Pieces of the image of the adult child
As a lover of the Impressionist period of art, whose paintings, at least upon close inspection, often appear as a collection of seemingly unconnected, but sometimes highly colorful shapes and sizes, I marvel at how a further view reveals a collective image.
Similarly, a recent viewing of the many pieces that combine to form the adult child syndrome allowed me to extend this visual art analogy to you.
Family roles, one of them, reminded me of the need to assume them in order to restore balance or homeostasis to a loosely-knit, dysfunctional family system and, as the default behavior unconsciously adopted to survive and restore, is generally carried into adulthood. life–unexamined most likely because it somehow worked. Why, then, should it be questioned?
I remember a psychology course that I took many years ago in Switzerland. We were asked to identify the type of personality we thought we had, such as a perfectionist, and after revealing who we were to the class, we spent the rest of the program gravitating towards each other, even during lunch and breaks. It was all we knew, and as an extension, we felt like we knew each other.
Isolation, certainly another manifestation of the adult child syndrome, is, of course, one of its hallmarks. Although it can be painful to be alone, it becomes the necessary compensation for being exposed to those who may trigger, represent authority figures, or generate varying degrees of mistrust. Your “reward,” if you can call it that, is inner peace and stability. The adage about what can be one person’s pleasure and someone else’s poison may be applicable here.
However, it underscores the need to avoid proverbial people, places, and things when using or at least forging associations with the faces of parents or primary caregivers, especially early in a person’s recovery.
It also reflects the need, raised in childhood, to assume the greatest possible autonomy. Apart from the predominant problems of the trust factor, the parent-child rupture, which causes the initial abandonment, teaches the child not to depend on others and to search deep in his own well for the resources that his psychological, physical, neurological and emotional scream “unavailable”. But the resulting isolation needs them. After all, he must survive somehow.
Madness, another manifestation, is – to me, anyway – a subject that an adult child may have little intellectual understanding of, but one that he has first-hand experience with throughout his upbringing, as this was modeled Regularly faced with the unpredictable, dual-personality behavior of the parent who most needs his nurturing, direction, protection, and love. Whatever lived inside his home of origin, he unconsciously expected it outside of it, as his dress rehearsal, characterized by instability, alcoholism, and even danger, prepared him for the “full performance” beyond his doorstep. major.
While you may have done a masterful job of quelling and denying it and then adapting appropriately to it, it inevitably surfaces when your buried inner child clings to safety and is unable to connect with others in a genuine way through your fake me
Twelve-step gatherings, in which an adult child ironically joins others and a Higher Power they understand through collective weaknesses and fears, provide that painfully lost kindred-spirited connection you can’t forge with others. and sheds light on the seeds planted in his upbringing. which caused their stunted development.
It is here that you can learn the true meaning of “insanity,” who in your family had it, and how your own was removed. Her going out of her way to fix, change, or heal that parent was just another form of it.
The disease of dysfunction is like no other. It affects a person in body, mind and spirit. Most likely, the patient does not understand him, but somehow feels that he is “different” from others. You may or may not have physical characteristics, such as comorbid illnesses that are so intertwined with stored fears, traumas, and emotions, that you can no longer separate or differentiate them. Relapse doesn’t necessarily take the form of reintensified sneezing and coughing, as with colds and flus, but as a new embrace, like a survivor strapped to the water in a life raft, of laundry-list traits like pleasing to the people. and isolation. And there is no bona fide cure, just a periodic return to meetings so that a Higher Power can pull you far enough out of the pit so that you can function more effectively for the next few days. While twelve-step fellowships are spiritual and not religious programs, Psalm 25 may be appropriate here. He says: “My eyes are always on the Lord, because only He will free my feet from the snare.” What you need most is to connect to the Source of it and this is the location of the plug.
Shame, no doubt another manifestation of the adult child, runs through the body of such a person as regularly as blood through his veins. Gradually transferred from his parents without his realizing it and regularly schooled or scolded for the wrong ways he does, thinks, and sometimes even breathes, he becomes toxic to the point where he rejects himself and is ashamed of himself. what you have been led to believe, i.e., that is a flawed and uncorrectable error. As a number raised to a higher power, he is finally ashamed of the shame of him.
Instead of being reflected positively by his parents, he only sees the reflection of what they projected onto him.
Ashamed, suffering and broken, he tries to see God through the broken lens of childhood and the only glimpse he can get through it, especially in the early recovery phase, looks decidedly like the parental authority figure who he molded it into his own wound. image.
I may never become a painter, Impressionist movement or otherwise, but I know that dedicated twelve-step work has enabled me to identify the pieces of the puzzle that plagued my life. And as I put them together and step back, I see the full picture they made, realizing for the first time how they made me.
On second thought, I think I’ll drive to the nearest art store and buy some brushes. For the first time, I have a complete picture to paint.