How old are you emotionally?

[clean42day]

Arrested development is a common theme among recovering people. I found this article on Oprah's site.

if you want to take the quiz here is the link http://www.oprah.com/survey/spirit/e...ag_emotionquiz

if not - just read on:


How old are you emotionally?
You know what it says on your driver's license. But sometimes you feel 17 or 10 or sometimes, yes, two. Use this quiz to recognize what age you're really functioning at—and how to grow up fast.

None of us grows up evenly. Supreme Court justices cling to schoolyard dirty jokes; corporate executives may sob helplessly over saucepans. You can't turn back the clock and be 16 again, but go to your parents' house for Christmas and you could hit 16 emotionally in about 20 minutes. While chronological age is progressive through time, emotional age is a layering of maturity over our earlier coping styles. Stress us, and we strip right down to basics.

The four emotional ages—infant, child, adolescent and adult—are marked by different ways of going about getting what we want.
Here's what the letters corresponding to your answers mean:

D: THE EMOTIONAL INFANT
The emotional infant simply does not recognize the rest of the world. When you need something, you howl until you get it and feel no need to give back. This primitive "feed me" strategy works so remarkably well for some people that they stay stuck; they get a whole lot of stuff and not much sense of self. Even those of us who've moved on revisit infancy more often than we care to admit. Romantic relationships, in particular, seem to trigger relapses, probably because any passionate bond snaps us right back to our first baby attachment: You have what I need. I demand it.

You'll know you're there when you hear yourself argue, "If you loved me, you'd…" Only infants get fed solely because they are loved, with nothing asked in return.

C: THE EMOTIONAL CHILD
The emotional child clearly recognizes that there are powerful others who control the important resources of attention, support, money and love (or sex). Most likely you don't feel like an equal in your relationships, but you're a wily and instinctive negotiator. Your underlying attitude is "You have things I want, and I will find ways to get them from you." You're adorable, pleasing, needy, prone to tantrums, withholding or utterly seductive.

You'll know you're there when you catch yourself between a wheedle and a whine. If you notice you're sneaking to get your way or shifting the blame to avoid your punishment, welcome back to childhood. The payoff may be getting what you want, but it comes at the price of putting yourself down.

B: THE EMOTIONAL ADOLESCENT
The emotional adolescent also sees others as more powerful, but is much less comfortable with their perceived authority. You flip back and forth, sometimes insisting on total independence, no matter the price ("No, I won't call to tell my husband my plane's going to be late. I don't have to report to him"), and other times expecting to be rescued ("I just assumed he'd be at the airport. He knows I can't manage this luggage on my own"). The emotional adolescent wants either nothing or everything, and sometimes both in the same argument.

You'll know you're there when you can't give in, even when a part of your brain recognizes that the other person is making a fair point. When you insist on something that's not that important to you ("This is my side of the bathroom and I'll say whether it's too messy"), you're no longer arguing for a point. Instead you're fighting to assert your power, having unconsciously lost some already by turning yourself into a teenager and your "opponent" into a parent.

Relationship ambivalence is the scarlet letter of the emotional adolescent. If you have a love-hate connection to your boss, your best friend, your lover or your parent, that's a tip-off that you're either clinging to adolescence or you're caught in its quicksand.

A: THE EMOTIONAL ADULT
The emotional adult recognizes her own needs and understands that the people close to her may have conflicting desires. For instance, you can accept (although sometimes grudgingly—adulthood is not sainthood) that your husband might very well decide to enjoy a friend's bachelor party rather than honor his in-law's anniversary as you'd hoped. That husband, when he's functioning as an emotional adult, could acknowledge that his failure to show up at the anniversary bash would hurt you and your family. (Hurt—not maim, devastate or destroy, as your infant self is pleading. But definitely sting.) Together as a couple you could negotiate a solution that either satisfied both of you or, more likely, take care of one of you in this round with a clear emotional I.O.U. for the sacrificing spouse.

You'll know you're there when you can strike a balance between getting what you want and giving what is needed. When you can defer to someone else without feeling powerless and hold your ground without fearing abandonment, you're a grown-up. Savor it. Push yourself to this peak as often as possible.

I guess that is why in the beginning of recovery they talk about taking baby steps.....

Yeah I found myself on all 4 levels

[clean42day]

Thank you - I am also familiar with Pia Melody and she has done quite extensive research on co-dependency too. I have many of her recovery tapes as well.

I think all models on arrested development merge in many ways - right along with Ericksons 8 stages of development and Maslow's hierarchy of needs - you can find one main theme = emotional development can become frozen in time and not resolved until it is acknowledged and addressed...healed...and come to terms with.....then we learn more mature ways to process through feelings and follow through with healthy actions.

Took me a really long time to uncover some deep seated beliefs that I really never knew existed. but I am also living proof that we can uncover, discover, and discard what no longer works.

I have an inner child that still wants to throw tantrums and drop bombs from time to time....I am still learning how to "parent" her and love her through them but at least she no longer runs the show - at least not without my permission.....

light and love

Gail

[Brendan]

This subject became most relevant when I started dating in recovery at 25. I was like a 16 year old learning about girls. Now at 31 I feel like I may have finally caught up (until I meet the next one)

[Rocket2d4]

I don't know how emotionally mature I am.
I'm alot more than I was...I no longer compair my reocovery to others.
You know.... some people drank and used until they're 45-50 and have 20 years
of recovery or being sober. That's a alot of years of brain/mind warpage....or damage.
And I don't want what they have..because they have all the answers again.lmao
If nothing changes...nothing changes

I working thier program might really turn me into a lunatic or kill me.....

I remember in my early recovery feeling like a 15 year old in a 23 year old body
and have responsiblies of being a father, partner, manager...
It seem all very overwhelming.

That's 8 years of using and I've been in recovery since 1992, which means
I've been clean and sober a lot longer than I'v been using.

My GF at the time was understanding. I also belive my 2 duaghters helped me
alot. I was allow to be a kid..kid. I played with my children even though I was
a parent. I also had to be reminded my children weren't sick like I was and actaully
was more well than I was in many, many ways.

I personally don't have much of a good childhood to bounce off of.
I was abandent and abused as a child...my emotions were mooshed
as far back as I can remember. So I can't gauge it just from how long
I've been clean and sober or when I got sober I used to numb myself without
the use of drugs or alcohol as a child just so I can servive.
I can't guage it from as if I had a clean sheet of emotions to build upon
from the day I was born or the day I got sober.
For the longest time I used to have flashback of truama events in my
life run across my mind everyday. Bascailly I had PTSD.

My sponsor had always help me in working through I emotions. Identify them.
Expand on my emotions valbuaries...Making/writting a list of emotions that I
didn't know I can have. I also belive I have to make the effort to work on my
emotions. In other words if I don't work it...I'm not maturing emotionally even
if I just stay clean and sober.

Before recovery I felt PAIN, FEAR or NUMB.

Getting clean and sober ment instant pains, anger, fustrastions for me from day one.
My pass didn't come up and bite me 5 years later in recovery..It hitted me from day 1.

I still cry or there's always tears in my eyes after all these years.
Sometimes that all I can do is just sit and cry in meetings when I'm face
with rejections or abandentment issues. Mostly relate to people I love
very much in my life.

Sometimes I love someone so much it hurts.
I love my father very, very much.
I love my ex-gf very, very much.
Both were every abusive people to me whether they're drunk or not.
They both have simular triats...

You know how some people run away from home to get away from the living hell
and ended up marrying someone exaclty like thier mother???...that would be me sort of.lol
Somewhere along the line of doing the samething again(insanity)
I got fooled.. My ex-gf didn't have pycho stamp on her forehead.lmao
I had a hell of a broken picker though.lol
My emotions got totally mooshed and dragged through the mud...

mmmm....I don't need to swim (home) up stream like a fish.
I bring home to me....becuase it all very familar and comforting in a sick twisted way.

I really want to get well...God help me!!!!

[Honey Barbara]

Thanks Clean 4 to day - Wonderful post.
I am an emotional adolescent. I think I always have been, it's possible there are a few glimpses of the adult.
I will do the test tomorrow, but I am sure that will be the answer, I can really identify with everything.
Good nightHoney Barbxxxx

[sioux]

For this alcoholic, the reading, understanding and acknolwedgement of the 4th step of the 12 x 12 really shed some light on my over dependence on others and things...."how frequently we see a frightened human being determined to depend completely upon a stronger person for guidance and protection...disillusionment and helplessness are his lot...in time all his protectors either flee or die and he is once more left alone and afraid."

That was me for many years. Not accepting responsibility for my own actions. Blame. Bluffing. Like a child my problem had been in making other people my Higher Power instead of having sane and normal relationships. Many adults engage in this endless childishness out of fear....

My fears were I would not get enough....booze, time, sex, attention, money, prestige, recognition, tootsie rolls. I did not know spiritual principles should come first and above these things. Today I know these things and practice them with help from the fellowship and my Creator, The Program.

I have a friend that has done extensive inner child work. That is fine. Many of us need to get outside help. But frankly, one day I told him that his inner child needed a good swift kick in the you know what.

I want to be sane today and I will practice sanity. I want to be independent today and I will do my best to turn my will, care and protection over to my Creator. I want to be fearless today and I will do my best to remember that spiritual principles come first, and enliven and strengthen me. I have a day to be what I want to be, and not what I think I am or once was. I am an adult and my life reflects that. I can still have fun and kid around. I still have a good sense of humor, but I don't have to attach myself to things that really matter not in the least or could possible hold me back if sing that song too much.

I have been childish and immature. The pains of growing up in recovery are tough sometimes, but my gosh....this is a great life.

Blessings for this is the path of self-discovery!

[hummingbird]

Some days I find that I really need to "feed" myself with the sort of great wisdom and honesty expressed in this thread.

I'm grateful for everyone's sharing, as I've found the emotional component of life often baffling when it comes to interpersonal or social stuff (no surprise, given at least 2 generations of ACOA upbringing!) Lawdy...

I've been in recovery long enough that at least now I can often recognize when I've let old learned habits (mental or social) emerge. Given my *chronological* age, etc. of course I realize that what I've just said--or was thinking--is unadvisable to share in certain contexts.

Unfortunately I've found some work environments triggering, particularly when I have jerky bosses (reminds me of A- and Co-D family members, obviously...) But the sad thing is that I have no model for how to handle such triggering situations more productively.

I try to forgive myself after the incident--and analyse what I "shoulda, coulda," done instead, but I'm still left feeling like a flaming dork, which does nothing for either my self-esteem or retaining my power with people who trigger me!

But this thread has helped me to see that I needn't take these deficiencies "personally," so to speak--it's just the result of poor role modeling, lack of proper training, or a reaction to early abuse.

(If everybody in your family acts out like this, of course they will defend their perceived "normality" to the bitter end. And if you attempt to deviate by thinking/acting differently, i.e. more healthily, of course they will find that threatening.)

For work training we've had classes in Conflict Resolution, Communication, and Teamwork--things which were hardly ever modelled in my family, work environments, or school!! So it is no wonder that I did not arrive at chronological adulthood with many functional social skills!

Mostly I relied on faking it (until I could really make it? LOL). But as stated above, real self-confidence cannot always be imitated or donned like a masquerade costume...No amount of posturing, conspicuous consumption, or substance/process abuse can compensate, in the long run...

I've always been tolerant of the fact that everybody is at a different point upon the human developmental continuum--as long as they were not actively harming others. But due to internalized perfectionism/shame/unrealistic expectations, I now realize that I'd been blaming myself and my FOO for not knowing how to demonstrate more effective behavior!

Of course, before I was in recovery, I used to think they were just behaving badly--But after I connected the generational A-ism dots, I realized that it wasn't only my FOO who was screwed up for whatever reasons. It was the extended family...some of the ancestors...the cultures that they had to survive in, etc.

My parents were so in denial that they not only could not admit the generational A-ism, but I doubt very much that they could ever take responsibility for acting like emotional infants-to-teenagers. (Which is why I had to largely cut off contact.)

It would be very easy to forgive somebody who was genuinely regretful for acting out/acting like a middle-aged or elderly baby, particularly if they did something to try to curb unproductive habits, or even tried to educate themselves. But where I've been hitting a wall is having to struggle repeatedly to be willing to forgive somebody whose lifelong denial/addiction/willful stupidity continues to screw over later generations (narcissism plays a huge role.)

Often people are able to forgive via pitying someone who chronically creates adverse consequences for themselves or others--but as a Mother I must also enforce boundaries and consequences of my own choosing in order to protect myself and my child.

My FOO have so long made choices out of bad habit/entitlement/fear...No wonder my being both more cognizant and healthier in many ways ticks them off, ha ha. But what I cannot yet forgive is their desire to sabotage my recovery, in the way that they have sabotaged their own.

An acquaintance suggested that I need to just let go everything and everybody, and only look out for #1. I guess the difficulty for me is that I can also see a point of diminishing returns for that behavior where children are concerned.

From one perspective I can see that maybe the universe is trying to get me to the point where I really have emotionally and physically let go of everything from the past, in the form of attachments, with the goal, perhaps, of a trial by fire...A real-world test, maybe to physically prove that "I am enough, I have enough, I do enough" ("....and gosh darn it, people like me!" to quote the old Al Franken routine on Saturday Night Live, LOL.)

I've been warned that going into old age is a gradual process of loss...and spiritually I know that life is often about loss of control. It's one thing to strive to make God my personal Center Which Holds, though, and quite another to feel like I'm abandoning my child to the whims of a dangerous world...