For an adult son who grew up with alcoholism, para-alcoholism, dysfunction and abuse, fear and anxiety almost define his life.
“Adult children often live a secret life of fear,” according to the textbook “Adult Children of Alcoholics” (World Service Organization, 2006, p. 10). “Fear, or sometimes terror, is one of the threads that connect the 14 traits.”
Those traits, such as isolation, approval seeking, victimization, an overly developed sense of responsibility, inability to stand up for oneself, denial, repressed feelings, need to please people, being constantly reactive, and self-critical are the result of a reprogrammed brain. who seeks to survive in a post-home environment that he believes will be similar to the one he has already experienced.
Three of those traits mention the word “fear”, namely, “…fear of people and authority figures”; “We are scared of angry people and any personal criticism”; and “We got addicted to the thrill.” “Excitement”, in the latter case, became a substitute for the original word, “fear”.
“While many adult children appear cheerful, helpful, or self-sufficient, most live in fear of their parents and spouses as well as an employer…” continues the textbook “Adult Children of Alcoholics” (ibid., p. 10). ). “They have a feeling of imminent death or that nothing seems to work.”
Those who attend Al-Anon meetings, which provide comfort and support to families of alcoholics, echo this phenomenon.
“Before I came to Al-Anon, fear was my biggest obstacle,” shared one member in Al-Amon’s “Hope for Today” text (Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc., 2002, p. 58). “My fear reactions included withdrawing, hiding, procrastinating, running away, or berating myself. None of these behaviors helped me face my fears. In fact, they only made things worse.”
Although fear and anxiety, as this member points out, dictate, distort and derail a person’s life, and can run through the veins of an adult child as regularly as the blood does, they are fundamental to all of the animal kingdom, restricting actions and activities. that the brain perceives as dangerous and harmful. But when they become excessive, they inhibit meaningful, nurturing, and healthy relationships and erode quality of life. They are not new either.
More than a century ago, Sigmund Freud made a statement that was as valid then as it is today.
“What we clearly want is to find something that tells us what anxiety really is,” he said.
“Anxiety”, in response to your plea, is an unpleasant, but familiar and sometimes frequently experienced set of emotional and physiological sensations that can include elevated blood pressure, pulse, heart rate and breathing. It is a state of minor or “discomfort”, a restlessness, a nervousness. The person is not fully able to calm down, rest and be at peace with himself.
It implies that something about your current condition, circumstance, or environment is not entirely certain or is even being slightly reactivated, and can provide a subtle early warning that something strange is about to happen. What aggravates this state of restlessness is the fact that the person may not be aware of what this destiny may be or when it will take place; in other words, you can’t know why you feel this way and how you can get rid of it. certain.
Freud erroneously believed that fear was experienced when the person could determine what the detriment was and that anxiety prevailed when they could not. However, this was not an accurate assessment, because these physiological states are not the same. Fear is the diametric opposite of love and is therefore the lowest rung on the emotional ladder, while anxiety is milder and less intense. Although neither is particularly pleasant, fear can release stress hormones and adrenaline, triggering the fight or flight response because a person or circumstance poses a threat to safety or survival. Anxiety, on the other hand, is milder and can be considered the previous step to this intense state, preceding the real threat.
And, although fear is more likely when these countersurvival circumstances are known, anxiety can be experienced whether they are known or not. An adult child, for example, silently suffers from this condition without being able to determine why, but another person, belonging to this category of adult child or not, may be subjected to the same situation when contemplating a near future event, such as the need giving a speech in front of a large audience or receiving a medical procedure. Anxiety, in this case, can be considered synonymous with anticipation.
Both fear and anxiety can be equated with “rings” in the body’s “alarm system,” that is, warnings that prepare it to endure, tolerate, or even survive an upcoming event.
“The perception of these bodily changes is what we experience as anxiety,” according to Michael Kahn, PhD in “Basic Freud: Psychoanalytic Thought for the 21st Century” (Basic Books, 2002, p. 108). “Its function, Freud saw, was to serve as a warning of impending danger. The purpose of the warning is to signal us to take action against impending danger.”
But it was a step further. It wasn’t just the danger that was detrimental, she surmised, but the helplessness or helplessness the person would experience in the face of it, leaving them vulnerable to its effects.
“It is important to remember that Freud’s theory describes not only the anticipation of danger, but also the anticipation of helplessness in the face of that danger,” Kahn continues (ibid, p. 110). “If I feel confident in my ability to deal with danger, I don’t need to be warned and I don’t experience anxiety.”
This statement contains the two fundamental realities of raising an adult child: danger (in the midst of an alcoholic or dysfunctional parent who shames, blames and is potentially abusive) and helplessness (as a helpless, vulnerable and underdeveloped child in middle of this). But fear and anxiety are intensified when combined with this helplessness, serving, to a significant degree, as the cause and core of the adult child syndrome.
“Many adult children struggle with the notion of helplessness at step one (of a twelve-step recovery program), since helplessness is all many of us have ever known as children…” advises the textbook. “Adult children of alcoholics” (op.cit.p.101). “As children, we were invaded by parents who unknowingly taught us to feel helpless or less competent.”
Parental dysfunction, betrayal, and even abuse create what becomes the original “authority figure” for that child, the one who seems to turn against him, as if, for reasons beyond his comprehension, he has been relegated. the other or the enemy. , side of the fence, and creates an indelible image that he attributes to others later in life.
“We can view our parents as untrustworthy authority figures,” notes the textbook “Adult Children of Alcoholics” (ibid., p. 11).
“Our past experiences tell us that any leader, employer, or official is inherently an authority figure and should be distrusted,” he further states (ibid, p. 379).
Because most of these parents are unrecovered adult children and are provoked by their own offspring, they project their own fear, often through boundless entanglement, onto them.
“The fear, excitement, and pain of non-drinking parents affects and transfers to (them) children,” warns the textbook Adult Children of Alcoholics (ibid., p. 24). “This is the internalization of parental feelings and behavior in one of its purest forms.”
Even when those children reach adulthood and move away from their familiar surroundings, they take the transferred fear with them.
“Our parents projected their fear, suspicion, and inferiority onto us,” explains the textbook “Adult Children of Alcoholics” (ibid., p. 101). “We were defenseless against projections. We absorbed our parents’ fear and low self-esteem by thinking that their feelings originated from us.”
It can hardly be argued that adult children live fear-based lives as a result of these conditions. The simple entrance of an alcoholic or paraalcoholic into a room can create anxiety and tension, so much so, in fact, that you can often cut the air with a knife. Walking on eggshells, they draw close, avoiding any movement or sound that would wake the parent and invite chaos, upset, blame, criticism, or even abuse. This constantly insecure and unstable environment offers no experience in being raised in a calm, confident and secure state, and they subsequently carry fear and anxiety with them in their adult interactions.
“…Adult children use (fear) to mimic the feeling of being alive when they are actually re-enacting a scene from their family of origin,” explains the textbook “Adult Children of Alcoholics” (ibid., p. 16). “Gossip, dramatic scenes, pending financial failure or poor health are often the turmoil that adult children create in their lives to feel grounded in reality.”
Although abandonment can take many physical and emotional forms, it can be considered the fundamental basis of fear. A baby, in her original and helpless condition, is completely dependent on her mother or primary caregiver for her protection, safety, warmth, food, clothing, comfort, quiet, and all of her physical needs, and can do little more than cry to alert her. that she needs attention. Being abandoned and feeling that she will never return causes overwhelming fear and anxiety, as her absence can ultimately be equated with death.
While abandonment may be considered the first fear in a chain that binds the life of an adult child to it, there are many subsequent ones, including the initial betrayal of the parents and the terror that the helpless and defenseless child can feel, which it provokes you, without choice or alternative, to escape into the sanctuary of your self-created protective inner child. He paints that father as the original authority figure and sees the multitude of others he later encounters in life with his face displaced. He leaves him, like a vulnerable and helpless child, exposed to a person who projects fear, who can at times be unstable, criticizing, blaming, shaming and abusive, adding layers to the fire of fear. He creates an uncertainty as to when these incidents will occur. He makes her crush and swallow whatever can be done to her, as he adheres to the unwritten “don’t talk, don’t trust, don’t feel” rules imposed in alcoholic homes, while he continues to build fear of him. base. And finally, he leaves a home environment that he thinks approximates the one he will experience beyond his doors, triggering a hypervigilance for danger he can’t identify or understand, but makes his inner child cling more tightly to his sanctuary. .
This chain, connected by fear-based links, results in a life characterized by restlessness, anxiety, and mistrust.
Article sources:
“Adult Children of Alcoholics”. Torrance, California: World Service Organization for Adult Children of Alcoholics, 2006.
“Hope for today.” Virginia Beach, Virginia: Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc., 2002.
Kahn, Michael, Ph. D. “Basic Freud: Psychoanalytic Thought for the 21st Century.” New York: Basic Books, 2002.