As ever, thanks GL. Your post has shown me that I am still putting myself in a negative light - somehow because I am not and never have been an overpowering, bullying, loud type of personality, I assume that I am somehow "less than" or "not as strong as them".
I need to switch this way of thinking - the quiet, passive, compliant personality that I was or I developed allowed me to survive the abuse and bullying within my alcoholic family. I had no need for this personality anywhere else but in my family of origin.
And I remained this way until five months ago when three things happened - firstly, they "attacked" my son, secondly, my tolerance for endurance was reaching the end of the line and thirdly, active alcoholism reappeared in my life with a vengence.
Thanks to WOL's post, I can see that the loud, powerful voices that I am hearing have always been there. It is just I have been denying them, ignoring them or tuning them out in order to survive or remain as healthy as I possibly could under the circumstances. As I am recovering and with distance, I can see and finally acknowledge their negative, damaging voices both agressive and passive agressive in nature.
Eeeeh, this new understanding is empowering stuff, IWThxxx