worthyoflove

My father was the A, mother was the codependent growing up. Anytime I tried something new or was doing something healthy for myself, my mother would come along with her fear and take away whatever I was doing. I started working out when I would come home from school for 1/2 hr each day. I was feeling really good about myself. My mother grabbed me and started lecturing me about how girls can get really sick if they workout too much and they will stop growing normally. Everything had to be on her time table or my brother and I had to suffer from her mood swings. She was very intrusive and had to know what I was doing at all times or she would go ballistic. Her guilt tripping was horrendous.

My father was the tyrant of the household. Any misdeed would result in severe beatings, verbal abuse. The only safe place was my room, until he ripped the door off the hinges.

My grandmother was the codependent. She would go shopping and buy me clothes and if I didn't like what she bought, she would become very upset. She didn't buy clothes for me, but did this for herself because she loved shopping. Years later, she would offer me help with my child and then start saying she doesn't have any food when she had over $100,000 in the bank. I started seeing a therapist and my therapist told me she was using me. I didn't want to believe my grandmother was using me, so I ignored my therapist's comment. Through recovery, a memory resurfaced. My grandmother had me forge a check when I was 11 years old. Later in recovery, I started placing my own priorities first because my life was falling apart. This did not go over well with my mother or my grandmother. I would get nasty messages on my voicemail and constant phonecalls while working. I started pulling away more and my grandmother's behavior started changing. I would pick her up and she would not be ready. I would have to sit there for 1/2 hour waiting for her. I know if I would have left, I would be the "bad" guy for leaving. She became even worse when I stopped contact all together. She was taken to the hospital 20 times or more because she passed out. Each time, my mother would call me and say she wasn't going to make it. I would go to the hospital and the nurse would say, "She's fine". I felt like an idiot. My mother would call me and say that I was mean and I didn't care because I was trying to break the rope and take care of myself and my own child.

It's like I can't escape and have realized how unhealthy the enmeshment was. I couldn't see how it was affecting all my relationships and how some of my friendships were one-sided. I would get into a relationship with someone and it was doomed from the beginning, either because of my family's intrusive behavior or because the other person had the same type of family. There were absolutely no boundaries in my family and no one was allowed to be automomous. It was about meeting their needs, instead of the parents meeting their children's needs. There is still a lot of recovery ahead of me, but atleast I know I am not the crazy and mean person I was made out to be. I do know one thing. If I should wind up needing help, I will refuse any offers of help from my child, even if it means going hungry, dying, or being homeless. If that is what it takes to break the cycle, then so be it.

kwigers

Hi worthy of love,
We each have a choice of looking at events and people from many perspectives, right now you are seeing your life through a lens, of well, the victim, and seeing your mother and grandmother as the perpetrators. Conventional therapy will agree with you and help you travel this road of victimization for as long as you like. This is what is adding to entire global war, hate, and discord within the universe. It is the thought that we need to seperate from others, because THEY are causing our suffering, when in fact, it is our THOUGHTs about them that are causing our suffering.

It is totally possible for you to change your beliefs and thoughts about your life, and experience a complete turn around in how you feel towards your mother and grandmother. Thus you are capable of experiencing an inner healing yourself, and possibly a healing of the family.
You have the opportunity of playing a part in the healing of the world, by working out your own healing within your relationship with yourself and your mother and grandmother!
Get yourself a good life coach, and learn how quickly you can turn your perspective around and see how you really are worthy of love and have been all along. You may even find that your mom and grandmother are also worthy of love as well!
Much love and light to you
~Cheryl

dothi

I'm sorry, kwigers, but suggesting that this situation is simply a matter of perspective completely dismisses the actual abuse happening in WoL's family. Changing perspective in an abusive situation doesn't change the situation - it just facilitates more abuse for a person who (IMO) should leave the situation for their own well-being.

WoL, it sounds like you are coming out of denial, pushing forward through your guilt, and realizing that you have been, in fact, treated very unfairly. You're absolutely right: parents should be helping the kids meet their needs (not having kids to meet their own needs). It's practically insane to imagine parents - the people you absolutely TRUST from birth - being so selfish. And yet, here they are, in plain sight. And even then the truth is hard to swallow.

Immeshment was pretty intense in my family too. Girls especially didn't have room for identities of their own. We learned to be invisible, not have needs of our own, and survive off of very little. We definitely learned to wear clothes that didn't fit and to tolerate clothing we never chose. I remember my AF complaining about why all the women in this family were fat. God-f&^king-forbid he let the girls join sports, go to a gym, etc. No... that might cause self-esteem, and you know what happens to women with self-esteem. ... They leave.

Read the stickies. Read the other stories here. Read read READ. When I was trapped in close proximity to my family, reading was what helped me get out. It helped to remind me that I wasn't insane. That these people who I loved were not healthy for me. A good counsellor helped me believe that I was worthy of making decisions for myself and feeling happy for myself. She helped me understand that the guilt that came with saying "no" was undeserved. That guilt was a tool often used in dysfunctional families to manipulate children into giving up their own needs to meet those of the parents. That it was part of the training children received - to feel guilty for having their own needs.

I still remember how hard it was to say "no" to my parents each time they wanted me home for a weekend - not to do anything, or because anything special was happening of course. Just to be home to clean up the messes. If I wanted to stay home to be with friends, they'd feed me their mantra, "friends will just take advantage of you; family are the only people you can trust". I'm seeing now that isolation is part of the dysfunctional family. Isolating family members from friends, colleagues, outside sources of information, is all part of it. How can you know if you're being treated badly if you have no one to talk to who might agree?

Look at the episode of your grandmother going to the hospital. Making you wait unnecessarily, as though to punish you for having autonomy. If a stranger had written your post, wouldn't you agree that it was completely unfair to the stranger? That that treatment was unnecessary? If you continue to pursue counselling, definitely look for someone experienced with the dynamics of alcoholic families (including the codies). You need boundaries in situations like that - strong boundaries to protect you from being mistreated. There was no good reason for you to wait in the car for your grandmother or follow her craziness to the hospital. A good counsellor will help you figure out what you can do next time to protect your sanity and leave the craziness to them.

It starts with knowing you can't change them; only leave them to make their own choices. Even if that choice is to be angry at you for not sticking around to be abused. If you can choose to swallow your own feelings and put on a good spirit for their benefit, then you can be sure as heck that they can also make better choices than choosing to be upset.

If you have a chance, try these two books. They'll help you realize that what you've gone through with your family has happened before to many other people who, like you, often remained silent about their life at home and grew up believing it was normal. I often cried when I first read these books. It was very hard to accept that the craziness I had experienced with my own family was a whole field of study, laid out in front of me in text.

The Complete ACOA Sourcebook: Adult Children of Alcoholics at Home, at Work and in Love by Janet Woititz and Robert Ackerman.
Toxic Parents: Overcoming Their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life by Susan Forward and Craig Buck

Thanks for sharing, WoL, and keep posting when you feel like it

GiveLove

WoL,
You are learning and growing by the day here, since we first 'met' you. Keep on learning, keep on reading, keep on pondering. You are finding some very good answers for yourself.

Alcoholics and codependents are both damaged people. There is no "worse" about it. Both need help. Our concern here is helping people to recover from their abuse at the hands of BOTH, and go on to live better, happier lives. So glad you're part of our community.

I have worked with both counselors and life coaches, and have gleaned good things from both experiences. (note that Kwigers' perspective is such because she IS a life coach, and so sees things through that lens) And for what it's worth, I do not see you as a victim - I see you as someone who's trying to make sense of all of this, and all the wild emotions it stimulates, so you can move on.

You may find some day that you have a healthy relationship with your child, where you are both strong adults who have complementary gifts -- and can help each other with joy and honor. Be open to that future some day. You are NOT your mother or grandmother. You are you, an entirely different organism.

Keep on learning & asking & answering & wondering & healing. You will be okay. You ARE worthy of love - first of all, your OWN love, for having come through this all with your humanity intact. No easy feat