Blog > Thoughts > Sean's Thoughts > Apologies to my father
Apologies to my father
Written by Sean on Monday, September 26, 2005
On and off I’ve talked about my father on this site. Among other things, I’ve said that his problems with alcohol really impacted me. He has taken offense at that, and I will admit that it is possible that people would perceive him to be a worse man than he actually is. My father is not a bad man, not by a long stretch.
Yes, he has struggled with alcohol, but he’s never hit me (or my mother). He’s shown up drunk only a few times at home after my parents’ separation. Later, when I was well into my teens, he would often get several drinks before we could “talk”, in the evenings. But all in all, he’s not been drinking heavily in front of me. I therefore apologise for possibly mis-representing him, even though he’s unlikely to ever see this site, much less read this particular tidbit.
That said, I still can’t help identifying with so many of the characteristics found in Adult Children of Alcoholics. More info on some of these are available with a visit to http://adultchildren.org/lit/Problem.s or by doing a search on Google. Here are some that stick to mind:
- I seek approval and affirmation.
- I am impulsive
- I am frightened by angry people and personal criticism (moreover, even when anger/frustration is not directed at me, I react badly)
- I am either super responsible, or super irresponsible
- I have (somewhat) lost the ability to feel or express our feelings
- I judge myself harshly and have a very low sense of self-esteem
- I have a dependent personality (little as I like to admit it) and am terrified of abandonment and I will do anything to hold on to a relationship in order not to experience painful abandonment feelings
Now, to be fair, the ACoA literature talks about these characteristics being found in people “ who grew up in alcoholic or otherwise dysfunctional homes”. So it is not my dad’s drinking so much as his behaviour, and that of my mother’s, that created a really messed up environment to grow up in.
And reviewing these characteristics is very timely, as I am experiencing some ongoing issues in my current long term relationship, and reading over these things just hit me strongly again. Many of these problems are related to ACoA characteristics, or many of the situations we put ourselves in are direct result of those characteristics.
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