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.
It has now been two months since Drama Goddess went into the psych ward. I haven't seen her or talked to her since then, get periodic updates from her mom - she has had her ups and downs. I don't know where she stands or the details. I just know I miss her very much.
As far as I know, she has never drank alcohol or done any drugs other than the ADs and bipolar meds she has been prescribed... and adjustments. But she is such an alcoholic, and I don't mean that in a bad way at all. I saw in her from the age of two, that restlessness... that heart on the sleeve, sensitivity, empathy. She absorbs feelings like a sponge. She longs for her purpose, and she's willing to try anything to that end but has yet to find it. She longs to be someone, but hasn't learned that she already is. She wants to help people, and doesn't know how much she has already done.
I can't share her thoughts, or know her motivations in detail. But I do believe I share the knowledge of what it's like to be... different. She creates drama; she IS drama. It's because everything she does is, in her mind, terribly important. The fear of making that one mistake that will dash destiny. I know it well. My early life was filled with what-ifs and if-onlys. So much of it not about my choices and actions, but about things beyond my control - like who my parents were, what I looked like. That craving for purpose, for identity, the need to stand out yet the need to fit in at the same time. The unresolvable paradoxes that make a brain go on overdrive, until we discover alcohol - the magic elixir for that runaway thinker. If we're lucky, we survive and come back to our runaway brains and face them head on, and ask a higher power for help to sort it all out. Our purpose becomes directed by that Higher Power, instead of by other people, or even our own mutated thoughts.
I don't know if "normal" people have these thoughts. I'm sure they do, but perhaps they never reach the level of importance that they do in us. Your average joe can look at the sky and say, yeah I wonder what it all means, but go on with their life not knowing. Some of us just HAVE to know, and drive ourselves crazy and still never know. If the Twelve Steps of AA... and Alanon - have taught me anything, it's that one can recover without knowing. Knowledge may follow recovery (some knowledge anyway), but if recovery waits for knowledge, recovery will never come.
I miss my Drama Goddess. I miss the power of her passion, I miss her intensity. I miss the things that remind me of me. I used to vacillate between two great fears: that I would pursue my passions until they destroyed me, or that I would pursue normalcy until my passions were subdued, beaten into submission. I thankfully found a middle ground in the program, where I could follow the steps to recovery, and keep my passions like little jewels to be studied, worn, admired, traded... but not to be ruled by. I know that my Drama Goddess cannot be defeated by normalcy. That if she recovers, there will be no loss. I want her to know that too. She can recover, she can function, and she won't lose herself. I know that fear. She has to learn for herself.
I do so miss my Drama Goddess. But I feel her presence constantly. How could I not? As I know her mother does. We don't need to talk on the phone, or be in the same room. We're on the same frequency. I have no blood offspring. Some things are thicker than blood. Drama Goddess is my granddaughter, as sure as if she were blood. I can remember being fifteen. I was a fat, dorky slob when I was 15... she's a beautiful girl. But so much of what's inside is the same. Please survive, Drama Goddess. It's better on the other side, I promise.
Aloha Barisax....You might not have the need to be in the same room or on the telephone or in an embrace. Some times we arrive at that point..."not needing" or "not wanting" even. Maybe it is that young Drama Goddess spirit that would like to see, feel and be there herself. The needs I never had fulfilled in my family of orgin were fulfilled in the fellowship, the Al-Anon Family Groups. Beyond my wildest expectations.
(((barisax)))), What a loving post. Your DG is very blessed to have you in her life. Every 15 year old needs people who can understand them, even when they can't undertand themselves.
You and your DG are in my prayers.
Yours in recovery, Mandy
__________________
"We are not punished for our unforgiveness, we are punished by it" Jim Stovall
I live with a drama goddess and she was certainly at it in the last month. I have had to detach detach and detach. The allure is amazing but I have to remember the down side is not worth it. I stay away and thank you for the reminder I do not have to talk to her or engage with her. I know the frequency well.
I loved your post to your granddaughter. How very freeing to be able to say what you think and feel without distracting the person recovering. Your words here touch so many who truly understand and can share your dreams with you in hopes she will be her best.
I live with a drama goddess and she was certainly at it in the last month. I have had to detach detach and detach. The allure is amazing but I have to remember the down side is not worth it. I stay away and thank you for the reminder I do not have to talk to her or engage with her. I know the frequency well.
Actually I would love to talk to her or engage right now. She's just not available due to her circumstances. I don't know if she'll decide to use any of her calls - if and when she's allowed - to talk to me. Probably not. The interesting thing about all of this is that I seem to be the one person she is totally honest with. I'm sure she hasn't told me everything, but I have no reason to doubt anything she has told me. It has been remarkably candid. I have never played the role of the shoulder to cry on, nor have I played the role of the fixer within her memory. And she still loves me.
I think her mother has experience that would be valuable to her. But she is, as a good friend of ours put it, "compartmentalized". As a therapist herself, it's a necessary trait and survival skill. I think my own mother had it. But it made talking to my mother feel like talking to a therapist. My mother believed with all her heart that it was the way to be. But sometimes you need to talk to your mother, not your therapist. I have the feeling my DG is surrounded by therapists. Helpful, non-judgmental, and all that. But perhaps lacking a kindred spirit. Being surrounded by therapists can be pretty lonely, and it hone's one's skill at manipulating and bullshitting therapists Ask me how I know. I guess she knows she can't bullshit me, and she doesn't. She really doesn't even try. And her mom is that way with 99.9% of the world, but perhaps not with her daughter.
Trusting the system - any system - isn't my thing. I can't say I'm thrilled about my DG being in the system, but it came down to her parents having no choice in the matter. And certainly I have no choice. I've found the understanding in the rooms of AA and Alanon to be the best path to recovery, and it fact it was the warmth and sense of being in the right place from the beginning that made me *want* to recover. Really do it, not just play the game to get through the system. I just don't think DG is ready for it yet, and if it takes the system to keep her alive until she's ready, then I guess that's ok.
What a loving post. Your DG is very blessed to have you in her life. Every 15 year old needs people who can understand them, even when they can't undertand themselves.
When my daughter - DG's mom - was 13, I tried to have a heart-to-heart, let me understand talk with her... this was before AA, before sobriety (for either of us). She was screaming that nobody understands her. I said "Well I don't think anybody can *really* fully understand another person". I swear her head rotated around three times, her eyes glowed red, she spat pea soup, and growled "don't give me your psychobabble bullshit!!" LOL. I guess someone has gotten better at communicating since then. I still laugh when I think about that "Exorcist" moment, although at the time it was anything but funny.
One thing she has said over and over about DramaGoddess (especially to her husband, pulling out what's left of his hair in frustration), "But... she's so much NICER than *I* was at her age!!!" And I'm bobbing my head vigorously in agreement. It's definitely true. The disease manifests itself in many ways - sometimes in extreme selfishness, sometimes in extreme selflessness. And the latter may be the more difficult of the two for a teenager to deal with. Teenagers are *supposed* to be selfish, and they can't help it. But a girl who has grown up wanting nothing but to be the best, and help people (and little animals and everything else), her innate selfishness provokes a terrible inner conflict.
My inner conflict as a teen is now really obvious. I never had the desire to be a troublemaker. It didn't top my list of life goals, but it was top of the list for almost anybody doing an assessment of my actual behavior. Why? It was that fear of losing myself. Conformity literally made me sick to my stomach. No matter how sincere I was in my desire to do things right - like, pay attention in school, do my homework, stick to the goals, be civil - when I acted that way, part of me was recoiling in disgust. I just couldn't live with that. Alcohol was the buffer that enabled me to function as a young adult, and channel my non-conformity in a profitable direction. And it was sobriety that allowed me to come to peace with all of who and what I am, without having to resort to conflict. I'm able to be myself, go through a day without the nausea of being phony, and still manage to not piss off everyone whose path I cross. Amazing!
DramaGoddess needs to learn to take care of herself first. Her goal of wanting to be a helper - a doctor, a lawyer, a therapist, bringer of world peace, rescuer of little animals - cannot be served if she destroys herself. She has to place herself #1. Not her selfishness, her SELF. And discover her true HP... or rather, rediscover, because I know HP was holding her in His hands when she was a little one. I saw it every time I looked into those blue eyes and saw the whole universe.
