This brings to mind an interesting analogy. I have a digital scale, for mailing things. On it, there is a bubble leveler. You have to stare straight down at the bubble and adjust the four feet until the scale is level and then the bubble is in the center of this circle that is marked. When the scale is not level, the bubble is pulled off-center, and the weights are not accurate.
I think as children, we experience things that teach us our value system - for example, how to value ourselves versus valuing other people. In alcoholic households in particular, children aren't really allowed to value themselves properly, they must blend in and not make waves in the midst of the stress and chaos. So they grow up with their "axis" off center (like the bubble), in terms of how they value themselves, versus how they value others. When the bubble is pulled off center, then all of our perceptions are skewed by this, like the inaccurate weights the scale reads.
As adults, then, with this off-balance, they are able to support other people, but not themselves, very well. I think they learn a sort of silence - they don't learn to equate whether what is happening is worth defending themselves against; instead they learn to silence themselves, and not assert their own worth, especially to themself. They are able to give, but find it difficult and unnatural to take.
I think recovery (or therapy) helps us look at things like our value system, and see if we are off-kilter in our axis - if our bubble is off-center, and then look at ways to adjust it. To re-balance our relative value of ourself, versus another person.
And conversely, once we achieve the centered bubble, everything we see is perceived more correctly, and is less confusing. There's a sort of snowball effect.
CLMI