The Grief Build-Up

I have read a number of articles on the Internet listing the characteristics and personality traits of adults who grew up with alcoholism in the home; many list the same traits.  However, I stumbled upon one article that listed something that I never saw before in my research.  It said that ACOAs suffer from an accumulation of grief; a build-up of sorts.  The article stated that the losses ACOAs experienced during their childhood were often never grieved because the alcoholic family does not tolerate intense uncomfortable feelings.

This got me thinking about my childhood.  I spent a lot of time alone but when I was seven my mother’s employer gave me a kitten named Tiger.  Tiger and I were best buds; we did everything together.  But as unneutered boy cats will be boy cats, Tiger longed to go outside and commune with the wild; or a close facsimile, namely our backyard.  One day, Tiger got into an altercation with a squirrel; and the squirrel won.  Tiger was rushed to the veterinarian and never returned home.  My mother never told me what happened to Tiger, not even now after 45 years!  I suspect he had to be put down.  The point is I never had the opportunity to grieve the loss of my favorite pet.  Coincidently, two other family pets went to the vet’s and never returned.

As I got older and began attending funeral services of church members, my mother often pointed out to me that when people made a scene at the funeral, guilt was the root cause.  If she had been a good daughter to her mother she wouldn’t have been doing all the whooping and hollering, my mother often said when we returned home.  That stuck with me for a long time.  Thinking about it now I recall at my grandfather, aunts and father’s funerals, I displayed little emotion and there were no outbursts from me.  The article also mentioned that ACOAs are frequently depressed.  I think that a build-up of grief is cause for depression.  I will examine this further.

Hi I'm Liz Hawkins and I'm an Adult Child of an Alcoholic.