I don't meet the stereotypical ACOA in the sense that most people think we were near homeless, eating out of trash cans and dirt poor. Some were close, like yourself. I was raised in an upper-middle class family where image was everything. I've been to Disney World more times than I can count. But yet I am just as screwed up as the next ACOA to post in this thread. I wasn't ignored, but I was told I couldn't do anything right, I was a waste of life, a mistake, nothing but a financial drain. Sometimes I wished they would just ignore me. I don't identify with everything in the books, but I find what I relate to and go from there. My Step 4 inventory in Al-Anon really showed the diversity of people affected by this disease. Some pages I'm due for a major overhaul, others I get a gold star. I think we need to apply "Take what you like and leave the rest" to ACA, too.