Growing Into Emotional Maturity
“Children think egocentrically, which is manifested in their personalizing everything. If Dad has no time for me, it must mean that I’m not okay, that something is wrong with me. Children interpret most abuse in this way.” John Bradshaw, Homecoming The average addict enters recovery still thinking egocentrically like a child. We interpret everything to be about us. Children think they are the center of the Universe and that everything revolves around them—and so do addicts. So we interpret every comment, every form of body language and every glare that comes our way to be all about us. In other words, addictive personalities take everything very personally. Anything someone else says or does is about us. We feel responsible for the ways in which other people think and we most certainly are good at believing that we are somehow responsible for how everyone else feels. If a spouse, lover or friend seems to have no time for us (or not as much as we may compulsively wan...