Soulshine

In her book Toxic Parents , Susan Forward says that many adult children of alcoholics “subconsciously find ways to punish themselves with various emotional and physical symptoms” like headaches, gastrointestinal problems, etc.” This certainly rings true for me. Both my codependency issues and my obsessive-compulsive disorder have caused many psychosomatic physical problems for me. Looking back over my life I can pinpoint many times when I had physical problems that made no sense. My first ever panic attack happened when I was in my early twenties. I was in our den at home watching television when suddenly I felt warm, then I started having chest pains and difficulty breathing. I thought I was having a heart attack, which made no sense to me since I was so young at the time. After I calmed down, the symptoms eased. A few months later, I went to bed one night and felt short of breath. Breathing became more and more difficult, and no matter how hard I breathed-in, I couldn’t se...

Anyone in recovery is most likely suffering from the wounds caused by toxic parents. Toxic parents are those who shame, belittle, embarrass, humiliate and abuse their children. Abuse can include mental, emotional, physical and sexual. Many of us, when we first enter recovery, are inwardly blind to the fact that our parents were indeed toxic. We say things like “Oh, sure my Dad beat me sometimes, but it was for my own good,” or “Yeah, my Mom used the silent treatment and withheld affection to get what she wanted from me, but she was just doing it for my own good.” We use denial to minimalize the painful and damaging treatment we received from our parents. Recovery is all about getting past the denial. Pain is pain. Suffering is suffering. There’s no minimalizing it. When I first entered recovery and heard other people’s stories I often said to myself “Well, I never suffered anything that bad.” In doing so I minimalized and continued to repress my inner-pain. I lied to myself a...