I’m asking this because it’s important for us to know our history so that we can better define our future. Healing often involves the lives of those who came before us. When we face and heal our histories, we attain greater emotional sobriety. Here is why.
Our Sense of Self
It’s important to know that we can’t develop a sense of who we are outside of a relationship. Our earliest relationship was with our primary caregiver, usually our mother. Then comes our father, our siblings if we have any, and then as we grow, the people in our neighborhood and schools.
family tree
It’s in the way that we are held, looked at and spoken to, that propels our brain to organize a concept of who we are and how we can expect the world to respond to us.
In other words, relationships are key to our self-image from day one. Whether love was felt, matters.
Bruce Perry, who is a psychiatrist and neuroscientist, and somebody whose work I admire a lot, wrote a book called “The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog.” As the title suggests, his mother was not simply neglectful, but incredibly abusive to him. Often, her actions were life-threatening to him at a very early age. Despite that, he went on to become a motivational speaker after working through his trauma.
Dr. Perry wrote an article many years ago entitled “Incubated in Terror.” It was the first time that I felt anyone had put a name to what I had experienced. While I have no cognitive memory of being abused in utero, what I do know is that my father was abusive to my mother and that it most likely did happen.
It’s a sense I have inside myself that I trust today.
You can think of it as intuition – something that becomes a resource as we get to know ourselves and change ourselves into the person we really want to be in recovery, no matter what our histories are.
I have a friend who was born prematurely. She was placed under a heat lamp and her mother kept her alive by giving her beer to drink. Yes, it’s true – she survived on beer because she could not tolerate milk of any kind. It was during the war and her mom needed to secure a ration card to go to the bar and get the beer. Because my friend did go on to become alcoholic, it would be easy to speculate that her early relationship to beer might have created it. Interestingly though, she also had a close relationship with her family and talks of how instrumental her mother was in getting her sober. There was a tremendous amount of love in her family, although divorce and poverty created trauma for her. Drinking eased her struggles with low self-esteem.
The Transformative Power of Self-Discovery
Once we get sober, our work is to get to know ourselves. Your behaviour and your perception of yourself is greatly influenced by the generations before you. We internalize what our parents said and how they treated us. We’re also carrying our grandparents’ beliefs, ideas, and wounds inside of us because they shaped our parents. Even if we don’t know our grandparents, it’s clear that their influences on us are real.
My father grew up in a poor farmer family in Poland. His father was an alcoholic and from what I was told, very strict and abusive. My dad was that way too. My mother grew up in Germany and was born just before the end of World War I. Her family was quite well off before the war but lost everything when the Deutsche Mark became worthless. She remembers her family sitting around a table full of money that had absolutely no value; everyone crying, wondering what they were going to do now.
Needless to say, these traumas affected my mother’s life on so many levels. And she brought them with her when she immigrated to Canada.
They affected my life as well. When parents and grandparents have a lot of unresolved issues, they are often incapable of being present, optimistic and loving with their children. The unfortunate result is that children don’t feel important and often don’t feel loved. I know that was true for me.
Our Work in Recovery
Often, we drink, use substances or behaviours to escape the feelings of self-loathing or unworthiness. Once we commit to abstinence, we can begin to access these painful feelings so that we can heal.
Learning to value and love ourselves is a long journey we take one step at a time. I’m here to testify that it is absolutely possible to accomplish this task and to move on to a life beyond anything your family may have had or lived. Protecting your physical sobriety gives you the opportunity to become whole, and the emotional work allows you to gain emotional sobriety. It may feel scary or even overwhelming at times. The important thing to remember is that you have already survived the worst. You made it because you were a smart and resilient young child.
Now as an adult, it is time to both validate your pain and nurture your inner child. To move on from pain and trauma, to happiness and healing.
Do you know your family history? If so, write it out or draw it and look for the losses, traumas and patterns.
If not, start talking to people who are still alive and learn as much as you can. It will help you as you deepen your understanding of who you are.
From my healthy self to yours,
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