Hello and welcome back to Second Chance to Live. I am happy to see that you decided to stop by and visit with me. Over the past week I have been discussing the process of grieving and how to move beyond grieving. As I have mentioned in some of my previous posts my traumatic brain injury occurred when I was 10 years old. Although I experienced a fractured skull, was in a coma for 3 weeks and sustained significant damage to my right frontal lobe – and other parts of my brain – I was never treated as a traumatic brain injury survivor. For further insight into my process please read My Journey thus Far. Consequently, I did not know how my traumatic brain injury was set to influence my life.
Neither did I how my life was to be influenced by what I have come to understand as family system roles. Let me explain what I have come to understand through my process.
In many families where ongoing conflict persists, a heightened tolerance for emotional pain ensues. Denial, rather than resolution become the goal. Repression, shame, and blame then become tools that are used to perpetuate the need to deny what exists. Overtime all the members of the family assume different roles to perpetuate the lie. Denial perpetuates the drama that contains the conflict. Each individual within the family system denies their authentic self to avoid conflict. Maintaining the role becomes more important than becoming a separate and autonomous individual. The role then becomes the person’s identity and drama becomes the vehicle to feel alive.
For many years, I stayed in my role as a scapegoat because I believed that I was responsible for people, places, and things. By focusing on the drama, my ability to individuate atrophied. My time and energy were devoted to managing the conflict. Rather than focusing on solutions, I was duped into believing that the drama would somehow save me. It was only after I experienced an emotional bottom that I became willing to look for solutions. Through my process, I came to understand that the role that I had been living did not represent God’s will for me. I discovered that my life was not meant to represent the role under the conditions of the role.
The answers to my questions came from my willingness to be honest — with myself. Through my recovery process, I discovered why I felt comfortable in the role that I sought to justify on a daily basis. Over time, I was able to identify behaviors that shackled my life to that role. Consequently, I stopped saying, “I am sorry” for everything under the sun. I made a decision to allow people the freedom to take responsibility for their own restlessness and discontent. I also decided to give people the dignity to be responsible for how they chose to react to things that are out of my control. As a result, I found myself breaking free from the yoke that once controlled my world. With time I found that I no longer needed to identify with that role.
Through changing my behavior, I have been able to break free from the role and the drama.
I have also come to understand that drama distracts me from living life on life’s terms. If I find myself buying into the illusion that I can control the drama, I will remember that I can choose to get off of the merry-go-round of denial. Through my process I have come to accept that I am powerless over drama so I don’t fight the distraction. Instead I choose to step back and let the whirling dervishes, whirl. I have found that by staying in the moment and through being responsible for/to myself, I no longer need to adopt any role that someone may want me to play. Consequently, the decision to stop playing the role has given me the freedom to discover and pursue the purpose for which I was created, one day at a time.
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I, too, am a tramatic brain injury survivor. I was doing some research on the internet and came across this page… I was trying to see if the “stuck at 16” phenomenon I believe I’m feeling is from the brain injury. What do you think? Most of my most vivid memories are from before my accident. By the way… It happened in 1983 when I was 16.
Hi Chris,
Thank you for writing and leaving a comment. It is hard to tell Chris. I do not know if you are referring to the family system roles that I speak about in the article Traumatic / Acquired Brain Injury – What Is Keeping You Stuck? or not being able to move beyond the time before your traumatic brain injury. Could you please be more specific with me my friend?
Thank you,
Craig