Free Toxic Parents by Susan Forward Page B

doing, but we finally worked through it together and she came to accept her parents’ full responsibility for their cruel behavior. Her parents were dead, but it took Barbara another year before she could get them to leave her alone.
    No Separate Identity
    Parents who feel good about themselves do not have to control their adult children. But the toxic parents we’ve met in this chapter operate from a deep sense of dissatisfaction with their lives and a fear of abandonment. Their child’s independence is like the loss of a limb to them. As the child grows older, it becomes ever more important for the parent to pull the strings that keep the child dependent. As long as toxic parents can make their son or daughter feel like a child, they can maintain control.
    As a result, adult children of controlling parents often have avery blurred sense of identity. They have trouble seeing themselves as separate beings from their parents. They can’t distinguish their own needs from their parents’ needs. They feel powerless.
    All parents control their children until those children gain control of their own lives. In normal families, the transition occurs soon after adolescence. In toxic families, this healthy separation is delayed for years—or forever. It can only occur after you have made the changes that will enable you to gain mastery over your own life.

4 | “No One in This Family Is an Alcoholic”
    The Alcoholics
    G lenn, a tall, rugged-looking man who owns a small manufacturing company, came to me for help primarily because his timidity and lack of assertiveness were affecting both his personal and professional relationships. He said he felt nervous and restless a great deal of the time. He had overheard someone at work call him “whiny” and “depressing.” He sensed that people were uneasy when they met him, which made it difficult for him to turn acquaintances into friends.
    Midway through our first session, Glenn started talking about another source of stress at work:
About six years ago, I took my father into business with me, hoping it would straighten him out. I think the pressure of the job just made him worse. He’s been an alcoholic for as long as I can remember. He drinks, he insults customers, and he costs me a lot of business. I’ve got to get him out of there, but I’m terrified. How the hell do you fire your own father? It would destroy him. Whenever I try to talk to him about it, all he says is: “You talk to me with respect or you don’t talk to me at all.” I’m going nuts.
    Glenn’s excessive sense of responsibility, his need to rescue his father, his personal insecurities, and his repressed anger were classic symptoms of adult children of alcoholics.
    The Dinosaur in the Living Room
    If Richard Nixon’s White House staff had taken cover-up lessons from anyone in an alcoholic’s family, “Watergate” would still be just a Washington hotel. Denial takes on gargantuan proportions for everyone living in an alcoholic household. Alcoholism is like a dinosaur in the living room. To an outsider the dinosaur is impossible to ignore, but for those within the home, the hopelessness of evicting the beast forces them to pretend it isn’t there. That’s the only way they can coexist. Lies, excuses, and secrets are as common as air in these homes, creating tremendous emotional chaos for children.
    The emotional and psychological climate in alcoholic families is much the same as in families where parents abuse drugs, whether illegal or prescription. Though the cases I’ve chosen in this chapter focus on alcoholic parents, the painful experiences of children of drug abusers are quite similar.
    Glenn’s experience was characteristic:
My earliest memory is of my father coming home from work and heading straight for the liquor cabinet. It was his nightly ritual. After downing a few, he’d come to dinner with a glass in his hand, and the damned thing was never empty. After dinner, he’d get down to some