Breaking The Cycle

You CAN reconcile with your past. But you will need to become as aware as possible of what you have been through. And be willing to feel emotions you have been avoiding for a long time.


This can be difficult for Adult Children Of Alcoholics that have had bad experiences, trauma and grown up in dysfunctional homes. The thought of, "I've been through that once and never again!" may be the initial reaction. Long ago, survival may have dictated that these overwhelming, unbearable, horrible feelings were buried, minimized and denied. Without anyone to safely share and process them with, a child has little choice. So the vulnerable child hides these terrible feelings as best they can in order to make it through each day.





Many years later as an adult, these buried feeling continue to disrupt even though you may not realize they are still there. They may still be causing you to become "A reactor rather than an actor".  If the feelings are never processed adequately they will create negativity for the rest of your life. But now you have more resources to deal with them including your own emotional maturity, recovery insight, good support groups and qualified therapists.


Still, this is not an easy task. If it was, you would probably have already done it. It is highly recommended that a professional counselor who is experienced in this type of work be involved. Really getting in touch with the hurts of the past may make you feel like just like you did when you were a kid. The pain, sorrow and fear may feel just as strong and just as overwhelming. You may feel a depression and sadness that seems pervasive and never ending. You may cry uncontrollably. This is why you need a good, safe support system to reach out to. If you are feeling these feelings it means you are no longer quieting your inner child and are honoring his/her feelings and allowing them to be felt and expressed. That alone is a big step.



"By gradually releasing the burden of unexpressed grief, we slowly move out of the  past. We learn to reparent ourselves with gentleness, humor, love and respect."- The Solution



If you start to feel sadness or other "negative" feeling, your first instinct may be to deny and repress it. You may have been "trained" very well to do this from a young age so it may seem natural. Your critical inner voice may try to minimize and stifle. It may tell you that things weren't so bad or question what you have to complain about. Or you may use anger to avoid feeling pain.


You may find that your feelings are blocked or locked down so tightly that you are not sure what they are. Simply asking yourself, "What am I REALLY feeling inside?" and then listening for the answer may help. There is no pressure to get an answer. Just ask yourself the question several times a day and see what happens.


Try to encourage your inner child to express themselves. If you feel sadness, it may help to make empathetic statements to yourself like, "Wow, Johnny, you are really feeling sad, huh? It's ok, you have every right to feel that way and I am here for you" to encourage the child. This may sound a bit silly but when your child knows you are there supporting them they feel safer to reveal their feelings. This is positive reparenting.


American therapists John and Linda Friel have created a model for the different stages in this process:

You have to identify the things you have been through as a child.
You must experience your feelings concerning these things - it is not enough to talk about them.
You have to really feel these feelings, which means that you have to make them as strong as they were when the situation occurred.
You must share these feelings with other people.
You have to make a decision about your relationship with the person or persons who hurt you, and still are hurting you.
Not until after these steps can you begin to recover and forgive.


If you get in touch and feel deep, overwhelming emotions you may feel like you are going to lose control of yourself or that it will never end. You may be afraid of being stuck in that dark place. Many therapists believe that your body has it's own safety valve and will automatically "turn off" the feelings if they get too intense. This is when it is critical to have a support system and safety net that you can reach out to. Sharing the feelings is an important step in the process. 

"The road to liberation goes through breaking the silence and through breaking the unwillingness to see and to listen to the small child within you. In order to reach this goal you must, however, make your way through the pain - and not slide over or around it. The pain that this journey causes is the foundation for recovery."- http://web4health.info


Again, it can be difficult to go through all this on your own. Safe, empathetic friends, family/support system and a good therapist are needed.


Check out the Orange County ACA website at: Orange County Adult Children

The Challenge Of The Past

The very cause of our problems is also the thing that often prevents us from confronting and eventually, overcoming them. This is because confronting our buried emotional past is a scary, painful thing. In fact, as children the act of denying our situation became critical to our very survival. The "amnesia" that protected us as children becomes a huge hindrance to us as adults. As a result we may live life experiencing unexplained symptoms of fear, anger, sadness and depression.

As psychologist Alice Miller puts it, "Children have no choice but suppress their fear and anger, as otherwise they could not sustain their love for their parents, and that love is crucially necessary for their survival. But these emotions, though suppressed, remain stored away in our bodies, and in adulthood they can cause symptoms of varying severity. We may suffer from bouts of depression, attacks of panic fear, or violent reactions towards our children without identifying the true causes of our despair, our fear, or our rage.

We fear those emotions as if they were our worst enemy. The pharmaceutical industry caters for these desires with a whole range of remedies - Viagra against impotence, anti-depressives to fend off the effects of depression, but without understanding the deep-seated causes underlying it."

Why is reexamining our past and getting in touch with the pain such a daunting task?

Miller believes, "Such a perspective would reestablish contact with the most vulnerable and powerless years of our lives, and that is the last thing we want to think about. We have no desire to go through that feeling of desperate impotence all over again. On no account do we want to be reminded of the atmosphere that surrounded us when we were small and were helplessly exposed to the whims and excesses of power-hungry adults... it is precisely by confronting it that we can find the key to understanding our attacks of (apparently) groundless panic, our high blood pressure, our stomach ulcers, our sleepless nights..."

Understanding and cultivating empathy for our own inner child is the path to healing. As long as the needs and feelings of the child are denied, we are condemned to continue living with dysfunction in our lives and relationships. Acknowledging and recognizing our sufferings, rather than denying them, frees us to provide our own personal support and nurturing.

A good therapist that can assist us in this process can be invaluable. Having a willing and compassionate witness to our sufferings is key. Being honest with ourselves and another trusted individual about the past, however difficult, frees us to be true to our own selves. As we progress, it will become easier to feel and recognize our own feelings as well as treat others with the same empathy we now allow ourselves.

Check out the Orange County ACA website at: Orange County Adult Children

Denial Is A Good Thing!

"The first step toward acceptance is denial."

What?

Had to reread this a couple of times before it made sense. I had always relegated denial to a negative, useless place where people hid from the truth. I thought insulating with denial was a backwards move. It was my enemy.

The rest of this quote helped me understand:

"The first step toward moving through denial is accepting that we may be in denial, and then gently allowing ourselves to move through."

In this way, denial serves a very valuable purpose. It is a stepping stone to reality. I had never thought of it that way.

So instead of judging denial as being a bad thing, I have decided to try and see it as a necessary part of the process. Instead of the problem it is part of the solution.

Judging things never seems to get me anywhere anyway so here is one more thing I hope to let go!

C

Quote from "Letting Go" by Melody Beattie

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Jef Gazely on Codependence & How to Develop Healthy Relationships




Jef Gazely- Dysfunctional Families and the Shame Cycle



Check out the Orange County ACA website at: Orange County Adult Children

Letting Go of Denial

"We are slow to believe that which, if believed, would hurt our feelings." -Ovid

Most of us in recovery have engaged in denial from time to time. Some of us relied on this tool.

We may have denied events or feelings from our past. We may have denied other people's problems; we may have denied our own problems, feelings, thoughts, wants, or needs. We denied the truth.

Denial means we didn't let ourselves face reality, usually because facing that particular reality would hurt. It would be a loss of something: trust, love, family, perhaps a marriage, a friendship, or a dream. And it hurts to lose something or someone.

Denial is a protective device, a shock absorber for the soul. It prevents us from acknowledging reality until we feel prepared to cope with that particular reality. People can shout and scream the truth at us, but we will not see or hear it until we are ready.

We are sturdy yet fragile beings. Sometimes, we need time to get prepared, time to ready ourselves to cope. We do not let go of our need to deny by beating ourselves into acceptance; we let go of our need to deny by allowing ourselves to become safe and strong enough to cope with the truth.

We will do this, when the time is right. We do not need to punish ourselves for having denied reality; we need only love ourselves into safety and strength so that each day we are better equipped to face and deal with the truth. We will face and deal with reality - on our own time schedule, when we are ready, and in our Higher Power's timing. We do not have to accept chastisement from anyone, including ourselves, for this schedule.

We will know what we need to know, when it's time to know it.

Today, I will concentrate on making myself feel safe and confident. I will let myself have my awarenesses on my own time schedule.

From The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie ©1990, Hazelden Foundation.

Check out the Orange County ACA website at: Orange County Adult Children