Co-dependance
 

I had awful parents, and I am trying top get past that. I had a therapist who recommended I attend ACOA meetings, but I was too passive to actually keep going. Then I moved to a place where there are no alcoholic parents, no co-dependance, and life is always beautiful all the time. Or maybe there is a LOT of denial...
Background: My father was a child molester (girls only, thank you Higher Being) who was diagnosed as paranoid-psychotic when I was ten, and he went away for good. How I wish that had been the end of it, but my step-brothers started molesting me at that point, which continued until they went away to foster homes and then juvinile detention. Anyway they were also gone for good. Yay!!!
Mom becamed an alcoholic and a ****, and decided she was a failure and tried to kill herself again. (She had tried when I was eight, probably to get away from Dad who would beat us up and tried to strangle my 15-year-old step-brother.)
Anyway, after the second suicide attempt, the rest of us kids ended up in foster homes too. My family tried to be nice to me but I started acting out in very babyish ways, crying myself to sleep and wetting the bed. Mr. foster wanted to send me away, but Mrs. Foster felt sorry for me. They had a big argument about it one night, kind of like the arguments my parents used to have. I got to stay, but I really wanted to go home. My social wowrker gave me a good talking to about it, so they must have talker to her about all the trouble I was. I stayed for a year and a half. I was very, very lonely, but after a while I learned to be quiet and not act out. I even stopped crying at night.
When I finally did go home, I tried to be very good so Mom wouldn't kill herself and/or send me to another the foster home. We never talked about the foster homes, of course, or the suicide attempts. We didn't talk about Mom's alcoholism or her boyfriends (always married, for some reason) I DID NOT talk about the night I got up to go potty and Mom was screwing her boss in the middle of the living room. I couldn't get past to get to the bathroom. Mom slapped me the next morning because she was hung over, and my bed was wet. Mostly, I think she slapped me because she knew I knew. I never said a word about it.
It was covertly forbidden to say anything about the foster home because if I had liked it, then Mom was not as good a parent at the foster parents. My older sisters liked their homes and didn't mind saying so. It made me so mad when they's critisize Mom! Didn't they know SHE MIGHT KILL HERSELF?
On the other hand, if I hated the foster home, then Mom was a failure as a parent for sending me there. I chose to keep my mouth shut and never say anything bad about her. and not think or feel anything bad; not feel anything at all, ever. I didn't, either until long after I had left home, not even when the bitch tried to kill herself AGAIN when I was fourteen.
My role in the family was the Lost Child. I was forbidden (on threat of becoming an orphan) to grow up like my father, or to grow up at all. My older sisters enforced that message because they were insecure and we alll were dysfunctional. I am sort of glad because I might have grown up to be a pedophile if they hadn't. I'm sure that is not the message they tried to give me, but it came across clear to me, however covert it was. I have struggled with that message all my life.
I didn't understand until years later how pathological my own behavior was. How it was destroyng me.
I don't intend to critisize my parents. What is the point of that after all these years? I just want to get on with my life and I find I can't. I try to talk to my wife about it, and she does understand, except it isn't healthy to only talk to her.
On the Co-dependance questionare, in Secrets of Dysfunctional Families, I scored enough points to be rated Moderate-Severe Co-dependant, even though I didn't give myself points for not having friends. It asked, "Are you satisfied with your friendships?" I decided that even though I had no friends and hadn't had any since first grade, I was satisfied and didn't give myself a point. Probably should have.
If I took the questionare again, I suppose I would rank higher because I am maybe more honest with myself. I hope I am more honest.

I think the first step in Alanon is acceptance of your parents, your life, and yourself. Let go of the shame, don't compare your life to other's, and don't beat yourself up for making mistakes.

Each day try to do one nice thing for yourself, to make new friends I would suggest some Alanon meetings. It takes time to open up to other's but I think you will find healing and compassion being with other's who understand where you are coming from.

Each day it gets a little bit better. God bless.

Recovery
 

I was frantic this afternoon- having revealed all that. I had thought I was completely past thinking about my childhood, then writing all that, I got so upset so I went to the book store to get a book about recovery. It was so difficult looking through all those books about abuse and recovery from it. It just made things so much worse I wanted to go cut myself, something I hadn't done in a long time. Hadn't even thought about. I thought maybe I hadn't made any progress at all.
When I went outside, the snow-covered mountains loomed before me.

" the grass-blades you mention,
the furniture You have placed under the sun."
It didn't make me think of suicide at all, or hurting myself. It is spring. I can continue with recovery, knowing that I am making progress.

i thought i would had out grew my past as most people would
but it didn't trun out that way. It came back up and bit me in the ass.
While looking back at my childhood was painful..living life the way I so..
wasn't too healty and painful also. While not as bad as it was when
I was a child and when life throws me a cruve ball or a get the blues..
it can spyro into a depression quick.

it came up...i guess it was time for me to rid of it.
i needed to surround myself by people that can guide through it.
People that understood me and had been there like i was and
had found a way out.

Just telling myself I love myself everyday was a beginning.
I had to do it..As corny as it was..i had to start reparenting
myself.

I'm like you ..i'm the middle child or the lost child. i spent
a lot of time in my world to escape. I have friends, but
very few close friends...for the most part, nobody hang out with me
from day to day..Most people think I'm shy or i live a private life.
Bascially I feel like I'm as lost soul, a lost person or forgotten..
Sometimes i think god is just a prankster..Played a big ass joke on me.

However...you and i are so much alike in so many ways and perhapes
life is unfair...Life did not single us out..We're not alone in all of this.

I guess it's healing in a way...i didn't think anyone would understand me.
Maybe that's part of my shyness. i kept all those things inside of me
for all those years, becuase i didn't think anyone cared or understood
what i was saying..i thouhgt it was piontless to talke about it to anyone.


yeap..it plays into codependency..big time...for me it did.

I don't think I can "outgrow" my past.

My childhood experiences is a part of who I am today. Insecurities about myself and the way I view life and relationships were some of it formed during childhood.

All I can do is identify what caused me to develop certain negative characteristics and how I act them out in my adult form and then go about changing them . That takes courage and I find that courage in 12 Step recovery.

Good luck to you Ken.

Ken, the most valuable thing that my Higher Power has given me is awareness. Let me say that again.....awareness. Say it with me.....awareness.
It is both a blessing and a curse. Once you are aware....truly aware.....you can never go back. You can cover up what you've learned in denial but the vines of awareness will grow through anyway.
You're fine. You are right where you need to be right now in this moment. You are here and you've displayed the desire for answers....and guess what.....that's what comes to you once you accept the awareness you've been given. There will be anger, sorrow, guilt and a whole heap of unpleasant things you may go through but they are only feelings, they are not you. Emotions are just that.....motion. They are meant to move. Let them have a birth and a death then move on to the next.
I hope this makes sense to you. If it doesn't now, it will eventually. This forum could never take the place of therapy and meetings but it has added so much momentum to my recovery. Keep posting. Hugs