The truth was never easy
Some days it really sucks to be ACoA. I've had a couple good days where the emotions were just fine. And then today I'm all over the place. Nothing has changed in the world, it's just these durn AcoA emotions that have a mind of their own. Even had some old nightmares last night, and I haven't had those in a long long time.
So I'm going to focus on recovery. Focus on all the things I am grateful for, and work on improving myself. So here goes characteristic #3
"Adult children of alcoholics lie when it would be just as easy to tell the truth."
As a child it was terribly important to maintain the family lies. Telling the truth about my alcoholic family would not only bring serious physical harm to me, it would also expose my complete lack of self-esteem to the world. 'course, I had no idea that's what was going on, I was just a kid stuck in a toxic family. I had never seen any other way to behave, other than to do whatever it took to stay away from hurt. At the time, in that insane environment, lying was a very important survival tool. I have no doubt at all that to have done otherwise would have got me killed.
In addition, many times I did not know it was a lie. "Is everything ok at home?" I'd be asked by a long line of social workers. Well sure it was, I had never lived anything else. I had no idea there was any other way to live. I truly believed every family was exactly like mine. I had no evidence to the contrary.
When I did find there was a better life out in the world then I just lied even more. I think it was in 4th grade, or thereabouts, I started signing my school work with other people's names. I'd scratch out my name and put in somebody else's. Started "accidentally" going to different classrooms, even memorized made up addresses and phone numbers as if they were mine. As a little kid I was trying to manufacture a new "me" who didn't have to live where I did.
Once I was able to leave the physical danger, I had no other survival skills. In the outside world lying is wrong, and it brings about far more harm than good. Even when I did figure that out, the reflexes were still there. It took many years of consciously biting my tongue and simply not talking to anybody before I was able to "un-relfex" that particular survival skill.
In my case, I lied because I didn't know how to tell the truth, if I even knew the truth. I lied because telling the truth was incredibly dangerous and frightening. Telling the truth was _never_ easy.
Now that I've been working the program for a few years I've grown out of that. My self esteem is a whole lot better (although still in need of work :-) and I'm no longer deadly ashamed of the behavior of my family. I've been out of physical danger long enough, and have worked on my reflexes long enough, that I no longer have to be on guard against the automatic lie.
Honesty feels a lot better. It's one of the things that makes me a decent human being and different from those monsters of my childhood. Knowing that I am not like them, that I have broken the cycle, is the greatest reward of working the program.
Mike :-)