FAMILY ROLES
April 12, from “Strengthening My Recovery” daily reader
Such survival roles tend to have a hardy life and remain fixed in our personalities long after we have left our unhealthy homes…. There is the 40-year-old sister, living out the lost child role by avoiding holiday meals and rarely calling home.” BRB p. 98
“Roles adopted to survive our childhood experiences are our default positions in life, unless we become conscious of the underlying causes.
Before ACA recovery, we may have avoided our families because we were overwhelmed with fear, anger, sadness, ambivalence, or mistrust. Not participating in the false cheerfulness of holidays was one way of protecting ourselves.
As we make progress using the tools of the program, we may continue to stay away from our families, but now it’s because we realize the interaction is not healthy. We may hope for a time when we are able to care for our Inner Child well enough to re-establish contact. And if we do so, it will be with the full knowledge of what we may or may not get in return when we no longer play the role that makes our families comfortable.
Recovery is a process that ebbs and flows like the waves on the sands of our life. With the help of our ACA support group, our Higher Power, and the compassionate witnesses we find along the way, we can delight in the awakening of our spirit that can bring us joy every day.
On this day I will keep track of my changing family role as a way of noting my progress on this positively exciting spiritual journey I am on.”
My Experience:
SURVIVAL
An excerpt from “A Gladiator’s Journey”
If you didn’t grow up in this lineage how could you comprehend the span
Survival of a childhood is very difficult to understand
Beatings, abandonment, the emotional toll
Late nights all alone, watching the whirlwind unfold
Waiting and wondering when they will arrive
How does a child get through this and ultimately survive
Navigating through all the confrontations of life
Everything no matter what it is particularly the strife
To figure life’s systems presented so much grief
Why couldn’t I access at least some adult relief
Having conversations and trying to understand their words
Sharing things with them, not knowing if you have been heard
Not ever knowing when the big scary might show and appear
Either, it didn’t matter as they both were to be feared
Fearful to move at times because it seemed like every action was wrong
Respite of a holiday or gathering is what you would long
For these days offered you at least some safe keep
These are the only times they might hold their tongue and not leap
Christmas was wonderful because you knew there would be glee
Thanksgiving as well as it too offered alee
Fourth of July was another that delivered a pause
Even Easter was a day that provided for the cause
Is this why I cling to these traditions of old
They no longer really do it for me, but I do always hold
I continue to look to these days for comfort and joy
As I did during the days of being that scared little boy
But as each year passes it seems further away
From those happy memories tied to each one of those days
I need to release these remembrances and create something a new
For these recollections it’s about time I did slew
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