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.
One thing I am super clear on going into this year is that I am no longer willing to on any level give my power away to another person and let my life go under again. I will be years making it back to beyond survival. For me that will mean that I really have to look at teh whole way I give myself away to others. I am so clear that right now I have little to offer and am not interested in connecting on any thing but a pretty boundaried way with anyone. At one time I gave myself away and threw myself at people. I surrendered msyelf to them and believed that was love. Now I think it was profound despair, fear and terror. I don't know that love had much to do with it at all. In fact I think that was a pretty unloving thing to do. When I see people who are doing that being so totally dependnet on another being for their "everything" I am horrified (of course I don't disclose that) but that was really my sole aim for years on end. Find someone give it all up and hope they will love me. There wasnt even a calculation in there it was just unbridled fear and total lack of self trust.
See, I think that for us as Al Anoners, we have no dimmer switches! Its either the light is on or its off. What I hear you saying Maresie is that you go from one extreme to the other. And that makes sense but there has to be a middle ground somewhere, don't you think? Being on one extreme or the other is no good either way in my perspective. J.
Mahalo for such a great share!! I relate and today I know and don't judge how I did it then as being bad or wrong. It's with whom I did it that wasn't appropriate. I assumed that I could get love in return from my alcoholic upbringing and the people who participated in the disease with me. They were all broken too and all we could give each other was brokeness. That's all we knew sadly. Then I found this family...this program and the people who had come to it for the same reason...being unloved by people who did not know how to get or return love themselves. I have wished my family into recovery (silently) and been sorry that they miss the blessings. Most of the blessings are about loving and being loved by "other family".
Its okay today...very. Program has taught me to love the unloveable (HP loves that!!) and be grateful and blessed for those who I have found so willing and easy to love me without condition and take mine in return.
For me one of the awarenesses I have is that Love is the absence of fear. I also realize that the unconditional part is loving inspite of fear.
Hi I can totally understand this I grew up thinking I had to care for everyone but me. In my relationship I give myself completly hoping to recieve the same back but usually I just get drained. My new outlook is I am important and other are o.k to take care of themselves with HP's help. I can now see this in other people to and realise I am powerless to explain what they are doing they have to learn from their own mistakes just as I did.
actually I dont think I had a dimmer switch. I had no boundaires period. I was a walk over. Since i've had boundaries believe me I've encountered a lot of opposition around me. I'll no longer entertain certain people. For me it isn't all or nothing. I grew up around obnoxious horrible people (yes in moments of compassion I can see them as sick) on some level I learned how to tolerate them. Now I don't. I asked a friend for a ride on the weekend. He was rude and obnoxious to me. I'm no longer willing to entertain getting a ride from him. I'm not going to even deign to tell him why. I tried for a while to have boundaries with him. Some people really see boundaries as a huge affront to them. So I am constantly having to readjust my expectations of who I can be around and who I can't. All or nothing isn't it for me. Boundaries are it, self care is it. I still do a great deal to care for and have compassion for others, the issue is I no longer do it at the expense of myself.
I think I also grew up in a family where the roles were reversed. The only way I got any attention from my family was in caregiving. I know that now I have changed my boundaires with my sisters I am not longer engaged in the same way. Is it what I hoped for certainly not. For me the issue of boundaries is dealing with that when I have them, certaiin people have a lot of reaction.
