Today I had a podcast interview with two awesome guys from a German Sobriety Podcast, and the topic was, of course, about my alcohol abuse and the way into recovery. There was one topic touched upon, which echoes still in my system which I find worth mentioning:

Expectations my parents had in me. Even if they never directly articulated certain expectations, there were a lot of discrete, opaque expectations I only realized now were there all the time.

Why my parents had those expectations, well I can only guess. Well, every parent has expectations in their kids, I guess. It’s not necessarily a question of what, but the how.

And here is a big deal in why I have a conflicting relationship to my parents, I assume.

Most of these expectations were, more or less, traded to us kids rather in (supposedly) assertive statements, like:

“You are an intellectual, just like me.”

“Your only way to avoid the A-Levels is death.”

“You are going to study, aren’t you?”

Only to name a few. There is a lot of implications in the manner my parents had expectations they would never tell me directly. It has to do with the fact that my parents are both post-war generation, they both had VERY authoritarian parents, thus both my parents lived by the ideas of the “68s – generation”, meaning a generation of antiauthoritarian students who stood up against the authoritarian way of education of their parents.

And this means they wouldn’t indoctrinate me (or us) directly with mindsets or expectations. But they did nevertheless.

And this is exactly, at least as I feel it, why I take my liberty and independence from my parents the way I think is right.

Of course I am told: “But it’s your parents, you have to be thankful, you have obligations towards your parents”.

The older I get and the more I deal with my identity, my independence through self efficacy and (yes, of course also) through Cosmic Horror (sorry, I couldn’t resist).

And my answer to this statement (that I need to be thankful, yaddahyaddah) is: No! No! The h*ll I am! I have no reason to budge. This is MY f&§$ing life.

Do I love my parents? Yes, of course. But the relationship status is – and here let me quote, how you could once describe your relationship status on Facebook – It’s complicated.

It feels good to be emancipated from my parents. And it is one very important step in my Recovery to realize that emancipating myself from my parents is and has always been a necessity.

Until next time, keep up the faith in yourself and take one step at a time.