• Overprotect their children even when it is not in their children’s best interest.
• Not know what normal is and consequently have trouble understanding which behaviors to accept or foster as normal in their children and which behaviors to discourage.
• Have trouble having relaxed and easy fun with their children.
• Have impulsive features that they act out in their parenting.
• Feel somewhat different from other families.
• Attempt to overcontrol family life and the lives of their children.
• Have trouble establishing healthy boundaries with their children, positioning themselves either too close or too far. (T. Dayton 2007).
ACoAs may look to their own children to fill the emotional void left by pain from their own past:
• GCoAs may carry a sense of guilt for their parents’ painful past.
• GCoAs may feel “crazy” because, while there is nothing like addiction or abuse occurring in their families, their parents are passing on pain through their own unexamined PTSD-related issues.
• ACoAs may pass on their tendency toward traumatic bonding to their children; they may become overclose or cycle between over- and underclose because they themselves lack a sense of normal (T. Dayton 2007).
GCoAs may carry a sense that something is wrong with them that they can’t quite put their finger on. If their parents have grudges, resentments, or disconnects with their own parents and siblings, GCoAs may have loyalty issues or inherit relationship “shadows” with their aunts, uncles, grandparents, or cousins. And there are other invisible issues that GCoAs absorb through their parents’ silent pain. According to Ann W. Smith, author of Grandchildren of Alcoholics: Another Generation of Codependency,
GCoAs show similar signs of dysfunction and trauma as their ACoA parents, although they may never have seen or known about the addict in the family While their ACoA parents put great effort into overcoming what they experienced as children, despite this effort, they silently transmit the dynamics and emotions of their childhood by example and through the unconscious patterns of attachment that they developed early in life. They cover their pain and create what appears to be a close, healthy family. The ACOA’s efforts to improve family life for their children are aimed at doing the right things but none the less, as they grow up, the grandchildren often resurrect the very same issues that their ACOA parents were running away from. They exhibit low self-worth, external focus, difficulty managing emotions and problems with relationships. When the GCoA runs into trouble as an adult he or she assumes it is personal failure. They do not have a story that justifies their deficiencies and are very protective of their parents who tried so hard. They must shoulder their burden alone until they get help and discover the intergenerational basis of their difficulties.
• GCoAs may have some trouble “right sizing” their emotional reactions having grown up around their ACoA parent’s emotional dysregulation.
• GCoAs may experience some fear around committed relationships as they are hyperaware of what can go wrong.
• GCoAs may have trouble setting their own boundaries as their ACoA parents may have cycled between over-closeness and under-closeness or because the closeness with their parents was based on the parent’s need rather than their own.
• GCoAs may have trouble separating and individuating, as their ACoA parents may have also had issues in this area.
• GCoAs may feel somewhat different from their friends who did not carry their parents’ pain.
• GCoAs may have so much anxiety around getting things right that it can resurface in relationships, work, or the social world.
On the positive side, GCoAs have often been raised by ACoA parents who are deeply devoted to them. Having been hurt as children, ACoA parents can be determined to do their best by their kids and can give them much love, understanding, and attention. ACoA parents may also be very generous and supportive of their children with both their time and their financial resources. As a result, GCoAs can feel highly valued by their parents. This feature alone becomes core to their sense of self and is a great buffer against other less desirable features of ACoA parenting. Developmentally speaking, there is nothing that trumps love, attention, and interaction.
Separating Our “Inner Child” from Our Children
ACoAs can be a curious combination of mature and immature parents. Having been parentified—that is having been little adults and caretakers as COAs—they can be unusually responsible about managing the nuts and bolts of parenting. But at the same time they may carry buried, developmental wounds that create immature “pockets” within their personalities and their functioning as parents that get triggered by their GCoA children. As GCoAs grow, they stimulate the unhealed wounds of their parents. For example, when the GCoA is five years old, the ACoA’s “inner five-year-old” can be triggered, which means that if there is unhealed pain, it is felt by the ACoA. But they don’t necessarily know why they feel as they do. And the ACoA’s taboo against feeling their hidden pain gets activated. So at the same time as they are feeling vulnerable, out of control, or anxious, they are trying not to feel those things. Then that pain can get unconsciously projected, re-created, and reenacted in the parent/child relationship. The GCoAs “inherit” the unfelt and disowned pain of their ACoAs parents, which may in turn make them feel confused and bad about themselves. And they don’t know why.
Serena, a client of mine, is an ACoA who has two young children of her own. In Serena’s case, we see how, when ACoAs become parents, they can confuse their own unhealed CoA pain with the normal aches and pains of their children. This can make GCoAs feel that there is something inside of them that needs changing, something wrong with them that is worrying their parent.
I worried about my kids more than my other mom friends did. I was always looking at them too hard. I hated leaving them, even for a while. I worried while I wasn’t there. I couldn’t have fun and let go—I mean I could, sort of, sure, but something nagged at me. I was fearful. If some little friend rejected them, I wanted to crawl under the table and curl up in a little ball and cry. Or write the other kid a poison-pen letter. And I could get really mad really fast. I would be patient for a long time and then boom—right to big anger. And it freaked my kids out. I always apologized, but I did it again. And again. It’s hard for me to set boundaries and stick to them . . . I want my kids not to be . . . well, not to reject me, I guess.
Serena was admitting to what felt like a lot of faults, she didn’t realize how typical she was of an ACoA who was now a parent. She went on:
I wanted to join my children in their lighthearted fun, to laugh and play with them. But the truth is my heart was not light. My inner child had things to say and tears to cry. She wanted to shout and scream. And laugh and dance. And feel, I guess. It was like parts of me were just
not . . . not really there. Like I wasn’t living in my own skin that false self-functioning you talk about, I have some of that, I think.
I asked Serena if she wanted to choose someone to play the wounded child inside of her. ACOA parents often confuse the pain of the child they are raising (in this case, Lass) with the unresolved pain of their own “inner child”; they disown their inner pain and project it onto their child. Then they set about trying to “fix” in their child what really needs fixing inside of them. Sometimes it is useful to have chairs representing both and to talk to both so the ACOA can separate them. Serena began by speaking to her own “inner child.” I then asked Serena to add an empty chair to represent her daughter Lass.
Serena to her inner child: “I see you there all curled up, and I want to put a blanket over you so no one else can see you, so I can’t see you really, you bother me, you seem so pathetic.”
Serena to Lass: I get you mixed up with the child in me, Lass. Whenever you hurt, I think I need to protect
you or fix you or distract you or something. I don’t know how to just be with you.
I get my feelings all mixed up with yours . . . it’s a mess . . . then I want to shut it all down, make it go away.
I asked Serena what she would like to do next.
“I guess I’d like to talk with the child inside of me again, “ said Serena.
Serena to her own inner child: You aren’t Lass, and it’s not fair to Lass for you not to own your own pain. I know you don’t want to, but I will help you. I will see you and try to listen to you and get the help we need to heal. I guess I need to listen to you so you will stop acting out your pain all over the place. I do want to know you.
Serena turned to me. “I think I want to talk to Lass now,” then she turned to the empty chair representing Lass.
Serena to Lass: I love you so much, Lass, and I don’t want you to have to have this on top of you, but I am so scared of losing you. I felt so—I don’t know—extra, invisible . . . I don’t know why, and I feel awful saying it, but I feel so good with you. Finally it feels like I have someone safe to love, someone who won’t reject me. But, I get it: if I cling to you and am so possessive, I am setting it up so that one day you might need to push me away. I always thought it was because I didn’t ever want you to feel rejected the way I was, but now I think it was because I don’t want to feel rejected either.
Serena stops for a moment and moves the chairs a few inches apart.
Serena to both Lass and her own inner child: I never saw this before or even thought of it. You both look so much happier when you aren’t on top of each other; I feel so much better when I am not on top of you, Lass. I am sorry, I really couldn’t tell the difference between you as a child and my inner child; it was all mixed up inside of me. Your pain just triggered mine and then I swung into action, taking care of you so I didn’t have to feel.. I’m sorry; what a burden for you to carry around. I get it . . . I get it. I see it—we’re close, of course we’re close, why wouldn’t we be? This is always what I wanted with my mom, my dad, and we had it, sort of. We had it sometimes, but it was just so complicated. I don’t want to be so complicated with you. I don’t want to confuse little Serena’s wounds with yours. She isn’t you and you aren’t her.
This role-play allowed Serena to get a visual picture of separating her wounded inner child from her healthy, happy daughter. Serena runs the risk of creating pain that doesn’t need to be there if she doesn’t make this connection. The bonus here for Serena is that her love for her daughter will motivate her to do her own work because she truly does want to protect her daughter from pain. But now the light has dawned and Serena sees that she may be the cause of passing down pain unnecessarily and that the best thing she can do for her daughter is to heal her own wounded self. Protecting her daughter means getting help for herself.
In a different sort of example, another client named Robert describes how the dynamics of what was learned at one dinner table made its way straight to the next generation’s dinner table. After several months of group work, Robert was developing an ability to have his eye on his own behavior.
“I don’t know what happens to me,” Robert admitted. “We’ll just be sitting at the dinner table and someone will ask me a question, and I am off to the races. I’m not even sure how much time passes. I just start giving advice and I can’t stop.”
“Where do you remember that happening at other times?” I asked.
“My father took over the dinner table. I could never open my mouth. He never asked me a question or seemed to realize that I was even there. He was a narcissist and an addict. It was awful. I was nobody. We were all nobodies.”
“What would you have liked to say to your father in those moments?” I asked, pointing to an empty chair.
Robert to his father: “I’m here. I’m not invisible. I have things to say, too.”
“Anything else?” I asked.
Robert’s face darkened and he glared at the chair. “Can’t you shut up? You’re obnoxious; I feel like I can’t stand this, like I have to make myself numb to stay here. This is horrible. I feel tied to this stupid chair, like I can’t move.”
Night after night at this dinner table had left Robert feeling erased and angry. And because he had never put these pieces together, he passed on the pain by “becoming” his father, doing to his wife and children what was done to him.
Pointing to another chair, I asked Robert to say what he wanted to say to the silenced and humiliated little boy inside of him.
Robert to his inner child: “I can’t even look at you, you look so sad to me, even pathetic. Come on, come with me, I am going to take you out of here. You have been living in this chair all your life. It’s time to get up.”
In Robert’s example, we see how his father’s narcissism was passed along to his children. Even though Robert is himself not as narcissistic as his father, he has mirrored the same unattuned behaviors that he grew up with. His willingness to become aware of them and the emptiness that he feels inside as a result of re-creating them through psychodrama are wonderful first steps toward changing them and developing new relationship skills. Once he could feel the feelings he had in the past, the solution revealed itself naturally.
Robert to his inner child: “Get up, move, leave, you don’t have to spend the rest of your life in that chair. You’ve grown up, you’re a man now; get up and leave the table.”
Breaking the Pain Chain
Who we are on the inside becomes what we do as parents. We cannot possibly read enough parenting books to undo the damaging effects of PTSD. We may gain a better intellectual understanding of what happened to us and that is vital, but we still need to feel our way back into the here and now, to revisit disparate parts of ourselves that have been partially banished from conscious awareness. No amount of well-intentioned “time outs” for our kids or “parenting tips” for us can match the usefulness of getting the help we need to become healthier people so that we can be healthier partners and parents. We need to change on the inside.
Feeling unfelt childhood fear, pain, and anger can be frightening and disequalibrating, but it is also very enlightening and relieving. It will be critical for Serena and Robert to, in a sense, reparent themselves so that they become different on the inside. Their adult self needs to step up to the plate and “take care of” their child self. ACoAs can be outward-focused; they are caretakers of others, but when it comes to their own needs, they may be less attuned.
Serena and Robert are revisiting their past roles so that they can reclaim and release themselves, and they may need to do this over and over again for a significant period of time. Trauma symptoms developed in ACoAs over a period of many years; ACoAs need to heal over a period of several years.
As an AcoA’s personal work evolves, parenting will shift naturally. ACoA’s need to “self-parent” as they parent. As we separate our own past from our own present process, make new meaning of and integrate parts of ourselves that may have been held out of conciousness, our inner boundaries become clearer and more distinct and our outer boundaries follow. Our parenting becomes cleaner; we can tell the difference between our wounded inner child and the child we have brought into the world.
Tips for ACoA Parents to Break the Pattern
• Find a middle ground. ACoAs don’t know what normal is (Woititz 1983). As we have discussed throughout the book, ACoAs have trouble with modulation, and our parenting may tend to reflect this. I am not suggesting that we become bland, but rather that we simply hold ourselves to the kind of emotional balance that allows for normal levels of upset and frustration to rise to the surface and be felt and expressed but not blown out of proportion.
• Relax. Be aware of a tendency toward being hypervigilant in parenting. ACoA parents may “wait for the other shoe to drop” or “walk on egg shells” in the families we create; this is what we lear
ned in childhood. But this is not helpful for our children, as it creates anxiety in them.
• Don’t make your kids into your dysfunctional parents or siblings. Be aware of transferences and projections. Our children are sitting ducks when it comes to transferring our unresolved pain onto them. Our children can “remind” us of our own parents and siblings, and we may unwittingly assume that they possess qualities they do not possess because of it and project our associated pain onto them where it does not belong.
• Get help resolving your own historical issues. Our disowned, unspoken pain gets acted out through our attitudes, projections, and our behavior toward our children. Cleaning up our side of the street is one of the first things we should do if we feel locked in conflict with our kids or we see that our kids are picking up on our bad relationship habits and attitudes. If we are worried about our kids, we should take a good, hard look at ourselves to see what we might be “doing” or “being” that is affecting their behavior.
• Be aware of your triggers. What triggers us tells us where our vulnerabilities lie and where our personal pain might be. We need to be aware of what relationship dynamics or issues push our buttons so that we can back up and take a breath when they get pushed. We can make a “note to self” about what triggers us and what feelings come up when we’re getting triggered so that we can process them at a calmer moment. In this way, our trigger points become grist for the mill in our personal growth and our growth as a parent.
• Create daily rituals and gatherings for holidays. ACoAs may have experienced interrupted or broken rituals as a result of living with addiction. But rituals are important; they affirm the bonds of life and relationship; they sink into our tapestry of memories and ground us in our families and with our friends. Consciously building healthy, happy rituals that feel manageable and enjoyable is an important part of parenting and living in a family. Reliable is more important than lavish; it is the getting together and affirming bonds that is important.
The ACOA Trauma Syndrome Page 19