needtolearn

I'm ready to deal with this issue.

For all intents and purposes, I'm an orphan.

My parents are still "alive" but my relationship with them is dead.

So with that and being single, I have to learn to get past the depression and fear of not having the recognized "support system", or unconditional love that gets you through the trials of life.

So...what are healthy ways of seeking out and creating a family of my own choosing?

How do I seek out and build deep, healthy relationships to take the place of my family of origin?

Just a note/comment. It's been really hard. I have depression, and between many major life changes and an abusive relationship (a previous person) I've had 2 breakdowns in the last 3 years and I had to nurse myself through them. I don't know how I did it. There's other stuff but point being, I've survived incidents that nobody should have to alone. Even now, although I'm making great strides in my personal recovery, I wish I could live with my parents for a bit and only focus on recovery physically and mentally, not making my health worse by working all the time and barely getting by.

You know being an ACOA, I've always had to take care of things, people. I wish for once someone would take care of me.

How do traditional orphans function in the world?

GingerM

My "family of choice" was not created overnight. It consists of some people I've known for a very long time, and some who I've met only recently. It is not always the same people, some stick with me, some move on, but always they are healthy or striving to be so, or at the very least, not toxic.

I call it "collecting good people". There are very few good people in this world (in my humble opinion), so when I run across one of them, I invite them for dinner or lunch or coffee or a show or something. I try to cultivate a relationship with them beyond whatever relationship exists that brought us together in the first place (coworkers, instructors, tradespeople etc). It helped that I married into a wonderful family as well, but even prior to my meeting my now husband, I was "collecting" my own family.

Most of the time, that requires us to make the first step. The next step, assuming they're willing to do things with you, or meet you for coffee or whatever, is to not immediately go to all the negative. I find that people like to talk about themselves, and I use this piece of human nature to get to know them better - what I'm really doing is trying to find the toxicity in them, to see if they would be a good 'family' member. I, meanwhile, talk about things other than my problems - the things that occupy most of my time, what I do for a living, what I do for fun, crazy client stories, crazy work stories, crazy life stories.

Eventually a feeling of intimacy (no, not sexual, this applies to either gender) will develop and one day I will find myself mentioning some "funny" story about my past - only I'll realize that it really isn't that funny. If the person continues to stick with me anyway, then they are part of my "family".

Some of my "family" members I only talk with once in a while, some I see weekly or daily. But the fact that I know that should I ever need someone to turn to, each one of those people would be there for me makes all the difference in the world.

DesertEyes

Hey there needto, and welcome to our little corner of recovery.

Ginger is totally right, she said what I wanted to only better. The place where I go find those "good people" is in meets of al-anon. Almost all of my good friends come from recovery.

Mike

howatch

Hello Need to Learn
I can totally relate to what you are saying. My relationship with my parents died earlier this year when I challenged them about my mother's drinking and drug abuse, and they essentially protected her addictions instead of prioritising my feelings and welfare. Since then I have been going through a process that can only be called bereavement. We are no longer really in touch and I'm glad, for now, about that. I feel tremendously vulnerable sometimes without the support system of the older generation. I do feel like an orphan now really.

you sound like an amazing person to have coped with so much - so strong. I hope you have good people in your life who take care of you. i know the feeling you mean when you say 'You know being an ACOA, I've always had to take care of things, people. I wish for once someone would take care of me'. I can really relate to that.

I love the term however 'family of choice'. For me, that's my husband and my friends.

mushroom

Yeah, same here. Once I realized that my parents had NEVER acted as parents, I didn't feel so strange and out of place. I'm an orphan. Have been since infancy. Even though I was raised by both birth parents, with all my siblings. No, correct that - they didn't raise me, they just allowed me to live in their house until I turned 18.

The normal parent/child relationship isn't there, and never was. I've always been alone in the world, even while growing up in a household of 6. And, that upbringing has left me with great difficulty making friends. There were no healthy interpersonal relationships in my upbringing, and we weren't allowed to have friends over or go to friend's houses anyway. So I'd gravitate to other dysfunctional people, the only ones who would tolerate my presence, and the only ones I felt comfortable with. Now I don't want them in my life anymore either, and that's left me truly alone in the world with no family and few friends.

You collect good friends slowly over time, like they said above. It's a real slow process, made even slower for us ACOAs who have trouble connecting with people. I have dogs to fill that empty spot, and I'm convinced most people who get all wrapped up in their dogs and cats are ACOAs like me. Not comfortable around people, and not knowing how to connect to people, and not able to trust people.

But dogs won't take care of you when you're sick. So you have to collect good people, and it doesn't happen over night, that's for sure. You can find good people in recovery groups, although I found mostly people even more dysfunctional than myself, but even so some of them can be very good friends.

Traditional orphans get adopted. Us, we have to go out and adopt other people by ourselves. It takes time, and you want to avoid adopting unhealthy people who won't be any improvement over those you left behind.

Sometimes extended family members can replace the nuclear family. Aunts, uncles, cousins, who understand the background you come from but aren't directly involved in it.

Believe me, there's lots of people just like you going through the same thing. For me it's critical to keep in touch with people I meet and like, to not let those relationships drift off when we're no longer coworkers or whatever. That means picking up the phone or shooting off an email. Even people on the other side of the country, keep them in your life if at all possible. I don't let good friends just drift off through lack of effort on my part. They're too rare and hard to find, and we need all we can get.

londonvanpelt

Your story sounds like mine. It wasn't until I decided to be my own best friend that I could find healthy people. I met someone in the program and recently became aware that it was not healthy for me to be around him anymore. He was in a church that was brainwashing him into believing that Satan and his army were everywhere. I had to figure out what was true for me on the inside. I never believed in the Bible because it was written by men and the writings did not feel like truth to me. I've done research on cults lately and it seems like a lot of corporations operate the same way. There is a lot of brainwashing in society, so I had to listen to the inside and not the outside. What were truths for me? What was a healthy relationship like for me? What were my limits, my needs, my opinions, etc. I had to get to the point where I didn't care what others thought because I was taking care of me. Instead of placing others above me, thinking they were superior--I found I could create what I wanted in my life. If someone started talking about something I did not feel comfortable with, then I could say so. I was programmed to accept crumbs in life. Sometimes if a parent is too toxic and they are causing more harm than good, then I can tell them that I don't like how I feel around them and leave it at that. The rest was up to them. If they continued to abuse me, then I could sever the relationship. I can't change others, but I do have the right to protect myself from abuse even if that means ending a relationship. Boundaries first, then if boundaries don't work I need to decide whether to stay or leave. I have caught people talking behind my back and were trying to coerce others into thinking I was a bad person. Others would come up to me and ask me questions in a way that I would look like a bad person because they were being brainwashed by someone else. Instead of them presenting a story in the correct order of events, it was presented in a way that anyone would look like they were being mean/cruel by their reaction. I left my husband years ago and I looked like the bad person for leaving. He looked like the poor saintly husband, but that was furthest from the truth. No one knew about him kicking our puppy down a flight of stairs. Poor, poor him. I met a man a couple years ago and I took things very, very slow. We never even had physical contact which is what I wanted because I can't make a decision that is best for me if I am intimate with someone. I found out later he was addicted to sex and believed a man should rule the house. His beliefs did not work in my world. I believe in a democratic household where everyone votes, including the children. I found out he was looking up my name all over the internet. I knew I did not want to give him my home address for some reason and there it was. I was listening to the inside--my gut was telling me the truth. It has to get to a point where you will no longer be a slave to the outside by getting rid of fear of abandonment, fear of rejection, fear of looking the fool. It was fear destroying my life. NO ONE knew what was best for me other than myself. I could hire 500 people tomorrow and that would still be looking for answers that were all inside me.