Diocesan News Articles
ACA Tackles Childhood Issues in Adulthood
Mon, Jun 6th 2011, 12:06
By Dr. Richard Ragle
Board Certified Family Practice and Addictionology
Since October 2010, the Episcopal Church of the Holy Cross Church has been hosting an ACA meeting. Every Sunday at 4:45 p.m. between five and twenty persons come to the hour-long meetings to discuss their lives, the impact of growing up in dysfunctional families, and to work through the issues confronting them.
ACA stands for Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families. The term Adult Child means, "We carry the fear we learned as children into our adult lives." How does the fear learned in childhood look as an adult?
This is a brief explanation of how Adult children are made.
Healthy children are not the result of a "perfect childhood," but are the result of a family system that has reasonable and consistent rules, that has a foundation of trust and appropriate responses to the breaking of those rules. Punishment in a healthy family does not involve physical or emotional scars, are not out of proportion of the offense.
Adult Children most often come from homes where rules are subject to the whim of the person in the room at the time. We may have been ordered to do one thing by father, forbidden to do the same thing by mother, told to do it differently by a grandparent and ridiculed for doing it (or not doing it) by an uncle or "friend of the family." As a result an Adult Child grows up "knowing" he or she can never do anything right -- that they are somehow defective.
In a healthy home the parents are loving authority figures who make their likes and dislikes understood, freely express their needs and feelings, are allowed to openly disagree, and to not be perfect -- all without threatening the underlying trust and love that are the consistent resource for the family. A healthy parent can make a mistake and it is not traumatic for the children, but a demonstration of the freedom and honesty of a healthy family. Healthy children learn their parents are human and are not perfect, and the child learns he/she is not expected to be perfect, but to do the best they can do. Children learn they can make mistakes, are expected to make amends for any damage caused and then to learn from the experience.
In a dysfunctional home, the parents are authorities whose word and actions cannot be questions. In the face of blatant wrong information or wrong actions, the Adult Child learns that his/her own wants, needs and safety are less important than supporting the family system.
Independence, which is allowed in healthy families within reasonable boundaries, is a threat to the authority of the dysfunctional parents.
Adult Children learn to become used to comments like "Who do you think you are?" "You'll never amount to anything," and "Do as I say, not as I do." Adult Children learn not to exceed their parent's level of competence. They learn that it is dangerous to be a better student, to make more money, to have a saner family or to win recognition. The dysfunctional parent takes such successes as threats -- that they are "less than." The Adult Child may not be aware of the self sabotage they apply to their own lives and wonder at their inability to achieve success.
As a child the Adult Child learns to behave in whatever way allowed them to survive. Behavior can range from defiance of authority (the romantic image of the "rebel") or by suppressing their own needs and attending to the needs of the people who continue to represent their parents in their lives.
Children carry their early perceptions of family rules with them as they grow into their teens and adulthood. While living in a dysfunctional family, the warped foundation may continue to function well enough to permit the illusion of a functional family. Virtually all dysfunctional family systems, however, are in a slow downward spiral, requiring more and more energy to defend the "official" realities of the family in the face of mounting evidence.
When the child of a dysfunctional family begins to enter the "real world" -- schools and the workplace -- they discover their family system is not the reality shared by their classmates and co-workers. Many Adult Children become loners or form tight, unhealthy relationships with other children of Dysfunctional homes. These relationships actually re-enforce their dysfunctional view of the world by "finding another person who really understands." The tightness of the bonds created in these relationships is accented by the Adult Child's lack of an individual sense of identity – they do not yet know where they stop and someone else begins. As a result they are unable to define their limits and begin to take on other people's opinions, defects and needs.
If you’re interested in starting an ACA group in your church, you may contact Rich Ragle at richragle333@gmail.com, or visit the ACA website at www.adultchildren.org. The ACA organization is guided by the Redbook, which has a good chapter on starting new meetings, and may be purchased on the website.
