Adult children: the secrets of dysfunctional families

Uncovering and Admitting
Uncovering and admitting are two of the most courageous,
painfully honest and supremely growth-enhancing acts that we as
human beings can do. Above all else, uncovering and admitting

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require strength, clarity of mind and purpose, trust in oneself and
others and faith that the world is basically a decent place in which
to be. Because of this, uncovering and admitting are far removed
from the "easy", ordinary things that we do each day. In truth, a
very complex series of events, both within ourselves and outside of
us, actually precede what we call true uncovering and admitting.
What Kenneth Cooper did for aerobic exercise was to provide a
means for us to gently erode our denial system about the true
amount of exercise that we were getting. We use the terms "gently
erode" because that's exactly what must happen. In all but the most
extreme cases, our denial systems break apart slowly and carefully
over time because we have them for a reason that initially made a
lot of sense when we built them. Denial systems are built for a
logical, sensible purpose. Without them we would be in a lot of
trouble psychologically. The real problem arises when that
protective denial system that we once built for a good reason
begins to get in the way.
If you grew up in an alcoholic family, for example, then it was a
normal protective maneuver for you to unconsciously learn to deny
your own true feelings because the family messages you received
about those feelings were so crazy. The denial of feelings became
an absolute survival response for you as a powerless child in an
overwhelmingly mixed-up family.
The problem pops up when you become an adult and try to have a
family of your own, or when you try to be happy and spontaneous.
Then the denial system that you spent so many years developing
and refining gets in the way. You might go from one "crazy"
relationship to the next. You find yourself in a circle of friends who

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lean on you all the time but who never seem to let you lean on
them. Or when they let you, things get more muddled than ever.
You marry and have children, thinking that all you have to do is
marry and have children and you'll be able to "right" all the wrongs
that were done to you as a child. Yet you find yourself doing some
of the same crazy stuff screaming at the kids for just being kids,
being overly critical and perfectionistic just like Mom or Dad and
wondering why the hell you're doing it when you swore things
would never be like that for your children.
Sooner or later, but inevitably nonetheless, you get depressed, tired,
worried, anxious and desperate; and still, nothing makes sense.
What you're experiencing as a result of growing up in that
alcoholic family is the end result of your denial system that
protected you so well as a child. And our point here is that what
took year after

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careful year of unconscious building for our own survival will not
come tumbling down overnight in a flash of insight with trumpets
and angels in the background. It may seem like that for some of us
when we finally do break through, but in fact our first breakthrough
is actually the result of perhaps years of internal struggle that only
now is becoming external.
Those of you who have been fortunate enough to seek help already
for these problems will most likely be very familiar with what we
have to say. For those of you who have not, we hope that you get
something helpful out of it if only a chance to take some time to
think about yourself for a while, instead of always being caught up
in the hustle and bustle of daily living.
1. The first step in uncovering and admitting is to step back from
your life for a healthy chunk of time and just look at it as if you
were someone else. This cannot usually be done while you're in the
middle of your normal daily routine, so we don't suggest that you
try. We have provided an excellent system for looking at one's life
in our pamphlet entitled Life On My Own Terms: Stress Addiction