FAMILY DIAGRAM
Sept 10, from “Strengthening My Recovery” daily reader
“We cannot overstate the need for creating an extensive family diagram, which reveals with greater clarity the effects of family dysfunction in our lives today.” BRB p. 127
“Many of our families told us we were screw-ups, and we ate that label hook line and sinker. We may have thought we were the only ones who were messed up – until we drafted a family tree with a twist.
Our ACA family diagram lists our ancestors, just as any family tree would. But we add at least one label from page 128 of the BRB to each person. We determine the labels by finding out whatever family history we can from our relatives. We probably know that Mom was a martyr and Dad was a loner. But maybe we didn’t know that Grandpa was a ladies’ man and Grandma worried excessively, or that Great Grandpa was a workaholic and Great Grandma drank too much, although they called it something else.
Our diagram helps us see that the way we talk, dress, walk, and smile may also belong to people from our past. This helps us decide what we want to keep, and what coping mechanisms we may have been imitating that no longer work for us.
When we realize that we may have been imitating what we observed, the family secrets stop and our own lives begin. Armed with this knowledge, we are free to make our own choices as we learn to reparent ourselves.
On this day I will remember the past so that I don’t repeat the patters of my family’s dysfunction. The secrets are out in the open.”
My Experience
I don’t think I was specifically told I was a screw-up. I was expected to do everything right. And when you didn’t do it right, well, you screwed up. So unrealistic expectations are just as damaging as if you actually said the words, “screw-up.” I could add many a label to my family members from page 128 of the BRB. The imitations are limitless and only now can I decide which of those things I would like to keep that make me who I am. It scares me to think that maybe I will rid myself of some of the words I have historically used as those words and their meanings brought me comfort. They oftentimes instilled fear in those that I was speaking, so that I could keep an emotional distance from people and not experience the pain of what I felt was conditional love. I now expose myself to being hurt, deeply. However, I also now expose myself to the joys of real fun and of real love. The experiencing of real fun and real love outweighs the possibility of being hurt. Because it is much better “to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.”[1]
Blog: www.bkcoates.com
Instagram: bkcoates
Facebook: A Childhood Recovered
Twitter:
@cornbread182
[1] Lyric from Nat King Cole’s “Is It Better To Have Loved And Lost”