What is EMOTIONAL Abuse? (Part 1)

 

I’M ALWAYS DRAINED or ANNOYED
after being with that person!

PREVIOUS: ‘What is abuse?’

REVIEW series of posts on Emotions

NOTE: How others treat us is about them (their health or damage). How we react to others is about us (our wounds or Recovery!)

EMOTIONAL ABUSE (E.A.)
“Emotional abuse is underneath all other types – the most damaging aspect of physical, sexual, mental, etc. abuse is the trauma to our hearts and souls, from being betrayed by the people that we love and trust.”
“Emotional abuse is a devastating, debilitating heart and soul mutilation. The deepest lasting wound with any abuse is the emotional wound.”
From Co-dependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls, by Robert Burney    (Read more….)

• E.A. is also sometimes referred to as Psychological or Mental Abuse, divided into Verbal Aggression, Dominant and Jealous Behaviors – by the “Conflict Tactics Scale”. The US Justice Dept. considers it anything that causes fear by intimidation. Health Canada identifies it as being motivated by urges for “power and dyscontrol✶”.  Unlike sexual or physical mistreatment, which can cause lasting trauma with only one event, E.A. comes from repeated exposure.  It can show up in many guises, obvious or subtle, a form of violence experienced in any relationship that is just as damaging as physical assaults, if not more so – because it goes to the core of who we are as human beings.  (from Wikipedia)

✶Dyscontrol : “An uncommon disorder that begins in early childhood, characterized by repeated acts of violent aggressive behavior in an otherwise normal person, which is markedly out of proportion to the events that provoked it”

Noticing E.A.
E.A. can be very difficult to identify because:
a. very often there are no outward signs of it, such as physical scars or broken bones. It ‘only’ breaks our spirit! It includes the use of coercion, threats, insults, neglect…. to control the other, who loses (or never gains) self-esteem & freedom to grow.   Victims of E.A. blame themselves for the mistreatment & their S-H makes them cling to perpetrators, staying because they believe they have nowhere else to go & no one else will want them

b. it’s so common in our culture that we don’t consider it a problem. Alice Miller’s “For Your Own Good” (1980) describes this issue.  And her “Banished Knowledge” is about how we’re taught from early on to ignore being treated badly (T.) & how it feels (E.).  People who are emotionally hurtful are everywhere & are usually oblivious to the effect they have. This includes people who:
• only talk & think about themselves (no room for us)
• don’t consider our personality when interacting to us (only their own)
• try to make us take care of them, make us feel guilty, be needy…..
• try to fix us with action-ideas, when we’re only needing empathy
• tell us what to do, how to think, how to feel
• tease us using things they know we’re sensitive about
• make a judgmental or belittling comment to us in front of others

ALSO, when someone is the butt of such treatment the people around them often validate pubic humiliation & thoughtless or cruel remarks by laughing, as if the comment was clever & amusing, or even cheering the perpetrator on – as long as it’s not being done to them! This applies to siblings, school mates, co-workers, club members… When we are the target – we feel terribly alone, hurt & angry.

Our Emotional Reactions
✶ The most important thing to remember is that ALL categories of abuse cause emotional damage. We need  to notice how those actions or words make us feel emotionally – as in NOT happy!
UNDER – No matter how much we know about our issues, without doing deeper FoO work many ACoAs have a hard time even recognizing familiar abuses as they’re happening, much less feeling an emotional sting. Because we’re still numb to old pain & unloving toward ourselves, it’s very hard to connect our depression & S-H with being exposed to E.A.
• It’s as if we were wearing that huge white medical collar that vets sometimes put on dogs/cats – we can see over the top, but not the knife in someone’s hand as they stick it in our gut – especially if they’re smiling! We may feel some pain, but don’t understand that it’s truly coming from outside of ourselves. As trained victims, we always assume that if we’re hurting it a sure sign there’s something wrong with us. NOT SO!

OVER – When we do over-react emotionally to a person or event, the tricky part is being able to separate what just happened in the present from the accumulated suffering of past abuse. Often it IS a combination of the two, in layers – like when someone only ‘stepped on your toe’, but it feels like the foot has been cut off & we’re left bleeding, because of all the times our family did the same thing to us. Whenever we have an intense reaction we know “If it’s hysterical, it’s historical”. We can validate our fear, outrage, sadness…. while still staying in the present moment & seeing reality. SO -

We Need To:
• double check if something was actually an abusive situation – or are we reading into it (projection) because it’s so similar to what was repeatedly done to us when we were kids.
– We can ask ourselves : Did this call for such an intense reaction? Do I feel like I’m being stomped on, discarded like garbage or my life being threatened – when all someone did was not phone or write me back – immediately / looked at me ‘funny’ / didn’t say hello /  told me what to do…..
– ‘Checking’ includes asking someone we trust for an evaluation of the event, or going back to the original person & asking what they meant by ___, or why they did ____. Whether they tell us the truth or not, many times their answer will be surprising – it’s not what we thought they meant, because it had nothing to do with us. It’s important to ask.
As Well As:
• be able to identify unpleasant or inappropriate words & actions that we are subjected to, not ignoring the event or how we feel. For some ACoAs this may take outside validation, including comparing lists of ‘Our Rights’ with those of Abusive Behaviors.

✶ All Over & Under-reactions come from either our WIC or PP. Appropriate ones come from our UNIT.
Learning to tell the difference between actual abuse & our projections or paranoia comes from internalizing the healing of Recovery work, accumulated information about present-day reality & validation of our feelings & experiences, via meetings, reading, healers & therapists.

NEXT: Emotional Abuse (Part 2)

Considering Abuse

 

I’M SO UNHAPPY BEING WITH THEM -
but it must be my fault!

Previous : S & I – Healthy Individuation (Part 2)
Article re. categories of abuse

NOTE: This series will have many lists of abusive behaviors, in many categories, & from different perspectives, so there will be a lot of over-lap in headings and examples. This is deliberate. As kids we HAD to ignore, trivialize or forget what was done to us, & then act out those self-destructive patterns in our everyday lives.
We must identify exactly what happened before we can change it, & repetition is useful in breaking thru our denial. Also, reading or hearing something in different wording & context can more easily get past our defenses. The main (but not exclusive) focus of these posts is on Emotional Abuse.

ABUSE :  It can happen just once with someone, or when we’re subjected to a bully for a short while. But usually it’s a long-term pattern of behavior by a severely damaged,  cruel, angry &/or mentally ill person who uses their position (as parent, boss, teacher, mate, older sibling or friend, community leader…. ) to intimidate others who have less personal or social power, OR to take advantage of those who by nature or training are more accommodating & compliant.
While most people act unkindly, even cruelly on occasion, when provoked or under great stress, what we are looking at here is ongoing attitudes & actions that tear us down, body & soul. Even when they seem intermittent, over time they wear at us !

• In general, Abuse is any communication or behavior designed to control & enslave others – to keep them ‘in their place’, to keep them from leaving, to punish them for not being who or what the perpetrator expects, or to make them into what he/she wants! It is done by continual fear, humiliation, intimidation, guilt, coercion & manipulation. Abuse is any form of intrusion into another’s psyche. It will include verbal, physical, sexual and/or emotional attacks, financial, intellectual or spiritual tactics, ranging from mild to lethal. To not respect privacy, to be brutally honest with a sadistic sense of humor, be consistently tactless, to expect too much, to denigrate, to ignore…. causes pain.

• Most people automatically assume ‘abuse’ only refers to physical harm – yelling, hitting, beating, broken bones …. so will firmly state: “I was never abused growing up”. However, because human beings are made up of 4 interlocking categories (PMES = Physical, Mental, Emotional, Spiritual) we can be wounded OR encouraged in many ways at each level. Therefore ACoAs can honestly say that we were severely & regularly abused by our damaged parents (& other authority figures) , especially in our emotions (Es). Since honest emotions are NOT widely recognized, valued or encouraged in our society AND in dysfunctional families, we ended up ignoring or minimizing them in ourselves, as well as in others, especially if we didn’t get physically or sexually attacked as kids.

• Most of us never felt loved. Regardless of what our parents said, or how they felt about us in their own minds & hearts – their distorted way of treating us was not an expression of healthy Love. So to compensate, we look for that everywhere we go, & from everyone we deal with. This makes us vulnerable to a subtle form of abuse – being ‘over-loved’, needed & depended on too much, OR being over-protective & infantilized. These are actually ways to treat us as an extension of themselves, as an object rather than a separate being, or a means of their personal gratification. It’s never about what the ‘beloved’ really needs or wants.

PERPETRATORs (Perps):
The most successful perps are “stealth abusers”, being indirect & sneaky, so one have to actually live with them to see & experience it.  Being consistently selfish, controlling & mean is an immature reaction to earlier painful life experiences when the abuser was totally helpless. They use it now as a defense against their own S-H, rage & shame.  It’s about trying to finally feel powerful, assert their identity, create safety & predictability, to be master of everything in their environment – to never feel vulnerable again or have to face their original wounds.
It’s irrelevant whether perps are being deliberately abusive or just unconsciously acting out their damage. The effect on others (us) is the same! This of course also applies to how we treat others.

VICTIMs :
While the majority of physical & sexual abuse is perpetrated against women & children, men in both hetero- & homo- sexual partnerships are also emotionally & physically battered. And now we are beginning to hear more about peer bullying and elder abuse.   Studies show that women with any kind of major disability are at greater risk, as are unemployed men in a household where the woman works.
Victims can be of any age or gender & from any socio-economic level. While standards are different in various cultures, it occurs in virtually all countries. Because it is often learned at an early age, being abused (learned helplessness) is passed from generation to generation like a family disease, called the inter-generational cycle.

Victim’s reaction to abuse
Very confused – Do I have a right to say, or even think, that what’s happening is really Abuse? I doubt it. After all, sometimes the other person is nice to me and fun to be with, says they can’t live without me, or tells me they’re sorry. And the abuse isn’t always obvious, other people like him/her, so I may just be making it all up!  Is how I feel (self-doubting, drained, fearful, angry, frustrated, hopeless …) about what the other person is doing, or am I just over-reacting?

NEXT: What is Emotional Abuse?

Roles & Co-dependence

HEAD OR HEART?
I use whatever will hide the real me!

PREVIOUS: Part 2: Info @ the Roles

Co-dependence (Co-dep) is a family-systems syndrome that develops in reaction to the stress of addiction or other “shameful secret”.
DEF:
• A pathological way to live “through the expectations of others”
• An addiction to being in a supportive role in any relationship
• Keeps the co-dep✶ one-up (better than) & the addict one-down
✶ BUT, at the same time – the co-dep feels like a Victim, makes the addict into the Perpetrator & then feels resentful (Co-dep triangle).  Co-deps look strong but feel helpless, act controlling but are actually being controlled by their compulsion to save someone else

IT RULES US WHEN:
a. We focus all our attention on the needs, feelings & problems of another person – instead of ourselves – including the ones we think they have, in order to make that person love us AND never leave us.  So we feel guilty when we don’t tend to their wishes, needs or demands!

b. The False Self  (FS)✶ we developed in our dysfunctional home makes us believe we need someone & something outside of ourselves to be complete, to feel safe, to have any worth at all, even to give us permission to exist!
✶ Basing life on a False Self robs us of our dignity & individuality! It is what the Adapted Child ego state becomes when we are not properly nurtured in childhood, & which ends up running our life until we do FoO work in Recovery

• The concept of the FS was developed in the 60s by Donald Winnicott, who specialized in Object-Relations psychology. The FS is motivated by a basic need to survive, starting in infancy – an unconscious choice to change our behavior, repress our emotions & push aside our own needs – to fit in with others who cannot accept us as we really are. It comes out of a desperate attempt to control a person or situation that is actually out of our control

• It includes 5 levels, the most extreme case being when the True Self is completely hidden, while the FS appears authentic to the person & everyone else, & may be successful in the world but fails in intimate relationships
➼ In contrast, the True Self is the core of we who are, unshaped by upbringing or society, the person we were born as & still exists inside us

Symptoms of Co-dep: Avoiding emotions, being controlling, care-taking, denial, distrust, guilt, hyper vigilance, intimacy problems, perfectionism, physical illness from stress.  • Basic Rules:
– It’s not OK to feel, to have problems, to have fun
– If anyone acts bad, irresponsible or crazy – it’s my fault
–  I’m not good enough just as I am
• Qs to see how co-dependent you are or are not:
– Who am I?   — What do I want?     — What are my needs?
–  What makes me happy?    angry?    sad?

Roles & Co-dependence
Toxic Family Roles (TFR) inevitably foster co-dependency. They’re a way of organizing & expressing it, taken on to ‘make sense of’ & cope with the dysfunction, but also enabling the addict to continue their toxic life-style.  Co-dep is reinforced by well-known cognitive distortions (CDs) :
• Minimize: acknowledge that there may be a problem, but make light of it
• Project: blame the problem on others & often pick out a child to be the Scapegoat, to bear the family’s shame & ‘badness’
• Intellectualize: explain the problem away – assuming that by offering a convenient excuse or explanation the problem will be resolved
• Deny: demand that oneself & everyone else believe there is no problem.

Co-dependency uses overt & covert rules which close each member off from outside world, BY:
• discouraging healthy communication of issues & feelings among themselves, & everyone else
• destroying their ability to trust themselves or others in intimate relationships
• freezing into unnatural roles, making interaction with others stiff & limited
• teaching each person to completely focus on someone else’s desires or problems, so they gradually lose the ability to know their own Es, wants & needs
• preventing children from growing & developing their fundamental identity, gradually ‘becoming’ the Role forced on them by the disease

Sharon Wegscheider-Cruse notes that the longer people play a role, the more rigidly fixed they becomes in it. Eventually, family members “become addicted to their role, seeing it as essential to their survival and playing it out with the same compulsion, delusion & denial as the Dependent plays his or her role as drinker / addict”  Another Chance: Hope & Health for the Alcoholic Family.

• In addictive & other dysfunctional homes, the ‘problem person’, most often a parent, doesn’t pull their weight (fulfill their appropriate family role) so:
– others have to take on a lot of work & effort to make up for it
– the rest of the family feels compelled to take care of the ‘sick’ one, both out of love & in order to fix them so that the whole unit will work better, WHICH leaves everyone depleted & defeated!

• Because the damaged / damaging person is so focused on their own activities & inner drama, they can’t be there for anyone else, for sure not emotionally & spiritually, sometimes mentally & physically as well. This triggers a great need, especially in the children, to do everything they can to win or earn the love & attention they’re not getting & desperately need. That compulsion turns into co-dependence, which keeps us trapped -  trying to get love from people who are not available AND not knowing to look for those who are already capable.
✶✶ The saying “My loving you is none of your business!” means we can’t make someone love us & we can’t stop them from loving us!

AS ADULTS -
• Co-dependency can show up as occupational instability, as well as produce secondary addictive & compulsive behaviors
• the TFRs we grew up with drive every aspect of our life, being replicated at work, school, family & in all social interactions (employee, student, spouse, parent, friend). Understanding the components of each childhood role give us all the clues needed to identify adult acing-out & make it possible to slowly outgrow, even if no one else in the family has made any changes!

NEXT: The HERO role

‘TRYING TO LEAVE YOU’ Stages (Part 3)

 

I’D RATHER SUFFER WHERE I AM
than face all the trauma of leaving!

PREVIOUS: “Trying to leave you” (Part 1)

STYLES of  ‘Leaving’
1. ACoA AVOIDERS (Part 1)

2. ACoA CLINGERS
b. Denial
• We convince ourselves the situation isn’t really that bad – that the mate / job / parent / sponsor / friend … has some ‘superior’ qualities we can’t live without (they may have, but it’s just crumbs, compared to the problems!)
• Some even KNEW before we got married that this was not the right person, but went thru with it anyway

c. Control
• We make a huge effort to change the other person so we don’t have to leave, instead of changing ourselves. We badger, cajole, lecture, push, punish, bribe, manipulate. We get back only more resistance – of course!
• We spend a lot time punishing the other person for not being who & what we want, instead of moving on or letting go of our demands & expectations of another

d. Care-taking
• We take care of them, do all we can, listen, take time, help with practical things, do way more than we should, pay for everything, worry, do research, take them to get help…. We must fix them, so it’ll work out.. anything to NOT have to leave
• THEN we feel resentful that we’re not appreciated, that they are not getting better, not treating us better, not valuing all we’ve done!

e. Guilt
GUILT is generated by breaking a Toxic Rule, in this case: “Other people’s needs & feelings are more important than mine”.
• We thoroughly believe we can not tell others what we really think, how we feel about things that bother us, what we really want -  in order to not ‘upset’ them, make them angry, make them leave
• To stand up for ourselves would cause too much guilt, which we can’t bear. So we stay, & suffer
• We stay because someone guilts us (see ‘victim’) – “I need you, I’ll kill myself, I can’t make it alone, no one else understands me….”

f. Victim
• We complain to everyone about how bad things are, but don’t change the things that we can – acting out the martyr role
• We threaten the other person with leaving, but as long as we’re ambivalent, they doesn’t take us seriously
• If the other plays the victim card, we identify with them so much , we can’t abandon them – after all they say they LOVE US sooo much!

g. Self-Hate
• When we’re with narcissists, addicts, the emotionally immature… that are not able to connect with us as equals so we feel deeply lonely.  Since we’re so used to that from childhood,  we think it’s normal AND that it’s our fault!
• We’re so beaten down by the verbal / physical abuse of a boss, partner, ‘friend’… that we believe no one else will want us/ hire us, just like our family didn’t care & told us we were stupid & worthless

h. Bargaining
• When we DO notice something is wrong in the relationship, we bargain with ourselves, the other person, even H.P.:
“If he gets help / stops using / stays sober, I’ll stay”
“If we have another kids, he won’t want to leave”
“If they give me a raise, change my chair, give me less work, get off my back … I can do this”
“If she only got a job / lost weight / had more sex with me, things would be ok”
“If I help him out financially just for a little while he won’t be so depressed, so violent, so suicidal….“
….  BUT we’re just conning ourselves!

i. Staying too long
• Even though all ACoAs have a deep fear of commitment, many will hang on & on & on… even when we know very well that certain ‘people, places & things’ are not good for us or not what we want
• We stay too long, ignoring the signs of disintegration, sometimes to the point of not noticing, until it hits us in the gut. Then we’re devastated!

j. Getting Dumped
• Even when we get the message that the other person is done with us, some ACoAs just can’t believe or accept it!  We’ll stubbornly stick around, keep pushing for an explanation, cajoling, manipulating…..
• When we do get dumped, some of us chase after the person – texting, calling, threatening, begging….
Having our old abandonment pain re-awakened is excruciating!

OUTCOME: Whether we do the leaving or get left – we feel abandoned.  It touches that deep well of childhood pain, from when we were totally dependent and powerless to stop others from hurting us.
✶ We are NO longer children. We need to CHOOSE healthier friends, lovers, jobs… We can learn to cope with loss in a new way in the present, but we’ll always have to deal with the old pain, when it gets kicked up.

NEXT: Healthy Boundaries – Info

‘TRYING TO LEAVE YOU’ Stages (Part 2)

I GUESS THIS IS GOODBYE
How could this happen to me!?

PREVIOUS: Part 1: Intro, Differentiating, Limiting, Stagnating

▼ ACTS OF DISTANCING ▼  (cont)

2.  AVOIDING

Normal: The 2 people have been in a committed relationship, but no longer see themselves in the dyad. They’ve withdrawn their emotions & are ‘spending‘ them elsewhere. Deep emotional distance is an indicator that the union is no longer salvageable. Each person knows in their mind  & heart they’re detaching, & need to protect themselves.

• They reorganize their lives to avoid being together & may even verbalize it: “I don’t want to talk to ____”. It can also show up by sleeping in separate beds or rooms, & one or both looking for a new place to live.
• People not living together will avoid calls, emails & texts.
“Leave me a message & I’ll get back to you” , “I’m really busy, so I’m sure you’ll understand if we don’t get together this week”.
Usually there’s less fighting, but what’s left may be sniping, sarcasm, put-downs. Otherwise, communication is only about practical necessities

1. TERMINATING (Final)
Normal: This stage can be done rather quickly or be dragged out for years.
• It is the actual physical leaving of the relationship with a little or a lot of psychological finality. If both parties can accept this, it makes it much easier to move on. “I can’t do this any more. This is the end for me.”  — “Yeah, sure, whatever you say.”
• When one partner has come to their ending point, it’s important & respectful (‘clean‘) to actually tell the other person.  This is more likely with a longer-term connection.  Often with less developed ties, one person just stops taking calls, emails…

• Verbal messages are used to prepare for the end by only using ‘I’ or ‘me’ statements, & meant to create finality & permanent distance “This relationship isn’t working for me anymore” , “Please don’t call me again” .
• It’s not uncommon for one or both people to have another relationship, job, even a new city… waiting in the wings, even if the new ‘love’ is temporary, to get them thru the transition.
✶ Leaving may actually be a benefit for both, even if it hurts. They may need it to continue their career, their personal growth or to start a more suitable lifestyle.
♥               ♥                ♥
COMMENTS
Re. ACoAs: It’s difficult to make notes for each stage separately because we are so extreme – not going thru the steps at all, going thru them all in the first few weeks or staying for years even when we know better…. We too experience endings (leaving or being left), but suffer more that people who are less wounded. So these are general observations of ACoA patterns

LEAVING:  Regardless of our style, personality type…. when we can’t bear it anymore – we leave, but rarely in a healthy way:
a. We cut people off – cold turkey, without explanation & refuse any opportunity for closure.  If they’re the Clinging type, they will be unprepared & dumbfounded. We’re angry or fed up. We don’t want to deal with their abandonment issues, their tantrums, their sulking & self hate. We don’t want to get sucked back in. Our boundaries are not strong enough & it’s just not healthy

b. OR – one or both create such drama, fighting, emotional upheaval – that the only possible outcome is an explosion & then the big split.  We don’t want to feel our abandonment pain either – anger is a cheap, fast & sometimes cruel or physically dangerous way to get out
c. For some, no matter how bad the situation, there’s no leaving – only an ending when one partner dies
d. Some are capable of more appropriate exits, but it’s rare

STYLES
1. ACoA AVOIDERS: Some ACoAs are so afraid of commitment, being trapped, being abused & then left, that they don’t make long-term connection at all, or they have short serial relationships, friends, jobs…
• They go thru these 5 steps very quickly, over & over, always finding fault with any hint of imperfection, always picking people & situations which reproduce our original abuse & abandonment, OR not giving themselves & others a chance to develop connections that would be beneficial

2. ACoA CLINGERS
a. Fantasy
● ACoAs often start out in a fantasy fog of symbiosis, all hopeful & excited. There may be very little thought, just a whirlwind of feelings. Or the thought is: ‘This time it will be different’
● Then the dis-illusionment.  The other person says or does something so unacceptable that it breaks the trance of togetherness.  It may be something truly inappropriate, or just that they pushed an old button of ours.
● We may object, complain, attack, but we stay rather than start over. We accept the unacceptable & spend a lot of effort covering it up. And we feel depressed.

NEXT: “Trying to Leave you” (Part 2) – ACoAs Clingers & Leaving

NOTICING Painful EVENTS (Part 2)

I JUST DON’T GET IT:
why are they trying to tell me?

 PREVIOUS: Noticing Painful Events (Part 1)

 

 
1. EVENTS (cont.)
b. PRESENT
• As adults we are still so focused on the possibility of being abused &/or abandoned – again, that we either isolate much of the time, we’re belligerent & difficult, or are super people-pleasers (3 styles: stay away, keep at arm’s length or connect by placating – the ‘co-dependent triangle’).

So every ‘event’ that upsets, hurts, disappoints & scares us becomes a cause for emotional drama. Based on childhood experiences coupled with our negative thinking, we don’t deal with situations from an appropriate, Healthy Adult, perspective

EXP of ‘Events’
• You’re having lunch with a group of casual friends & new acquaintances.  Everyone seems to easily be engaged in conversation with their neighbors, & almost no-one has talked to you the whole time
• You’re walking down the hall at work & yet again Georgia doesn’t acknowledge you
• You’re trying to cross a busy street & just then a cab turns the corner, almost hitting you
• You go for an interview & do your best, but you’re not called back

• You’re a new members of a long-standing group. You’re going out for coffee with them after a meeting. On the way, they all pair up, talking to each other but no one walks with you – you’re all alone at the back of the ‘line’

➼ Any one of these may create a painful reaction in us.  Our observation of the occurrence is accurate – those things really did happen.
However – they triggering some cognitive distortion, which will then make the event even more disturbing. That is where we go off the rails.

▶ Some ACoA approaches to EVENTS
CO-DEPENDENCE: every disturbing situation is seen a challenge for the rescuer to throw all their energy into fixing – the other person or event

ISOLATION / Victim: having been hurt by so many people & events, we stay away from interacting with the world, instead of healing

SCAPEGOAT / Victim:  we feel blamed for everything wrong in the world, which we agree with. It causes great anxiety & constant anger, but we don’t try to correct it

PARANOIA: many ACoAs have this tendency. The assumption is that the universe is causing our suffering. We have a right to be angry & rail against it, but can’t change it

COUNTER-PHOBIA: at the other extreme, we look for the most dangerous, drama-filled events to get involved with, ignoring/ denying / swallowing the pain it causes us  (more in a following post)

SO – ‘EVENTS’ can be
a. everyday situations which are not really bad, like someone in the subway bumping into you, not getting that email you’re waiting for, a delivery being late….

b. occasional annoyances, that may or may not be aimed at you, like a rude salesman, your boss being angry at you, your child having trouble with a neighbor, getting a ticket….

c. legitimately painful encounters, like a parent treating you cruelly, a big fight with a BFF or spouse, your child getting arrested because of drugs….

• Each of these categories will test our ‘mental health quotient’ – how realistic or distorted our thinking is. This will then govern how we act.

NEXT:  Thinking about Painful Events (our Conclusions)