CONFLICTING FEELINGS – HOLIDAYS
June 26, from “Strengthening My Recovery” daily reader
“We knew our parents would forget or would trivialize birthdays or holidays.” BRB p. 296
“The conflicting emotional shift of any holiday can trigger a tsunami of pent-up feelings that cannot be reined in by any sentimental holiday movie, song, or festive decorations.
Sorting out our conflicted feelings and perceptions is not easy. If it were, we wouldn’t find ourselves attending meetings, going to therapy and doing Step work. But we know these tools help us unravel the interwoven strands of our childhood experiences so we can understand how they affect us today.
Through recovery, holidays can provide an opportunity to reevaluate our childhood experiences and how they influence us today. We find that the disappointment we felt because of our parents’ attitudes back then may have led us to trivialize present holidays to avoid our own pain and loss.
By doing ACA work, we are able to examine not only our dysfunctional attitudes and behaviors, but also those of our families. From an emotionally sober place, we may uncover the roots of the coping mechanisms we created, to make sense of the nonsensical. We can now put them into their proper perspective as relics from the past to be viewed in a glass case as a distant vestige of how things were, not of how they have to be today.
On this day I will examine the conflicting feelings I acquired during my most vulnerable years, recognizing how things were and knowing there is now another way to live.”
My Experience:
My mother used to take me out to restaurants for my birthday (I can remember this starting in about the 6th grade) and this probably instilled my sense of adventure in dining. It was wonderful. But what secretly hurt was I don’t remember being celebrated with a party like others. I convinced myself that I didn’t care, but in retrospect I did care and it has affected me for a lifetime. Because of this I have not gotten any real joy from my birthday because although I say I don’t want anything, I secretly do. As an adult there have been a couple of memorable birthdays, my surprise 21st and my 50th. I was so appreciative of the work that my mother put into for my 21st and my wife put into my 50th. Because of my upbringing though, I don’t think I was able to fully appreciate that I was being celebrated. I am now in a place that I can fully appreciate my birthdays and from here on out I will fully appreciate anyone who puts out the effort to celebrate with me or does something special for me.
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