Do you ever find it tough to make a decision? I learned in business school that not to decide is to decide. I discovered that when I was growing up, if I didn't make a decision, I didn't take a risk, and was less exposed to bad things happening.
Have you ever felt like there was some solution that was just going to magically appear and make your world better? As a teenager, I would sit in my room reading Swiss Family Robinson, about a loving family, and think something would happen to make our family that way.
One of my favorite lines from that movie is "I think God gets ticked off if we don't see the color purple." I sometimes get so wrapped up in the big events of my world that I forget to stop to appreciate the small but very significant things that surround me.
Have you ever felt like you're still a kid in many ways? That's the essence of the inner child, and although it sounds hokey and '80s to talk in those terms, I think there is a real truth to it. I never learned how to grow up in many ways.
Have you ever wondered what serenity was, and what it really felt like? When I first started dealing with the effects of growing up in an alcoholic family, it was just an abstract concept to me.
Recovery is hard work. It is - it just is! Growing up as the child with an alcoholic and violent father was not a path I chose. Yet as an adult, I was left with the effects of it, and there was just no way around that. Doing the work to move beyond those issues was just a lot of tough work!
Have you ever felt like you should be apologizing for being born? I took on a sense of shame, of being a mistake, from an early age. The shame was so woven into the fabric of my being that I didn't even know it was there.
Frozen ego? What is that? A therapist once told me that as a result of a traumatic incident, your ego might freeze at the age you were when the traumatic event happened. It really helped me understand my world - because I was operating as a terrified 14 year old boy much of the time.
Has someone ever said something, and you figure out the absolute wonderful response - 3 days later? At the time a situation happens, I feel frozen and can't think of what to say, particularly if there is a negative edge to what is being said to me.
Usually there's one child in an alcoholic family who gets lost in the shuffle. I watched this happen with a friend. Lucy was a bright, gifted and talented person, who didn't understand that about herself, and would instead fade into the background and be hard to connect with.
My creativity had been shut down by a bizarre comment made by my grandmother when I was 8 years old. Publishing my first book was a tremendous thrill, since it signaled that I had exposed the lie, and conquered that old writer's block.
A friend once told me, "Dan, you put people in categories, you pigeonhole them into the type of person you think they are. Then when they do something that doesn't fit the category you assigned them, you don't know what that means, so you get mad at them."
Have you ever found yourself taking on the blame for events in your world? Somehow becoming the focus of bad outcomes? As a teenager I became the lightning rod for my Dad's anger, and it continued into my adult world.
I heard a guy say one time in a men's group that he could fall in love, become involved, get rejected and feel sad, all while walking past a woman he didn't know at the park. We all laughed because we related!
When I first started dealing with the effects of growing up in an alcoholic family, it was hard to feel grateful about anything. But I have begun to realize how lucky I have been to have found resources to help me overcome those problems.
Has it ever seemed like you're angry at someone, and can hardly think about anything else? I had a lot of resentments about how I thought others had mistreated me.
Have you ever felt like somehow you're getting in your own way? In the '80s, I was working in the oil industry in Houston, and when I attained the highest pay for my segment of the industry, I suddenly decided I was tired of that work, and needed to go do something else.
Has it ever seemed like you could see what others needed to do in a situation, but couldn't see the same for yourself? One of my friends said, "you know what your friends say when they're mad at you? Why can't he take his own advice." Well, that brought me up short.
Tough love. So what is that? Has it ever seemed like someone is taking advantage of you, even when you may have told them to stop? I teach people how to treat me, and if I don't change how we interact, it's me who is letting it continue.
Has it ever felt tough to trust that a friend is really there for you? When I was growing up in an alcoholic family, I learned never to trust anyone. Yet in adulthood, friends who really did have my best good in mind were kept outside a fence that only I could break down.
Has it ever seemed like it was difficult to just let go and do something on the spur of the moment? I have had a lot of trouble with being spontaneous - unexpected events were frightening.
Has it ever seemed like your world is terribly complicated? That you just go from one crisis to the next? I had learned to seek out and perpetuate crisis from growing up in an alcoholic household, and thrived on the rush of constant upsets in my world.
Hypervigilance. What the heck is that? In my world, it meant always being in what I call "on patrol" mentality. It was like I was in a war zone, and the bad guys were out in the bushes. Growing up in an alcoholic family, the slightest misstep could make me the target of my Dad's anger.
Has it ever felt like you were getting sucked into the drama of someone else's world? As I experienced that, sometimes I had to step away - detach myself - from certain people. Getting wrapped up in the chaos of another person's life, I wasn't doing myself any good.
Has it ever seemed tough to rely on God? When I started dealing with the effects of growing up in an alcoholic family, I discovered my attempts at faith were more superficial than I had thought.
Yes, it's the line from Field of Dreams, but boy, it's a good one! It's a good concept in life - I might not get very far each day, but if I'm still moving, still trying, that's a good day!
Have you ever felt like you had things on your mind, and didn't know what to do about it? Calling someone wasn't something I thought of, but it gave me a huge amount of relief as I went through the grief process.
Has it ever seemed like things were just going to stay the same, and that wasn't good? By addressing my problems, beginning to find solutions, and seeing changes in my world, it allowed me to feel hopeful for the first time in a long while.
Have you ever been trying to work through a problem and you've looked at it so intently, that you almost can't see it any more, and are not closer to solving it? If I let my peripheral vision work on a problem I'm dealing with, I will suddenly see my answer with a lot less fretting and worry.
Have you ever felt like you were being one person at home and another in public? I didn't really trust that if I showed my vulnerable side to the world, anyone would like me. I would keep my true self hidden, so I wouldn't get hurt.
