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 lurking on this website off and on for a couple of years and finally decided I better start posting!
First, I would like to thank everyone both past and present who post and share and just have helped me relate to what I have been going thru. It was here that I learned how to detach from my A wife and these boards steered me into the right direction for me.
I am now divorced and have custody of our 12 year old daughter. My decision was influenced in part to my own upbringing in a non-loving family since my Mother was an alcoholic. What I am discovering in this brave, new world of mine is that I have lost my own identity. Hell, I'm not sure if I ever had it! I don't know who I am or what I should do next. I feel that most of my life I have been identified as someone's son or husband or father. But I don't know who I am!
I felt that someone in this group probably has had simliar feelings and thought maybe someone could provide a little ESH in this regard. Thank you for reading this.
Aloha Tom...sound like we're from the same family and suffer the same consequences. If you're not in the rooms of the Al-Anon Family Groups I would suggest that you get there as early as possible. Counseling helps also. You can find the hotline number for Al-Anon in the white pages of your local telephone book and that will get you the meeting times and places. When you get there ask if there is Alateen available as your daughter is just about the right age for the same program. It is a part of the AFG (Al-Anon Family Groups). Identity problems? been there done that real good and am still working my way out. It is a consequence of intense focus while growing up on intense family problems...like alcoholism. It is also a consequence of investing more in the lives and goings on of others than my own needs. It is a consequence of sacraficing my needs for the needs and wishes of others whether real or imagined (many times I assumed I should sacrafice rather than ask). It is a consequence of no support and affirmation from others which is a huge characteristic in the alcoholic family, for self discovery and your own desires and wishes and talents. We kinda just disappear out of life...we're there but we're not and no one seems to notice and it gets usual and familiar and normal. Sometimes we even change our names or how we display our names to create someone we wish to be or think we might care to be and get farther away from ourselves. Isolation is a usual and daily part of our characters which we use to finally attain invisibility. In order to gain visibility we have to act out sometimes unacceptably.
Does this sound kinda sorta like whats going on in part with you? Ever see the movie Mommy Dearest? Not a recommendation just a question.
In support and keep coming back...try the open meeting suggestions.
(((((hugs)))))
-- Edited by Jerry F on Tuesday 1st of December 2009 06:27:49 PM
What I am discovering in this brave, new world of mine is that I have lost my own identity. Hell, I'm not sure if I ever had it! I don't know who I am or what I should do next. I feel that most of my life I have been identified as someone's son or husband or father. But I don't know who I am!
I felt that someone in this group probably has had simliar feelings and thought maybe someone could provide a little ESH in this regard. Thank you for reading this.
Tom
Hi Tom and Welcome to MIP
Jerry has so eloquently answered your questions and pointed you in the right direction.
I wanted to say:
YES, I have been there and understand where you are and how you feel. Please know you are not alone and that alanon tools have been developed to solve that problem.
These tools enabled me to find that self I so neatly locked away and to live life focused on that self.
I too know how it feels to feel like you don't know exactly who you are. I think I'll make a determined effort to find out and let you know, thanks for the post- good luck on your journey and please post progress or "light" bulb moments. I know for certain sometimes we are much more wonderful exciting people than living with an A would lead us to believe.
