Why Do Adult Children Lack Self-Acceptance?

Every child arrives in the world as a blank slate on which his parents or primary caregivers write. If they themselves are products of unresolved, unrecovered alcoholism, para-alcoholism, dysfunction, or abuse, and remain in denial about it, it is a distorted reflection of them that the child's slate becomes. None of this breeds very much self-acceptance, especially if he fails to question the treatment to which he was subjected later-in-life.

It both begins and hinges upon their acceptance and love of him, and if they have not addressed their own issues, it may be infrequently demonstrated. Forced to see himself as his parents did, he may subconsciously engage in more self-rejecting than self-accepting.

One of the reasons for it, which may at first be viewed as a positive manifestation, is perfectionism.

"Perfectionism is a response to a shame-based and controlling home," according to the "Adult Children of Alcoholics" textbook (World Service Organization, 2006, p. 36). "The child mistakenly believes that she can avoid being shamed if she is perfect in her thinking and acting. However, our experience shows that expectations are continually raised in these kinds of homes. Shame or the feeling that we have failed our parents seems to occur no matter what we do. During these moments, our critical inner voice begins to form. This is an early sign of internalizing our parents' hypercritical attitudes. These are the seeds that lead to a lack of self-acceptance."

It is thus inextricably tied to parent acceptance of the child's performance, achievements, actions, and behavior.

Believing, without question, his parents' own perfection, and not understanding why their acceptance of him may be lacking, he assumes the burden himself, concluding that he is inadequate, flawed, and unlovable as a creation, unable to entertain the thought that they function from their own deficiencies. Anticipating the danger and emotional overload such a thought would have by an intellectually, psychologically, and neurologically undeveloped child, he finds it more stabilizing to accept the blame himself than attribute it to them. Unable to care for himself, he relies on them for nurturing and his very survival.

Berating himself for these flaws, needless to say, does little to foster his self-acceptance later-in-life.

"Condemning my imperfections has never advanced my appreciation of life or helped me to love myself more," advises Al-Anon's "Courage to Change" text (Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc., 1992, p. 19). "Perhaps I can let go of all condemnation for this one day. I will recognize that I am on a spiritual path of self-improvement. Every tiny step I take on that path moves me closer to wholeness, health, and sanity."

Yet that person's childhood was a path that led in the opposite direction. An object, at times, of shame, blame, and out-and-out hatred, especially if his parents were fueled by alcohol, he could hardly have equated these actions with acceptance, much less love. As a human repository, he may have served as the target of their projections, which contained their own stored, unresolved episodes of abuse, and these were more than likely triggered by the presence of the child himself.

Doused to distorted saturation by the negative, highly-charged emotions his parents could not contain, he believed he was the embodiment of those horrible feelings, yet was unaware that they were feelings transferred to him. They did not originate with him. Drenched by them, and subjected to ever-mounting deluges of them throughout his upbringing, he more than bought into them. They were and are him, he concluded.

Emotionally overloaded and most likely negotiating life with varying degrees of mistrust, hypervigilance, continually retriggered traumas, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) he does not even understand, he can hardly get to the center of a negatively converted self, much less "accept" it.

Self-acceptance implies an acknowledgment, embracing, and loving of a person's true or authentic self, which, created by God or a Higher Power of his understanding, is richly endowed and intrinsically euphoric. Its essence is love. But dangerous, damaging, and shaming upbringings characterized by instability and lack of safety forced the child to subconsciously reconfigure his brain and adopt so-called "survival traits" that include isolation, fear of parent-representing authority figures, approval-seeking, people-pleasing, overdeveloped senses of responsibility, denied and repressed childhood feelings and fears that were squelched o the point of numbed nonexistence, harsh self-judgment, low self-esteem, and the continual subjection of childhood-created, but unresolved triggers and reactions, all in an effort to function as an adult in the outside world with what he experienced as a child in the inside world. That "inside world," of course, was his home-of-origin.

"... We realized that we lived by a set of survival traits known as the laundry list," the "Adult Children of Alcoholics" textbook continues (op. cit., p.435). "This list describes a false self that can only accomplish self-hate and self-harm. There is no self-acceptance in the false self."

The true self most likely remains buried in the protective cocoon the person was forced to create so that he could spiritually escape and seek refuge from an unstable or dangerous parent.

As long as its remains buried in its sanctuary, however, the person cannot connect with it, nor, indirectly, with others and his Higher Power, leaving him perpetually on the outside, looking in. Unable to accept himself, he is equally unable to accept others.

Progressively dissolving all of these sometimes very powerful and painful childhood-rooted manifestations, recovery, albeit at a slow pace, enables the person to identify and re-accept his authentic self-the one that is richly endowed and does not hinge upon others' assessments or judgments of him.

"My friend and I resolve that in the future, we will try less, accept more, and let go of our impatience, self-criticism, and self-hatred," "Courage to Change" concludes (op. cit., p. 7). "We take a deep breath and say, 'Help me, Higher Power. Help me remember that the purpose of making mistakes is to prepare myself to make more; help me remember that when I'm no longer making mistakes, I'll be out of this world'."

What is most important here is that the person realizes that, in his imperfect, impermanent state, that it is inevitable that he will make mistakes, but that he is not the embodiment of a mistake his upbringing may have led him to believe.

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