The Survival Skill of Projecting

Growing up in unchecked anger and rage

“By applying the Serenity Prayer to the various situations that occurred, I was reminded that my anger can be an attempt to change someone or something because I don’t want to change.”

-Hope for Today March 23

Time alone does not heal old wounds from childhood. The question is: Am I willing to humble myself, set aside my pride, and ask for and receive help to heal my childhood trauma? After weeks of writing on this subject, that is the fork in the road of which I have arrived.

There was a lot of anger in my childhood home. Constant frustration over money spilled over into most conversations, arguments, and outright fights between my parents, always within earshot of my brother and me. We were always broke and there was a lot of fear, which is where most anger comes from. Everything feels completely out of control and so we strike out and blame. We blame people, circumstances, and even God.

I developed this survival skill of projection as a result of my parents’ inability to solve their most pressing problems within their marriage—and because of this, my brother and I suffered along with Mom and Dad. The result of this lifelong effort to blame everyone and everything around me meant that I lost all personal agency—and I therefore became a perpetual victim.

This attitude perpetuated in my marriage, because we were both the same. We would feed off each other with our hatred and blame. Ours was no home of peace. And this is where my son grew up—around rage. Neither of us took any responsibility for the fact that we constantly spent beyond our simple means as school teachers. The fighting in my married home was much worse than the fighting of my parents. But in my victim role, everything was my husband’s fault. Even though I became just as angry and abusive as he did in my ever-progressing alcoholism, it was so much easier to keep pointing the finger at him. The real victim was not me—it was our son. When the Big Book talks about the “warped lives of blameless children” in Chapter Two, I can picture my son’s sad, confused face at two, five, and eight years old.

I brought all of my blaming and rage into Alcoholics Anonymous in the summer of 2005. It was a joke in meetings that the members would count how many times I said "f**k” during my shares. Multiple times my poor sponsor took me out of the room and into the empty non-smoking meeting room next door just to calm me down and to let me vent. I was completely insane. I had two main resentments that I could not stop raging about: my ex-husband and my ex-employer. I blamed them for everything that had gone wrong with my life.

The greatest testament of the power of the Twelve Steps of A.A., and particularly of the inventory and amends process, was that just over a year later I had made my peace with both my ex-husband and my ex-employer. People and institutions no longer dominated me. The Steps saved my sanity and my sobriety. They forced me to look inward to the problem and its solution. Once I could see that it was indeed me, not them, I knew for a certainty that I had to make amends. There was just no question in my mind.

And this process still works today. About a year ago, a sponsor forced me to look at how I was blaming an ex-boyfriend for everything. I was in a constant state of anger and misery, crying, screaming, talking nonstop about him. No wonder I couldn’t get free of the resentment! When she told me that I was “blaming him” I was completely shocked. I realized that I had been blinded to this fact in my ridiculous anger. I am someone who always needs a sponsor to point these things out, because I lose my way very quickly and go straight back to living in delusion. Once again I learned that when I am the problem, I am also the solution. When you are the problem, there is no solution.

It’s a beautiful thing to watch people all around me go nuts. At work, in program, on the roads, in the stores. No matter where I see it, I now feel and live in such a profound peace. I have become a much more gentle person. I feel compassion. I feel love. And most of the time, I am able to project these new attitudes to the people around me. In Al-Anon we say that “Changed attitudes aid recovery,” and no truer words have been written about this alcoholic and alanonic.