Their boyhood memories were filled with their own adult behaviors. What they didn't remember about being a boy was being a child. Too Much Pain Nothing kills the spirit like pain. Whether it is physical, emotional or both, it attacks the spirit. For example, men raised in alcoholic families are six times more likely to have been physically abused, thirteen times more likely to have witnessed spouse abuse, and five times more likely to have been sexually abused than boys from non-alcoholic families.
Many silent sons report much pain from watching the pain of others.
A boy can take only so much and then he must adjust. Adjustment can include acting out, engaging in self-defeating behaviors, compulsive achievement, or emotional withdrawal. In this withdrawal, he tries to separate his mind and emotions from what his body is experiencing, but when he shuts down his emotions to shut down his pain, he also shuts down his spirit. In the dysfunctional family, a boy's self esteem is under constant attack. Many feel they are one person in the house and another outside of the house.