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2008/02/day-in-life-of-incest-survivor.html

Healing And Letting Go Of Repressed Emotions

From Opening The Energy Gates Of Your Body, Chi Gung for Lifelong Health, written by Bruce Frantzis, 1993,2006, page 43-44:

"The Taoist view of the transformation of emotional energy differs radically from the cathartic practices of either Eastern kundalini or Western group therapy. In the Shaktipat kundalini practice, catharsis is sometimes called kriya, or action. Here, the idea, in the early developmental stages, is to discharge emotional energy by various actions, such as screaming, yelling, crying, curling into the fetal position---moving through blocked emotional states until they are freed up. In group therapy (from primal scream to encounter, bioenergetics, and psychodrama) the idea is to emote your pain and agony externally, the louder the better, heaping verbal and physical abuse on a pillow or a person, as the case may be. Though these approaches are sometimes successful, the ancient Taoists detected an inherent problem with such techniques."

"When pressure builds up in a pressure cooker, there are---within the cathartic model---only three options you have to handle the situation: 1) turn the heat off (i.e., deny, repress); 2) let some steam out at intervals; or 3) let all the steam out at once. Turning the heat off leaves the basic emotional situation unchanged. If you only let steam partially out, after a period, the pressure will build to again reach a critical level. All the 'steam' can be let out of a trapped emotion at one blow, but the reality is that this particular event rarely occurs. Far more common for people with emotional blockages is that they let some, but not all, of the emotional pressure out, and then---as mentioned---the pressure rebuilds until they have to 'cathart' again."

"The cathartic release of violent emotions irritates and exhausts the system, and can sometimes foster an addictive need to feel those violent emotions in ever-stranger forms. Cathartic methods may easily turn practitioners into therapy junkies---angry people become angrier still, for instance, or depressed people sink deeper into depression, while deluding themselves into thinking that they are working on self-improvement."



In my search for better health and well-being, I found the book Opening The Energy Gates Of Your Body, Chi Gung for Lifelong Health. Why a book on Chi Gung? A close friend of mine resently told me if he could only do one exercise program, Chi Gung would be it. I am taking a Tai Chi class from another friend. I love the way the Tai Chi makes me feel. Am I any good at it? No. Do I have a great teacher? Yes. He is patient and lets each of us learn the movements at our own pace. Is it helping? Yes, I am a Reiki practicioner. About a month after starting Tai Chi, I would notice at some point during the exercise that the Reiki energy would start to flow from my hands. Now, the energy starts to flow within minutes of starting the Tai Chi movements so I know the energy flow through my body is much better. I also feel more contented, peaceful and centered after a Tai Chi class. My body doesn't hurt like it does after more conventional exercise classes that I have done in the past.

Why did I choose to share the above quotes with you? Because it is the best explanation that I have ever seen for how some therapy sessions have worked for me in the past. I especially liked the "pressure cooker" analogy. It is one that I have used for many year explaining how I used to do emotions. I have also called the process feeling like I was a volcano waiting to explode. I denied and suppressed my emotions because I was afraid and didn't know how to deal with them. I learned from Raymond (dad) that emotions were explosive and often violent. I learned that there was no safe way to acknowledge what you were feeling. I also felt so angry that Rage wasn't even an adequate description. It was so volatile, like a volcano or pressure cooker waiting to explode when the pressure got to be more than I could control. I was deeply afraid of my own anger. I was afraid that I would use it to hurt others if I let it out. The reality was that when the volcano or pressure cooker did explode my husband and kids were the ones that I hurt with my angry words. If you are sarcastic, that is what you are doing to yourself and others---hurting them. They aren't the source of your anger but they are the closest ones to you.

None of the above therapy methods worked for me. They may work for some people. They did not work for me. They only gave me temporary relief.

Meditations, dreams, talking and writing is what has worked for me to get back in touch with my emotions. Looking at the part that I play in my life is what has worked for me. Writing these articles is what has worked for me. Reading about the struggles and wonderful adventures to recovery of others is what has worked for me. Placing responsibility where it belongs is what has worked for me. Loving myself is what has worked for me. Being vulnerable and trusting myself and others is what has worked for me. Taking myself out of abusive relationships and circumstances is what has worked for me. Finding out what is healthy (Notice I did not say normal. Normal isn't always healthy.) is what has worked for me.

I haven't found any simple, instantly miraculous cures. They may exist for you. If so, I am happy for you. My journey has been about hard work. I could have stayed a victim and always held on to my rage and fears. Some people never come out of that. If I had, I would have missed out on so many of the miracles of my life. I usually only see the miracles when I am looking back. They weren't instant. They, like my life, evolved. The person that you meet today is not the person that I was 20 years ago, 50 years ago, or even yesterday and that is the way that I want it to be. Growing, evolving is what life for me is about. Join me. Let me know how your life is evolving? What is different about you today?

If you are visiting for the first time or read my articles but haven't commented on what you're reading, please leave me a comment and let me know what you think. Am I doing a good job of expressing myself? Do I tell too many personal stories? If this is your first time to visit my blog, I welcome you. Let me know what you think. Your comments are valuable to me and my readers. They let me know that you understand what the articles are about. They let me know that you care. I have met some really wonderful people through comments here and on the blogs that I read. One of those communities that I am just beginning to connect with belongs to James and Harry and their blog "Men with Pens." Jame's latest article you will find at http://menwithpens.ca/how-to-welcome-your-blog-community .
Patricia

Al-Anon and Adult Children of Alcoholics Played Major Roles In My Recovery From Incest

"Facing the past as it may surface in my life today doesn't mean I have to stay stuck in it. I can let the healing power of the program (Al-Anon) help me feel my old, buried emotions and then put them where they belong---in the past. Coming to terms with my history and letting go of it does not deny what happened. Instead, it allows me to enjoy today and to move into the future, unencumbered by the weight of ancient emotions." p. 27, Hope for Today, Al-Anon Family Groups, hope for families and friends of alcoholics, 2002.

Al-Anon and Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACA) played a major part in my recovery process. Thanks to both of these groups the full flood gates of memories and words opened for me. For the first time in my life, I started talking about the incest. I learned to be honest and vulnerable with myself and others thanks to those two groups.

If I had to pick just one piece of advice to give to other survivors, it would be to find a support group that is open to listening to you talk about your experiences. Talk it all out until it is out in the open and out of your body. We carry so much of the abuse in our thoughts and in our bodies. Sometimes the body even carries memories that we have forgotten or denied.

I talked about the abuse for several years before my feelings returned. In talking, I learned to let myself trust myself and others. Trust is a really big issue with incest survivors.

Some people probably thought that I would never shut up about the abuse. Talking was what I needed to do. Others do not realize the pressure of being silent when you are hurting. I was like a pressure cooker waiting to explode. I believe that pressure cooker feeling is why some of the abused go on to abuse. I don't state that as an excuse. There are way too many of us who don't become abusers. What I have learned is that most of those who become abusers were abused themselves as children.

Most of the people in my groups were patient enough and loving enough to not make judgments and to listen to me as I talked it all out into the Light. Some weren't as patient or even kind. What I discovered was that most of the people that were impatient with me talking about the incest had their own unresolved issues that they were in denial of. When you are in denial, it makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to listen compassionately to others talk about their issues.

For awhile, my words flowed out of me like a run-away flood washing over everything in its path. I had held the words in for so long, they had to reach a crest before they could be controlled. Al-Anon and ACA were safe places for me to do that. Thanks to the safeness of talking with those people, I started to feel again. One particular Al-Anon meeting I remember going to and telling everyone that I didn't want to say anything that night, I just wanted to cry. Because of their generosity of spirit, I cried for the whole hour. I will always be grateful to those two groups for the release of words and feelings that they allowed me to do.

While I was going to meetings, I was also reading and absorbing all of the new ways of looking at my world. I learned new ideas such as detachment, trust and acceptance. I learned about denial and enabling. I learned how to take care of myself and that I had needs. I learned that control is only an illusion. I was so out of control that the more I tried to control my world and everything in it, the more out of control I became. I learned about progress, not perfection. I learned about a God of my understanding that loved me unconditionally and was ok with me being angry at Him.

Some of the Al-Anon slogans that I learned to use that helped me release old patterns of behavior were:
Let go and let God.
Easy does it.
First things first.
Just for today.
One day at a time.
Keep an open mind.
Live and let live.
Listen and learn.
Let it begin with me.
Think.

All of these slogans provided me with necessary tools to make changes in me. I also learned that I couldn't change anybody else. I learned to take responsibility for my own life and most important of all I learned that I had choices.

The night that I really got the message that I could make choices started out with me wanting to go to an Al-Anon meeting and I couldn't find a ride to take me to the meeting. I didn't drive yet. That was still a few years away. I realized that I had the choice to stay home or I could choose to hire a taxi to take me to the meeting. I called and asked what it cost and then gave them my address. I went to the meeting with a smile on my face. I had taken my life into my own hands that night with a really small decision to call a taxi. It was a small event with enormous dividends. For the first time, I really got that I could make choices and not be afraid.

The last three weeks, I have gone to an Al-Anon meeting with a friend of mine. She wanted to go but didn't want to go on her own. I agreed. I told the group on Wednesday night that I was glad that she had asked me to go with her. It feels like I am home. I feel such gratitude for the individuals of Al-Anon that were there for me when I didn't know who I was and didn't know that I was capable of making decisions on my own. I didn't know that I had choices. You can't imagine the freedom that comes with knowing you can make choices unless you have been there. My thanks go out to Al-Anon and ACA for being a major part in my recovery. I can truthfully say that Al-Anon and ACA saved my life, my sanity, and my marriage.