Coping with and resolving these double binds will take time. With an active participation and commitment to recovery, this healing process (also referred to as healing the child within) may take from "three to five years or more" (Whitfield 1988). It helped me to understand the terror, the rage, and the helplessness in the message (from the addict parent's point of view):

Translation: I feel terrified and helpless when I have bad feelings or make bad choices. I have no coping skills for feeling bad or making what I consider to be bad choices **. I associate being abused with having bad feelings and making bad choices. If I'm around you when I feel bad, I believe you to be the source of my bad feelings and bad choices. I can't allow you to be yourself if I feel bad in the process.

* The possibility of conflict , injury, or abuse to occur.

Unfortunately, a child does not have the benefit of insight into this translation. He or she only knows that their addict parent is not ok when they (the child) are not ok. The child then rationalizes that:

In response to this rationale, they believe that by being ok enough, their addict parent (their provider) will be ok enough to take care of them. The alternative as seen by the child is death (Whitfield 1988). They think, "If I don't take care of my addict parent by being ok, they are not going to be able to take care of me (because they won't be ok enough to do so). And, if they aren't ok enough to take care of me, I could die. I am not old enough or knowledgeable enough to take care of myself."

This is the terror.

This is the helplessness.

This is the anger, rage, and pain.

If I were to re-entitle this guide from the child's point of view, I would entitle it:

"How I Resentfully Surrender Myself in Terror, in order to Take Care of My Parent,

Who I Thought, Was Supposed to Take Care of Me."

The feelings of this terror, helplessness, and rage, along with the myths, the old baggage, the approval seeking as a way of life, the creation of chaos, the phobias, the grieving of childhood (or terrorhood), the looking behavior, and integration, will become the journey of expulsion.

The journey includes it's opposites and shades of middle grey too . . . . . . . including:

I'm not OK, when . . . . You're not.

(from my point of view as an adult to the people and things in my environment)

It's a learned behavior. It's my training as an object of addiction that includes the premise that I'm not OK, when you're not. It's the most complex double bind in my recovery. The double bind is:

I'm not OK, when . . . . You're not.

- or -

When I'm with you and you're not OK,

How can I control you (or it) so I'll be OK.

Because I'm terrified when you're not OK.

- or -

The Doulbe Bind

Controlling you (or it)

vs

So I'll be OK

It's the single most destructive and self-defeating double bind for adult children of dysfunctional families. Recognizing the destructive control behaviors used in grappling this double bind, I feel is helpful in moving out of the related stress cycles (choose to see Double Binds and Section I Behaviors that Hurt). Give up the controlling and the double binds eventually resolve themselves with the help of expulsion and safe listening environments. Choosing to give up double binds is available to me by using and practicing the detachment skills in Section I (The Lessons) and learning how to nurture myself.

next: Options for Expulsion and Self-discovery