An adult child may spend a good part of his pre-recovery life on the outside, looking in, but will never understand how others seem so comfortable and connected with one another. The need to bond with others and, indirectly, with the whole and the home from which his soul came is intrinsic and God-given.
“Most human beings have an instinctive need to fit in,” according to the Al-Anon text, “Courage to Change” (Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc., 1992, p. 361). “The urge to belong, to keep the peace, helps us get along with others and be part of society. This instinct has allowed many civilizations to survive…”
While this may be a natural and logical necessity, it may be little more than an unattainable theory for an adult child whose development is arrested and whose reactions go back to the initial betrayal, shame, and trauma of their parents or primary caregivers.
Several reasons can be cited as to why.
That original trauma, first and foremost, may have left him as a baby without resources, without the ability to protect himself or escape the danger created by the very parents who should have nurtured him, leaving him with no choice but to spiritually flee inward and tuck in his loved ones. his soul in the protected sanctuary of the inner child, which remains stuck at the moment of impact.
Substituting this true or authentic self for a false or pseudo self, he is unable to connect with others and, indirectly, with God or a Higher Power of his understanding. In fact, the substituted ego, as it has often been dissected, only “exceeds God.”
Chaotic, insecure, and unpredictable upbringings, secondly, only breed mistrust, causing a person to subconsciously believe that those they encounter later in life will subject them to the same predatory attacks and dangers they experienced in childhood. , since it has little or nothing. experience with environments that were stable and in which he was not the target of his parents’ anger and hatred.
Because these circumstances have most likely resulted in a post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) condition, raising your protective radar and causing your chronic hypervigilance, this dynamic, along with your inherent mistrust, causes you to keep your distance from others. . He rejects intimacy and his relationships become superficial.
You can, for example, be in a room with a dozen people and yet feel alone and isolated, because you can’t find a crack in your defensive wall that allows them to enter.
If I couldn’t trust my own supposedly loving and protective parents, you can reason, then how can I trust them?
His damaging upbringing, which he justified as a result of his own intrinsic flaws and lack of love as a person and which further destroyed his self-esteem due to its demoralizing nature, further diminished his worth, making him believe he is unworthy. enough to be with others. If he can’t connect with them, how can he feel equal and equal to them?
This lack of value was also reinforced by the abusive parent and the abandonment of one or other non-offending adults in his life, who neither protected him nor acknowledged his plight. His cries for help were likely unsuccessful attempts to reach people who were in denial.
This further cemented his belief that others would ever care for him or come to his aid, adding to his already inaccurate sense of reality and humanity. This type of childhood has been equated more to “programming” than to upbringing.
The transfer of alcoholic toxins also creates a blood disorder, which the person cannot cure, and erects an impenetrable wall through which they could otherwise connect with others to foster that sense of inclusion and belonging.
Finally, an attachment disorder can prevent this connective interaction. John Bolby, a British psychoanalyst who lived from 1907 to 1990, believed that newborn babies are biologically preprogrammed to form bonds with others, particularly initially with their biological mothers and other primary caregivers, because that bonding ensured survival in terms of of upbringing, care, security, calm, clothing, food and love.
Attachment behaviors, he postulated, were intrinsic and triggered by any circumstance that threatened the infant’s need for closeness to the caregiver, causing insecurity and fear, as it is too young and too underdeveloped to meet its own needs. Actions such as crying automatically attract attention, while crying itself may be the result of the mother’s simple turning of attention at extremely early ages.
Because a single loving attachment forms a secure base from which the child will ultimately explore the world—always returning to “refuel” after increasingly long intervals apart—and becomes the foundation of his own eventual social abilities. , she will most likely repeat the cycle by mating and bringing her own children into the world as an adult.
The current parent-child attachment relationship creates an internal working model of three parameters, which the child will use as the basis for later social interactions. It indicates that others are trustworthy, that your upbringing and care make you valuable and worthy as a person, and that this is the model of yourself that you will use when relating to others. This, in essence, becomes your understanding of the world.
However, interruptions or the inability to achieve these bonds, which often occur with alcoholic and/or abusive parents, rob the person of the connection they need and which they can emulate when connecting with others later.
Disaffected psychopathology occurs when a primary caregiver fails to demonstrate concern and care for their offspring, leading to impulse-based actions later in life without regard to empathy for the consequences, pain, or harm they inflict on others. the rest. At its extreme, it manifests as antisocial behavior, carrying no remorse, guilt, regret, or conscience.
Twelve-step programs, whose opening serenity prayer forms a bond between members’ souls that is strong enough to combat past abuse, are places where collective wounds and weaknesses can be connected as collective strengths, reuniting that bond with others and the Higher Power. who lifts them up and begins to dissolve their evils. Community, understanding, empathy and synergy come together, creating a feeling of belonging.
“I used to live my life like I was on a ladder,” according to “Courage to Change” (ibid, p. 33). “Everybody was above me, to be feared or envied, or below me, to be pitied. God was way, way up, beyond my sight. That was a hard and lonely way to live, because no two people can comfortably stand on the same run for very long.
“When I came to Al-Anon, I found many people who had decided to come down from their ladders to the circle of fellowship. In the circle we were all on an equal footing, and God was right in the middle, within easy reach.
“Today, being humble means stepping down the ladder of judgment about myself and others, and taking my rightful place in a worldwide circle of love and support.”
Article Sources:
“Courage to change”. Virginia Beach, Virginia: Headquarters of the Al-Anon Family Group, Inc., 1992.
