Walking, Wounded

At Medium, YA author Sara Zarr writes about learning to acknowledge one’s own woundedness:

For the last year I’ve been sporadically part of a twelve-step group for adult children of alcoholics. We’re all different but the same—unique stories and past experiences, current symptoms in common. We’re addicts and codependents and perfectionists and procrastinators and controllers and balls of anxiety and need.

When I go there, when I read the materials during the week and write in my journal, when I ponder the behavior and pain of my adult life I realize how distorted my sense of self became after getting off to a dysfunctional start in childhood, in a home of generational addiction and codependence. It can be shocking, how much I still need to do to keep working my way toward emotional health.

My sporadic attendance is not only due to the fact that the meeting is on the same night as MasterChef; it’s also because it’s hard. Sometimes I just don’t want to think about it that much, I don’t want to “work the steps.” This kind of recovery project can feel like it’s taking over your life. It’s certainly taken me off my planned trajectory. It’s affected my work. (I realized halfway into writing my current book that I’m writing about these issues through my characters—duh—and it’s slowed me down, way down, causing me to miss a deadline for the first time in my seven-year career.)

Read the whole thing here.