The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
I have suffered from chronic clinical depression since my teenage years. I also have a chemical imbalance that is not my fault, and finally, I listened to the doctor's advice and started on antidepressants many years ago. They are not the solution to my problems, but they help me live a fuller, more functional life while I work a program of recovery.
Late last year I was spiraling down into severe depression again, started some counseling at the mental health center here, and also see a psychiatrist there regularly for medication evaluations. My one medication was increased, and another one added as I had dropped 16 pounds, which I am thin anyway, and had zero appetite. My family is aware that I am in counseling, and 'seemed' supportive.
I have been practicing the program of Alanon actively for 9 years now, and have 17 1/2 years sober. I have always reached out for extra support through mental health resources when I fall back into that deep dark place.
The subject of God has been a real sore spot with my father over the years because I am no longer a practicing Catholic. I don't ever bring it up. He does.
I appreciate what the Catholic church has done for my father-I honestly do. He lost both of his parents within a year of each other, both alcoholics. His father often beat his mother in front of the kids. His father died in a fire at the club he owned. His mother died of a heart attack a year later. He was still in high school and had two younger brothers. He turned to the Catholic church for strength and solace, and it worked for him.
When I first got clean and sober, I had to find a God of my understanding, and that I have done. There have been times in my recovery where I have tried to reconcile my spirituality with that of organized religion, and I'm just not there yet, don't know if I ever will get there.
My oldest daughter was baptized a Catholic shortly after birth, and that was 8 years before I ever sobered up. She attended a Catholic school up until high school.
My youngest was also baptized in the Catholic church. I don't know why, but it was important to me to have both kids baptized.
I do have a close relationship with God in my life, a wonderful relationship that I never knew existed.
I practice spirituality in this house, in my life, every day. Every morning I pray and read my meditations for the day. Every night I thank God for another day clean and sober. I often pause and ask God for guidance. I see God working through the wonderful people around me in recovery.
I often get emails that are God-related, and I always get something out of them. Because I know Dad would enjoy them, I forward them to him, and vice versa.
Yesterday morning I sent him an e-mail with God's 10 Guidelines that were posted here because it had a lot of good things in it.
Yesterday afternoon he sent an e-mail in response that said "If you read and you believe, you won't need antidepressants."
I used to get angry as all get-out at those kind of jabs, but I just get sad anymore. It hurts that he wants me to recognize where he gets his spiritual strength from, but he views my beliefs as unimportant, that obviously I'm depressed because I 'don't have God'.
This is a family who doesn't recognize mental illness. This is a family who didn't come to see me when I broke down a year into sobriety and went to a psych ward rather than drink. I was also pregnant, and my mom had 'disowned' me because I was not going to have an abortion or put the child up for adoption. Therefore, according to one of her searing letters, I was worthless and would never amount to anything.
This is a family that doesn't believe in counseling because you don't air your dirty laundry. This is also the family that had a hernia when I called from rehab to let them know where I was, and I was told I didn't need to be around 'those' kind of people.
Sometimes it just hurts to not have validation from them, but I know it's more important for me to validate myself than anyone else.
When I feel pain like that, I turn right back into that little girl whose father was not there physically much because he was a workaholic (and still is). Now I understand that both of my parents had all sorts of baggage from alcoholic relatives that they brought into the dynamics of my immediate family. He wasn't there for me emotionally either.
I have to nurture myself. I'm really glad I had a meeting last night. No small coincidence I think that I got that e-mail on a night I had a meeting.
Thanks for letting me share my pain.
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"If a dog will not come to you after having looked you in the face, you should go home and examine your conscience." - Woodrow Wilson
(((tender))) I absolutely loved the 10 Guidelines from God and have forwarded them to everyone in program that I have an email address for.
You know reading your post reminded me of a situation with my DA son. He was also blaming all of his adult problems on me. If I hadn't done this or that or whatever he would not be where he is today. My response to him was...
"I did the best I could for you with the tools I had to work with at the time. You may blame me for how you turned out but you have to blame yourself for staying that way."
He is an adult now and he is the only one that can change his life. He has worked a lot on resentment and blame and in the process has come to realize that the choices he made were his alone and he and his HP are the only ones that can change the outcome of tomorrow.
Getting rid of our resentments toward our past is essential to our growth. So for me I accept people for who and what they are. They have a right to their opinion's, feelings etc. and those are their property not mine. Realizing whose property is who's has helped me with my detachment process a great deal.
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Everything I have ever let go of has claw marks all over it.
Often times the similarities between members in recovery is startling and then that is what glues us together and helps us to support each other during recovery. I also could not find this in organized religion of the same denomination as yourself. I hold the same gratitude for the early years and now have moved on myself.
I won't go further except to say that I read your post after I read the daily meditation. If you don't have it let me know...I will PM it. It is wide and deep and true.
I've been reading a lot of spiritual based books that really have opened my eyes. I'll try to explain what I've gotten from them about people as best I can.
The book "A New Earth" by Eckhart Tolle speaks a lot about ego and makes so much sense to me. The trick is to not take what your Dad said and only see it with your ego. Ego against ego is all it is. We used to be very spiritual based, believed in only one HP for all in the beginning. We could listen to our inner self, spirit, soul until man slowly discovered an ego. The ego is what created many religions. It said "This is the way", "My way and belief is the right one", "You're aren't as good as I am unless you believe like I do". And so it began. We can see the ego based dis-ease in many things from family arguments to wars.
We slowly, over centuries have started to only hear our ego's voice and only "think" it is our inner self speaking. The ego and the spirit/soul or whatever one chooses to call it (who we really are) are totally different, yet can be confused as one because that is mostly all we hear talking in our heads. (Still with me?)..lol Soooo....It is your Dad's ego that makes him think it is his way and he has to be right, and is right in his mind. It is not his soul/spirit speaking. It is YOUR ego that is taking offense to his statement. Our egos don't like to feel belittled, they like to be on top. You might say "No, he hurt my feelings". Feelings are also connected directly to the ego. Our spirit/soul is connected to HP, it doesn't get hurt by what another ego said. I've managed to come to a place that if this would happen to me I could see it as an ego based statement, and believing this to be true, would be able to see it as such and leave it at that. You've identified your Dad's action in realizing how your Dad was raised and his losses. Leave the statement with him as best you can and try not to take it on as yours. What he said does not change who you are.
Alanon has a great slogan "What others think of me is none of my business". In the book "How Alanon Works" there is a section that says (I'm paraphrasing) without being aware we continually react to previous events of our past rather then to the reality of our lives today. The word "re act" in this sentence means a reenactment of old feeling, bringing them in to the now.
I remind people often, "We are not the sum of our past". Live in the NOW. Ego is multidemensional in that it can stick it's chest out and say "Look what I've accomplished" or "Look at all the pain in my life", either way people tend to think it is who they are.. The more pain or drama the ego has, the more it gets addicted to it because it gives the ego purpose and makes people think "This is who I am".. The same goes with the accomplishments, "Look at what a big deal I am". "I" accomplished more then you, "I" hurt more then you". Both ways, the ego prevails, having or doing or feeling more then the other person.
A great example is my sister in law. She is a millionaire. When I ask her how her (adult) kids are doing she goes in to how much money they are making, what they own and what they will have. I let it go. It's not what I asked, but in her perception the accomplishments etc. ARE her kids. It works the same with drama. A "How are you" may get so-and so treated me badly, I can't pay my rent, my car won't run, I'm depressed. Those are all circumstances of the person, not the person, the true self. Another important thing in Tolle's book...The only true time is Right Now. The past is gone and cannot be retrieved and the future cannot be counted on.
I never know if I'm making sense to anyone else so I'll leave it that. At least I know what I mean..LOL! :)
Christy
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If we think that miracles are normal, we will expect them. And expecting a miracle is the surest way to get one.
I spent a lifetime over reacting to my parents and my family's dictums.I think it is an enormous wound to never be understood, never to be "known" by them.
For me those states are pretty "sticky" because I feel like the grief is never ending. Not only did I not have a mother and father as a child, I didn't get one as an adult either. I certainly needed one. I can be the resilient "orphan", transcendent recovery person but at the end of the day its truly awful to get to that I didn't "have", never will have and can't have a functioning mother and father. My mother and father are both long dead but I still could do with a functioning mother and father, and what's more a functioning sister if I could find one.
Certainly recovery has given me a great deal but a functioning family was not one of them. I feel orphaned, a motherless child a lot of the time and lost about many many issues. At the same time I did recover, my parents never did, they had opportunities to do it. My sisters, while they are certainly not as dysfunctional as my parents, choose to continue with substance abuse as a way to "cope".
Sometimes recovery can be very isolating. Please know you are not alone in this type of grief. I have worked through this on so many levels but I am still left with grief. Many people can come to some kind of functional relationship with a parent, some of us can't, certainly in my case it was not from want of trying. I don't think that labels me as unworthy anymore.
THSKS, I am sorry your father said those hurtful things but he is ignorant and does not understand or care to understand.
There is a lot of shame about mental illness in this world. I grapple with this myself, both sides of the coin. I have used anti-depressants and my AH is bi-polar and I struggle with all of it. It sounds like your father cannot or has not ACCEPTED you. I know how much this hurts. But when you turn away from him, look over here and there is a whole crowd of people who DO ACCEPT you exactly as you are.
You are, in fact, a walking miracle, clean and sober for as long as you have been!!! You live your life as you do and its a beautiful thing. You are walking along a path and its a good one, THSKS. We are all here with you and supporting you and loving you unconditionally. We are your true spiritual family that ACCEPTS you as you are, warts and all. Hugs, J.
