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 been angry so long it somehow feels normal; my son and my spouse have been admonishing me all week about how I am just plain mad all the time and it shows in everything I do. I know it, I acknowledge it, I can't control it (yet).
I have just tried thinking this all through to the point where it is making me physically sick with stomachaches and headaches and general lethargy. I cannot make a decision for the life of me. If I do decide to do something (say, mop the floor) I do it begrudgingly and slam banging around. If I have to make a phone call to handle some business or other, I resent it and do it through gritted teeth. Pity the poor person on the other end if things don't go well. (say calling an insurance company or bank). I don't know...this just isn't the person I used to be or want to be. I have been slammed to the ground by the cancer and the son's problems with alcohol and marriage failure. I have been used and abused by everyone in my circle ( or so my mind tells me). I feel as if no one ever thinks of me or wants to comfort me. I have always been strong and assertive; now I am weak and abusive. How do I end this?
I think I am spending lots of time looking for someone to blame for all that has happened. I think of my spouse and of me in our twenties and thirties, raising a young son. We had parties or attended parties every weekend; everyone (except me) drank...only a few I can think of got drunk or had problems with it. Unfortunately, all us young couples had our children present with us at these events...it was common, standard practice. DID THIS YOUNG INFLUENCE CAUSE MY SON TO THINK DRINKING WAS OK? I think of my spouse having his two beers every night in front of our son. DID THIS INFLUENCE MY SON? I think of myself over the years handling every single problem that ever came up in our lives....I thought of solutions but I asked my spouse's permission to take action. DID THIS BEHAVIOR INFLUENCE MY SON TO CHOOSE THE WOMAN HE MARRIED...A STRONG ASSERTIVE WOMAN? See, I just think and think and think. It drives me crazy as I try to figure out what has gone wrong in my life.
I blame the stress of my son's situation and his EX and my spouse and my entire life's behaviors for me getting cancer. I think my immune system just finally broke and there it was, pouncing on me and flattening me to the ground. Now I am handicapped, terribly immobile, frustrated, ANGRY that I was striken, ANGRY that I have to endure 3 month checkups and worry worry worry that my demise is going to be mestasis to the lungs and a painful gasping death down the line. 50% of my cancer ends up with mestasis to the lung.....yes, I fear that so much.
So, here I sit this morning with all this just flooding me overwhelming me over my head in trouble. I need HP and cannot find that spirit. I resort to bad language, bad behavior, and it is terribly unattractive in someone who used to be well, better than this. I was raised in a teetotaler home, fundamental southern baptist, hell and dammnation philosophy, no dancing, no wearing slacks if female, no tobacco, not much besides church and homecooking and bury your secrets deeply deeply. It shaped my life, but I left that all behind me.....but guess what, it surfaces daily. I am a sinner according to my upbringing and I feel as if God has brought His retribution down hard upon my soul.
I really don't know why I am writing this today. I am just so tired. I am tired of isolation and anger and resentment and sadness. I guess I just think if I write it out from time to time I will purge myself of it all. But as I read it, I feel the need to apologize for the nastiness of the post, the negativity, all of it.
Oh my, how I can relate to what you are feeling, Oma! ((((hugs))))
You pretty much described me when I was caught up in my oldest daughter's alcoholism, and the profound effect it was having on the family, not the least of which were my grandchildren.
I was also the great analyst, thinking, thinking, and thinking some more, rehashing the past over and over and over, asking myself where did I go wrong?
I have finally come to realize that I did the best that I could with what I had in raising both of my girls.
For me, underneath all that anger was guilt, and anger was very effective at keeping me from dealing with the guilt.
That's why the program of Alanon and the 12 steps are so very important to me.
I had to shed 'past' before I could move on with my life.
I could not do it by myself.
Meetings, having a sponsor, and working those steps have saved my life and my sanity.
There is no need to apologize for your posts. We have been where you are at.
As always, continuing to keep you and yours in my prayers (((hugs)))
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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
God grant me the serenity...(PEACE!) To ACCEPT the things I cannot change (the past, other people's drinking, other people's rude behavior, other people's illnesses, just other people in general...) The COURAGE to change the things I can (your perception of situations, your health and wellness, your choices about how you will deal with situations, view things or internalize what others say/do to you, your actions - words - reactions) And the WISDOM to know the difference (You can only change YOU and your perceptions, reactions and the things you CHOOSE to deal with or not deal with)
Someone send me a really cool list of 50 things once... Number one was life isn't fair but it's still good! Number 25 is No one is in charge of your happiness except you. There are lots of good ones... Number 31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
First of all ((((hugs)))! I understand the anger! Read over that Serenity Prayer again. Once it sinks it, it's like a balm on your fiery soul.
Secondly, here's some thoughts from a child who went to her parent's parties and saw lots of drinking and drug use.
My mother died 13 years ago, and I spent a long time thinking about how she raised me and whether or not it screwed me up. You know what I ultimately realized? I am my own person. I made my own decisions. She did the best that she could at the time and gave me the most love and best life that she could. What I did with that life and those experiences was my choice. I'm dealing with the consequences of these choices now because I own them. This is what your son needs to do, and you can't do it for him.
You sound like an incredibly strong woman, but remember that true strength bends under pressure instead of breaking.
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"It's a job that's never started that takes the longest to finish."
~ J. R. R. Tolkien
My younger sister is an alcoholic. I can very much relate to a lot of frustration and soul searching about that. I do know that it is still the issue that I deal with all the time.
As someone with a chronic illness and many other illnesses I know for sure that stress affects them. At the same time I do know that I have to deal with them. I can shirk my responsibility and go into self pity about that but the fact is that it is a mystery why some alcoholics go their whole lives using god knows what and stay healthy and the rest of us drop like flies under the stress. I can't explain it. I know for sure for me personally stress is a huge factor in getting ill.
Detaching is so key for me. I cannot detach enough from my life, my surroundings, my "lot". When I can work on what I can do to change things then I can make my life far less unmanageable. Some days I don't feel like I can make much progress. Other days I can feel a movement forward and some days I actually feel like I have come a long way.
The issue for me is not so much anymore how I got here, through a childhood that was incredibly difficult to a long series of dysfunctional relationships it is what I can do to transform it. I can only transform me and in transforming me I can help others along the way (if they are willing). There is a path to redemption, there is a path to feeling better.
Anger is a great energy to knowing something is wrong. I find it refreshing to let go of denial about so much of how I react and respond to dysfunctional people. I took everything incredibly personally before. The world does not begin and end with me. I am no longer responsible for everything that goes wrong in the world, just me. If I can take better care of me I will have more to offer the world.
I am also in a unmanageable place on many levels, isolation, health issues (figuring out some of it is very time consuming), poverty, resources, job loss (the economy is terrible). I work day in day out on making my life less unmanageable. I use my rage and anger to do that. I also use my sense of forgiving myself for being here. I am very human. I am flawed. I did not take care of myself. I did not know how. Now I seriously resist taking care of others in an unhealthy way which I certainly embraced before.
Anger is leading me to be willing to look at lots of tools, like meditation, like seeking ways out of isolation (reaching out), like being "willing" to say this is unmanageable rather than rushing to fix it with more unamanageability.
In some ways it is good to be in transition to be willing to look at obsesive worry drains me rather than just to do it on reflex
I find when I'm getting caught up in a lot of anger that typing it out or writing it down definitely helps me on some levels to slowly work things through. Sometimes I think the more I type, the more it makes me think about the problems in a rational sense, and somewhere in there, my HP starts to sneak through into my thoughts and starts to give me answers as I type or write.
Do you have the book "From Survival to Recovery"? I think that is a fantastic book. It's the material we cover in my home group, which is the Adult Children of Alcoholics group.
Just keep working those steps. I find that accepting my powerlessness over situations really helps me to just LET GO and stop trying to fight, fight, fight everything, and when I'm not fighting, I'm not angry, and that is always a relief!
I can really relate to all that anger and rage. It was even a topic at my home group meeting last night. I think it is really normal for all that anger to come boiling out. When we start really working our program it is like a dam breaks on our emotions and at times I know I was powerless to stop it. I think it is important to let it out. We have spent so many years stuffing our sadness and fears that for me they just boiled into so much rage. Slowly as I learned to not only let out the old stuff, but deal appropriately with the new irritations and resentments, in the moment, as they occured, the storm inside my heart subsided.
Be gentle with yourself, dear Oma. We are here for you.
Love in recovery,
__________________
~Jen~
"When you come to the edge of all you know you must believe in one of two things... there will be earth on which to stand or you will be given wings." ~Unknown
The older I get, the less useful I find it is to think in terms of "blame". Even on those rare occasions when I do know who to blame, it doesn't do me any good - I don't feel any better, I don't get any justice. Even if someone were to say "You're right, it's all my fault, I was completely wrong in every way" (not gonna happen, by the way) - well, so what? It doesn't get us any further forward.
I'm sorry, but I can't remember - have you spoken to your doctor about your emotional state? So often the way you describe your feelings sounds like depression. It certainly wouldn't be unusual for someone as stressed as you have been over the last years to fall into a depression, and there are things that can be done for it.
You also might want to start checking out local churches. The church you were raised in may no longer have a message for you, but some other might. At the very least, you can spend an hour or so in a nice building, listening to some nice music. Even if HP isn't there for you, it would get you out of the house, and moving in a positive direction. Sometimes, it's not so much where you go as the fact that you are going, that matters.
The energy that we have in resistance to do things is exactly the amount of energy that is available to do them.
For me, this includes resentments vs. letting go, anger vs. peace, blame vs. forgiveness.
Have you tried consciously practicing living in the NOW? Right now, without dragging the past in? Are you angry right now because of what is happening right now? Or are you holding on to past hurts you can't do anything about and bringing them in to the present? This minute is anything bad happening? If not, then find peace in it. You can do this (((omajoy))), minute by minute if needed.
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.
