I will take a long look at where I am today and be grateful for my place. It’s right for me now, and is preparing me for the adventure ahead.

—FROM EACH DAY A NEW BEGINNING

11

FROM DEPRIVED TO DESERVING

The psychiatrist showed Jason a sketch.¹ “What does this look like?”

Jason, a middle-aged man with dusty brown hair, said it looked like a bird.

“Good,” said the psychiatrist. He flipped to the next picture. “And this one?”

Jason said it looked like a tree. The doctor nodded, and showed Jason the next sketch.

“A butterfly.”

“And this one?” the doctor asked.

Jason stared. He examined the picture from all angles. “I don’t know what that is,” Jason said.

The psychiatrist showed Jason the next sketch and the one after that. Neither of those reminded Jason of anything either. After those three sketches, Jason identified the rest of the pictures in the test.

“Why couldn’t I recognize those pictures?” Jason asked, when the psychiatrist finished.

“It’s not surprising that group of sketches didn’t make sense to you,” the psychiatrist said. “They represent a father’s love. You’d only be able to recognize the pictures if you had experienced a father’s love. The pictures were blank because that’s a blank spot in your development.”

Jason started talking. He talked about being the youngest of nine children born to a farm family during the depression. He rehashed his fifteen-year battle with alcoholism. He mentioned two failed marriages to women who treated him as his father had—coolly and with rejection. He talked about unceasing efforts to do things for people and not feeling appreciated. Toward the end of the session, Jason paused. When he spoke again, he looked and sounded more like a nine-year-old boy than a fifty-year-old man.

“Why didn’t he ever hold me on his lap, or hug me, or tell me he thought I was special?” Jason asked. “Why didn’t he ever tell me he loved me?”

“Either he wasn’t capable of it, or he didn’t know how to show love,” the psychiatrist said quietly.

Jason stood up. He had tears in his eyes, but a new strength in his face. “You mean it wasn’t me?” Jason said. “It wasn’t my fault? I’m not unlovable?”

“No,” the doctor said. “You’re not unlovable. You were just deprived of love.”

The Quest for Normal

Many of us were deprived as children. We may have been so deprived of good feelings that we believed life wasn’t worth living. We may have been so deprived of love that we believed we weren’t worthwhile. We may have been so deprived of protection and consistency that we believed people were untrustworthy. Our parents may have been so wrapped up in their problems and pain, so deprived themselves, they couldn’t give us what we needed. We may have been deprived of material items: toys, candy, clothing, food, or a decent home.

Some of us were deprived of childhood.

It’s been said that adult children from dysfunctional families don’t know what “normal” is. That’s because many of us haven’t had much of that either.

My quest for normal has been an enormous undertaking. What’s fun? What’s love? How does it feel and what does it look like? What’s a good relationship? How do you form an opinion? What do you do on your day off? How do you buy clothes? How do you make friends? What do you do with them when you get them? What’s crazy? What’s sane? How do you make yourself feel better when you hurt? What’s the good stuff in life? Is there any? How much can I have?

For many of us, life is a big store. This store has two departments: the main floor, holding display after display of good stuff, much of which we can’t label because we’ve never seen it; and the bargain basement, the room with the leftovers and irregulars. The room where we shop.

Listen to the following conversation between two women. One woman is recovering from adult children issues and a marriage to an alcoholic. The other is of fairly normal descent.

“I can’t decide whether to break up with my boyfriend or not,” says a woman.

“What are his good points?” asks her friend.

“Well, he works every day. He usually does what he says he’s going to do. He’s kind. And he’s never hit me.”

“No,” says her friend. “You don’t understand. What are his good points? The things you listed are givens.”

“Oh,” says the woman. “I didn’t know that.”

Which of the two women do you think is the adult child?

Losses are tough. It hurts to have something, then lose it. Deprivation runs deep. It creates blank spots in us.

“I never had a healthy, loving, present father figure,” says one recovering woman. “I had an alcoholic father who left home when I was two; and an uninvolved stepfather for two years, when I was a teenager.

“When I grew up, I had several unsuccessful relationships with those same kinds of men: alcoholic or uninvolved. I didn’t know there was anything else. If you’ve never had ice cream and haven’t heard much about it, ice cream isn’t part of your world. It’s not a choice. Well, healthy, loving men weren’t part of my world. They weren’t a choice.

One day, on a bus ride across the state, I sat next to an elderly gentleman. We chatted, and he told me about his wife, and how lonely he felt because it was the first time in years they had traveled separately. He told stories about his children. He recalled most incidents with happiness. He talked about an incident when his son had asked him to do something, and he was too busy to respond. He said he felt guilty about it for years, until one day he mentioned it to his son and his son couldn’t even remember.

“What he didn’t say that I heard anyway was he was there for his family in some substantive ways. He was present emotionally, physically, mentally, and financially. He cared about them and was healthy enough to show that.

“My eyes opened to something for the first time,” she explains. “I didn’t know that kind of man—that kind of husband, father, person, or family—existed in real life. For a moment, sadness flooded through me. I had done some grief work before, but how could I grieve something I didn’t know I had lost? I felt sad that I hadn’t known that kind of fatherly or family love. Then, I put that information into my reality. That kind of love, that kind of man, was out there.”

We need to fill in the blank spots. Many things could be options for us:

• healthy love,

• an identity,

• an underlying feeling of safety,

• a norm of feeling good,

• the ability to resolve conflicts,

• good friends,

• fulfilling work,

• enough money, and

• the unconditional love and protection of a Higher Power.

Many of us were deprived as children, but many of us have carried that deprivation into adulthood. Deprivation creates deprived thinking. Deprived thinking perpetuates deprivation.

We can fall into the trap of short supply thinking: there’s good stuff out there, but there isn’t enough for us. We may become desperate, scrambling to get what we can and holding tightly to it, whether it’s what we want or is good for us. We may become resentful and jealous of people who have enough. We may hoard what we have or refuse to enjoy it, fearing we’ll use it up. We may give up and settle for less. Deprivation becomes habitual. We may continue to feel afraid and deprived, even when we’re not.

“I buy fifty-two rolls of toilet paper at a time,” says one woman, an adult child of an alcoholic who’s been married to two alcoholics. “I buy fifty-two rolls of toilet paper at a time because for many years there wasn’t enough toilet paper or money to buy more. And I don’t ever want to run out again. For the past three years, I’ve earned over $25,000 a year. There’s enough money to buy more. But there doesn’t feel like there’s enough, or like there’s going to be enough.”

We may react to deprivation in many ways. We may insist life, and the people in our lives, make up for all we never had. That’s unfair, and those expectations can wreck what’s good today.

Deprived, negative thinking makes things disappear. We’re grumbling about the half-empty water glass, so focused on what we don’t have that we fail to appreciate the half-full glass of water, the glass itself, or being alive and well enough to drink the water. We become so afraid that we might not get more, or we’re so sour about only having half a glass to drink, we may not drink it. We let it sit on the table until it evaporates. Then we have nothing, which is what we thought we had anyway. It’s an illusion! We can drink the water if we’re thirsty, then go to the tap and get more.

Perhaps the most profound effect of deprivation is we may decide we don’t deserve the good things in life. That isn’t true, but our belief will make it true. What we believe we deserve, what we really believe deep inside, will be about what we get.

Deprived, negative thinking can prevent us from seeing what’s good in our lives today, and it can stop the good stuff from happening. It hurts to be deprived. It hurts to walk through life believing there’s not enough. It’s painful to believe we’re undeserving. So, stop. Now. You can fill in the blanks with “there’s enough” and “I deserve.” There’s enough for you. There’s enough for the person next door too. You deserve the best, whatever that means to you.

The Gratitude Principle

Deprived thinking turns good things into less or nothing. Grateful thinking turns things into more.

Many years ago, when I started rebuilding a life shattered by my chemical use, I dreamt of getting married and raising a family. I also dreamt of owning a house, a beautiful home to be our little castle. I wanted some of the things other people had. I wanted “normal,” whatever that was.

It looked like I was about to get it. I got married. I got pregnant. I had a baby girl. Now, all I needed was the home. We looked at all sorts of dream homes—big dream homes and in-between dream homes. The home we bought didn’t turn out to be one of those, but it was the one we could afford.

It had been used as rental property for fifteen years, had been standing vacant for a year, and was three stories of broken windows and broken wood. Some rooms had ten layers of wallpaper on the walls. Some walls had holes straight through to the outdoors. The floors were covered with bright orange carpeting with large stains on it. And we didn’t have money or skills to fix it. We had no money for windows, curtains, paint. We couldn’t afford to furnish it. We had three stories of a dilapidated home, with a kitchen table, two chairs, a high chair, a bed, a crib, and two dressers, one of which had broken drawers.

About two weeks after we moved in, a friend stopped by. We stood talking on what would have been the lawn if grass had been growing there. My friend kept repeating how lucky I was and how nice it was to own your own home. But I didn’t feel lucky, and it didn’t feel nice. I didn’t know anyone else who owned a home like this.

I didn’t talk much about how I felt, but each night while my husband and daughter slept, I tiptoed down to the living room, sat on the floor and cried. This became a ritual. When everyone was asleep, I sat in the middle of the floor thinking about everything I hated about the house, crying, and feeling hopeless. I did this for months. However legitimate my reaction may have been, it changed nothing.

A few times, in desperation, I tried to fix up the house, but nothing worked. The day before Thanksgiving I attempted to put some paint on the living and dining room walls. But layers of wallpaper started to peel off the minute I put paint to them. Another time, I ordered expensive wallpaper, trying to have faith I’d have the money to pay for it when it came. I didn’t.

Then one evening, when I was sitting in the middle of the floor going through my wailing ritual, a thought occurred to me: Why don’t you try gratitude?

At first I dismissed the idea. Gratitude was absurd. What could I possibly be grateful for? How could I? And why should I? Then, I decided to try anyway. I had nothing to lose. And I was getting sick of my whining.

I still wasn’t certain what to be grateful for, so I decided to be grateful for everything. I didn’t feel grateful. I willed it. I forced it. I faked it. I pretended. I made myself think grateful thoughts. When I thought about the layers of peeling wallpaper, I thanked God. I thanked God for each thing I hated about that house. I thanked Him for giving it to me. I thanked Him I was there. I even thanked Him I hated it. Each time I had a negative thought about the house, I countered it with a grateful one.

Maybe this wasn’t as logical a reaction as negativity, but it turned out to be more effective. After I practiced gratitude for about three or four months, things started to change.

My attitude changed. I stopped sitting and crying in the middle of the floor and started to accept the house—as it was. I started taking care of the house as though it were a dream home. I acted as if it were my dream home. I kept it clean, orderly, as nice as could be.

Then, I started thinking. If I took all the old wallpaper off first, maybe the paint would stay on. I pulled up some of the orange carpeting and discovered solid oak floors throughout the house. I went through some boxes I had packed away and found antique lace curtains that fit the windows. I found a community action program that sold decent wallpaper for a dollar a roll. I learned about textured paint, the kind that fills and covers old, cracked walls. I decided if I didn’t know how to do the work, I could learn. My mother volunteered to help me with wallpapering. Everything I needed came to me.

Nine months later, I had a beautiful home. Solid oak floors glistened throughout the house. Country-print wallpaper and textured white walls contrasted beautifully with the dark, scrolled woodwork that decorated each room.

Whenever I encountered a problem—half the cupboard doors are missing and I don’t have money to hire a carpenter—I willed gratitude. Pretty soon, a solution appeared: tear all the doors off and have an open, country kitchen pantry.

I worked and worked, and I had three floors of beautiful home. It wasn’t perfect, but it was mine and I was happy to be there. Proud to be there. Truly grateful to be there. I loved that home.

Soon the house filled up with furniture too. I learned to selectively collect pieces here and there for $5 and $10, cover the flaws with lace doilies, and refinish. I learned how to make something out of almost nothing, instead of nothing out of something.

I have had the opportunity to practice the gratitude principle many times in my recovery. It hasn’t failed me. Either I change, my circumstances change, or both change.

“But you don’t know how deprived I am!” people say. “You don’t know everything I’ve gone without. You don’t know how difficult it is right now. You don’t know what it’s like to have nothing!”

Yes, I do. And gratitude is the solution. Being grateful for what we have today doesn’t mean we have to have that forever. It means we acknowledge that what we have today is what we’re supposed to have today. There is enough, we’re enough, and all we need will come to us. We don’t have to be desperate, fearful, jealous, resentful, or miserly. We don’t have to worry about what someone else has; they don’t have ours. All we need to do is appreciate and take care of what we have today. The trick is, we need to be grateful first—before we get anything else, not afterward.

Then, we need to believe that we deserve the best life has to offer. If we don’t believe that, we need to change what we believe we deserve. Changing our beliefs about what we deserve isn’t an overnight process. Whether we’re talking about relationships, work, home, or money, this usually happens in increments. We believe we deserve something a little better, then a little better, and so on. We need to start where we’re at, changing our beliefs as we’re capable. Sometimes things take time.

Believing we deserve good things is as important as gratitude. Practicing gratitude without changing what we believe we deserve may keep us stuck in deprivation.

“I earned $30,000 a year and every morning I got into my ten-year-old car with a busted heater and thanked God for it. I was so grateful,” says one woman who’s recovering from codependency. “My kids would encourage me to buy a new car and I’d say no; I was just grateful to have my old one. Then one day, when I was talking to someone about deprivation, it hit me that I could afford to have a new car if I really believed I deserved one. I changed my mind about what I deserved, then went out and bought a new car.”

There are times in our lives when depriving ourselves helps build character, renders us fit for certain purposes, or is part of “paying our dues” as we stretch toward goals. There is a purpose as well as a beginning and an end to the deprivation. Many of us have carried this too far. Our deprivation is without purpose or end.

In an Andy Capp cartoon strip, Andy’s wife came to him one day grumbling about her tattered coat. “That coat of mine is a disgrace. I’m ashamed to go out in it. I’ll really have to get a new one,” she said.

“We’ll see, we’ll see,” he replied.

“Roughly translated,” she said, scrunching up her face, “you never know what you can do without until you try.”

Well, we never know what we can have until we try. And we may not know what we already have until we get grateful. Be grateful and believe you deserve the best. You may have more today than you think. And tomorrow might be better than you can imagine.

Activity

1. To help determine what you believe you deserve, complete each of the following statements. Write as many completions as come to your mind for each statement. Write until you ferret out your bottom-line beliefs. Write free-association style, putting down whatever comes to mind. This isn’t a test. It’s to increase self-awareness. Once you identify any negative beliefs, change them to positive “I deserve” statements. Here is an example of possible answers to the first questions.

I can’t, or don’t, have a healthy, loving relationship because:

John wouldn’t stop drinking.

There aren’t any good men out there.

I don’t have time.

It’s no use.

Men always leave me.

I give up.

I’ll never find love.

I don’t know how.

Nobody could love me.

Here’s another example:

I can’t, or don’t, have a job I like because:

I don’t have a college degree.

Nobody would hire me.

I don’t have a good work history.

I never learned how to do anything.

I’ll never amount to anything anyway.

All the good jobs are taken.

I might as well settle for what I’ve got; it’s better than nothing.

Who cares?

Write as many completions to these statements as you can think of.

• I can’t, or don’t, have a healthy, loving relationship because:

• I can’t, or don’t, have a job I like because:

• I can’t, or don’t, have enough money because:

• I can’t, or don’t, have a comfortable home or apartment because:

• I can’t, or don’t, have a happy, safe life because:

• I can’t, or don’t, love myself unconditionally because:

• I can’t, or don’t, have enough friends because:

• I can’t, or don’t, have fun because:

• I can’t, or don’t, accept God’s love for me because:

• I can’t, or don’t, have good health because:

• I can’t be successful because:

• I can’t be smart enough because:

• I can’t be good-looking enough because:

• I can’t enjoy life because:

Endnotes

1. The details about this test, the sketches, and what each sketch resembled, are compiled from Jason’s memory and may not be entirely accurate. The crux of the story is.