Posted by:
BYU Boner
(
)
Date: February 09, 2017 08:14PM
Well, I've been posting here for a while now, I think it's time I explain myself. I anticipate this will be hard for some to read because it deals with abuse and recovery.
I am an Adult Child of an Alcoholic (ACOA). As a boy, my life was pretty uneventful--I'm an only child and I had two wonderful parents. My parents were much a product of their childhood environments. Both grew up in immigrant homes where English was not the first language. Both were very intelligent and INDEPENDENT people. But like all of us, both were influenced both positively and negatively by their family systems.
Growing up was all about wonder, not doing so well in school, and lots of happy times. That would change when I was around 10 years old.
Around this time, a couple of my grandparents died and I began to notice changes in my Mom's behaviors. Initially, I did not process what was going on. There were a lot of good times, and then, for no apparent reason, my parents would fight. These weren't typically spousal disagreements.
Gradually, I started noticing that it was scary to invite friends over to my house, because my parents were fighting so much. In time, I started to see a pattern between my Mom's afternoon martini's and a sudden change in behavior.
Eventually, the fights became violent and lasted into the wee hours. The violence was from my Mom. My Dad would scream back but never once touched her. Lamps, TVs, and glasses were thrown and smashed. I would crouch in my bed wishing it would go away. I was scared shitless when my Mom would come into my room and tell me she hated me and my father.
When I was 12, after a particularly brutal fight, my Mom barged into my room and told me she and my Dad were getting divorced. I lost it! I started crying my eyes out begging them not to get divorced. My Mom, in a very clinical voice, said that "divorce is hardest on the children." Eventually, my Dad told me things would be alright and that my Mom would reconsider it in the morning.
That began a vicious cycle of sleepless nights for me. Mom would get drunk in the afternoon, Dad would come home, the fighting would start, it would stop when my Mom would pass out, I would go to school and have perfect attendance.
When I became a teen, my natural development embolden me to fight with my Mom. She would always win by telling me she hated me and that she wished she would have had an abortion rather than having me. Pretty brutal. I found solace in classical music. Eventually, I'd put on headphone and turn the music up really loud--was it Mom or Brunnhilde?
Time were bad, but there were also good times. My Mom had a wonderful intellect and would spend sober hours telling me about the arts, politics, and live in generally. A large part of my very best self was due to my Mom.
My Dad found solace in work and golf. He stayed away from the house as much as possible. Monday and Thursday nights were the worst. No, it makes no sense if you haven't experienced this type of chaos, but many, many years later, I still could never phone or see my Mom on a Monday or Thursday night.
My Dad was a man's man. He was self-made and had a natural charisma that enabled him to make great friendships. He also was of the generation where men did not talk to other men about their troubles. I had never known my Dad to be inebriated. Sometimes, when the fighting would start, he would take me to the car and we'd drive around LA for hours waiting for my Mom to come home.
I still clearly remember the night (I was probably around 15) when I asked my Dad if Mom was an alcoholic. He simply said, yes. I was devastated. There was no way MY MOM could be an alcoholic!
As for me, I became a recluse. My passion was music. I hated what every other kid was listening to. I drove potential friends away because I couldn't take a friend home. What if they found out about my Mom?
Secrecy is BIG in alcoholic families, no one dares talk about it.
My senior year in high school, I was a freak. Despite that, I had a couple of guys who figured out I was weird, but they liked me anyway. A year after that, I dumped them because I found my own powerful drug--Mormonism. I was an easy mark--no alcohol. My friends talked about sex, cussed, and drank beer. They also had subscriptions to Playboy. I had to keep myself pure, so I ditched them.
Mormonism provide me with my own high. For the first time in a long time, I was special. I was chosen to hear the Gospel. My parents were fucked up. I was righteous. I was going to preach Mormonism to the world. Within a short time, my parents gladly shipped me up to BYU to get rid of my self-righteous ass.
As you know, if you read my posts, BYU was a mixed bag. I had lots of sober friends, but I could never measure up. And, I was a wanker. Hell, I still have my letterman's jacket with a big M on it!
As I matured and started working I began to question a lot of tenants of Mormonism. But, the church was true, and my feelings of uneasiness were due to my failures of the flesh.
Right before I got married, I had two serious blowouts with my parents. One time, at Christmas, I joined in on the fighting. My Dad put me on a plane and told me not to come back home. But I did. The next time, I lost it with my Mom. I pushed her away from the kitchen sinks and started pouring copious amounts of booze down the drain in front of her eyes. I also started yelling, "Fuck you and your fucking booze." My Dad stopped me and took me to a hotel and told me never to come back (which I didn't do for a long time).
Well, I can't tell you the guilt I felt being a priesthood holder who screamed obscenities at his Mom. So, I got into therapy. Truth be told, I entered therapy in my 20s and still go back when I need to.
In therapy, I learned about family systems, pyschological collusion, and role-playing. My Mom was the alcoholic, Dad was the enabler, I was the victim. I played my victim hood out by PUNISHING MYSELF FOR NATURAL REACTIONS TO THE INSANITY IN MY LIFE!!! See, I couldn't control or stop my Mom's alcohol, but i could choose to leave the scene rather than subject myself to abuse.
Later, I found that I fit the profile of an Adult Child of an Alcoholic. I'm going to copy the "laundry list."
We became isolated and afraid of people and authority figures.
We became approval seekers and lost our identity in the process.
We are frightened of angry people and any personal criticism.
We either become alcoholics, marry them or both, or find another compulsive personality such as a workaholic to fulfill our sick abandonment needs.
We live life from the viewpoint of victims and we are attracted by that weakness in our love and friendship relationships.
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.
We get guilt feelings when we stand up for ourselves instead of giving in to others.
We became addicted to excitement.
We confuse love and pity and tend to "love" people we can "pity" and "rescue."
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).
We judge ourselves harshly and have a very low sense of self-esteem.
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.
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.
Para-alcoholics are reactors rather than actors.
When I read this, I fit most of these indicators. Now an AH HA, when I was a Mormon, my drug of choice was the Mormon religion. Think of each of these as a survivor of not only alcoholism, but of a cultic religion!
In time, I finally figured out who the Boner was through being a parent, finding a proper vocation, and leaving Mormonism. These were enabled though caring and compassionate therapists, all of whom were LDS. Yes, all LDS, but not a judgmental turd in the pack.
Eventually, I would learn about bi-polarism, alcoholism, and the demons that plagued my family. Alcoholism does not have a happy ending. Eventually, there will be a rock bottom experience.
I sat with my Mom twice while she was going through the DTs. She was physically restrained because she was trying to hurt herself and the people trying to help her. She saw me and immediately started swearing at me and blaming me for doing what was happening to her. The nurses and social worker put their arms around me and led me out of the hospital room as my Mom was headed to de-tox.
Did this hurt? Yes, but, I had also discovered an essential part of me, I'm a caring and compassionate person. Also, by this time in my life I had connected with my Christian heritage and recognized that in my Mom in that bed I saw grace. Grace in that I loved my Mom more than I could ever imagine. The behaviors were unloveable, but my Mom was loved by me deeply and unconditionally. The word I use to describe this is grace.
Eventually, I forgave my Mom for the demons, but alcoholism doesn't have a happy ending. Slowly, but surely, the disease destroys. In the end, I held my Mom's hand as she passed. In my faith tradition, I made the sign of the cross on her forehead, said the Our Father, and gave her back to our creator knowing that if God exists, however one sees God, my Mom is now healed.
Many of you do not or cannot have belief in a God. I respect and understand that. What I would hope is that my post gives you hope in recovery. There are cases where the abuse is so great, one is under not obligation to forgive. I get that. But for me, my healing came through love and forgiveness even though the behaviors were hurtful and insane.
In time, I found my real self, and what a self it is! My very best wishes for you, my RfM friends for health, joy, healing, and happiness. The Boner.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/09/2017 08:17PM by BYU Boner.