The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
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I feel rather sarcastic right now. I feel like I want to make a silly joke out of this behaviour, yet I know sarcasm will get me nowhere.
Almost week at home with my parents and our family perfection needs to be maintained to the outsider's eye. God help me shall I decide to make a mistake or silly decision. From buttering my bread to making travel arrangements, all needs to be made and planned perfect. All needs to go smooth. All needs to be as good as it gets, and then even better. Cos this is our family and we are 'perfect', smarter than anyone else, all other people are less than and we are here to prove it! This is the silent agreement i see all around me.
Our family used to have lots of rock&roll while my dad was drinking. My most terrifying memory is when one morning, i must have been around 13, he argued with my mum, and next thing i know while eating breakfast, i see him grabbing her by her neck. Choking feeling sets down on me as I type this, my neck is stressed every time i go back to that horrible day. My chest fills out with pain and fear now too and one day I will go through this feeling and never look back again witht his physical memory..... but not yet. We, as family, still operate with unspoken survival skills at hand for many years now.
And so when I announce I plan to do this or that, something sounds unusual to my dad, I meet his negative head shake, i meet his discouraging tone of voice that puts me down and puts doubt deep into my core. I meet a ridicule reasoning if i try to carry on in my own way. I hear sarcasm and I am so discouraged, that i feel like a powerless 5 year old that needs her daddy to cross the bloody road. I give my parents so much control, my HP must be having a good time off on some other planet!! And its so compulsive in my case... and I am 32 years old now.
The other day toilet kept running water.. i mean, it wouldn't naturally stopped after being flushed. I forgot that in our house we need a culprit for everything that goes wrong. My father shouting through the house 'Who was the last one using it??!! Digital tv decoder decides to freeze, my mother looks at remote in my hand and asks" what have you done?!'. There MUST be blame assigned, and the one who seems to be nearest the bloody technology things or mechanical machine needs to hear how 'stupid' she/he is. Why cannot we just let go of this, realize that things break, see if we can fix it and MOVE ON? Shame and guild. Operating in our family as general major.
So these are few of my observations for today. I am blessed to be near my parents and connect with them after 18 months. I am very lucky to be able to see where I can change to make my life better. But I am still doing too much of Self Will, I can see that.
I see no self-will in your story. What I do see is unconscious emotional abuse. You, on the other hand, sound conscious. You see the pattern and you're not in denial. You may be blessed in some ways by your parents, but you certainly aren't being nurtured or encouraged by them. Those of us who have grown up in very sick families who look perfect or try to look perfect tend to think we're in the "wrong" and "guilty of something" when we see the elephant in the room and call it what it is. Perhaps being away with them for 18 months has helped open your eyes to a healthier way of thinking and behaving. I do hope you have your own support network and home apart from your parents' home? They might never be the parents you'd like them to be, but you can learn how to re-parent yourself now that you are seeing the pattern that you find unsettling and painful.
((((Z))))...God that sounded and felt so familiar to me...I learned in the program that in part I was the culprit. I also learned that my part in that was that I had allowed it to happen without resistence and then the finally lesson was that when I left the family to go out on my own (an escape) my parents handed me the abuse paradigm and told me to keep practicing it...and I did until I got into Al-Anon and stopped the self blame and put downs. I was both surprised when I found out and pissed that I would carry on where my Mom and step-Dad had left off. Self love, self affirmations, self care where very healing lessons for me and I didn't need my parents permission to cast off the old abuses and rebuild my life. Maybe you're not a culprit and just an easy usual target. When I learned to say to my "blamers" "That's not true" after the put downs and crap without fighting and explanations and to calmly turn and walk away it ended. I had to do some other stuff which you might not be ready or able to do though if you're ready to build the courage there are lots of alternatives to taking blame and being the scape goat. It would help your parents also to learn unconditional love and just fix he damn toilet without blaming...Keep coming back...you're loved here. (((((hugs)))))
I am sorry you made me laugh here, I have learnt two major things reading this, CULPRIT, lol and blaming wow, and I love the explanation from jerry "thats not true", I have spent virtually my entire life trying to explain and justify why? who? what? where? and today learning the simplicity of? thats just not true, I have laughed because years ago an insurance book got lost, everyone was accused, it came to light a few years later and would you believe the blamer had put it somewhere, when we have a head cold, we are asked where did we get it? I still find it hard to believe I don't have to answer every question I am asked, it's insanity verses reality isn't I suppose, but I know exactly what you mean, I love your humour you say it very well, and for me to be able to make a joke of it hepls alot if I didn't laugh alot of the time I would cry, thanks for your post xxxxxxxx
The thought that came to me was detachment needed ASAP. I do this by imagining when I am accused of something that the speaker just called me a chair. I know in my heart and mind I am NOT a chair so I don't take it personally. Just because a certain person says something does not make it so. And by telling myself I am not a chair or I did not cause the toilet to overflow, I don't get all churned up inside!
HTB, I did not grow up in alcoholism. When I met my hubby's family I saw exactly what you are describing. It was foreign to me. As my marriage to the hubby progressed and he also progressed in his alcoholism I saw my own family becoming this way. It was as if I were drawn into it without my consent. I resisted and was mocked and told how wrong I was. I worked to protect the kids from it. I took all blame on myself because I could see the truth..... the kids couldn't. They were taught to respect.
I had a huge argument with the hubby once about respect. I said I was raised to respect and honor authority because they earned it and I could see that they were respectful to others. When I saw disrespect toward others it put up red flags and I proceded with caution. The hubby, on the other hand, was raised to respect no matter what he saw in others. He had to respect his parents even when they were disrespectful to the rest of the family. I was NOT raised in alcoholism. He was.
Detach. Use your AlAnon. You are becoming aware. Then comes acceptance of what you see. Then you will know the actions you have to take.
Hello HappyToBe, You sound as if you have great skills at observing triggers and your own reactions to them - what a gift it will be if your folks looked up and followed your example! In the meantime, each to their own. Congratulations.
All your posts, every single one here above, are like a magic healing balm.
It's painful to agree my parents are not the most healthy folks out there, but this program allows me to accept that and hopefully with practice I will find my way to do just that. Thank you.x
