I have been reading posts here that explain an alcoholic (or any addict) is not thinking clearly many times, because the drug actually causes changes in the brain while the addict is using.
That really helped explain a lot to me.
How, for instance, my father could blame and see as a bad person, the daughter who called the police the twentieth time my father tried to strangle her mother into unconsciousness or death.
In his mind, he wasn't doing anything wrong, and the 12 year old stepdaughter was "a terrible person" who "is going to grow up all screwed up" because she actually had the courage to call the police for help.
It was really hard for me to understand, to "get" how he thought about things.
It made me think I was crazy. Was I wrong, or was he wrong?
Now I know, he was the one with disordered thinking, and there was no way I could ever think like he did because my brain was not affected by disease.
I would imagine quite a few ACOA's have grown up wondering if they were the crazy ones or if their addict or alcoholic was the one with disordered reasoning and thinking.
It's something I have struggled with all my life, and I will probably always struggle with, but I am understanding more and more that I wasn't the crazy one. Or, at least not any more crazy than any other person out there, LOL.
Thank you SR for helping me understand more about what I grew up around.
