Frozen Slushies – Not Frozen Tweens How many among us have known the joy of an attorney client? The truism is accurate: attorneys make the worst legal clients. Every sentence drafted, every opinion offered, every query made, they are all rebutted, reworked, and/or resisted. A milestone I recently reached; it is fertile ground to explore the present-day effects of a dysfunctional upbringing. There was no addiction (or alcoholism—same thing) in my family, but there was rage, narcissism, perfectionism, and a wide variety of triggering abuses. The impact of these abuses was compounded by the high status my family held in my community, a kind of social gaslighting. I still run into so many people who tell me how much they appreciate my dad, how valuable he was to the community. People praise my mom’s sweetness, diligence, and hard work. Home life was a different story. Details are unimportant, but I was forced to develop dysfunctional defenses to the dysfunctional environment which doled out criticism when I needed unconditional love, demanded adult behaviors when I was a child, and reversed the polarity of emotional support. My personality froze somewhere around the tweens, and I became withdrawn, dissociated, and fantasy driven (also known as “in denial”). Later, I would discover drugs, including, but not limited to, alcohol. Using drugs is just an extreme form of dissociation from the present moment, highly effective in the short term, when the present feels so painful. Some sad results persist after the recovery from substance use disorder. For example, one side effect of that personality freeze is emotionally casting others into the roles originally held by my dysfunctional family. My first impulse when operating from that place is to respond to circumstances or people in the self-protective way of my tween: avoid where possible, manipulate when I must, dominate when I can. You may recognize these traits as those practiced by colleagues we’d often prefer to avoid. Recovery today is about clarity for me, and unconditional love for that frozen tween inside. The love allows the inner tween to feel safe, and clarity brings awareness of reality in the present moment. As the result, I gain the freedom to choose. I no longer am compelled to practice a survival trait; instead I can practice a “thrival” trait like honest communication or diligence. That attorney client is not my mother, father, sibling, or enemy. Today, I can notice how their treatment is similar to the constant invalidation I received as a child, acknowledge the associated feelings, and let them go. Then I can choose right behavior: I can serve where I am helpful, set boundaries where needed, ask for help, make mistakes, and spread peace and justice. As the Mandalorian says, “This is the way.”If you are interested in contributing your own story to the Sidebar, click here. The Sidebar is supported by the stories of our readers, and we appreciate your contributions. |
