So true. The facts of each may be different but the codependent behaviors necessary tend to be pretty familiar to each of us.

My drunken grandmother constantly told me they never really wanted me. I was such a "big" surprise, they named me after a tugboat in the New York harbor.
RIGHT!!! This from an alcoholic!

I don't even remember when I knew she was "sick". I was in high school when Alcoholism was discussed in science class and I figured it out.

I think most of us have been raised in some form of dysfunction. As I look back on my own childhood and that of my childhood friends, I really can't recall any family that was "normal." They all had their own type of dysfunction, and I never really looked at those families as being any better than mine, just different. We really are the product of our upbringing, so it takes a strong person to be able to look at their past, see the mistakes made on them and work to make ourselves into the best people we can be. I think therapy is really the only way to do that, but that's my opinion. I would have no idea how to even tackle my issues without my visits to my therapist. He's the one person I can really open up to and not be judged.

sunny did your grandmother raise you? such a negative thing to put into a child's mind. that's sad. not surprised if she was alcoholic
Cheryl- yeah no family is perfect and all have their own dysfunction and levels of abusive behaviors. comparing our situations to others is something that we all do. but the dysfunction is ours to learn how to deal with. many others here and in the world would have been lucky as I was to at least have grandparents that provided us with the care that we need and did their best. it would have made a big difference to me, I think to have had my mom's death as an approachable subject. felt a lot of love from my grandpa and called him dad and my father daddy. called grandma mom but she was old style and boys were more important to her- very obvious. so maybe that's part of the reason that my dad, with 4 older sisters, was so coddled and lead to his self centered alcoholic behaviors. I used to make excuses for him- he watched my mom die at such a young age and he was young. he had a hard time I would think. but he did not show much compassion for the loss that my brother and I experienced. rambling thanks for listening

I just think a lot of younger men have the type of compassion that children need when they're younger, so he obviously left it up to his parents. We can only give what we have. But at least you are able to be compassionate with yourself and your own kids now (not that the kids always appreciate it!). Hugs.

NO, grandma did not raise me. She was around a lot. She just never missed a chance to tell me how useless and interruptive I was to "the family". How's that for placing blame on the child?

"most of us have been raised in some form of dysfunction"
This phrase is called denial and minimizing.
Comparing "normal" dysfunctions of ordinary life to the turmoil that creates codependency is like telling someone who goes into anaphylaxis from bee stings, "Everyone gets some sort of reaction to a bee sting." The two are massively different.
One is life threatening and requires treatment by professionals trained in life saving, the other is inconvenient but hardly rises to the level of endangering ones life.

The very same thing is true with codependents and "ordinary" dysfunctions. Sure there are times when all families have troubles. But healthy families apologize and make amends for wrongs. They consider the effect of their words and actions on others. Children are allowed to talk about how they feel, how things make them feel, and receive loving support at all times. They care about each other. They never require the child to parent. The parents are not so totally selfish and self centered as to disappear so totally that the child must fend for themselves. And "normal" families are not filled with the chaos of addiction and other illnesses.

The families that create codependents are total turmoil. The children must constantly walk on egg shells. And like sassybabe says, learn about life events by "messing up" with talking about something forbidden. Children in addict homes are never certain which parents they will find in the morning, when they walk in from school, and even who will come back into the house from hanging out laundry.

It most certainly is generational. Unless the codependent works hard to realize what caused their issues, they are doomed to repeat it. This is an excellent observation which can break the cycle and chains which bind up families is dysfunctional generation after generation after generation.

"our past is really a great influence on us and generations of families"

my therapist said that only makes up one part of us not everything and told her then why are some people from dysfunctional families end up messed up for life no matter how many times they have been through therapy? yea, never got a definitive answer.

my family is all about lies and denial plus secrets! we know nothing about our parents not that much nor the other relatives.

"We really are the product of our upbringing, so it takes a strong person to be able to look at their past, see the mistakes made on them and work to make ourselves into the best people we can be."

agreed i told my therapist everybody is a product of their past: good, bad, or indifferent. she just looked at me as always. my siblings and i were never wanted yet my brother is suppose to be the golden child but is nothing like my parents. i was never supposed to been born because my sister told me its bad enough she had 3 kids she wasnt taking care of and abusing emotionally and rica (1st born half sister) was physically abused and molested by my dad.

my sister said they didn't need kids at all and told her we were born to be their slaves since they are so beyond lazy and incompetent to this world. our parents said a lot of negative stuff to us and still do horrible things u would say to children. my sister asked one time which shocked me what did we do to deserve such fucked up lousy loser parents? when the cards were laid out, we got the joker which is those two fat asses!!

oh yea, we always had to walk on eggshells and i am still walking on eggshells. we never knew which parent would be in a good mood they are always pissed off with shitty attitudes even if u asked them a simple, calming question and for no reason get an attitude then it starts a huge fight. they got the nerve to tell u u have no right to be angry, uh, yea i do u snapped at me for no reason.

told my therapist my parents dont apologize to anybody and say ppl are assholes just deal with it if u dont u will always have problems. well, shit, look at me now at age 27 yrs old!! i had these problems since i was a kid and they are so unfit to be parents always so damn negative and extremely unsupportive. my parents dont know about my therapy sessions and told my therapist they are not even here yet they pulled a fast one over u by everything i have told u and you believe them why? because my parents did a "good deed for us!"

they never cared about us and still don't today nobody matters but them.

I sat in a ACOA room one day, a woman was going on and on about her childhood. How she had to spend the weekend with her parents, how they had abused her, how they were dysfunctional, how she was affected by their dysfunction as an adult.

I know "the rooms." Nobody said anything to her, so I shared with her the story of how I had held my last foster fathers hand as he died. That yes, he too had been alcoholic, dysfunctional, abusive, that he had been a part of my own dysfunctions. My learning from his dysfunctions and continuing them in my own life. Some of these demons still try and creep into my life today. I told her that "that day though, I was grateful." I had spent years trying to understand and accept that my childhood wasn't normal. Through the help of ACOA and CODA I could hold his hand in death. I could tell him it was Okay to let go and go to God. I knew I was there to guide him to the next world.

Before I could be in that position, I had to learn to forgive and I couldn't of done that without the 12 Steps of ACOA recovery.
I couldn't of changed and accepted this death, without my anger and resentments if I hadn't. That day was one of the most intense Human Experience I ever had. I wouldn't of had. I equate it to the significance of someone giving birth. That if I hadn't learned to forgive and try to understand and have the empathy for the man who had also given me a gift in life through his own dysfunction.
That gift came from finally learning and accepting and controlling my sense of SELF. Some people wallow in their resentments to their family all their lives. If I did that, I would still be in the same cycle that I had grown up in. By forgiving the past, accepting that it happened and that it could never happen again gave me just enough of an opening to begin to live my life for my SELF. Again I tell you, this wouldn't of happened without 12 Step ACOA programs and therapy.

"Some people wallow in their resentments to their family all their lives."

agreed my therapist told me i still have resentment towards my parents i said aren't they the caused of their own children's suffering? i told her i don't see it as blaming the parents, the reason why u see adult kids with such problems because it directly goes back to their upbringing and who is the one parenting the kids? the parents. so it is natural to say its the parents' fault for fucking up their kids' minds.

u see it all the time on tv they say its ur fault because u didnt do xyz for ur kids and if u didnt provide food for the kids, then it is ur fault simple as that. so, she was talking to me about forgiveness. i told her what they have done is unforgivable there is no excuse for it. something like this is not forgivable, but i can move on without forgiving. i like robert pattinson's idea on forgiveness he said he doesn't forgive, he gives people the benefit of the doubt (that works for some people not all) and he just judges them by character.

if they are no good, he don't want anything to do with them he was saying in an interview. i think people have their own way of forgiving and each of us has to take time to do it. my therapist told me it is eating me alive i said living there is still eating me alive but where to go without a job? she told me i have deep hatred for my parents i said so does my sister and my brother has hatred for my dad why not mom is beyond me she is part of the problem.

wow great responses. agree that when we hold onto resentments at our family it harms us. they are without a doubt hard to get over but we must to be ok. some say they did the best they could............really I don't go for this line. there are certain things that parents should do and not do to protect their children. we know what those things are if we look at being responsible adults that brought a child into the world. I never felt that I could be angry with my dad ( cause he had been through so much loosing a wife at 22 with 2 small children) but have discovered that I am angry with him and not so focused on why he could not be more responsible to us. it was wrong as many of the other things posted here. he was a selfish alcoholic that could not live up to his responsibilities and would not tolerate needy kids that had lost their mom. I try to get those that were around to tell me more and they clam up still. why will none of my family talk about who my mom was and what happened. used to think that it was just how they were about these things years ago. but sick of avoidance of the subject and something was not right and they don't want to talk about it. maybe they know that my dad was a selfish ass? going to start confronting them again. I want and need to know what happened good and bad.

Getting into it with your relatives may backfire and set you back. Why do you need to know? Will it make a difference in how your live your life going forward? We can't undo the past, or expect those around us to apologize for the past, because we don't have control over others. I would really sit and think about why you feel so strongly about needing this information. You know it will open a whole can of worms with your dysfunctional family, and I believe it will made you feel bad about yourself again after having some bad interaction with them. Just my thoughts.

"some say they did the best they could............really I don't go for this line. there are certain things that parents should do and not do to protect their children. we know what those things are if we look at being responsible adults that brought a child into the world."

thank you! been saying that for years yet i had people who tell me i dont get it ohh i get it alright! people say look for positives about your parents my therapist said that she told me it could have been worse i said that's a matter of opinion but i don't care mistreatment is still mistreatment, hurting your kids is still hurting ur kids yet this woman has kids herself!!

this is why i can't seem to be on the same level with other parents plus she isn't that much older than me. it's like other parents just wanna protect other parents who don't shit for their kids i told her why do u wanna protect them is beyond me. she said they are parents i said hunny please, anybody can produce kids it doesnt make them parents. we need to get over that and look further than someone who makes kids and see what are they doing for them or not doing for them - actions will always speak louder than words.

she seem to get pissy when i said that but oh well. i told my therapist u heard everything from beginning to end and end to beginning, what the hell did my parents do that made u say they tried to do their best? she said they put a roof over ur guys' heads i said oh please that is self explanatory a parent is suppose to do that and that is weak try again. she just looked at me lol

i challenged her which she lost by an earshot! she said well, ur mother tried to be a mother i said how? i tore up her statements and relisted everything my parents didn't do and should have done. i said they NEVER apologized for anything, never tried to make things right, never were the inspiration that a child would want to look up to and have them as their example, etc.

i told therapist i am gonna ask u again, in what way did they try their best? she was silent. i said thank you, point taken. i know my parents, you don't know, and since they are not here, can't believe they pulled a fast one over you. they have that affect on people when i am not around them and when i tell people about my parents.

again, she looked dumbfounded as always. i am like is this woman always this clueless? told her she needs more life experience, use experience/facts not her motherly instincts that doesn't help me one bit.

"They did the best that they could"

BALONEY! I was raised just as bad. I went out to find out how to fix these problems. I never rested on "I'm doing the best that I can" while also accusing my children of CAUSING my moods. I accepted them as mine and my responsibility.

I find that statement as excuse to make us feel bad that we were abused and are angry about it. The inner child is crying out for justice and being told the grown adults around them were beating them emotionally, physically, and spiritually were "doing the best that they could".

How do we explain away the nuns who slapped back of the hands of children just for raising their hands to ask a question?
How do we deny the priests who violated children in the safety of a confessional?
How do we excuse teachers who had sex with minors?

Forgiving and seeing "they did the best they could" has to come after processing the pain and finding healing ON MY TIME FRAME not someone else's.

sunnybunn,

i agree with ya. i told my therapist and other people how do they do the best they could? there is a huge difference in trying to better yourself, trying to correct mistakes and learning from them; but putting ur kids in a shitty situation, not ever caring, yelling at them cuz of xyz like it's their fault, etc how is that they did the best they could? i asked her did the parents even TRY to do better?

i said keyword is try and actually doing some of action. she is a parent herself and told her u should be outraged by other parents who don't love/take care of their kids. i told her everything from beginning to end, end to beginning, and asked her what part did u hear about my parents ever trying to do better for us and for themselves? she sat there looking stupid and dumbfounded as always.

people say shit like that to me, they are trying to get me to see my parents in a different light, i said what light? i told them that's called twisting someone's words u just don't want to see/hear of a parent not fulfilling their roles like they should and it is about being blinded to reality. u won't believe how many people cursed me out when i said that and my therapist got huffy when i said that - oh well truth is truth.

i gave my therapist an example of a guy who was in my college class 4 yrs ago. he was in a counseling class i was in and cool to talk too. he said he went to prison for 10 yrs dealing with drugs, he came out of prison and he wanted to better himself. i forgot what major he was doing, but he told us in class how prison changed his life for the better and said how he will never sell drugs again.

he took it seriously and studied hard too. i told my therapist that is a person bettering himself not going in and out of prison, still selling drugs, etc. she looked at me in amazement and said to her what my parents didn't do at all is NOT parents trying to better themselves at all. i am really disappointed in your thinking, ohh she didn't like that!

honestly, it's like my inner child is still screaming for justice, love, support, and a set of real parents - something i will never get. i told my therapist by you saying they did the best they could, you're trying to put fictional images of a good parent when that doesn't come close to them at all and i won't conform to your ideas on that simply because it isn't true.

i said that is dusting it under the rug and she cut me off saying she isn't agreeing with them i said why are you saying they did the best they could? if ur a lousy drunk, who has no interest in getting sober, and u die because of ur alcohol whose fault is that? why couldnt the drunk better him/herself? another round of silence!

told her this isn't rocket science and u don't need a degree for common sense and critical thinking! she expects me to forgive them asap i said on my time frame, i don't think there is any forgiveness. she said why stay angry? i asked why are you protecting lousy parents because ur a mom? use facts/experiences not ur motherly instincts...

NOT forgiving does NOT equal "staying angry". She just projected feelings on to you which is also GUILTING you into forgiving.
Some therapists are in it for therapy for themselves!

I have to write much more but this darn phone is hunt and peck too slow for my racing brain to deal with. Be back as soon as I am home with my computer

Finally, found this thread again. Whew!!!

Anyway, Forgiveness has been mis-represented so often that we have all forgotten what it was meant for in the first place.


I have to totally agree that my parents did nothing the best that they could! They just went along blaming the kids for anything and everything that went wrong. One sibling figured out the system and how to make the rest of us ALWAYS wrong and took advantage my entire childhood. Even when mom was dying the two of them allowed that one to take advantage of the rest of us. They used us and used us for their safety and protection.

There is nothing at all best they could about using children to care for parents. NOTHING!


Sadly, most therapists have worked with only the mild codependency issues. They have no idea how to really help people who were horribly abused into creating codependent behaviors so serious that they want to become nuns and priests and give up their lives to care for others. These parents had children to take off some pressure and made children pay for ever. They did NOT do their best. They did what they were told and then punished the baby for crying when hungry.

Addicts dont give a crude about others! They want their addiction. How is that doing their best?
It is NOT!