We became isolated and afraid of people and authority figures;

We became approval seekers and lost our identity in the process;

We are frightened by angry people and any personal criticism;

We either become alcoholics, marry them, or both, or find another compulsive personality such as a workaholic to fulfill our sick abandonment needs;

We live life from the viewpoint of victims and are attracted by that weakness in our love and friendship relations;

We have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility and it is easier for us to be concerned with others rather than ourselves. This enables us not to look too closely at our faults, etc.

We get guilt feelings when we stand up for ourselves instead of giving in to others;

We became addicted to excitement;

We confuse love and pity and tend to "love" people we can "pity" and "rescue";

We have stuffed our feelings from our traumatic childhoods and have lost the ability to feel or express our feelings because it hurts so much; (DENIAL)

We judge ourselves harshly and have a very low sense of self-esteem;

We are dependent personalities who are terrified of abandonment and will do anything to hold on to a relationship in order not to experience painful abandonment feelings which we received from living with sick people who were never there emotionally for us;

Alcoholism is a family disease and we became para-alcoholics and took on the characteristics of that disease even though we did not pick up the drink;

We are reactors rather than actors.

We guess at what normal is.

We have difficulty following a project through from beginning to end.

We have difficulty having fun.

We have difficulty with intimate relationships.

We take ourselves very seriously.

We over react to changes over which we have no control.

We usually feel different from other people.

We are extremely loyal even in the face of evidence that the loyalty is undeserved.

We tend to lock ourselves into a course of action without giving serious consideration to alternative behaviors or possible consequences. This impulsively leads to confusion, self-loathing and loss of control of our environment. As a result, we spend more energy cleaning up the mess than we would have spent had the alternatives and consequences been examined in the first place.

We tend to look for immediate rather than deferred gratification.

We generally over-react out of fear.

We are either super responsible or super irresponsible.

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