Journal 3
•I grew up in a household with an alcoholic parent, so I began experiencing conflict
at a very young age. Alcoholics are emotionally and physically abusive, and
experiencing conflict with them is unlike experiencing conflict with a “normal”
person. There is no reasoning with them; you are always wrong. Growing up with
an alcoholic parent created so many different conflicts in my childhood that I
learned to fear conflict. Instead of facing conflicts as they arose, I learned ways to
avoid dealing with conflicting situations, which has followed me into adulthood.
•The norm for conflict with the adults in my life during my childhood involved one
person creating conflict and the other trying to “smooth it over.” Conflict was not
reserved for just the adults in my life; children were often unwillingly involved as
well. My sisters and I were used as pawns in these situations. At the time, we felt
that we needed to “help” in order to minimize the impact of the conflict we faced.
However, as an adult, I can see how dysfunctional it was to rely on children to
solve conflicts based on adult situations.
•As an adult, the conflict situations I’m most comfortable in are conflicts that do not
exist. As I’ve matured intellectually and emotionally, my ability to handle conflict
has not matured. Still to this day I prefer to avoid conflict rather than seek to solve
