Posted by Marie1 on August 27, 2001, at 7:47:32
In reply to A Social Issue? » Marie1, posted by Rosa on August 26, 2001, at 9:11:05
Rosa,
I'm not sure about this list as it applies to me, although some of these charateristics I can relate to. Obviously, we're all different people with different genetic makeup and life experiences, so I think it's impossible to come up with a list of personality characteristics that apply to all who may have had a less than desirable childhood. But interesting, nevertheless.Marie
> I hope this will help explain how we are affected by the environment in which we grew up. Although this is a social issue, it leads to being prescribed medication in some cases.
>
> Here are the characteristics we seem to have in common due to being brought up in an alcoholic or dysfunctional home.
>
> a. We became isolated and afraid of people and authority figures.
>
> b. We became approval seekers and lost our identity in the process.
>
> c. We are frightened by angry people and any personal criticism.
>
> d. We either become alcoholics, marry them, or both, or find another compulsive personality such as a workaholic to fulfill our abandonment needs.
>
> e. We live life from the viewpoint of victims and are attracted by that weakness in our love and friendship relationships.
>
> f. 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.
>
> g. We get guilt feelings when we stand up for ourselves instead of giving in to others.
>
> h. We become addicted to excitement.
>
> i. We confuse love with pity and tend to "love" people who we can "pity" and "rescue".
>
> j. 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).
>
> k. We judge ourselves harshly and have a very low sense of self-esteem.
>
> l. 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.
>
> m. Alcoholism is a family disease and we became para-alcoholics and took on the characteristics of the disease even though we did not pick up the drink.
>
> n. Para-alcoholics are reactors rather than actors.
>
> (Adapted version) Tony A., 1977
>
> Reprinted from WSO Newcomer, Page 2, with permission from Adult Children of
> Alcoholics, World Service Organization,
> P. O. Box 3216, Torrance, CA 90510
> 310/ 534-1815.
> _________________________________
>
> For further information about Adult Children of Alcoholics, go to the following URL:
>
> www.adultchildren.org
>
> > Pennie Lane,
> > What you have to say here about people thinking their depression has been caused solely by some neurotransmitter imbalance is interesting to me. I always thought my depression was purely biological, inherited from my looney tunes grandmother (I'm allowed; I too am "looney tunes :-)). My brother suicided, due to undiagnosed depression and that added to my theory about myself. Basically, I didn't feel that I had the stressors that typically contribute to a "situational depression". So went to g.p. and started Prozac, which luckily worked for me. This too reinforced the physiological depression theory. However, after 18 months in psychotherapy (after a bout of major depression), I'm beginning to wonder just how much of this illness really is bio-chemical. I also have abuse problems with alcohol and prescription meds. I've come to think my depression may be a combination of things, with a genetic predisposition to mental illness. Part of the problem is, I don't want to think my past was anything but normal. We weren't the Brady Bunch, but was it really that bad? Hard for me to say; that was my reality and I had nothing else to compare it to.
> > Anyway, I was curious if this is what you meant when you said "how the norms they excepted effected their development, and what alternatives might have produced different results."
> > I was also curious as to your background. Are you a psychologist or psychiatrist? Thanks for your thoughts.
> >
> > Marie
> >
> > Underneath the blue suburban skies, I sit and meanwhile back at Pennie Lane....
poster:Marie1
thread:75755
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010822/msgs/76565.html