EveningRose

I have spent 5 years fighting off depression that started with discovering my husband's infidelity, and led to cutting virtually all contact with my parents and siblings in the realization that my father's alcoholism really has affected us all, I really am being scapegoated, and there's no way to ever jump through enough hoops that they will be satisfied and it will stop.

To put it in perspective, my most recent conversation with a sister went like this: ER, you've accomplished a lot, your kids are great, I don't know how you do it. But now you need to fix this other thing. And this other thing. Everyone says so. (What I'm supposed to 'fix', btw, is virtually impossible, and is being demanded of me by people who have never done even half as much.)

I now believe the constant scapegoating of my childhood set me up for marrying a verbally abusive and cheating man. I'm realizing how much I'm still hearing my parents' voices: No wonder everyone dislikes you. If they picked on you, you must have done something. You deserve it.

I'm seeing how strongly I believe no good person could ever really like me. Someone I always admired has recently taken an interest in my career and in me personally, and I realized how much I distrust my own perceptions (years of being told it's not what you think), and how much I even believe I'm being set up somehow to be laughed at or humiliated. And I believe I'd deserve it. I'm actually afraid of this person, who has been nothing but friendly.

I have read others here saying they have an abandonment complex. (Can someone explain if that's typical of ACoA, and if so, why?) I think I have that, too. Some days, I have quite a lot of social interaction on facebook. Then I go a couple of days without many replies, and find myself thinking no one would care if I disappeared. I can see this is irrational, yet I feel it. I found myself thinking it today, despite receiving five or more personal e-mails from friends who obviously cared enough to write.

I question my own perceptions. I watch my cousins and siblings interact on facebook and it seems they have less interest in talking to me. I truly have no clue what I have done to deserve that, but I have realized in the last 5 years that my mother has some very bizarre ideas about who I am and tells people negative things about me. (That is one perception I do not question at all-- people have repeated to me the strange things she says about me.) I wonder how far these stories (untrue, btw) have spread, how many people believe them. I wonder if it's damaged my relationships with extended family, and then I wonder if I'm only imagining they have no interest in being friendly.

How do we as ACoA's heal from these things? I went to Al Anon for about a year, and it did help a lot. Does it need to be a lifetime process of going to meetings? I pray a lot, but feel somehow I'm always still at square one. I try to be grateful (and that's not hard, I really do have a lot to be grateful for), yet somehow end up with these negative thoughts still in my head. I've been to counseling-- I did a few months of EMDR for post traumatic stress and/ or anxiety-- and the counselor seemed to think I was all better (and I felt I was for a long time, yet lately feel I'm backsliding.)

Is there eventual, complete and real healing, believing we're good enough, being content with ourselves and trusting our own perceptions, and being able to accept the love that IS being given to us? If so, how?

GingerM

This is not going to be what you want to hear

I don't believe there is such a thing as being "recovered" - we are always in the process of recovery, even those of us who have been doing it a very long time and for the most part manage function in ways that seem very healthy.

But what one sees on the outside is not what's going on internally. There are always buttons to be pushed, there are times when something that hasn't come up in years suddenly happens and catches us completely flat-footed.

I can view my insecurities as "tapes from the past," I can put them in their proper perspective, I can think through what *I* feel about myself versus what those old tapes tell me I am. But the old tapes are still there - I've just become better at acknowledging them for what they are and telling them to be quiet. And they've learned that they don't get free rein in my life, that I will keep them under control.

But to go an entire day without having something from my past pop up - even if it's just me thinking "Oh yeah, there's that old piece of baggage again"? It's a rare day that something doesn't remind me of an old piece of baggage. The question is what do you want to do with it. Most days, I can simply acknowledge the baggage's existance and go along my merry way, paying no more attention to it. But some days? Some days something catches me at just the right time or in just the right manner and it may take me hours, or sometimes days, to figure out what happened and make amends for any damage that may have resulted from my behavior (referring to non-family members).

I don't believe there is such a thing as being "recovered." There are just different stages of recovery. It's not like college where you get your grades, take your classes, get a diploma to hang on the wall and don't think about it again. It's a daily thing, and recovery requires maintenance. Without the maintenance, backsliding is the most probable outcome.

Abandonment issues are strong in any person who feared, as a child and during their emotional development, that they would be abandoned for something that they could not identify. In other words, people who are constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. Being emotionally pushed aside, told you're not important, told you're insignificant/don't matter/no one cares - that is emotional abandonment. A small child, utterly reliant on their parents/adults around them for security and nourishment, is usually terrified of being abandoned. That's a survival instinct - an abandoned child is prey.

So whether it's alcoholism or some other form of toxicity in the family, if a child fears being outcast, they will grow up with abandonment issues. Or, they will grow up with no regard for other human beings. Neither is optimal.

DesertEyes

Hello there EveningRose

I agree with what Ginger said.

It hasn't been for me. I started out with lots of meetings for a few years, then some therapy. Then I backed off for a few years, then did some more meetings, then not.

A few years ago when I went thru a very difficult divorce I jumped back into meetings. Now I go once or twice a week, and mainly because I'm giving back to the community after all that has been given to me.

See, in addition to being an ACoA, I am also _human_. Most of the time I feel perfectly normal, good enough, content with myself and all that wonderful stuff. Then I'll get in a disagreement with my g/f, or I'll foul up something at work, and I get a _little_ bit of those "old tapes".

But just a little. And I'm not all that sure that maybe it's just my being _human_ that causes those "old tapes". And they're not anywhere near as overwhelming as they used to be. It's more like a twinge in my hip from that time I fell off a cliff when I was a kid. Just a twinge.

Little by little. I was born a perfectly normal child, it took _years_ for my parents to mess me up. I didn't get all fixed in just a couple months. I also did not work on fixing myself continuously for year after year. I took lots of breaks, and a couple times I backslid a little.

One thing that helped me see the progress I was making was some old pictures I had of myself as a teenager. In those pics I can see one seriously messed up kid. I even feel sorry for the poor guy. I can see how far I have come, just from the pics.

Other folks use a diary for the same reason.

I find that as an ACoA I am extremely critical of me, and therefore my progress in recovery. So I consciously decided to _not_ stress out and get all "Type A personality" about my progress. I gave myself permission to just go slow and take as long as it took, and then a little longer, just to break the patterns of my ACoA-itis.

Mike

EveningRose

Ginger, I want to hear exactly how it is, and if it's always at least a little bit of a struggle, then it's better to know that and know it's normal, as the years go on, rather than wonder what I'm still doing wrong. Thank you! It lets me know I really am doing fine with what I'm doing.

Mike, thank you. You're right that it took them years-- in fact, they're still working on it. I was told in January that I imagined everything, including being thrown on a bed and choked. I'm still being told by various siblings I need to quit this and go back to what we had. I'm now realizing I'm virtually ignored by the youngest siblings and figure this is my punishment if I don't fall in line and keep trying to jump through their hoops.

GingerM

I know it's not funny, but it made me laugh.

Bill of Rights for ACoAs: I do not have to participate in the crazy-making behaviors of my family.

Oh yes, they most certainly are still working on it, aren't they? Mine certainly are.

EveningRose

LOL, sometimes laughing is all that's left. It does help to put it in perspective, to know that I'm not the only one. I'm tempted to explain how they're still working on it, but probably good to realize it's not worth my time explaining. But I definitely see the patterns of behavior are still there.

GingerM

My husband is extremely good at helping me to laugh at the sheer lunacy of it all. The last time my dad told me he was never going to speak to me again, hubby said "As if you could be so lucky!" He was right - next night I got drunk dialed by my dad.

It is pretty crazy, and sometimes, if someone else is there to point out just how ludicrous it is, it can even be funny - even when it's not.

Wascally Wabbit

Mike and Ginger are just wonderful! For me, I just got tired of living a crazy depressed life. I spent a lot of time on here getting a lot of help.
I am not "recovered". But, I am perfectly fine with myself!
Hang out here and you will see how you can transform yourself just by the way you look at life.

EveningRose

Thanks, again, Ginger. Unfortunately, I'm also on the brink of divorcing my husband over his infidelity and lies. Although he is not a physical abuser, he is described to a T in all the books and studies on verbal, emotional, and psychological style abusers, so I have spent years hearing similar things from him, that I should have done things differently, that everything he does is my fault, that I imagined things, etc. Bit by bit over the last five years, I do feel I've fought my way out of an emotional prison they had created, convincing me I was the world's sole screw up, totally incapable of ever getting anything right.

One of my break-through moments came when my husband blamed me once too often and I thought it is not even humanly possible for ANY person to be wrong this often, much less a person who is trying as hard and as well-intentioned as I know I am. Realizing he was a liar was in itself a huge break-through.

Wascally Wabbit, for me, it was just finally getting tired of always being the one to hold my tongue, always being the one not to escalate it. I saw three choices: descend to their level, continue to put up with double standards and snotty comments while I held my tongue (because I know I'd be called on the carpet for saying similar things back or even objecting), or walk away and try to live my life in peace. I have walked away, but am having a difficult time at holidays, as they keep pressuring me. Now, I seem to be largely getting the silent treatment, and I guess I need to turn my thinking to being grateful for it, lol!