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Old 01-09-2009, 03:22 PM
  # 5 (permalink)  
guiab
AKA 'grewupinabarn'
 
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Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: New Hampshire
Posts: 471
I believe I must fall into DesertEye's description. The emotions come in a pile and it is tricky to figure out what is going on.
I separated the two but I actually think the reaction of an ACOA happens on a spectrum between avoiding emotions and overreacting to circumstances. As GL pointed out one can move from one side to the other. My only proof is that the combination provides a hearty strong motivation for drinking in an alcoholic, and the children learn that overreacting+avoiding is a normal response. ACOA's (if lucky) seem to not learn that the next step in the emotional reaction is to get drunk.
My question probably seems a bit academic, with maybe a bit too much navel-gazing. I am trying to strengthen my awareness of these reactions by figuring out which road they are coming in on so, so to speak. The reactions are part of my powerlessness - and I think of them as 'unhappy child thoughts' - powerless to make any good happen. If I can say 'these are just things I learned to do as a child' it gives me a way to break away from obsessing. I didn't take in the next step in the lesson, which is to get drunk, but sometimes it feels like I am getting so wound up in my thoughts, avoiding whatever task/person is in front of me, that I am essentially 'drunk'. I have taken ADD medication and it really just makes me get more wound up in thoughts that have little to do with .....reality. A buddhist would see this as focusing on everything but the present.

Another question is how one fills in the vacuum in the cerebral cortex that is left after the unhappy child thoughts have been calmed down. I guess it would be the HP. That in itself is a struggle - The unhappy child thoughts (emotional jumpiness of a rabbit but the empathy of a stone) creep their way in soon after the serenity prayer has left my lips. Hopefully, I can get to DesertEye's skill of reflecting and untangling thoughts, motivations, and emotions.
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