A Difference Between ACoAs and Non-ACoAs

     A friend of mine was talking about a problem in his house.  The faucets outside his house were not hooked up to any pipes inside.  He wanted the faucets in order to use a hose to water things on his lawn.  If I was in his situation I would probably just carry buckets of water out each time I needed to water something.  But he wanted to get a plumber and actually fix the problem.        

     That’s when I discovered a key difference between ACAs and Non-ACAs.  ACoAs are maintainers, while Non-ACoAs are fixers.  I can’t tell you how many times I have shirked off the extra work it would take to fix something, to instead maintain.  I will either ignore the problem or I will find ways of keeping whatever it is working, but not put the effort in to fix the problem.  I would say to myself as long as it continues to work, then I don’t need to fix it.  This attitude applies to all aspects of my life.  The most obvious and important being how I have maintained my emotional health until I joined Al-Anon.

     I knew I was broken, that something wasn’t right in the way I thought of myself.  So I found small “patches”.  I wrapped tape around the leaking pipe that was my life, and hoped the tape would hold.  Sometimes these “patches” would be immersing myself in school, convinced if I did all the work that I would somehow feel accomplished, better.  Sometimes it meant I would never turn down a request for help, because helping people makes me feel good and again I thought I could take the gratitude and ease my inner turmoil. 

     And when these “patches” wouldn’t work, I would seek an escape.  I would focus on everything and anything if it didn’t mean I had to be in my head.  The big problem though was even if the “fixes” did work they were short-lived.  Something would happen and the tape would give way, the leak gradually increasing, my mental stability slipping away.

     I would pray desperately for enough strength to make it through.  Because that’s all I wanted.  To make it through without the dam bursting, without breaking down.  I am not proud of the ways I found to prevent the breakdowns, but they worked, and sometimes they were the only thing that did work.  I was not content to simply maintain, but I didn’t think I could be fixed.  Perpetually broken.

     Then I started Al-Anon.  For the first time I am finally trying to fix and not maintain.  I’m not using escapes as often or using unsavory “patches” to keep myself going.  I’m confronting my feelings, not pushing them down.  I’m standing up for myself more, and not letting myself get pushed around.  No longer am I adding patch after patch.  Now, piece by piece I am replacing the old pipe (my old way of thinking) with brand new solid and shiny copper pipe.

ACA Trait: Judge Ourselves Too Harshly

From the Laundry List, ACA Trait 11: "We judge ourselves harshly and have a very low sense of self-esteem."

     In high school I remember being told to write a fictional short story.  I’ve never been great at crafting fiction, so I pulled inspiration from my head.  I wrote about the three “voices” in my head.  One was sad and weepy, eternally broken.  The second was the calm yet unfeeling voice of reason and logic.  And the third was the hypercritical voice, sneering ever at my pathetic attempts to exist. 

     Growing up I knew I was never good enough, that I could always be better.  Each day I tried to be a better person, but I never succeeded, at least not in my eyes.  “Everyone makes mistakes.”  I would not allow myself to make mistakes.  If I did make a mistake I would bring down the hammer and scold myself for days, sometimes weeks for something minor.  

      It wasn’t until college that I realized how harsh I was to myself.  Even then it wasn’t apparent to me until someone else pointed it out.  I was talking to one of my friends, one whom I wasn’t real close with.  All of a sudden she turns to me and says, “You’re real hard on yourself, you know?”  I was taken aback by her words.  I hadn’t thought about it that way.  I simply was the way I was.  

     My friend’s words made me question how I treated myself.  But in the end I decided that I was responsible for me and if someone else wasn’t going to push me, I had to do it.  “If I don’t do it, who else will?”  So while I finally identified the critical voice in my head for what it was (an uncompromising bitch), I continued to allow it to talk and whisper in my ear.

     Then I started ACA, and I discovered that 1) having such a critical voice is indicative of adult children of alcoholics, 2) that it isn’t a good thing and is self destructive and 3) I didn’t have to it listen anymore.  Now when the critical voice pops into my head I identify it for what it is and I block out the venomous invective as best I can. 

ACA Child Roles

"Responsible Child" - "Family Hero"

This is the child who is "9 going on 40." This child takes over the parent role at a very young age, becoming very responsible and self-sufficient. They give the family self-worth because they look good on the outside. They are the good students, the sports stars, the prom queens. The parents look to this child to prove that they are good parents and good people.

As an adult the Family Hero is rigid, controlling, and extremely judgmental (although perhaps very subtle about it) - of others and secretly of themselves. They achieve "success" on the outside and get lots of positive attention but are cut off from their inner emotional life, from their True Self. They are compulsive and driven as adults because deep inside they feel inadequate and insecure.

The family hero, because of their "success" in conforming to dysfunctional cultural definitions of what constitutes doing life "right", is often the child in the family who as an adult has the hardest time even admitting that there is anything within themselves that needs to be healed.


"Acting out child" - "Scapegoat"

This is the child that the family feels ashamed of - and the most emotionally honest child in the family. He/she acts out the tension and anger the family ignores. This child provides distraction from the real issues in the family. The scapegoat usually has trouble in school because they get attention the only way they know how - which is negatively.

These children are usually the most sensitive and caring which is why they feel such tremendous hurt. They are romantics who become very cynical and distrustful. They have a lot of self-hatred and can be very self-destructive. This often results in this child becoming the first person in the family to get into some kind of recovery.


"Placater" - "Mascot" - "Caretaker"

This child takes responsibility for the emotional well-being of the family. They become the families 'social director' and/or clown, diverting the family's attention from the pain and anger.

This child becomes an adult who is valued for their kind heart, generosity, and ability to listen to others. Their whole self-definition is centered on others and they don't know how to get their own needs met. They become adults who cannot receive love, only give it. They often have case loads rather than friendships - and get involved in abusive relationships in an attempt to "save" the other person. They go into the helping professions and become nurses, and social workers, and therapists. They have very low self-worth and feel a lot of guilt that they work very hard to overcome by being really "nice" (i.e. people pleasing, classically codependent) people.


"Adjuster" - "Lost Child"

This child escapes by attempting to be invisible. They daydream, fantasize, read a lot of books or watch a lot of TV. They deal with reality by withdrawing from it. They deny that they have any feelings and "don't bother getting upset."

These children grow up to be adults who find themselves unable to feel and suffer very low self-esteem. They are terrified of intimacy and often have relationship phobia. They are very withdrawn and shy and become socially isolated because that is the only way they know to be safe from being hurt. A lot of actors and writers are 'lost children' who have found a way to express emotions while hiding behind their characters.

From: http://www.joy2meu.com/DysfunctionalFamilies.htm

The Laundry List – 14 Traits of an Adult Child of an Alcoholic

1. We became isolated and afraid of people and authority figures.
   
2. We became approval seekers and lost our identity in the process.
   
3. We are frightened of angry people and any personal criticism.
   
4. We either become alcoholics, marry them or both, or find another compulsive personality such as a workaholic to fulfill our sick abandonment needs.
   
5. We live life from the viewpoint of victims and we are attracted by that weakness in our love and friendship relationships.
   
6. We have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility and it is easier for us to be concerned with others rather than ourselves; this enables us not to look too closely at our own faults, etc.
   
7. We get guilt feelings when we stand up for ourselves instead of giving in to others.
   
8. We became addicted to excitement.
   
9. We confuse love and pity and tend to "love" people we can "pity" and "rescue."
   
10. We have "stuffed" our feelings from our traumatic childhoods and have lost the ability to feel or express our feelings because it hurts so much (Denial).
    
11. We judge ourselves harshly and have a very low sense of self-esteem.
    
12. We are dependent personalities who are terrified of abandonment and will do anything to hold on to a relationship in order not to experience painful abandonment feelings, which we received from living with sick people who were never there emotionally for us.
    
13. Alcoholism is a family disease; and we became para-alcoholics and took on the characteristics of that disease even though we did not pick up the drink.
    
14. Para-alcoholics are reactors rather than actors.
    
    
    
    
    
    Copied from Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization, Inc. here.

Characteristics of Adult Children of Alcoholics

Some characteristics I complied of COAs, children of alcoholics (also applies to those who grew up in a emotionally disruptive home):

   -the fear of loss of control
   -trust issues
   -avoidance of feelings
   -super responsibility/ super irresponsibility
   -judge themselves without mercy
   -have difficulty having fun
   -take themselves very seriously
   -have difficulty with intimate relationships
   -constantly seek approval and affirmation
   -feel that they are different from other people
   -become isolated
   -hard on themselves, often to the point of self-hatred
   -fear or feel uncomfortable around authority figures
   -uncomfortable when people focus on them
   -they have a great deal of anger inside of them
   -they keep others from getting to know them
   -they agree to activities that they later regret agreeing to
   -stuff their feelings
   -lose the ability to feel
   -view life as a victim
   -terrified of personal criticism
   -have low self-esteem

"I always find myself in the middle of chaos, never understanding how I got there."