The Christian Adult Child

Last weekend, I wanted to make a trip to an area that would require me to drive through a town that carried a lot of baggage for me. It was the hometown of the first person I entered a relationship with in my mid-20s and a huge source of pain. It was fall and the foliage was beautiful. I love driving with my dog, with a cup of coffee and the windows down. So I went.

At this point in my healing journey, I knew that punishing myself for what I did in the past was not what a loving parent would do. I knew that memories might arise as I drove through that area. I’ve notice people are quick to “learn a lesson” from an experience.

For an adult child, we have learned enough lessons. We need to break patterns of thinking, not learn more lessons.

The Christian Adult Child

To this day, I regret entering that relationship. I can’t cover it with toxic positivity, I don’t want to search for gratitude in abuse. I made an example and asked a question once to someone who was suggesting I find a lesson in that experience, “If I was raped, would you be suggesting I find something to be grateful about in that experience? Would you be encouraging me to find something positive?”. I know those who are close to us, don’t want to see us in pain. They offer words, but the hurt runs deep.

For me, the only type of relating I knew was dysfunctional and I could tolerate a lot of pain, without knowing it. All of these things were going through my mind as I got into my car to start this hour drive. I thought about the shame I felt in the many times I had recreated the abuse with different people through my life, and I felt the comfort from these words from the Big Red Book, “we couldn’t have turned out differently”.

Without further adieu, here is the poem….

In my childhood, I learned how to stay in unsafe situations. It’s no wonder I recreated it, over and over, and over and over, in my adult life. I didn’t know another way.

I am learning that, through feeling my feelings, I can create boundaries. My body knows what is abusive long before what my mind does. I feel tension in my chest. I can’t concentrate. I feel tight. I feel small. I feel scared to use my voice. I don’t consider using my voice. I feel there are no options. I am learning to trust those feelings, especially know that I have gotten glimmers of what safe feels like.

Here is a video about the body and mind in narcissistic relationships, but you might find it helpful as an ACA. Be gentle. If you’re like me, connecting to the body and connecting to reality can feel scary. When I was a child, my relationship with God connected me to a place of “elsewhere”, because my childhood was chaotic and unsafe. As I have become more safe internally, I am learning that I can relate to God in the present, He can ground me in the Now.

Here is a scripture I lean on.

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with powerthrough his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Ephesians 3:16-19

Be well. In love, The Christian Adult Child