She moved away from the curtain for the hundredth time that evening, having checked the driveway to see if my long overdue, undoubtedly drunk father had returned.
"I can't believe alcohol is stronger than love," was her resigned, almost-sequitur to my impassioned inquiry as to why she didn't leave him.
"I can't believe alcohol is stronger than love." She repeated the statement with a righteous yet zombie-like stubbornness that never ceased to inspire massive confusion in my child heart.
At twelve I adored her and desperately needed to trust a mother. At twelve, however, I was still sane enough not to embrace her masochistic philosophy of "love". At twelve I still retained a degree of emotional sobriety in terms of the merry-go-round of misery of an alcoholic home. It was only a matter of time until the pain would wash away my frame of reference, too, in terms of healthy living, let alone loving. I would ultimately become as masochistic and pain-oriented as she.
But then I sat there. Simply confused. Straining so hard to understand and to help. Part of me admittedly enjoyed the excitement and the privilege. My bedtime was long past, but once again, due to the extenuating circumstance of my father's drinking binge, I was promoted to confidante. My mother required an audience -- a shock absorber -- for her alarm.
I was a passenger on her roller coaster of emotions. The spectacle of her filled the living room. The wringing of hands and wailing. The foot-stomping fury. The panic. She'd turn on the radio to hear if there had been an accident. Every car on the street pulled her to the curtain once again. My father usually didn't come home on those nights until the early hours of the morning, but her ritual sustained its intensity all evening.
Perhaps these exhausting exercises were her way of playing out the pain or dealing with the suspense. Perhaps they were a way of revving herself up for the verbal, near physical combat that would happen upon his arrival.
She would entertain me with a rendition of possible ways he would get killed before daybreak. If a siren were heard in the distance, she would look at me knowingly. Sometimes, she'd send me to bed and sit up clutching her rosary, entranced in the whispering, as if that alone were the thread keeping him alive. I'd be in bed, unable to sleep -- too aware of him out there in the mysterious dark and her on the couch in the living room in feverish prayerfulness.
Usually, though, I would get to simply sit there, awe-filled at the impressive display of vitality of my so often depressed and exhausted mother -- the adrenaline coursing through her body. And I, so vulnerable in my loyalty, was sucked into her swirling hysteria. Feeling her pain -- her anger -- her fear.
Save one difference in us. I wish today I could go back to that poor, pajamaed girl sitting on the edge of the couch in wide-eyed horror, harboring the guilty hope that this time her father wouldn't come home. This time he would die and then they'd all be left in peace.
I'd like to save that little girl all the guilt, self-hate and future heartache from such trauma. To tell her that it was a normal, appropriate response not to want a crazed being, deranged by alcohol and too-long repressed anger, to enter the house and terrorize them all. A stranger who could change her mother into a scary stranger, matching his fiery raging with her icy vindictiveness. In a home where the children were changed, too, into hypervigilant hostages of the marital war.
Miraculously, however, her father always did manage to come home. More or less in one piece.
We would hear it. The car in the driveway. His cursing as he slammed the door.
And my mother would pull back from the curtain -- for somehow he must not see she'd spent the evening there. Even though he'd probably know, as she'd want him to know.
If I were still up she'd send me scurrying to bed. If I were already in bed, I'd be awake, struggling to listen beyond the pounding in my ears -- paralyzed with anticipation of the upcoming scene for, by that point, I had completely merged with that poor pathetic woman sitting stoically on the couch with her knitting, rosary beads or newspaper. Feigning detachment. Assuming the stance, justifiably, of an injured party. At the same time, girding herself for the inevitable attack.
My father erupted into the front hallway, slamming the door. Then came a terrifying eternity of silence as he stood crookedly, rallying a wobbly body and a dizzied brain -- struggling to assess the situation. Sensing through the drunken fog, her presence in the living room. The guilt and dread her presence inspired made the fire of his rage begin to roar.
I listened with my whole body. My lungs would ache from not breathing so long. I had to hear. Had to will my support for her. Indulging in a breath seemed an abandonment of my mother.
He would start. He would curse something or other -- trying to provoke her. Trying to show her and all the rest of them, the long parade of people in his miserable past, that he really didn't give a damn. That he wasn't going to put up with any more crap. The speech slurred. The body menacing. I could see the hulking shadow on the wall from my bedroom.
She would knit. Not look at him. Ostentatiously ignore him. Soon, ceremoniously, she would begin collecting her things to go to bed. Supercilious and silent, save for the sniping which would slowly but inevitably come. When he finally paused in his brutal and sloppy rantings, she would say it. That one sentence, caustic and cryptic -- with a point that never missed. Right to the jugular. God, she was good. Amazing.
And he would be off again. In an even more murderous fury. It was orgasmic, the levels of rage and anger they achieved in those first minutes of his homecoming. I'd lie there wondering if this were the night he'd kill her. They'd kill each other. We'd all be killed. A fitting climax to the horror of it all.
###
I've got some stories to tell as well... the big problem for kids is being caught in the middle... even in our 50's and 60's my brothers and I still struggle with it. I feel for ya kid.
I've been there too, Libby ... with the window watcher, hearing the car pull in the driveway, waiting for the craziness to take over. You tell the tale the truth and terror of it all. Doesn't matter how long it's been since it all happened, there's still solidarity knowing, though scarred, we survived. Thanks for this.
Very powerful and difficult to read!
Oh boy, like some of the others above I lived something similar to this. I hope writing helps and that you have found some measure of peace.
did you write another essay on this? it feels very similar to one I read. maybe if you hyperlink them. this is heavy stuff. I recently got briefly involved with Coda, codependents anonymous. very, very relevant stuff. it was started as a support group for spouses/loved ones of alcoholics but has evolved to embrace very advanced psychological principles... good stuff. empowering. the truth will set you free.
Very powerful, Libby. Many, many children grow up this way in contemporary society. This is my main reason for devoting my life to political change.
Libby
My wife's mother was an alcoholic- to this day I find that I undergo a period of "distance" if she smells that I've had a beer. ( Hence I usually don't) My mother "went insane" when I was 5 or 6- and was until she died when I was 57. My father stuck with her- even when everyone else was urging him to her in a "home", and he himself couldn't understand why he was putting everyone ( including her sons) through the chaos of having her around. It was simply because he loved her. And she loved him. And, even though it took me a long time to understand it, she loved us ( her sons ) in such a steadfast and uncritical way that it was the foundation of the confidence we feel in life.
Life is tough. It isn't meant to kill you, it's meant to make you tough. Not hard and unbending, but Soft and supple, resilient and strong- so that you can share that love with those you love. If you're tough enough, you'll find that you can love the whole world. And that's the point of living in the first place.
My wife's mother was an alcoholic- to this day I find that I undergo a period of "distance" if she smells that I've had a beer. ( Hence I usually don't) My mother "went insane" when I was 5 or 6- and was until she died when I was 57. My father stuck with her- even when everyone else was urging him to her in a "home", and he himself couldn't understand why he was putting everyone ( including her sons) through the chaos of having her around. It was simply because he loved her. And she loved him. And, even though it took me a long time to understand it, she loved us ( her sons ) in such a steadfast and uncritical way that it was the foundation of the confidence we feel in life.
Life is tough. It isn't meant to kill you, it's meant to make you tough. Not hard and unbending, but Soft and supple, resilient and strong- so that you can share that love with those you love. If you're tough enough, you'll find that you can love the whole world. And that's the point of living in the first place.
Okay...one where we have common ground here, Libby.
My father was an alcoholic...and he enjoyed pushing his weight around when drunk. He beat my mother as well as verbally abused her...and had no compunction about doing all that in front of us kids. He certainly was not gentle with me or my brothers either.
I use to fear his coming home.
He changed a lot in his late 50's...and stayed sober until his death in his 80's. He actually seemed to grow up, but there was never real forgiveness on my part for what we had to endure during his wild years. That kind of crap lives on...it never dies or even really dims.
My father was an alcoholic...and he enjoyed pushing his weight around when drunk. He beat my mother as well as verbally abused her...and had no compunction about doing all that in front of us kids. He certainly was not gentle with me or my brothers either.
I use to fear his coming home.
He changed a lot in his late 50's...and stayed sober until his death in his 80's. He actually seemed to grow up, but there was never real forgiveness on my part for what we had to endure during his wild years. That kind of crap lives on...it never dies or even really dims.
A harrowing, heartbreaking story, Libby. I kept thinking of how much role reversal was present & believing that detaching your sensibility and emotions from your mother, even for a moment would be abandonment of her in her time of need. I know the horribly tangled web of guilt and complicity that is spun from patterns like this can make sorting them out and getting free of them the work of a lifetime--but every bit of freedom achieved is a bit of motivation to keep us at the work. [r]
Yup.
I know the horror felt by the children of alcoholic parents.
I still hate the smell.
Healing begins when you let the rocks down by the wayside.
But the scars last forever and a day.
peace to us all.
I know the horror felt by the children of alcoholic parents.
I still hate the smell.
Healing begins when you let the rocks down by the wayside.
But the scars last forever and a day.
peace to us all.
So crazy, to hear your story on soemone else page. Very well done.r
jmac, thanks for launching the comment stream on this. I am no longer a "kid" either, though my "inner child self" (with healthy dependency needs I still have trouble considering "healthy") is still raw and distrusting of the adult me, deservedly so. She's still down inside me banging on the pipes when I numb out to my own needs in codependent- or self-rejecting trained mode. It has taken decades to acknowledge her. The trauma of being a prisoner of marital war in an alcoholic family is profound and the road to survival and recovery takes the balance of one's life, imho, so much of one's adulthood devoted to recovering from one's childhood in way too many lives like mine. Those who don't face down such a challenge in childhood can't begin to appreciate what the road is like. The older I get the more I see the vast scope of so many of us survivors. We stop comparing our "insides" to other people's "outsides" and realize as was it Lili Tomlin who said, "We're all in this alone." Counter-intuitive not to stay isolated, but ending the secrecy mandate of the alcoholic family code is key. I struggle so with that. Impression management inspired by shame still too often runs me. Posting this and being open and hopeful for validation is a good thing for me and I hope it gives some degree of validation or enlightenment to any readers I am grateful read through a not easy read. best, libby
gracious jane, thank you! i commend you for quitting what some consider the most ferocious of the addictions, nicotine. Good for you!
I am so grateful you related to what I wrote. We have all been there since human nature means human conflict and all families have serious challenges. But there is the matter of degree and frequency. And children in environments where the stress is off the charts so often are the so-called collaterally seriously damaged ones. Especially when the traumas ambush them so often and they have few opportunities of processing them and doing reality checks with the help of nurturing and attentive others.
Scott Peck says that families should act for children as a kind of base camp to make use of while climbing the mountain of life. But sometimes the base camp is so formidable and so tethering one needs a base camp for the base camp! Too often we are or were lost in enabling a draining base camp when we needed desperately to be nurtured by one that could be there for us.
yes, forgiveness. both my parents i loved dearly, they have passed on at this point. I see them as victims of victims of victims, etc. But pity and empathy from me for them does not diminish my profound awe and at times rage and at other times despair at the toxicity of my conditioning as a child at their hands. How it sabotaged the quality of my life. Confused by them dangerously. "fused" "with". Introverting their frustration and anger as a reflection of my own worth or lack thereof. Both my parents suffered profound psychological problems.
It made me have to struggle with a lack of existential grounding that comes from unconditional self love, the taste of which in best case scenarios is established early on from a sense of unconditional love from parents who have the conditioning to give it. Have unconditional self-love and self-acceptance for themselves.
Conditional love orientation is a desperate path, looking for one's worth externally. Makes life a gauntlet not the magnificent adventure that it can be. The gauntlet survivors have to struggle to leave off from. The gauntlet their own parents had to undergo too much of and too often in their lives.
I wish intellectual knowledge of the dynamics, which does help enormously, could quicken recovery, but I have discovered with decades that the damage is deep within mind, body AND spirit! Recovery a profound marathon.
again, thanks for reading and commenting!
best, libby
I am so grateful you related to what I wrote. We have all been there since human nature means human conflict and all families have serious challenges. But there is the matter of degree and frequency. And children in environments where the stress is off the charts so often are the so-called collaterally seriously damaged ones. Especially when the traumas ambush them so often and they have few opportunities of processing them and doing reality checks with the help of nurturing and attentive others.
Scott Peck says that families should act for children as a kind of base camp to make use of while climbing the mountain of life. But sometimes the base camp is so formidable and so tethering one needs a base camp for the base camp! Too often we are or were lost in enabling a draining base camp when we needed desperately to be nurtured by one that could be there for us.
yes, forgiveness. both my parents i loved dearly, they have passed on at this point. I see them as victims of victims of victims, etc. But pity and empathy from me for them does not diminish my profound awe and at times rage and at other times despair at the toxicity of my conditioning as a child at their hands. How it sabotaged the quality of my life. Confused by them dangerously. "fused" "with". Introverting their frustration and anger as a reflection of my own worth or lack thereof. Both my parents suffered profound psychological problems.
It made me have to struggle with a lack of existential grounding that comes from unconditional self love, the taste of which in best case scenarios is established early on from a sense of unconditional love from parents who have the conditioning to give it. Have unconditional self-love and self-acceptance for themselves.
Conditional love orientation is a desperate path, looking for one's worth externally. Makes life a gauntlet not the magnificent adventure that it can be. The gauntlet survivors have to struggle to leave off from. The gauntlet their own parents had to undergo too much of and too often in their lives.
I wish intellectual knowledge of the dynamics, which does help enormously, could quicken recovery, but I have discovered with decades that the damage is deep within mind, body AND spirit! Recovery a profound marathon.
again, thanks for reading and commenting!
best, libby
:) will be back soon to respond to balance of comments. thanks those of you who have rated and confided and acknowledged! it means a lot! xxxx libby
Fine work.
Scarlett, thanks for commenting and disclosing. It means so much and yet isn't it so sad realizing how so many many of us were put in that position of absorbing the shock. Trying to be there for them in their terrible isolation or terrible enmeshment beyond us so often. And we ARE survivors. Beyond victimhood to survivorship. And there is solidarity among us adult children of alcoholics or addicts or coaddicts. :) And there is an incredible degree of empathy we had to stretch to at a really young age that is valuable to living deeply. Along with classes in the school of life we missed and had to try to catch up with. best, libby
JD, thanks for reading and commenting. I appreciate it is an intense account. Probably the bravest thing I ever wrote, and it was years ago. Posting it is also brave. The code of secrecy among the children of alcoholics and spouses, too, is intense. Even with each other. Maybe especially with each other. best, libby
Firechick, writing about the experience and sharing does help. A lot! Thanks for confiding! best, libby
vzn, i did post this about a year ago when I was a newbie and I remember you and Brass. left comments and I appreciated that. I decided to re-post, especially having a greater readership. The politics of family as subject, and more personal, than politics of the nation I usually write about. Though I gotta tell you, vzn, after slogging my way to psychological sea level as an adult from that stress-filled background, looking at the horizon and seeing the enormous dysfunction of the nation family is like a cruel joke. You know what I am saying? Thanks for remembering this share from a year ago so well. best, libby
Firechick, writing about the experience and sharing does help. A lot! Thanks for confiding! best, libby
vzn, i did post this about a year ago when I was a newbie and I remember you and Brass. left comments and I appreciated that. I decided to re-post, especially having a greater readership. The politics of family as subject, and more personal, than politics of the nation I usually write about. Though I gotta tell you, vzn, after slogging my way to psychological sea level as an adult from that stress-filled background, looking at the horizon and seeing the enormous dysfunction of the nation family is like a cruel joke. You know what I am saying? Thanks for remembering this share from a year ago so well. best, libby
Stuart, thanks for your comment and I recognize that noble agenda with your work! We either expand or contract as a global human family. Alcoholism and codependency aren't the causes, they are the symptoms of "dis"ease. Physical or social or economic or spiritual or environmental. best, libby
"I wish today I could go back to that poor, pajamaed girl sitting on the edge of the couch in wide-eyed horror, harboring the guilty hope that this time her father wouldn't come home. This time he would die and then they'd all be left in peace.
I'd like to save that little girl all the guilt, self-hate and future heartache from such trauma."
This was like a fist in the gut, thoughts and memories I'd rather not have, but they are mine and the only childhood I have to remember. My dad didn't drink so we never knew when the explosions were coming, only the inevitability of their coming again. As would my mother's anxiety and iciness.
I remember wishing he was dead, then feeling guilty so I wished I was dead because there was no other way out. Well, now we don't have to have the guilt and self-hate, now we can find our way out.
Peace and love to you. Thank you for the post, I know what it cost.
I'd like to save that little girl all the guilt, self-hate and future heartache from such trauma."
This was like a fist in the gut, thoughts and memories I'd rather not have, but they are mine and the only childhood I have to remember. My dad didn't drink so we never knew when the explosions were coming, only the inevitability of their coming again. As would my mother's anxiety and iciness.
I remember wishing he was dead, then feeling guilty so I wished I was dead because there was no other way out. Well, now we don't have to have the guilt and self-hate, now we can find our way out.
Peace and love to you. Thank you for the post, I know what it cost.
Rudy, my heart goes out to both your wife and to you for what you have both weathered. What an extraordinary challenge for you and your family with your Mom so challenged with you that young. You all being so challenged. Thanks for disclosing so much.
When one parent winds up parenting the other parent (and that seemed to be true to a great degree in my family, my mother often asserted control) and asks the children sometimes to participate in the co-parenting. The way the kids do it depends on the roles they pick up for such families. And the difference is the kids still have to deal with both parents as their "authorities" and can be put in a trying triangle situation.
Robin Norwood wrote a book called Women Who Love Too Much and said that living with an active alcoholic was like being in a car accident every day, it takes so much out of your emotional spirit.
I rationalized a lot of my self-sacrifice for my mother's sake as acting out of pity, when sometimes it was out of a sustained fear, over her hysterical need at times to assert control over the uncontrollable, the chaos, and that willfulness of hers to too much over-ride the wills of her growing children, like the acting out of my alcoholic father, was also inappropriate and additionally toxic. Two issues. Dealing with alcoholism and dealing with codependency, and for my money they are both VERY dangerous to those around them. I was in denial of the codependency dimension because I slipped into that process addiction in an unhealthy way and still fight it.
You certainly have a generous and serene attitude with all you have been through, Rudy. I admire and appreciate you expressing that and having such resilience.
There's an expression I have heard in terms of having the kinds of backgrounds we have had as "recovery is learning to let go of what you never had." Appreciating what we did have, but mourning what we didn't have. The reality of it all. The wonderful times and the challenging, crazymaking times, acknowledging them and moving on.
I see adult children of dysfunctional families as often developing PTSD or complex-PTSD characteristics, with myself I have come to appreciate that, which means we have to struggle with symptoms like having a glass jaw to authority conflicts and sometimes identify with aggressors like in the Stockholm Syndrome, are often physically hypervigilant, lapse into psychic numbing ("wall watching" I used to call it), and suffer "survivor" guilt. When parents are mired in unhappiness and frustration one feels not entitled to reach for joy and freedom.
Anyway, every human being on earth has challenges in the journey of life. They say God divides, and never gives you more than you can handle, but sometimes brings you right to the rim!
take care of your precious self! best, libby
When one parent winds up parenting the other parent (and that seemed to be true to a great degree in my family, my mother often asserted control) and asks the children sometimes to participate in the co-parenting. The way the kids do it depends on the roles they pick up for such families. And the difference is the kids still have to deal with both parents as their "authorities" and can be put in a trying triangle situation.
Robin Norwood wrote a book called Women Who Love Too Much and said that living with an active alcoholic was like being in a car accident every day, it takes so much out of your emotional spirit.
I rationalized a lot of my self-sacrifice for my mother's sake as acting out of pity, when sometimes it was out of a sustained fear, over her hysterical need at times to assert control over the uncontrollable, the chaos, and that willfulness of hers to too much over-ride the wills of her growing children, like the acting out of my alcoholic father, was also inappropriate and additionally toxic. Two issues. Dealing with alcoholism and dealing with codependency, and for my money they are both VERY dangerous to those around them. I was in denial of the codependency dimension because I slipped into that process addiction in an unhealthy way and still fight it.
You certainly have a generous and serene attitude with all you have been through, Rudy. I admire and appreciate you expressing that and having such resilience.
There's an expression I have heard in terms of having the kinds of backgrounds we have had as "recovery is learning to let go of what you never had." Appreciating what we did have, but mourning what we didn't have. The reality of it all. The wonderful times and the challenging, crazymaking times, acknowledging them and moving on.
I see adult children of dysfunctional families as often developing PTSD or complex-PTSD characteristics, with myself I have come to appreciate that, which means we have to struggle with symptoms like having a glass jaw to authority conflicts and sometimes identify with aggressors like in the Stockholm Syndrome, are often physically hypervigilant, lapse into psychic numbing ("wall watching" I used to call it), and suffer "survivor" guilt. When parents are mired in unhappiness and frustration one feels not entitled to reach for joy and freedom.
Anyway, every human being on earth has challenges in the journey of life. They say God divides, and never gives you more than you can handle, but sometimes brings you right to the rim!
take care of your precious self! best, libby
thanks again, fellow readers and commenters. I'll be back to continue comments. Appreciate this precious opportunity to share! best, libby xxx
Frank, thanks so much for commenting here and disclosing so much about your own past trauma.
I am so sorry you had to witness such horror with your dad's physical and emotional terrorist drunken states. What a nightmare for you all.
I am glad you had some sustained time with your father when he was sober when he was older but you are right, that kind of trauma enters our molecules and stays with us.
To witness a significant loved one like a mother endure such surreal violence from another parental significant loved one and for her to expect her own children to endure it out of her or their helplessness, her or their pity, or love, or faux-social pragmatism, and in our parents' generation there was that "when you make your bed you lie in it" sense of forever commitment much more than today, IS PSYCHOLOGICALLY TRAUMATIZING.
The goal was "impression management" so much of the time to my mother, as the co-addict who couldn't control the drinking and its horrors so focused on controlling the kids to keep the secrecy. The trauma being brought down on the family's collective and individual heads did not get effectively addressed (UNDERSTATEMENT), on the contrary it escalated, as the serious focus always went on never letting anyone outside the family orbit know about the reality as that became harder and harder to endure and hide but amazingly people are willing to join in denial more often than facing a hard reality. How sick and profoundly disrespectful is that, to care about image more than horror, but that is why it is a group dysfunction "dis"ease ultimately? Everyone gets caught up in the group-think pathology.
As I have read a lot over the years about alcoholic family systems, one of the most interesting insights are the assigned roles kids seem to get for the convenience of a limping family system. The four basic ones are hero, mascot, lost child and scapegoat. One's identity kind of triggers an assigned role the child gets locked and strait-jacketed into.
I was the "mascot" growing up, which was kind of the family jester or cheerer upper. Training for being a compulsive people pleaser. As I became an adult and tried to assert my individualism, desperately, I switched roles with other brothers, becoming lost child and scapegoat and dealing with the confusing and harsh messaging from family about that reassignment, primarily my desperate codependent mother. Sometimes only children get stuck in running through the various roles.
Life throws challenges at us as human beings, but the trauma of growing up with adults who entered scary altered states is one of the cruelest and hardest to recover from in my opinion.
take care of your precious self. again, thanks for sharing. we are survivors of a special kind of insidious war of which I consider us pows.
best, libby
I am so sorry you had to witness such horror with your dad's physical and emotional terrorist drunken states. What a nightmare for you all.
I am glad you had some sustained time with your father when he was sober when he was older but you are right, that kind of trauma enters our molecules and stays with us.
To witness a significant loved one like a mother endure such surreal violence from another parental significant loved one and for her to expect her own children to endure it out of her or their helplessness, her or their pity, or love, or faux-social pragmatism, and in our parents' generation there was that "when you make your bed you lie in it" sense of forever commitment much more than today, IS PSYCHOLOGICALLY TRAUMATIZING.
The goal was "impression management" so much of the time to my mother, as the co-addict who couldn't control the drinking and its horrors so focused on controlling the kids to keep the secrecy. The trauma being brought down on the family's collective and individual heads did not get effectively addressed (UNDERSTATEMENT), on the contrary it escalated, as the serious focus always went on never letting anyone outside the family orbit know about the reality as that became harder and harder to endure and hide but amazingly people are willing to join in denial more often than facing a hard reality. How sick and profoundly disrespectful is that, to care about image more than horror, but that is why it is a group dysfunction "dis"ease ultimately? Everyone gets caught up in the group-think pathology.
As I have read a lot over the years about alcoholic family systems, one of the most interesting insights are the assigned roles kids seem to get for the convenience of a limping family system. The four basic ones are hero, mascot, lost child and scapegoat. One's identity kind of triggers an assigned role the child gets locked and strait-jacketed into.
I was the "mascot" growing up, which was kind of the family jester or cheerer upper. Training for being a compulsive people pleaser. As I became an adult and tried to assert my individualism, desperately, I switched roles with other brothers, becoming lost child and scapegoat and dealing with the confusing and harsh messaging from family about that reassignment, primarily my desperate codependent mother. Sometimes only children get stuck in running through the various roles.
Life throws challenges at us as human beings, but the trauma of growing up with adults who entered scary altered states is one of the cruelest and hardest to recover from in my opinion.
take care of your precious self. again, thanks for sharing. we are survivors of a special kind of insidious war of which I consider us pows.
best, libby
Donegal, thank you for your insightful and empathetic response.
You nail it, with your observation about role reversal. It was truly crazymaking growing up in a family where the father figure throws drunken childish but seriously dangerous tantrums and the children are expected to grow up and mature tiptoeing around him. With my mother, I was dizzy trying to second guess her desperate demands for when at some points to parent her, too, and when to let her parent, more often over-parent out of guilt and overcompensation, me. I felt there was "infantilization" and "parentification" of the kids going on which was dizzying, not based on our natural and appropriate life-stage maturation moments, but on her desperate needs and her co-dependent role and identity in the family.
Also, having a parent demand or set you up to parent them is not fair, since you are also under their authority as a child. Scott Peck once wrote how crazymaking and cruel to expect people to want to "tit-suck" from you and yet have the right to control you at the same time.
Donegal, you sum up the situation and assert the only road to recovery so well:
"I know the horribly tangled web of guilt and complicity that is spun from patterns like this can make sorting them out and getting free of them the work of a lifetime--but every bit of freedom achieved is a bit of motivation to keep us at the work."
Thanks, Donegal!!! best, libby
You nail it, with your observation about role reversal. It was truly crazymaking growing up in a family where the father figure throws drunken childish but seriously dangerous tantrums and the children are expected to grow up and mature tiptoeing around him. With my mother, I was dizzy trying to second guess her desperate demands for when at some points to parent her, too, and when to let her parent, more often over-parent out of guilt and overcompensation, me. I felt there was "infantilization" and "parentification" of the kids going on which was dizzying, not based on our natural and appropriate life-stage maturation moments, but on her desperate needs and her co-dependent role and identity in the family.
Also, having a parent demand or set you up to parent them is not fair, since you are also under their authority as a child. Scott Peck once wrote how crazymaking and cruel to expect people to want to "tit-suck" from you and yet have the right to control you at the same time.
Donegal, you sum up the situation and assert the only road to recovery so well:
"I know the horribly tangled web of guilt and complicity that is spun from patterns like this can make sorting them out and getting free of them the work of a lifetime--but every bit of freedom achieved is a bit of motivation to keep us at the work."
Thanks, Donegal!!! best, libby
Mission, very eloquently and poignantly said. Thanks for sharing you are a fellow survivor.
I hate the smell, too. Though I am often the last person to recognize when someone is high or seriously drunk around me at a social event it seems, even now. You would think I would be the first. Denial isn't only a river in Egypt, as they say.
Letting down the rocks is good advice. Accepting there are scars. Some of my wounds are not scarred over yet. Some are.
Peace to us all! Appreciated. Take care of your precious self and your own forever (as is the case with us all) recovering inner child. best, libby
I hate the smell, too. Though I am often the last person to recognize when someone is high or seriously drunk around me at a social event it seems, even now. You would think I would be the first. Denial isn't only a river in Egypt, as they say.
Letting down the rocks is good advice. Accepting there are scars. Some of my wounds are not scarred over yet. Some are.
Peace to us all! Appreciated. Take care of your precious self and your own forever (as is the case with us all) recovering inner child. best, libby
Thanks, Peter, for stopping by and reading and validating my especially personal blog. best, libby
Bleue! I am so grateful you stopped by and commented. Yes, a hard write and a hard read, too. Thank you for having role modeled courage and vulnerability at this site for me so often!
Alcoholism is the symptom of "dis"ease. There are a lot of us that are survivors of pathological states of parents traumatized from their own off the charts historical stress, whether there was substance addiction or not.
I relate to the "explosions". Whether my dad was drunk or not, too, they came. Engaging with him was often like walking across a mine field. You didn't know when or where the explosion of cruelty and malice would get triggered. Yes, he could also be lovable at times, but those moments were rare. Appropriate reactions to situations do not happen in a family when there was so much stress.
I see how hard I still respond to mistakes I make from the grotesque over-reactions of my parents. My mother could also go into scary scary either rage reactions or childlike hysteria over natural occurrences and accidents in life by her children that did not warrant such extreme paralyzing responses. Meanwhile, what should have been responded to, the violence of the alcoholic conflicts was minimized or denied or ignored immediately after the fact. No follow up communication until the next nightmare.
Dealing with my mother was like negotiating a very high tightrope with no net carrying her self-esteem and social image on my back. Trying to second guess what person she wanted me to be every second and step rather than having the freedom to discover my real self and to take risks and grow. As a kid it was clear to see the sickness of my father. it took decades to recognize that my pity for my mother had real fear mixed in and to finally identify her separate pathology and also consider its impact on my father and his life, not only his impact on hers and ours.
Peace and love back to you!!! Recovery is a serious marathon, not a sprint. best, libby xxx
Alcoholism is the symptom of "dis"ease. There are a lot of us that are survivors of pathological states of parents traumatized from their own off the charts historical stress, whether there was substance addiction or not.
I relate to the "explosions". Whether my dad was drunk or not, too, they came. Engaging with him was often like walking across a mine field. You didn't know when or where the explosion of cruelty and malice would get triggered. Yes, he could also be lovable at times, but those moments were rare. Appropriate reactions to situations do not happen in a family when there was so much stress.
I see how hard I still respond to mistakes I make from the grotesque over-reactions of my parents. My mother could also go into scary scary either rage reactions or childlike hysteria over natural occurrences and accidents in life by her children that did not warrant such extreme paralyzing responses. Meanwhile, what should have been responded to, the violence of the alcoholic conflicts was minimized or denied or ignored immediately after the fact. No follow up communication until the next nightmare.
Dealing with my mother was like negotiating a very high tightrope with no net carrying her self-esteem and social image on my back. Trying to second guess what person she wanted me to be every second and step rather than having the freedom to discover my real self and to take risks and grow. As a kid it was clear to see the sickness of my father. it took decades to recognize that my pity for my mother had real fear mixed in and to finally identify her separate pathology and also consider its impact on my father and his life, not only his impact on hers and ours.
Peace and love back to you!!! Recovery is a serious marathon, not a sprint. best, libby xxx
hugs, me, there is so much validation in your comment!!! THANK YOU!!
I remember when I finally went to my first 12-step Adult Children of Alcoholics meeting decades ago and the woman "qualifying" that night was telling MY story. (the closest I came to hearing it was when I read Plath's the Bell Jar and realized her struggle and confusion over her incredible pain resonated closely to my own). Anyway, as she spoke I think my jaw hung on the floor the whole time.
Thank you so much for reading and relating! One feels it is one's own secret war and one is the only pow of it, as I said to Frank above. I didn't even talk about my father's drinking with my brothers when we were kids. Why not I wonder? It would have helped all of us. The secrecy just ignore it mandate is INSANE.
It is a secret war that should be addressed, since when it is not addressed it is crazymaking for the millions of children like we were who deserved a reality check as to what was healthy and normal and what was toxic and destructive.
They say it is not the trauma that inflicts so much immediate as well as future dysfunction on one, but being obstructed from "processing" it by talking about it, detaching from it and going through those 5 stages of grief. Being asked to deny and minimize is so destructive and to stay an ongoing no escape victim for so long.
Recovery is like warming up your fingers that have been frostbitten. The pain stings, but it brings back life and functionality to them before it is too late. Ends the numbness. After so much pain and stress it is hard sometimes to trust there is joy as well as pain (endurable) beyond that numbness.
best, libby :)
I remember when I finally went to my first 12-step Adult Children of Alcoholics meeting decades ago and the woman "qualifying" that night was telling MY story. (the closest I came to hearing it was when I read Plath's the Bell Jar and realized her struggle and confusion over her incredible pain resonated closely to my own). Anyway, as she spoke I think my jaw hung on the floor the whole time.
Thank you so much for reading and relating! One feels it is one's own secret war and one is the only pow of it, as I said to Frank above. I didn't even talk about my father's drinking with my brothers when we were kids. Why not I wonder? It would have helped all of us. The secrecy just ignore it mandate is INSANE.
It is a secret war that should be addressed, since when it is not addressed it is crazymaking for the millions of children like we were who deserved a reality check as to what was healthy and normal and what was toxic and destructive.
They say it is not the trauma that inflicts so much immediate as well as future dysfunction on one, but being obstructed from "processing" it by talking about it, detaching from it and going through those 5 stages of grief. Being asked to deny and minimize is so destructive and to stay an ongoing no escape victim for so long.
Recovery is like warming up your fingers that have been frostbitten. The pain stings, but it brings back life and functionality to them before it is too late. Ends the numbness. After so much pain and stress it is hard sometimes to trust there is joy as well as pain (endurable) beyond that numbness.
best, libby :)
Very painful and raw read, Libby. Growing up with a mentally ill mother, I can relate the seesaw of emotions you went through every day. I'm glad you are writing about this. xo
thanks, erica. you have certainly role modeled for me courage and honesty at os! thank you! best, libby xxx
Such an incredibly personal, poignant post. I ache for the little girl and her parents who killed her childhood experience, but were never able to kill her spirit. My admiration goes out to you for your survival and your ability to communicate the realities of this everyday car wreck so eloquently. May your spirit never be silenced.
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