My False Self

Well, as I study this workbook...there I am.  On every glorious page.  Amazing.  I ask myself, "Why am I just now encountering this workbook?  This information?"  I wasn't ready.  Simply put...it's all on GOD's time, not mine.



The next question in that ACA workbook is:

2.  Do I understand that the effects of family dysfunction mentioned in Step One are the Laundry List traits?

The Laundry List – 14 Traits of an Adult Child of an Alcoholic

1. We became isolated and afraid of people and authority figures.
2. We became approval seekers and lost our identity in the process.
3. We are frightened of angry people and any personal criticism.
4. We either become alcoholics, marry them or both, or find another compulsive personality such as a workaholic to fulfill our sick abandonment needs.
5. We live life from the viewpoint of victims and we are attracted by that weakness in our love and friendship relationships.
6. We have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility and it is easier for us to be concerned with others rather than ourselves; this enables us not to look too closely at our own faults, etc.
7. We get guilt feelings when we stand up for ourselves instead of giving in to others.
8. We became addicted to excitement.
9. We confuse love and pity and tend to "love" people we can "pity" and "rescue."
10. We have "stuffed" our feelings from our traumatic childhoods and have lost the ability to feel or express our feelings because it hurts so much (Denial).
11. We judge ourselves harshly and have a very low sense of self-esteem.
12. We are dependent personalities who are terrified of abandonment and will do anything to hold on to a relationship in order not to experience painful abandonment feelings, which we received from living with sick people who were never there emotionally for us.
13. Alcoholism is a family disease; and we became para-alcoholics and took on the characteristics of that disease even though we did not pick up the drink.
14. Para-alcoholics are reactors rather than actors.

Tony A., 1978

Note: The Laundry List serves as the basis for The Problem statement.

Many of us found that we had several characteristics in common as a result of being brought up in an alcoholic or other dysfunctional household. We had come to feel isolated, and uneasy with other people, especially authority figures. To protect ourselves, we became people-pleasers, even though we lost our own identities in the process. All the same we would mistake any personal criticism as a threat. We either became alcoholics (or practiced other addictive behavior) ourselves, or married them, or both. Failing that, we found other compulsive personalities, such as a workaholic, to fulfill our sick need for abandonment.
We lived life from the standpoint of victims. Having an overdeveloped sense of responsibility, we preferred to be concerned with others rather than ourselves. We got guilt feelings when we stood up for ourselves rather than giving in to others. Thus, we became reactors rather than actors, letting others take the initiative. We were dependent personalities, terrified of abandonment, willing to do almost anything to hold on to a relationship in order not to be abandoned emotionally. Yet, we kept choosing insecure relationships because they matched our childhood relationship with alcoholic or dysfunctional parents.
These symptoms of the family disease of alcoholism or other dysfunction made us ‘co-victims’, those who take on the characteristics of the disease without necessarily ever taking a drink. We learned to keep our feelings down as children and kept them buried as adults. As a result of this conditioning, we confused love with pity, tending to love those we could rescue. Even more self-defeating, we became addicted to excitement in all our affairs, preferring constant upset to workable relationships.
This is a description, not an indictment.
Adapted from The Laundry List

And there it is, in its full glory...my False Self.


I always say, before I ever took the first drink in my whole life...I was an untreated  Alanon...now I get that I was an untreated Adult Child.  Jeesh.

So, it seems to me, I've lived a great deal of my life in an "altered state", in the persona of my False Self, whose chief reason for being is to protect ME, the genuine, authentic Self.  My divine being Self is so powerful it can create a protective shield, an entire another Self or multiple other Selves.  Wow.  Kewl beanz.  I picture this like a crystal.  A single (Me) ray of light gets bent (the events which happened in my life) then splits (the False Self is the scattered array of rainbow lights) and this altered state becomes "normal", "the way it is", how we all get by.

The False Self has a function, a role in life.  To protect me.  When I was a child I needed this protection.  Now I don't.  But the False Self wants to live and is afraid to die.  It is doing what it knows to do to protect Me, as it's been doing all along, its only reason for living.  And it has.  It helped me make it through atrocities, put-downs, traumas, abuse, tears, griefs, lies, rejection, neglect, abandonment, shame, guilt, anger, fear, frustration, terror, lack of control, dependency, too much of this and not enough of that, etc.  It performed marvelously, extraordinarily stepping up on so many levels to protect Me.  Because here I am.  :)

Thank you, my False Self.  You have done a wonderful job.  Thank you for all you've done to help me.  Thank you for giving, protecting, shielding, taking the blows, withstanding the negativity, deflecting, and all the efforts you've made to keep me safe.  How amazing you've been to give so much of yourself for me.  Thank you again and again.  You accomplished what you were meant to do.  Your mission in life was to take care of Me.  Now, it is time for you to not so much die as to be re-integrated, reabsorbed, become One with Me, your Creator.  Pretty much the same way as when I die on this Earth plane, I will return, be reabsorbed, become One with my Creator, the Source, the Higher Power.