No more Mr. Nice Guy

We seem to have issues in sync in my ACA group and right now a prevalent issue is caving in. People pleasing is one of the Laundry List traits, and quite possibly after our fears of abandonment, the most limiting and damaging one as it runs counter to the preservation of self and one's own rights and needs.  It also is one of the hardest things to modify for one simple reason: the people in your life like you caving all the time.

While most people are not Machiavellian enough to deliberately exploit this trait, we find life easier when people go along with what we want.  And if you're a pushover, people get to expect that you'll always go along with what they want.  So, as a part of your healing and growing, the first time you "push back" (as we say at work) against them will generally catch them by surprise.  And instead of accepting the resistance, they will push back harder, trying to get the old, caving you to resurface.

Eventually, while they miss the old, agreeable you, they come to respect better (if not like better) the self-honoring you, in no small part because you like the self-honoring you better.  And if standing up for yourself is the cause of the end of any relationship you have (friendship, family, business, or what have you), then you sincerely ought to consider whether you actually had the relationship you thought you had.

---

Alice Cooper

Finishing touches

The last two entries on the Laundry List are:

• Alcoholism is a family disease; and we became para-alcoholics [co-dependents] and took on the characteristics of that disease even though we did not pick up the drink.
• Para-alcoholics are reactors rather than actors

I didn't respond to them in my post about Dirty Laundry because I was tired and was having trouble wrapping my head around what they meant and thus whether they applied. Well, I have had some sleep since then (at Kathy's insistence) and I can finally address these.

In looking at the first one, to me this is kind of self-evident.  We would not be in the program if we did not start acting like one.  I have mentioned previous the relationship addiction and the addict like behavior I had concerning it, the evasion, the craving, etc.  So this one too applies.

And the last one took a while to sink in, but it applies to me too.  I am a behind the scenes kind of guy.  I tend to keep balls rolling once they start, but rarely am I the guy to get things started, to make things happen.  Of course, with the assumptions I have been operating under about being able to get what I want, this is to be expected.

I have since moved onto Step 5 and Step 6 is upcoming, but I like to finish what I start and so I figured I would finish these.

—§—

Speaking of Kathy...

Dirty Laundry

One of the key documents in the ACoA compendium is The Laundry List, which is a list of behaviors and traits common to an adult child of an alcoholic.  While an ACoA may have some of the behaviors, no two have to have the same ones.  The Laundry List is this:

1. We became isolated and afraid of people and authority figures.
2. We became approval seekers and lost our identity in the process.
   
3. We are frightened of angry people and any personal criticism.
   
4. We either become alcoholics, marry them or both, or find another compulsive personality such as a workaholic to fulfill our sick abandonment needs.
   
5. We live life from the viewpoint of victims and we are attracted by that weakness in our love and friendship relationships.
   
6. 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.
   
7. We get guilt feelings when we stand up for ourselves instead of giving in to others.
   
8. We became addicted to excitement.
   
9. We confuse love and pity and tend to "love" people we can "pity" and "rescue."
   
10. 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).
    
11. We judge ourselves harshly and have a very low sense of self-esteem.
    
12. 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.
    
13. Alcoholism is a family disease; and we became para-alcoholics [co-dependents] and took on the characteristics of that disease even though we did not pick up the drink.
    
14. Para-alcoholics are reactors rather than actors.

Part of the step work that we do requires that we identify which of these apply to us with examples.  And so, if I may...

Number 2 showed itself in my tendency to try to warp myself to my woman's expectations in order to keep the relationship going rather than being myself.  If I was with a woman that liked, say, the Atlantic Monthly, then I would start reading the Atlantic Monthly.  There was a time when my first girlfriend broke up with me that I had to actively rediscover what was me and what I had added to me in order to get along with her.

Number 3 applies, except frightened is not quite the right word.  The best replacement that means how I felt it is kryptonite.  Anger and personal criticism weakened me, it robbed me of my vitality and resolve.  There was one particular son of a female dog in radio who would ride me so hard that on my lunch hour I would drive someplace relatively far from the radio station and just cry.

Number 4 happened in a couple of different ways.  There was a time that I got briefly serious with an active alcoholic in a relationship.  She was a great gal when sober but a complete mess when drunk.  And I was seriously trying to figure out how to make it work.  (After all, my mother made it "work" with my dad.)  Her dumping me for questioning the viability of the relationship may have been the biggest favor ever done me. The other way it happened is that I found a woman with rage issues to basically "play the part of my mother" in my family drama.

Number 6 has manifested itself over and over again.  I am constantly doing things for other people without making sure I have time for myself.  I do homework every night with my granddaughter, not at all an easy thing to do.  I thoroughly cleaned the ex-girlfriend's house for her twice and seemingly always had a chore to do when I visited.

Number 8 tends to show when I am participating in internet forums.  I would post a strong opinion.  Someone would counter.  I would furiously type back again.  I would refresh the page over and over again, looking for a response so I could pounce and immediately defend my position.  It was in such a situation at the ACoA board that I finally realized that this was one of my problems too.

Number 10 is the corked bottle phenomenon.  I try not to feel things because when I feel them it hurts too bad.  Feelings are irrational and uncontrollable.  There was a reason I found Star Trek's Vulcanism fascinating.

Number 11 I have tried to explain to people is split for me.  I am easily my own harshest critic.  It was a fear of my eviscerating myself that kept me from completing even this simple exercise.  However, my self esteem is not really low.  You at this point would point out my unlovability problem as evidence to the contrary.  But I would argue that my belief of unlovability was a conclusion based on evidence and not a belief that there was something wrong with me.  I guess I am saying that I was unlovable, but that was the world's problem and not mine.

Number 12 is the relationship addiction that I have talked about several times here.  I have done a number of questionable things to keep a relationship alive.  I somehow need to have tangible proof of my lovability in order to believe it.

The last two are phrased so differently than the others that I cannot decide if they apply or not.  I will revisit them when I am less tired.  (This is being written at 1:17 AM on Monday Night / Tuesday Morning).

So far, so good.  No overwhelming flood of emotions.  I have decided that this is my week to get moving again on the ACoA steps and so I am doing my step work out loud, both here and at the ACoA board.

—§—

I'll light a candle for good luck...

Did you ever have to make up your mind?

Did you ever have to finally decide,
Say yes to one and let the other one ride?
There's so many changes and tears you must hide.
Did you ever have to finally decide?

— John Sebastian (as performed by The Lovin' Spoonful)

There are a large number of difficulties associated with being an adult child of an alcoholic. In fact, the collection of traits is sometimes called "The Laundry List."  A secondary problem from these traits is that they don't work together and sometimes conflict.  One area where this happens is in decision making.

Because we try to please people we often try to guess what decision others would like us to make, rather than evaluating the situation ourselves and deciding what we want. However we dislike conflict, so we often try to arrange things to take the decision our of our hands and put them in the hands of the other party in the situation, leaving us to be free of culpability for the decision.

It is not a bad strategy and for our purposes can be rather clever, but it then sets up a problem when there are two people who play it that way.  What happens is no one makes a decision and each blames the other.  This then creates the conflict that was hoped to be avoided and increases the feeling of powerlessness of our own lives, even though we give away our power in the strategy itself, because our lives are not being at all actively directed.

How we get lured into a situation like that is our over developed sense of responsibility has us try to take on the decision even though we don't want to make it.

The resolution, of course, is to just choose what you want without fear, including choosing not to choose when someone tries to put their choice on you.  But like just about everything with being an adult child, it's a lot harder than it sounds.

—§—

Just in case you have never heard of the song in question, here is a YouTube video of it.