KelKel
ACA Tuesday Zoombox
Kel shares how childhood chaos in a religious home shaped their adult relationships and grief after a nine-year partnership ended. Through ACA, outreach, and reparenting, they describe learning to accept their feelings, care for their inner child, and find connection instead of isolation.
15:09•19 Oct 2026
Kel’s Story: From Self-Abandonment to Self-Love in ACA
Episode Overview
- ACA meetings and sharing offered brief but important relief from overwhelming grief after a breakup.
- Working the steps with a sponsor helped Kel see how childhood patterns led to self-abandonment and blame in relationships.
- Outreach calls became a key tool for handling spiralling thoughts instead of numbing or isolating.
- Reparenting practices, like an inner loving voice in the morning, support Kel’s daily anxiety and stress.
- Kel finds healing in the idea that “it's never too late to have a good childhood,” extending this healing to past and future generations.
“I'm 34 and I'm learning how to reparent myself for the first time.”
Experience the emotional and inspiring tales of recovery as Kel shares how growing up in a chaotic, religious household shaped their adult life and relationships. Raised by an explosive mother and a shut-down father, Kel learned early on to hide in closets, stuff feelings, and present the outside image of a “happy, good Christian family” while fear ruled inside the home.
Fast forward to adulthood, and Kel finds themself in a nine-year relationship that mirrors that childhood dynamic: staying quiet, self-abandoning, and taking on full responsibility for everything that went wrong. When the relationship ended, the grief was so intense that usual numbing tricks like surfing, skating and scrolling no longer worked. A friend, Patrick, pointed Kel towards ACA, and that’s where things started to shift.
They explain how ACA gave them clarity about why they showed up as both victim and villain in relationships, and how outreach calls became a lifeline: “When I feel overwhelmed… I can say, hey, my mind is spiralling and I'm not able to process this on my own.” One of the most moving parts of Kel’s share is their description of reparenting themselves at 34, waking up anxious but hearing an inner loving voice say, “I love you… you can come to me.” They picture their younger, fearful parts as kids running into their arms.
Kel talks honestly about arriving at meetings late just to catch the shares, feeling “so loved and accepted” even when they stumble over words, and slowly working the steps with a sponsor and fellow travellers.
Kel also reflects on the grief of having been punished for being a sensitive child, and the healing realisation that, as someone once said in a meeting, “it's never too late to have a good childhood.” If you’ve ever felt broken, too emotional, or ashamed of needing help, Kel’s story might make you wonder: what if you didn’t have to do it all alone anymore?
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