Hi everyone...I have been following posts etc...you have all been so wonderful to me. It has helped a great deal. I followed a link to ACOA because I was curious about the Laundry List, etc... I think I have discovered where my codependency comes from but I need some help clarifying.
Just a quick history, my mother's dad was an alcoholic. She got pregnant with me at 18 yrs old, then married my bio dad (later she told me she did it to escape her parents home). By the time I was 2, she had left my bio dad and went back to her mom's (my nana). My mother is a definite ACOA - I am her bi-product. She is not an alcoholic. (but is she a dry alcoholic?) While she has an occasional cocktail, she is not a big drinker at all and understandibly so. I never knew what she went through as a child until I was an adult. It was never discussed in my family.
I have read the Laundry List on ACOA. Wow! This is me. Every single item on that list. Further, it is my
MOTHER. Of course, she has been through therapy, blah blah blah takes medication now to "correct" her chemical imbalance. My childhood looked great on the outside, but was stressful from the beginning. My mother's love is conditional. She is super controlling to the point where I don't even speak with her now. Until I went to college I did everything she said, very rarely misbehaving, starving for her admiration, fearing abandonment (i had no contact w/my bio dad after I was 4 yrs. old)which she would give as long as I was PERFECT. I was a straight A student, class president, honor council, sports captains, etc... When it was time to go to college, she chose the colleges I could apply to. I ended up going to women's ivy league college in New England. The second I began to stray from her well-laid out plan after I graduated from college, she turned her back on me. I married someone she didn't approve of though I think the perfect man would not have been good enough for her. She did not support my choice and stopped talking to me. She did not come to my wedding. Abandonment was complete. The one thing I feared the most, came true. I tried to build my own life with my new husband, but inside I was sick from her abandonment. He turned out to be exactly like her. Controlling, abusive (verbally) and conditional love. I had to be the PERFECT wife/caretaker.
All of my close intimate relationships are a reflection of my relationship with her. Insecure, conditional love relationships. Now I find myself in a relationship with someone who actually is an alcoholic and I now see that my mother isn't so different from him. She just doesn't drink every day. The characteristics - all the same.
YIKES!!!!!!! What a revelation! Have I completely gone off the deep end? If this is a correct assessment, then what do I do to fix myself????
