I’m with my parents for the bank holiday weekend (UK) and being around them brings up lots of challenging emotions for me.
We get on sometimes but other times they make me stressed and feel a bit inadequate and angry and it’s all a bit of a trigger.
I don’t mean to hate on them, they are just the result of their difficult childhoods and they have supported my not drinking despite being big drinkers themselves.
I was thinking though, is it safe to that everyone on this app has a challenging relationship (if any) with their parents?
Hey there - good of you to come here for support during a challenging time. Sorry it’s stressful but I’m really glad to hear they’re supportive of your sobriety. That’s a huge deal. I have a complicated relationship with my parents that isn’t awful but led me to develop some people pleasing and perfectionist tendencies that I’m working through and will hopefully be in therapy soon. I have definitely heard many many people here share about super challenging and even abusive backgrounds with family members. I searched using the search function (magnifying glass icon at the top) and found an old thread that you could start with if you wanted to read through to hear some other people’s stories.
Link: Relationships with parents
It’s probably a good assumption that everyone on here has had or does have challenging meaningful relationships. Could be parents, kids, neighbors, bosses, employees, friends, family. We’ve all hurt those we love in the name of our addiction, and when hurt have turned to our addiction for comfort and solace.
In sobriety, we find ways to not hurt others so much and to heal ourselves through human interaction and spiritual fulfillment.
I don’t know about everyone, but I know about me. I made myself mentally ill with the denial of that there was anything wrong in our family. Three years of sobriety and intense psychotherapy have helped me to gradually feel how I truly feel and what our family is actually like. The choice was either open my eyes or perish for me. I gradually was able to see things as they are and now things aren’t great - I see my family much less and I had to go through the grief of not having that closeness and connection with them I never had, but always thought I’d get if only I tried hard enough and would be perfect enough - but I feel much much much better in myself.
I get this @Faugxh its not nice to look at my parents, who I love and who love me, and be like ‘you guys are actually a bit messed up and being around you can be damaging for me’.
Stil it’s much easier when I am sober and today has been pretty ok so far.