One of the things that really hurt and surprised me as I began to go through the recovery process - well first a word on recovery. So I'm new to all this stuff and am just now embracing the word "recover" at all, and here's my understanding of it so far.
First, I was open to learning about Adult Children of Alcoholics and curious about the idea that growing up in the kind of home that I did could have had a lasting effect on me today in relationships, work, and life in general. Then, I educated myself through books, websites, and after I got the nerve up - Al-Anon meetings. As I educated myself, I began to remember things and put them into a framework of things that families of alcoholics do and feel. I was able to look at my memories in a new way and think, "That was my mom in denial." Or... "That was my dad and his alcoholism demanding perfection from me." It was really liberating to be able to understand so many interactions by thinking of them from an educated viewpoint instead of from the viewpoint of a little girl who had no idea why these people who were supposed to love and support her were always so angry.
And then I started to feel really angry and sorry for myself. Most of my anger was targeted at my mom, which was weird to me, because she wasn't the alcoholic. But, since we now have what I would have previously described as a close relationship, I had blocked out a lot of my memories of her and the hurtful way she treated me. My dad's problems were more obvious to me, as was my anger toward him. I was angry at him most of my life, but as I've gotten older, I've felt more protective and sympathetic toward him, so maybe round 2 of repressed anger will be for him. We'll see. As these memories came back to me - sometimes hazily and sometimes in razor sharp flashes, I remembered how unavailable my mom was to me and how much it hurt growing up.
My dad was an alcoholic and the younger of my 2 older brothers, "John" was a drug addict by the age of 13. Clearly, my mom had her plate full, and around the time they sent John off to Hazelden in Minnesota for rehab, my mom decided to leave my dad. My mom told me recently that she started going to Al-Anon meetings around 1990 and eventually left my dad in 1996, between the years I was in 8th and 9th grades. Needless to say, this was a tumultuous time at home for everyone.
What really angered me though, was that my mom sought help in a fellowship and got herself out of a toxic relationship, but I feel that she left me behind. I split time between my mom and dad, and after my dad got physically violent with me one day, I stayed with her for most of the time from when I was around 16 on. So, it's not that she left me behind physically. But, she got help for herself, and she got John help through counseling, expensive rehab programs, etc. and it felt like since I didn't have an urgent diagnosis, I didn't get anything. It was as though by removing herself from the situation, she solved all the problems, but that didn't do anything for me and my relationship with my father.
She never offered to get me a therapist or bought me a book about alcoholism or even really sat down to talk to me about how I felt about everything that was going on. I know she mentioned Alateen to me and asked if I wanted to go, but I was so lost inside myself that I didn't have any idea what I needed and I just told her that I didn't have a drinking problem - dad did. I know I was stubborn as a teenager and she told me so many times herself. But now looking back on it, I didn't accept things that she offered because I harbored a lot of resentment and pain. I wish she had tried more, pushed more, because now I'm 27 and I've never dealt with any of this and I'm learning now that it doesn't go away on its own. I was the scapegoat of the family - more on that later. But basically my parents blamed many little things on me instead of accepting responsibility for the elephants in the room.
As I thought more about my interactions with my mom growing up, I couldn't remember a single positive thing that she had told me from the 6th grade on. She said I dressed like an orphan (grunge was in), I was an embarassment to the family, my friends were rude, my room was dark and messy, I was irresponsible (got that one a lot), I didn't put on makeup correctly, I was selfish, etc. The same messages came from my dad too, but I had forgotten how much my mom played into the negativity. I'm not as angry now as I was when I first started having these memories, but it still brings tears to my eyes as I write this.
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