Iwanttoheal

I wanted to share the positive, healing experience that I had today. I learnt the importance of choosing to share painful, negative experiences with healthy people who can validate your experience appropriately.

This morning I went to my first Autism support group meeting. To cut a very long story short, my 17 year old son was diagnosed with Aspberger's Syndrome in May this year. This followed many, many years of mental health problems and misdiagnoses. As I spoke, the people were shocked and caring about the bad experiences that my son and I had gone through. They related to what I was going through and they shared a wealth of advice, strength and hope from the experiences that they had gone through themselves. I came away no longer feeling that I was on my own and the strength of their validation confirmed my own feelings and beliefs about what I and my son had gone through.

So, how does this relate to being an ACAO. I guess I would say don't look for support from a functioning alcoholic and an active codependent like I did. They are most likely unhealthy people who will not meet your needs and who have the potential to cause you further pain. When I reached out for support from my Mum and brother, I was met with denial that there was anything wrong with my son; then I was blamed – it was all my fault; then I was dismissed as unimportant – my and my son's needs were not as important as my brother's alcoholism and the problems this was causing my Mum. It is a real eye-opener when you start to accept that unhealthy family members are not going to change, they have always been this way and they are not going to start meeting your needs just because you need it and because they are related to you.

Here are three positive things I have learnt since I crashed head-first into SR:

1.I am learning to finally TRUST and BELIEVE my OWN gut feelings and instincts. I am beginning to look less to other people to decide whether or not to believe myself.
2.I no longer believe my alcoholic family's version of reality – after 44 years, this is a big one for me.
3.I am finding that when I deal with healthy people, I see my own truths reflected honestly back at me ie they are not denied, diminished or exaggerated. This is a whole new world for me and I really like it – things are accepted for what they are, they are neither ignored or awfulised. It's a wonderful world that I want to experience more and more.

Keep well, IWTHxxx

GiveLove

Wonderful insights, iwth. Gives me much food for thought today, as I grapple with my own issues with my family of origin.

soulsurvivor

thank you for saying this... its what i needed today.. still trying to wrap my brain around it..

takincareome

I LOVE these. I can identify greatly with Nos. 1 and 3. I find my insecurity and need for validation is fading. Not totally gone, especially if I'm tired, etc., but getting there.

I have to say I haven't bought my family's version of reality for a long time, but I'm learning to stop playing their game. And that's good enough for me.

Hugs to you and to us all!

Iwanttoheal

This has been playing through my mind over the past few days.

I really am having amazing moments of clarity. It's hard to explain but I'll try and put it into words.

From being a child, I always knew that we lived a lie and that things were not good, different from other people. As an adult, how I dealt with it was to dissociate - push feelings down and push them away - it was all in the past, gone. I got so good at this that I could deal with my alcoholic brother and codependent mother in small controlled chunks eg 4 hours on Xmas day; going out for an occasional lunch; speaking on the telephone; so on and so forth.

What happened though, was no matter how hard I tried to control the interaction, over time I grew less and less in control of my own reactions. I was experiencing violent, emotional, overreactions to the slightest thing - things that years ago, I would have managed to ignore or push down. These minimal contacts were damaging me - big style. I got to the point I could not take any more; I exploded and "ran away".

So I did not really believe their reality but I dealt with it until I couldn't deal with it any more.

The resultant explosion was absolutely mega though - EVERYTHING came out. I relived EVERYTHING, going way, way back into my past. Things, long forgotten, came to the surface allowing me to reassess things through an adult's eyes with an adult's understanding - it hasn't been a pretty or pleasant experience.

What I find amazing, is the level of my unhealthy enmeshment. My family of origin had incredible power and influence over me - I believed and gave credence to their opinions and values. Their views mattered to me, I believed them, even if I did not respect their thoughts and opinions, I gave them status. Even if I openly challenged or defied them, I could still hear their voices, all powerful, in my head. They were right and I was wrong. I had no self, no boundaries, with my family of origin. I did not exist independently of them and they "kept me in my place" because they never respected me - who I was, what I had achieved. I was always "less" than they were and I believed them.

I feel like I have been in a cult and I am now in a period of deprogramming. I am looking at myself with my jaw hanging open in total amazement, I am laughing at myself in total disbelief - HOW DID I BELIEVE THEM FOR SO LONG? HOW DID I GIVE THEM SO MUCH POWER AND STATUS IN MY LIFE? I am starting to see them for what they are - an addict and a codependent who are incredibly, immensely insecure in theselves so they use bluff and bullying tactics to "big themselves up". HOW COULD I BE SO BLIND? WOW

Patk

Hi Iwanttoheal,

I can really relate to what you wrote about the power a family (even a dysfunctional one!) can have over us, even after we have moved away from them years ago. I often fall into the obsessive trap of wishing my siblings would "clue in" to my life and take an interest, but they don't. They are adults so I have to let them paddle their own canoes...Thanks for sharing.

Patk