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's all mind over matter. I know this. It's not time that heals the wounds, it's your entire mind set. Almost like the alcoholic when they are on the sober AA path. I used to see the change in his brain....the difference between when he was actively drinking vs when he was on the sober path and attending AA regularly. The mind and the way he talked and acted was totally different.
I believe this is how it is for us as well. If we can train our brain to stay in the correct mind set of health and happiness and live the serenity prayer....things would be good. Which is why we all have our good days and then revert back to our bad days. If I could keep the mind set as to why I need to move on and quit thinking about the past and what I wish could be, I'd be so much better off. Yet every day, I wake up and then the mind takes over and tells me if it's going to be a good day or a bad day. A bad day is me missing him, and thinking it wasn't that bad, and thinking that I should have just put up with the binges so that I could still have those times in between and the love and frienship i had with my highschool sweetheart. My oldest son is the only one of the four that got our intact family from birth to graduation. The youngest one will never know what its like for us as an intact family and the good times that we could have together when it was good. All this and much much more will pour through my brain from the time I get up until the time I go to bed.
A good day is when I can not think or dwell on all the above and try to remember how horrible it really was...unfortunately, i have to ask others if it was that bad or if i was just being a baby. I need constant reassurance that I'm not crazy and that the life I led with the A was not normal.
Right now, I can no longer imagine myself with anyone else. I compare everyone to him. He was my life since I was 17 years old. He was all I had, we depended on each other because we had no family to turn to but ourselves and our kids. I hope tomorrow will be a good day.
It's definately a mindset. It's more than one day at a time, it's learning to live in the present and give it all to your HP. I've been there before during the first rehab session. This time has been more difficult but I'm slowly getting it back one minute at a time somedays but I feel it returning as each day gets better,
Thank you for your post :) I can tell my mindset is slipping when I start asking myself the "well, maybe it wasnt so bad" questions. Fantasy vs. reality starts to slip. I think the I grieved more for the loss of the way things could and should have been than the reality of the way they were. As an adult I sure wish my mom would have seen that it would have been better to come from a broken home than to live in one. Blessings :)
sdisnie wrote: A good day is when I can not think or dwell on all the above and try to remember how horrible it really was...unfortunately, i have to ask others if it was that bad or if i was just being a baby. I need constant reassurance that I'm not crazy and that the life I led with the A was not normal.
I completely relate to your post, but this especially stands out for me.
For me, my "normal" filter was so clogged with the stuff I acquired growing up ACoA, I knew it was unreliable. Although my gut was screaming, "This is NOT good!", it took a neutral, objective third party in the form of a professional counselor to gently point out that perhaps my relationship was unhealthy to the degree that I should consider leaving. XABF and I had been together about 14 months at that point and when I told her that he'd had 6 relapses during that time, she carefully remarked "That's a lot of relapses". I wasn't capable of making that assessment for myself; I needed external validation. Because, of course, I couldn't talk to my friends about his drinking.
Thanks for the valuable reminder, sdisnie!
__________________
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could... Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense. - Emerson
I sometimes find it hard to stay the course. But I've been through hardships in life, and know that time does heal all wounds by turning them into learning experiences and memories. There is life after the big A, that I know. Getting there is the challenging part.
Aloha Sd...This is a good post and great for me because it helps me inventory the growth changes which I have gotten from working the program and sitting and listening with an open (same thing)...I use to be a victim to my thinking and as a partner in alcoholism that is not good in any way shape or form. My head was always taking off in all directions at all times and my thinking patterns affected my attitudes, perspectives and behaviors and I thought it would never end...until I got into program and things got way better and then I also met a professional who told me, "You are responsible for what you think. You choose." My first reaction was "Uh Uh...now how no way!!" but he was right completely. I Choose at any time any where for any reason what I want to think about and how I want to act as a result. Program stuff...to some simple and normal and natural and for others, like me, rocket science. Go figure and I use to work with NASA. (No Actual Sanity Anywhere) LOL ... Keep coming back I'm hauting this one for more feedback. (((((hugs)))))
