I am a control freak, a perfectionist.  I am sure that some of it is the “nurture” effect of being an ACOA, but that’s not all it.  I am, by nature, a Type A as well, and the need to achieve, to prove, to surmount, to perfect is at the firm core of my personality, like the cookie center of a Twix candy bar. 

The ACOA part of the control freak includes the irrational belief that if things go the way I plan, then everything will be Fine.  But I am not Ganesha, remover of obstacles, equipped with the many arms needed to remove roadblocks and keep all those balls in the air. 

The Type A control freak is a little milder than the adult child—the urge to control comes from self-confidence in my intelligence and skills, coupled with just wanting to win.  Of course, the Type A control freak can be just as dangerous—the insistence on doing it my way is not conducive to cooperative working and family relationships.

And buried beneath all of that it my inner child.  She is all to willing to shed the outer adult skin, ill-fitting, stifling, too hot and too cold all at once.  The inside me wants to cede control, yield responsibility.  I want someone to take care of me.  To take care of it.  To take care of everything, always.  Because I’m 33, and feel 80 sometimes, I’ve been working so hard.  I’m tired of being Right, being Responsible. 

Learning to share control is the hardest.  My Type A is convinced that My Way is Right.  Therefore, everyone else is wrong—why would I do it any way but mine?  My Adult Child is afraid—if I don’t do it, I am pathologically certain that no one else will.  I took up those burdens because no one else was, or could—whatever the reason, the fact remains that I am Eldest, Responsible.  Perhaps I was unconsciously self-appointed at first, but in being reliable, others allowed me to remain responsible, ceded their obligations to keep things going. 

In my friendships and loves, I’ve carried Control on my shoulders—until the sheer weight of it caused me to collapse.  Sprawled on the ground, gasping for emotional breathing room, grasping for a sense of self that had nothing to do with solving other people’s problems all the time, I would disappoint the expectations of miracle work I had encouraged others to believe.  When I let them down, they were, in some ways, right to be angry, disappointed, to never speak to me again.  Some of these friends I’m glad are gone from my life, since now I know they were emotional black holes, never reflecting any light or warmth.  But others I miss dearly, and I regret my failures, whether it sprung from something healthy or not.

I’m slowly, creepingly, glacially, trying to not say yes to everything.  I’m slowly trying to let others volunteer first, and to do it their way.  The world won’t end because I wouldn’t have done it that way.  Often enough, my pride is mere vanity.  I’m painfully learning discernment—what requires my real skills and abilities, and what can be done by others, without harm to anyone.  Most frighteningly, I am trying to listen to my inner child, and hear her when she says “I can’t do this alone,” and ask for help.  But yielding control is at least different from losing control, and since so much of my control comes from wanting to please those I love, yielding, ceding, sharing control, asking for help avoids failing those I love.

The self-control, to not take control, is exhausting, exhilarating, illuminating.  Eliminating the knee-jerk assumption of control?  It will be a long journey.  But after many years, I finally think I have an atlas, and a map light.