It’s all about you, and you make sure of that.  Your wants, needs, and demands are [...]]]> Did you grow up with a narcissistic parent?  A fantastic book entitled Children of The Self Absorbed: A Grown-Ups Guide to Getting Over Narcissistic Parents has the following description of what it was like for adult children of narcissists:

It’s all about you, and you make sure of that.  Your wants, needs, and demands are always the main focus.  Everything must be done your way, or it’s not acceptable.  You never stop to consider that others have rights too.  In your eyes, you know what is best and are always right, and I have to fall in line or incur your wrath, displeasure, and disappointment.

You are completely self-serving.  You use every situation to fulfill your needs you are blind to others’ needs, deaf to their emotions, and expert at manipulation.  You work hard to trigger my guilt, sadness, rage, and shame, and to make sure that I am exactly what you want me to be.  You constantly berate, blame, and criticize me, and I am always miserable around you.

I want to please you, but I never seem to be able to.  You are like a hurricane.  I know you are coming so I prepare for the damage you can do, but my preparations are in vain.  After you leave, I am left with the residual emotions to clean up, while you move on not knowing or caring about the destruction you cause to me or to anyone else.

How I long for some sign that you like and love me, but in all my years with you, I’ve never felt this, and this lack affects me deeply.  As I was growing up, you ever showed any understanding of what I was feeling, and when I tried to make you understand, you either ignored or minimized my feelings or became angry and said that I was ungrateful or disrespectful for criticizing you.

Now that I am an adult, I find that I still long for your love.  I know that you  cannot be different, but that doesn’t take away the yearning for a more satisfying and loving relationship.

Obviously, there are a number of therapeutic issues that arise from having had a parent with narcissism, including the realization that it was not your fault, and grieving the loss of the love, acceptance, and approval you needed but did not get.  There are also implications for healing and moving on so that these issues don’t continue to affect your self-worth and your present-day relationships.

1. Acting-out in addiction can be passive-aggressive way of “getting back” at somebody else.

2. Unresolved anger toward a [...]]]> The following is an excerpt adapted from the writings of Claudia Black concerning anger and addiction. Anger can be related to addiction/compulsivity in many ways. Several of the relationships between anger and addiction are listed below.

1. Acting-out in addiction can be passive-aggressive way of “getting back” at somebody else.

2. Unresolved anger toward a parent, spouse, perpetrator of violence/abuse can “fuel” destructive impulses within the addiction.

3. Being passive with anger fuels shame, which in turn fuels addiction.

4. Intense anger can distort rationale though processes allowing decisions to be made that set one up for relapse.

5. Anger combined with being in a victim role can lead to “destructive entitlement” in which one feels justified in victimizing somebody else (cheating on spouse, verbally assaulting somebody, going through partner’s notebook from therapy, etc.).

6. Anger can be an emotional wall, which inhibits intimacy, which can result in loneliness and therefore, an impulse to act out.

7. Anger can result in a disinhibition of moral values allowing one to engage in addictive behaviors he/she otherwise would not consider doing (e.g. going to a topless bar), resulting in a need to “stir up the pot” of conflict/anger to silence the part of self that says “don’t do this, it isn’t right!”

8. Fear of another person’s anger can result in the avoidance of conflict and turning to the addiction for a means of escaping the negative consequences of unresolved conflict.

9. Fear of one’s own anger or the belief anger is “bad”, can result in the use of the addiction to avoid the experience of anger, or to avoid becoming aggressive.

10. Anger used to assertively set boundaries, allows for the development and maintenance of healthy self-esteem and true intimacy, which are crucial for recovery.

11. Anger directed at the messages and behaviors that led to shame, fear, and modeling of destructive coping mechanisms, can result in a rejection of those beliefs/behaviors and a true healing of related emotional wounds.

12. Anger expressed openly/honestly/assertively within relationships can allow for a deeper intimacy to emerge, allowing addiction to become “less necessary.”

Family of Origin refers to the family that you grew up in (as opposed to the people you live with now) and includes your siblings and parents. It can include a grandparent or other relative or step-parents and step-siblings who lived with you during any part of your childhood. The [...]]]> What is Family of Origin?

Family of Origin refers to the family that you grew up in (as opposed to the people you live with now) and includes your siblings and parents. It can include a grandparent or other relative or step-parents and step-siblings who lived with you during any part of your childhood. The members of our family of origin and our relationships with them and the family as a whole profoundly influence who we become.  Family of origin is the place we learned to be who we are, for better and worse.

What are Family of Origin Issues?

In our family of origin we learned how to communicate, interact, deal with our emotions and get our needs met. We also learned most of our beliefs and values from our parents. We derive our sense of self (our concept of who we are) from our family upbringing.  If we were loved and felt safe most of the time, then we develop a strong and stable sense of self. If safety and love were generally unavailable, then our sense of self can be fractured and unstable.
It is important to have help in identifying family of origin issues–an experienced therapist is your best bet.  While you may be familiar with the fact that various events or issues from your past somehow cause problems or conflict for you in adulthood, having the support and assistance of a competent therapist makes all the difference.

Some Examples of Family of Origin Issues:

• having grown up in family where there was substance abuse/addiction

• witnessing domestic violence

• having been severely bullied and teased in school

• having lost a parent through death or suicide

• having an absent parent or being emotionally abandoned by a parent

• being adopted

• being a child of divorced parents

• having been raised in a highly chaotic and conflict-filled household

• having had step-family or step-parent issues

• being a survivor of childhood neglect or emotional/physical/sexual abuse

• having a parent who had a severe anger or rage problem

• having had a family member who was mentally ill or had a personality disorder

• having been brought up with a strict religious orientation

There are many other family of origin issues of varying types and severities.  Even something as simple as having a parent who was critical or judgmental influences and shapes us.  These issues, which everyone has to some degree, impact and affect us deeply.  The purposes of looking at them and facing them are:

• to come to terms with these past experiences and resolve them

• learning to relate more effectively with their family of origin today

• to interrupt generational patterns

• to provide a more healthy marital and family system for your own children and grandchildren

• increase awareness and gain new perspectives on old dysfunctional patterns we tend to re-enact in adulthood

• to improve our functioning in relationships

It’s Not About Blaming

Many of us feel loyal to our parents and don’t want to blame them.  Identifying and addressing family of origin issues is not about placing blame, it’s about facing what happened–taking an honest look at things. The hardest part of solving many of our present-day presenting problems (relationship problems, substance abuse, fear, anger, anxiety, depression) is because they are heavily influenced by unresolved family of origin issues-stuff we haven’t looked at or wanted to look at or think about for a long time.  It can be difficult and we may resist facing and confronting the ways in which our childhood has contributed to our current suffering and difficulties.
It is our parent’s responsibility to meet our basic material needs, make us feel safe and give us love, attention, and affection. No parent is perfect, but in some cases they fall WAY short on delivering these essentials (likely due to their own family of origin issues!).  To the mind of a child this can be frustrating, even terrifying.  The child may conclude something like, “if my parents can’t keep me safe or make me feel loved, then the world is a chaotic, unsafe, dangerous place.”  A child will then, in an effort to avoid experiencing the terror of realizing their parents are bad or flawed, take the responsibility on themselves to try be “good” or “perfect” and thus “earn” their parent’s love. Needless to say, because it is virtually impossible to be good or perfect all the time, and because the child’s behavior is not at all the cause of the parent’s failure or inability to love and nurture, this approach does not work (or at least does not work well). What it does is shape (or skew) a child’s personality and view of themselves.  For example, no matter what the reason or circumstance, severe abuse or neglect in childhood usually leads to serious, persistent difficulty in many aspects of adult life. People often seek the help of a therapist to overcome present-day emotional distress associated with neglect, or physical, sexual, or emotional abuse in the family of origin.

Family of Origin Work
It can be scary examining our upbringing, since it is the source of much of our core knowledge about life. Still, such examination is critical for healing. Because we tend to unconsciously recreate the old dynamics from our family of origin, the same old issues get played out again and again, either in romantic relationships or parent-child relationships, or sometimes in friendships and work relationships. Discovering and understanding these patterns helps you see your role in perpetuating them in present-day and allows you to interrupt these cycles by consciously changing the way in which you respond.  When we chose not to face and deal with our family of origin issues, we keep the cycle going, hence the expression, “Deal with your issues, or they’ll deal with you.”
Addressing and dealing with your family of origin issues helps unravel and reveal the mechanism of how that process occurs. Family of origin therapy usually involves unlearning and/or relearning–analyzing and discussing family values, traditions, significant events, messages, communication styles, and ways of expressing and dealing with emotions. By taking a focused look at these things, we are better able to see why we do what we do, have particular beliefs, make certain choices, and experience certain emotions.  We are then able to change our thinking and incorporate new (more realistic) perspectives into our views of life and of ourselves.  Working through these issues is a process and takes time but it helps us face and overcome fears, frees us to pursue dreams and goals, and helps us achieve peace and clarity.

Family Systems, Roles, and Homeostasis

Growing up, we are all part of a family system, our “family of origin”.  What occurs in our family of origin never quite happens to just one person in isolation from the other members of the system. Rather, every member has some reaction and adapts and deals with things that happen over time.  Each family member has a particular function in the family system, a role each person plays in maintaining equilibrium in the system. Family theorists call this homeostasis–the tendency of a set of relationships to perpetually strive, in ways that are self-corrective, to preserve the organizing principles of its existence. For example, in families where active addiction exists, the members organize and adapt around the addict (alcoholic, drug addict, workaholic, sexual addiction, etc.) and other family members play roles such as hero, scapegoat, lost child, mascot (clown),  child-parent (role reversal), and so on. Simply stated, the principal of homeostasis explains why when one member in a dysfunctional family attempts to change their role (i.e., detach, disengage, get healthier) the family usually responds by trying to change the person back or pull them back into their old familiar role.
The theory of homeostasis is highly relevant in understanding and explaining present-day relationships and attractions. We are usually attracted to people with whom we, perhaps subconsciously, can re-create homeostasis (familiar order and organizing principles of the family of origin). And so “falling in love” usually involves finding someone who offers or provides that old familiar dynamic (no matter how painful or difficult or conflicted) with whom we can “work through” our family of origin issues.  For many of us this process is subconscious–but there is a familiarity–often a strange but powerful attraction to certain people-and sometimes along with the attraction is an irresistible desire to stay with a certain person even if things are going horribly wrong.  Embeded within our perception of and attraction to that certain person lies the hope and promise of resolution of a life-long family of origin issue we carry.  Our subconscious mind wants to work it out.
The way this generally works is that we tend to attract and choose a person who is either just like or radically unlike a particular member of our family of origin as a relationship partner.  For example, it is not unusual for someone whose father was distant and emotionally unavailable to be attracted to and chose a husband who is also distant and emotionally unavailable. What we are attempting to do with the person is to re-create the same dynamic or role we played in our family of origin. The basic problem with this is our husband or wife is not our parent and not our sibling, and is unlikely to understand why we are choosing to act in such a manner. In order for adult romantic relationships to be successful long-term, the relationship needs to evolve and be shared between two mature, self-aware, well-defined people. Part of maturing is being able to “leave” one’s family of origin and the old role(s) played in it and choosing to BE with another person in a present-day relationship which is chiefly defined by present-day experiences. Being free and mature in the present comes from facing and being aware and conscious of who we were and are in our family of origin.  Discovering and facing family of origin issues a process and it requires courage and persistence.  Take the time to explore what you learned about yourself, life, love, emotions, and conflict in your family of origin.  If you are in the Baton Rouge area, and would like to schedule an appointment at Baton Rouge Counseling, give us a call at (225) 293-2913.

1.         Obviously, virtually nobody can be competent and masterful in all or even most respects and almost no one can perfectly [...]]]> The belief that you have value as a person only when you accomplish and that if you are incompetent in some important area, you might as well curl up and die, includes several irrationalities:

1.         Obviously, virtually nobody can be competent and masterful in all or even most respects and almost no one can perfectly achieve.  Even Leonardo da Vinci had many weaknesses, and the rest of us mortals, including your therapist, have them too!  Trying to be outstanding in one field of endeavor is difficult, because millions of individuals compete with you in the same area.  And your goal of having general success and perfection dooms you to serious disappointment, even if you only prefer it.  If you must achieve it, beware!

2.         Achievement does not, except by arbitrary definition, augment your intrinsic worth.  If you see yourself as a “better” or “greater” person because you succeed at something, you may temporarily feel “worthier.”  But your successes actually do not raise your intrinsic worth one bit; nor do your failures lower your human value.  You may achieve greater happiness or more efficiency by achieving this or that goal.  But feeling “better off” does not make you a “better person.”  You are “good,” “worthwhile,” or “deserving,” if you want to use those terms, simply because you exist, because you are alive.  To raise your “ego” by achievements actually is false pride: the Belief that you are worthless unless you have accomplished, and the accompanying Belief that because you have accomplished you have “real” value.

3.         Technically, you “are” not any particular thing.  Language and semantics are very powerful, particularly when you use any form of the verb “to be.”  You “are” not a butcher, baker, or candlestick maker.  You “are” only, if anything, a person who practices these occupations—but who also practices many other things.  When you identify and rate your self according to how you perform some particular activity, you create the illusion that you, a person, have only as much worth as that activity. How much sense does that make?

4.         Although accomplishments may bring you advantages, fanatic devotion to success is risky and uncomfortable.  Those hell-bent on achievement commonly push themselves beyond the limits of their physical endurance; invite extra painful conditions; and rarely give themselves sufficient time to relax and enjoy what they do, nor to lead better-rounded lives.  They may also kill themselves with overwork.  If they really enjoy working more than most people do, fine.

5.         The frantic struggle for achievement usually reflects a dire need to surpass others, to show that you are better than they are.  But, you remain you, and you will not be “yourself” (do what you largely like to do) if you must lead the pack.  How much have the others really got to do with you?  If they have inferior traits, does that make you one bit a better person?  And if they surpass you in this or that performance, does that make you no-good?  Only by definitions in your head are others better or worse than your you-ness.  If you think that your “worth” as a human depends on how well your traits compare to those of others, you will practically always feel insecure and “worthless”.  You will be other-directed and divorced from what you want to do during your one certain existence.  You will swear by self-downing statements, such as “I accept and enjoy myself only if I do as well as or better than others do.”  How will that make you secure?

6.         If you frantically strive for success, you will feel anxious about failing, will fear taking chances, will beat up on yourself for making mistakes, and will avoid adventurous projects you would really like to attempt.  By insisting on outstanding achievement, you will choose to make mistakes and feel depressed about them or refuse “dangerous” tasks and down yourself for copping out.  Your “obligation” to succeed dooms you not only to failure but to fear of failing—which often is more life-cramping than failure itself.

–Adapted from “A Guide To Rational Living” by Albert Ellis & Robert A. Harper