Adult Children Of Alcoholics And Psychopaths

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

This article is about how a personality is formed in an environment of emotional deprivation and constant physical and psychological abuse

From the story of a 36-year-old man: “My father was an alcoholic. When my father drank, a terrible rage came over him, he began to destroy everything around him, beat his mother to blood and bruises.

The most terrible thing for me was to see him beat his mother. She screamed with fear and asked me to call the police. At that time, landline telephones in apartments were available to a few, while neighbors on the site had a telephone. I ran to them, frightened and shouted: "Call the police, the folder again beats the mother drunk!" The district policeman came late in the evening.

By that time, the father, having been naughty, was sleeping, the mother had already managed to lick her wounds, and told the district police officer that they, husband and wife, would figure it out on their own. I lived in constant fear, flinching at every rustle. A month later, my father was crazy in the garage. When he was alive, our family held on to something. After his death, I realized that my mother did not need it. She soon remarried, gave birth to a child, and I became an annoying hindrance. So I have lived since then with a constant feeling of emptiness and abandonment. I got married. My wife is from a complete, prosperous family, self-sufficient, calm, and something constantly annoys me in her, it seems that she will never understand me in her life that we are very different. There is a feeling of uselessness, often pulls to cheat with women like me - the daughters of alcoholics and degenerates."

The man has a history of two incomplete suicide attempts.

From the story of a 38-year-old woman: My father was a psychopath - he led a healthy lifestyle, despite the fact that he was born into a family of alcoholics, but was completely devoid of all sympathy - he mocked me and my mother, beat me, humiliated him. I was always afraid of him. Fear was my habitual feeling in My father came home from work angry and I knew that now he would start hitting me, tearing off his irritation at me, yelling. Sometimes he had periods of enlightenment, he could play with me, we went skiing and cycling together. my father and I had a pillow fight (I was 5-6 years old), he, as if as a joke, covered my face with a pillow and did not let go for a long time until I began to choke.

When my father was angry, he made no secret of the fact that he hated me and wanted me to die.

Then my parents divorced and my mother gave me to my grandmother. My mother, too, never hid that she did not feel maternal feelings for me, I never saw warmth and love from her. Rather, she looked at me as a burden. I never felt the parental rear, that I could come to my parents and complain about my sorrows, they always saw the source of problems in me.

Apparently, I expected from my husband compensation for this rear, that he would become something like a father for me and "punish" all my offenders. And when my husband was not on my side, did not live up to my expectations, my newly created world collapsed, I stopped trusting him, I began to hate him and take out anger on him. It seemed to me that together we are strength, my love for him strongly depended on what he was ready to go for for me. His proof of love kept me feeling safe.

Now I have two children, but I, like my mother, do not feel affection for them, I cannot even bring myself to sit down and do my homework with them, although I will cut anyone's throat for them (but this anger is more like acting out my childhood traumas and a splash of negativity).

I have previously described the history and psychological state of a young woman who grew up with a psychopathic father.

Alcoholic parents, like psychopaths, are distinguished by the inability to care for loved ones and give them love. A family member, even their own child, does not arouse empathy and love in them, but is more viewed as a hindrance or a means of achieving their selfish goals. Such parents can, for example, provide formal care for their children and provide financially, but their positive emotions do not extend to the child, and more often the psychopath tries to send the child to one of the relatives, to a boarding school or boarding school.

What kind of personality is formed in such dysfunctional families?

As a rule, in such a hostile environment, the psyche undergoes deformation. The child grows up with a personality disorder. He either turns out to be an alcoholic or a psychopath himself, or directs aggression towards himself and suffers from depression all his life, leads a risky lifestyle, and makes suicide attempts. It is not uncommon for such a child, having matured, becomes a "rescuer" and creates a codependent relationship in which he will constantly save someone - either an alcoholic spouse, or a sick child, or poor friends, will choose a job as a doctor, rescuer, military man, psychologist in order to feel his need and save, as he once saved his mother from the aggression of his father or helped his father / mother in overcoming their addiction.

What personality traits will the ACA and URT have?

1. Pathological distrust (it will be difficult for them to trust their partner and not see him as a source of threat, the partner of this person will have to prove his loyalty and love every time).

2. Outbursts of uncontrollable anger at the slightest reaction of rejection, at unjustified trust; jealousy, control of loved ones, or distancing.

3. Difficulties in expressing feelings, openness, empathy.

4. The feeling of inner emptiness, the feeling of being nobody in this world, as a result of which such people have a constant need to prove to themselves that they are alive (this is achieved by receiving intense emotions, adrenaline, self-harm, all sorts of addictions).

5. Black and white thinking. In such a person, in perception, everything tends to the Absolute according to the principle of "all or nothing", exaggerated demands are made on himself and others. A person who does not live up to expectations is depreciated, as well as the field of activity and other aspects of life. Therefore, he is constantly in search of himself and reliable partners, or he remains alone. It is often difficult for loved ones to withstand their mood swings and outbursts of aggression.

The stories given in the article are not customer stories, but the stories of childhood friends who grew up in front of me, with whom a lot was experienced. Having been with them for 30 years, I see that, despite what is going on in their souls, they have created normal families, and patient and understanding partners help them overcome emotional swings, depression, loss of faith in themselves, aggression, awaken warmth and responsiveness, because the most important thing for a person with a trauma of abuse and rejection is the feeling of stable support of a loved one. But this is not always the case.