Memoir Excerpt- High Functioning Dysfunctional Adult Child
Dear Friend,
As a Life/Health Coach, for 25 years I have observed that when people are struggling to eat healthier and exercise, often there is a psychological component holding them back. I refuse to believe most of us who can’t lose weight are lazy or weak willed. That just doesn’t make sense to me.
To be an authentic coach, I feel obligated to help make them aware of what may be holding them back; it’s not about finding the perfect diet or workout, or berating yourself to try harder. That’s part of the reason for sharing my memoir. I healed my eating disorder, but then my sabotaging behavior showed up in my professional career- where someone else can sabotage their efforts by eating a pizza for emotional reasons, I could do it by not believing in myself.
I’m happy to report, the writing has helped me heal my childhood wounds. If you read it and it resonates with you, please leave a comment or contact me directly. I welcome authentic discussions about what’s really going on inside of us. I am here to listen.
Thanks for reading/listening.
Sending love and support,
Peter
Memoir Excerpt
Waking From the Fire
Names, Flames, & A Desire For Fame
An Inspirational Memoir
High Functioning Dysfunctional Adult Child
I am not an alcoholic, I have never hit a woman, or a child, and I am not violent, things I observed in my father. I am told I’m kind and friendly by nature, traits my therapist is encouraging me to accept. The reason it’s hard to accept is, I have a rage in me that I now know is fueled by resentment and self hate- In my mind, I could murder, with my hands, the guy who cut me off on the highway. Because I hid it so well, for reasons and ways I’ll explain, even those closest to me may be disturbed by that confession.
After 5 years of therapy and 12-step work, I can no longer deny, the rage that can make me hate the person I am was taught to me by my father- From the back seat I can remember him slamming the brakes, kicking his door open, and rushing toward the other driver, arms up, screaming, “I’m going to kill you!” and to a lesser degree, my mother. They got it from their parents, who got it from their parents, and so on. They, like me, internalized what their parents taught them, as their parents did before them. I imagine it goes way back, perhaps all the way to Ancient Greece.
I’ve read, the generational pain cycle is broken only when someone stops to feel the pain. I do.
If you met me, what you’re reading might seem to contradict what you were seeing. According to my 12-step program, I’d be classified as a, “High functioning dysfunctional adult child who appears to operate at a high level of success.” That means, if we had coffee together you might admire the way I can easily slip into conversations with strangers and appear to have it all together, the way my family, ex-wife, children, friends, clients, coaches, professors, and strangers saw me. I was so convincing, I convinced myself.
But the truth is, my life had been unmanageable due to the perfectionism and denial that isolated me from connecting authentically with others. Basically, I pretended to be great because I didn’t want you to see that I wasn’t. The reasoning was, and this is the insane part, I feared my father might beat me for it, even though he’d been long dead. To add a twist, all of that was subconscious.
The subconsciousness of this disease compels me to share my journey- I have observed the generational insidiousness of family dysfunction affects more of us than we’d like to reveal, or are aware of. It can travel through generations until someone stops to understand the hurt, acknowledge the unfillable hole, and become willing to stop numbing the pain with food, alcohol, drugs, sex, porn, work, shopping, gambling, social media, or negative thinking (Yes, that’s something one can be addicted to, like me).
The road to acknowledgement was long and winding for me, with several detours that temporarily steered me off course. Some of those detours came from well meaning people. For example, when I started sharing bits of my childhood I had never revealed before, as well as the spiritual depression and anxiety that resulted from it, a close family member whom I loved and respected tried to help me, “Peter, the past is the past. Let it go. You’re letting it bring you down. You can’t dwell on it. You have to think positively and move on.”
That just made me feel worse, like I was a failure. I wanted to tell him, “But I have tried to let it go. I’ve been trying to let it go for 50 years. Obviously, that didn’t work.”
I wish what I saw and learned at my father’s knee could be undone by thinking positively, but I now know, it’s no match for dysfunction. How do I know? I spent thousands of dollars, countless hours, and decades on advanced degrees, seminars, books, strategies, programs, gurus and therapists, all instructing me to think positively. I even created a speaking business, motivating employees at the largest companies in the world to think positively, all in an effort, I know now, to try and convince myself.
To be fair, that family member didn’t know the whole story. But when I was at my worst, because resentment dominated how I viewed the world back then, this is what I said to him, in my head:
"Did your father pour a can of gasoline on himself and light it?
"No?"
"Then go fuck yourself with letting it go."
But, because my childhood friends told me I was always a kind kid, an innate quality, and uncovered I was also a people pleaser, a learned dysfunctional trait, I would stay silent, not wanting to hurt his feelings. After all, he was just trying to help.
What I was unaware of at the time was the harm that can come from not expressing those emotions. Studies have linked suppressed emotions (conscious feelings intentionally avoided because of being unsure how to deal with them), and repressed emotions (feelings one is unconscious of), to depression, anxiety, high blood pressure, digestive problems, autoimmune diseases, heart disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer's disease, and so on- basically, the main killers of the people we love.
This became obvious- Well meant advice can actually do more harm than good, encouraging someone to ignore a past they survived as a child that is slowly killing them as an adult.
I know that family member loved me, but he didn’t get it.
Because my program recommended it, I had to separate with love from him, and some others I cared about because their desire to help just distracted me from what I could no longer avoid- I had to look at my childhood to understand what happened. Only then could I heal it.
When I looked, this is what I observed- If someone was not abused physically, verbally, or emotionally, or shamed and abandoned by their caregivers while growing up, or witnessed or experienced trauma, then they’re perspective regarding themselves, their lives, and the world, will be different than mine. Confoundingly, differing perspectives can even happen between siblings. My brother and I grew up in the same two bedroom apartment, yet we perceive our childhood generally, and our father specifically, differently.
Regarding positive thinking, my childhood affected me in ways I could never uncover, nor comprehend on my own. I needed Frank, my therapist, to help me understand. He would be the first therapist of the five I had seen throughout my life to tell me, “What your mother, brother, sister, and you experienced wasn’t normal.” But that was hard to hear, because to me, being the only childhood I knew, it felt normal.
Though I had to set boundaries with some, I soon realized there were certain people I could share my journey with that did not try to fix me. Instead, they listened, nodded, and said, “I’m sorry,” then added, “Can I tell you about my childhood?” Those were the people I gratefully took on the road to recovery with me. I observed I was attracting more and more people who were connecting to their own suffering, because, though we had different childhoods, we felt the same emptiness inside- that unfillable hole. We gathered, not to condemn, but to heal. That’s how my Friends & Family Table events were born.
When Frank started mentioning Phoenixes and ashes, referring to my brother, sister, and me, I resisted, and still do. I do not now, nor have I ever felt like a Phoenix rising from the ashes, bigger, stronger, smarter than its predecessor, as the myth describes. However, the more I shared, the more I met some of those Phoenixes, though they would never identify themselves as one either. If you ask them, they were just surviving what they had to, discounting their incredible ability to fight the strong wave of dysfunction that relentlessly pulls one back into the hole the harder one tries to climb out.
They include my mother, brother, sister, and others that have shared stories that made my chest hurt- Like the little black girl in her only Sunday dress, looking out of her apartment window for hours, waiting for a father who never showed up, confused why her mother called her stupid for believing he’d come. Or the childhood friend I thought didn’t have a father because he never mentioned him, not wanting his friends on the playground to know his father was in prison, eventually dying of a heroin overdose. Or the college sophmore who attended the funeral for her older brother and infant nephew, unable to say a final goodbye because they both lay in closed coffins, the result of a murder-suicide.
Unfortunately, the list keeps growing the more I share my own story. They have taught and inspired me with their humility and grace, and created yet another reason I am compelled to continue to share honestly and openly.
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Before I continue, it's important for me to indicate, when I first wrote part 2 of this book I framed it in the present tense. Editing it now, I’ve changed much of it to the past tense. Another indicator of recovery.
In the first draft I wrote, “Often, when I think of my father while I’m at the gym, I see his face on the heavy bag and punch and kick like a man possessed.” I had to change, “Think,” to, “Thought,” because I don’t want to punch him in the face anymore. I’ll share how I went from wanting to hurt my father, to wanting to hug him. But it’s even stranger than that. First, I had to realize I hated him before I could forgive him. Then, I wanted just one more day with him, to tell him, “I’m sorry you suffered. You hurt us, but I’m sorry you suffered.”
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Early on, when my daughter Bella said, “You’re special for having survived it,” though she meant it as a compliment, I shuddered. I didn’t feel special. When I reflected more on what she said, time gifting me with clarity, I told Bella, “What happened to Uncle Chris, Aunt D, Yaya and me is not a badge of honor, honey.”
“But Dad, people walk around complaining about their lives all the time. They haven’t had anything as bad happen to them like you did. I mean, your dad set himself on fire. Then you saw him. That’s crazy.”
“I can’t speak for them, honey. I just know I wouldn’t want anyone to experience what we did. I know now, when I hear people complaining, they are revealing the suffering that’s inside of them. I try to have empathy for them because I’m sick of judging everyone and everything. That’s been a terrible way for me to live. To be honest, in most cases, I don’t know someone’s past, so I don’t like to use the refrain, ‘You can’t understand unless you’ve lived through it.’ That sounds judgemental to me.”
Because I’ve heard people I admire say, “Success leaves clues,” and the 12th step of my 12-step program states, “Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others who still suffer…” I am continually compelled to share the path I took to healing.
Here’s my crumb trail, should anyone choose to follow it out of their dark childhood basement and onto a sunny playground; I needed a good therapist with a background in dysfunctional families, a 12-step program, and a surrounding of like minded people who instead of judging and blaming, surrendered and accepted, “I am willing to do whatever it takes to feel better.”
But first, I had to hit bottom.
Thanks for reading.
All My Best,
Peter
Here are some steps and resources that may help you.
Find a good therapist (They’re not all created equal. If there’s been family trauma/dysfunction in your life, ask if they have expertise in that area. Frank was my 5th, and best therapist)
Look for a 12-step program if that makes sense for you. I joined Adult Children of Alcoholics & Dysfunctional Families. It saved my life.
Ask like minded family & friends for help. Not the friends & family that will judge, but the ones who understand what it is to struggle
Never give up. I was ready to. Thank God I didn’t. My relationships, especially with my children, have never been stronger.
If it’s right for you, I’d like to work with you- Life & Health Coaching