Emotional resilience is one result from growing up in an alcoholic or other type of dysfunctional family system. Those who suffer trauma early in life are often better prepared to cope with stress and crises later in life than those who grew up in healthy, stable home environments.
Growing up in an alcoholic family, frightening, stressful, and confusing. Defense mechanisms form to lessen the anxiety and sadness amid parental conflict, alcoholism, physical/sexual abuse, and physical or emotional abandonment. During traumatic events, self-protecting thought patterns develop, denying or minimizing the painful and frightening realities of aggressive conflicts or severe neglect.
Alcoholic parents cause children to live in fear of when the next disruptive, drunken episode will occur. As a result, the habit of anticipatory, hypervigilant thinking develops, creating issues with; anxiety, problems with sleep, difficulty concentrating, low self-esteem, anger and problems with trust and intimacy. Additionally, children become confused by the conflicting feelings about both the alcoholic parent and the co-dependent parent, whose controlling, aggressive, reactive behaviors can be equally damaging to healthy emotional development.
It is sad when a child must develop defense mechanisms to regulate the effects of trauma caused by family pathology. Feelings of security, confidence, and happiness are replaced with the emotions of hurt, fear, anger, and shame. Although some children from trauma become depressed, anxious types with low self-esteem, many become firm in their desire to find strength and happiness despite family dramas. These children become adults who are better equipped to navigate challenging emotional circumstances with strength and resilience. The mental and physical prep for probable conflict and stress forces self-management and self- soothing skills to develop.
The pattern of building coping mechanisms early in life has shown to have helped adult children of alcoholics better cope with the hardships of the COVID-19 pandemic. The discomfort of social isolation and the fear of not being safe during the pandemic duplicated familiar feelings for ACA’s. Surviving the chaos and /or abuse in their families provided hope that by making responsible decisions now, they would get through the pandemic like they got through their childhoods.
Having to manage intense fears and other challenging emotions prepares these children to address future life challenges. Children living in a dysfunctional family learn to self-soothe, distract themselves, and get support from friends, teachers, and extended family members. The skill of problem-solving and the feeling of self-confidence builds as the instinct to survive emerges.
As COVID-19 recovery happens, children from trauma are having an easier time transitioning out of isolation. The positive, internalized messages about how they survived their childhood tells them they know how to keep themselves safe and they can resume their lives with trust in themselves as survivors.
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