by AnnSheybani | Oct 3, 2014 | Alcoholic rules, all or nothing, Authenticity, Boundaries, Codependency, confrontation, criticism, dealing with criticism, growing up, Honesty, husband, Life, narcissism, parenting, passive aggressive, people pleasing, personality disorder, rage, The Adult Children of Alcoholics Syndrome, Walt Hampton
Dear Mimi, Thank you for your comment on this Youtube video. You claim that Walt is a 100% narcissist. The thing I’ve noticed about defensiveness, which is what your criticism stirred, is that it always kicks in when I detect an element of truth in what’s...
by AnnSheybani | Sep 21, 2014 | anxiety, expectations, growing up, identity, Ireland, Life, parenting, personality disorder, running, self-sabotage, tension
I watch my mother get ready for work while I’m visiting her in Medora, North Dakota. At 76, she spends the summer months selling expensive trinkets in some tourist trap at Teddy Roosevelt National Park. Always an early bird, she’s out of the sack by 6 a.m. She...
by AnnSheybani | Jun 29, 2014 | Alcoholic rules, Codependency, confrontation, growing up, Life, limiting beliefs, people pleasing, rage, The Adult Children of Alcoholics Syndrome
As I’ve mentioned about a thousand times before, I grew up in an alcoholic household. My dad was a former farm boy from rural North Dakota who hated his job as an engineer at Pratt & Whitney, or, as we used to call it at home, Pratt & Whiskey. Now, I’ve...
by AnnSheybani | Dec 16, 2013 | 10 Stupid Things WomenDo to Mess Up Their Lives, Alcoholic rules, Alcoholism, attachment, choosing a mate, connection, Daddy Hole, dating, desire, Emotional Unavailability, growing up, Honesty, identity, Intimacy, Life, love, Rescue, sex
It was the 70’s. Playboy and Penthouse were ubiquitous on suburban coffee tables, at least in the households where I babysat. My parents, in keeping with the make-love-not-war attitude of the era, kept a stash of porn star tell-all’s, Penthouse Forum volumes,...
by AnnSheybani | Aug 5, 2013 | Alcoholism, Boundaries, Courage, growing up, parenting, recovery, risk, Saying no, tension
I came across the perfect statement this morning in an old journal: Stop trying to control everybody and everything. I have spent my life trying to control my surroundings and the people in it. Like a lot of other unhealthy compulsions, I chalk this one up to my...
by AnnSheybani | Apr 6, 2013 | Authenticity, Courage, growing up, identity, risk, Self love, self-image, Ted Talk
I was just listening to a Brene Brown interview in which she described herself as a child. An introverted 13-year-old, she saw Grease 25 times– a movie I paid to see 4 weeks in a row at the very same age. See, like me, Brene wanted desperately to shed her skin...
