I was born in the UK in 1940, in Liverpool.  My family was already in great disarray—my mother suffering from mental illness, and my dad an active alcoholic.  They were very poor, and moved a lot.  Six of their eight children had already died of infantile diseases such as diphtheria and pneumonia.  My older sister and I were the only surviving children.  My mother was placed in a mental hospital and I never saw her again. My dad was in and out of local pubs and in and out of work.

There were nightly bombing raids on several English cities during this time, and Liverpool got hit badly.  My sister and I were evacuated out into the country, to Yorkshire, where our Aunty Ivy (one of Dad’s sisters) now lived.  She took care of us there until I was six and Anne was 13years old.  My aunt had been single, but now she married a widower with three boys and because there was not enough money for them to take care of so many kids, my sister and I were sent to an orphanage in Hertfordshire.

We were separated there because Anne was so much older and had to go to the older girls house, some distance from the main houses of the Home.  So we didn’t see each other much.

This was a very difficult transition for me, and I was pretty well closed down the first year I was there.  But in time I got used to being there, and I liked that there were woods and fields to play in.  I also loved going to the chapel, and in time I joined the choir.  I read a lot and was a lonely, shy child.  I knew nothing of my own value or strengths, and disappeared in order not to disobey any rules or cause any trouble.  The fear of being abandoned again was very deep.  But it didn’t save me from having to go through that again. This time I was 12, and the staff at the home thought I needed to be in a smaller more private sort of setting and sent me to a foster home.  I didn’t like those people at all, and only survived that transition because I was still going to the same school and I really liked it there and did well.  It was a bit of “known world” in the midst of another big change.

When I was 14, my sister married and they had a house so I was asked if I’d like to live with them.  This seemed like a wonderful solution, and I went.  But what I had to learn was that my sister was even more damaged than me in terms of her ability to relate to people and accept herself.  Even though married and having children, she had become  a very rageful, controlling, codependent sort of person.  Things weren’t going well with her marriage and she treated me to a lot of her rage as well.  I shut down again and became very fearful of her and walked on eggs all the time I was in her presence.  It was, as I look back, a very good coaching in codependency.  I swore I would never be like that, but time was to tell.

I graduated from high school when I was 19, but had become quite depressed at that time.  My dad was very ill with lung cancer and his alcoholism had got the better of him.  He died two years later, and I was heartbroken because although I had never lived with him, he was pretty special to me.

I had entered the adult world with zero life skills, no real ability to relate to other people or to myself, very little self-awareness, and very naïve about sex, money, career, and everything I really needed to know.  I was just barely surviving.  So it was inevitable that I’d be easy prey for just about anything going.  I was talked into a relationship with this German guy, and ended up getting pregnant by him.  I didn’t really like him, which was bad enough, but being an unmarried mother in England at that time fed into all the shame and victimization and low self-esteem I was already suffering with.

A beautiful daughter, Helen, was born to me in January of 1964.  I was 24 years old.  My sister and a vicar friend of hers put a lot of pressure on me to marry this guy and I capitulated, but I knew in my heart of hearts it wasn’t going to “make things right” at all!  Still, another child was born a year and a half later.  By now I was living in Sweden and feeling very isolated.  I had to learn the language, but I had few friends.  The two small children kept me busy but I felt so alone! Their father was something of a bully and very opinionated about everything and we fought because neither of us had any idea how to have a real relationship!  We agreed to divorce and I was relieved about that, but didn’t have a clue what was next.

I was introduced to a Swedish-American guy who was on sabbatical leave from an American university and living in Sweden, in our town, for the year.  He struck me immediately as more the type of person I should be with and I fell in love with him, and a year later we were married.  He was handsome and intelligent and (although I didn’t consciously note this at the time) he looked like my dad!  He was also an active alcoholic.  But since I’d never actually lived with an alcoholic yet, I thought it was just a matter of finding the right person and then he wouldn’t need to drink!  Hah!  I had so much still to learn!

The next eleven years were an absolute hell of an alcoholic/codependent marriage.  We wrote the textbook in everything that kept the merry-go-round of denial going!  We fought and screamed at one another, and I threw out bottles, bought him drinks, and tried to join him in his drinking, and all sorts of insanity.  Trying to reason with him was the hardest part and I felt that I was losing my mind in the attempt.  I didn’t know it then, but what I was doing was trying to rescue my father.

By now there was a third child on the scene, and sad to say, all three kids had a pretty rough time of it, and ending up getting into drugs, alcohol and trouble with school and the law.  My oldest son was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia as well—but there was no way we would have been able to tell when he was younger because everything was so out of control and who knew what normal was?!

That marriage ended in divorce too.  My two oldest children went to live with their school friend’s families, and the youngest stayed with me.  I was now going to school, and attempting to make a career of my own in academia.  But as it was, we were living on just my graduate teaching assistant salary and a student loan.  I moved to Ohio in 1980 with the intent of completing a doctorate degree.  But there were still lots of problems and great pain and muddle with my kids. In 1983 I finally hit bottom and knew I had to get help for myself.  I got into counseling with an alcoholism counselor, and he strongly recommended Al-Anon meetings as well.  We did a lot of work with ACOA materials and concepts learned from Claudia Black, John Bradshaw, Charles Whitfield and people like that, but at that time there were no ACOA meetings as such..

Gradually I learned that I was not defective, bad, evil, or the cause of all these problems, but rather, just a product of my history!  I grew stronger with the Al-Anon principles of taking it a day at a time, letting go and letting God, and listening to others in the program who obviously had a lot going for them even though in many cases they were still living with their alcoholic spouses!

I’ve been working the program now for 23 years (with a period of some five years where I drifted away from meetings but still kept up the readings and the overall passion of mine to heal and understand myself and my life).  Since September 11th 2001, I’ve renewed my commitment to work this program with all that I’ve got, and not let it go again, because I recognize that I can’t afford to do that.  I am a much stronger and more aware person now, as a result of this, and I am also noticing that I am much more creative these days, too.  I think there is so much good stuff that gets uncovered when we learn to let go of all the old stuff and walk a different path—but I know I couldn’t have dome this without the help of the program, my higher power, and all the brave people who are on this same journey towards a much better life!

Thanks for listening!

~Seachange