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Feeling down again...as my other post mentioned....but I'm also tired of working on myself. I've been in Therapy for 3 years in the past and 2 years currently. Did Alanon for 5 years in the past...I know I need to start up again but with my schedule and the fact that because I'm already out so much working I'm reluctant to leave my daughter home alone with my wife (she just can't handle mothering and I feel I need to protect my daughter from her anger, neglect etc.) so I can go to a meeting. I feel sort of trapped. There may be some way I can finagle getting to a meeting but I'll have to really "work" on this. And I'm tired of working. Sometimes it feels like it doesn't do any good. I want to be happier basically..that's what it comes down to. And I'm not happy. Am I happier then I would have been without all the work? Intellectually I'd have to think so, but I don't feel it. I mean getting a failing grade of 40 on a test and then working real hard to get another failing grade of 55...that's what it's like. Yeah I improved but it's still not good enough. And when you feel you've worked hard and that's all I can get....why bother.....
I know I need to do some things that may make me feel at least a little better...I'm in the habit of getting to bed real late and not getting enough sleep or exercise nor am I eating real well. I guess I can start there...don't feel much hope though.
I'm sorry that you are feeling so down. I think that we can all get in a rut from time to time. Is there an activity that you can do with your child that will make you feel better? Even a walk... I went for a ride, with two of my grandchildren ages 4 and 5, last night. You can't help but catch some of their enthusiasm for life when they see a rabbit, deer, goose, or even a pretty flower. They see the world so much differently than us. My Mother-in-law also has a pretty wonderful outlook on life (she is 91, wheelchair bound and in pain constantly). She told me once that if she wakes up in the morning, it's a good day. I hope you can feel better about your life. We only get this one and we have to try and make the most of it. Best wishes to you....
Aloha MJ...a guy I sponsor locally use to bring his two children into the meetings when he first got here and they we mostly behaved and could sit and do other things at a separate table while he attended to recovery. Possible where you're at.
If you get to the meeting even for a short period of time see if they have the bookmark/foldout "Just For Today". It (again for me) was a tremendous manage ment tool when I was trying to come out of the forest myself. It is Blue and White and can fit into your literature or your wallet.
Sometimes the best solution to trying too hard is to let go. ((((hugs))))
Understand and I am working myself out of a rut, too. I started from a very low place that held little to no hope when someone suggested to me to 'fake it 'til I make it'. It didn't sound like much, and, I didn't really feel like it, but it was a starting point. Taking walks, doing errands, completing small tasks, keep us from truly getting too stagnant and serve as a launching point for a better frame of mind.
I'm an advocate of private therapy, but I honestly have received milestones of help at MIP, even in a short time frame, that the years of therapy did not provide. When I'm feeling badly, I come here and find hope and strength.
Ugh... I feel you. I responded to your other post, but I want to respond to this one, too.
I've been there, too. Just feeling ultra down and tired... ooooooh so very tired of "working on" myself. For crying out loud. I'm a real chore!!
I'll say this, and this is something that's always helped me. I've come to a point now where I've recognized that I go through these emotional cycles. I'll go a couple months feeling pretty decent, then maybe even have a week or two or three in there where I'm feeling downright elated. And then it all starts to go downhill and I find myself trudging through a boggy moor of negativity that comes in a myriad of forms and emotions.
Eventually I work through it all and I start back on that upward trend of feeling better and once again start feeling pretty elated.
The nice thing is, is I recognize now that there's a definite PATTERN going on. I can't pinpoint exactly what causes it - what I'm going through in my life that's creating the down times and what's creating the great times, but just simply knowing that "this, too, shall pass" is what keeps me from settling down in those down times and wallowing in it. I know that I'm going to eventually start feeling better again.
On the other hand, I also know now, that when I'm starting to feel pretty dang good that THAT will pass, too, and that I should be aware that I'm probably going to go through a funk again in the future... but again, just knowing that it's coming helps me to come to some kind of acceptance with it and I just let the feelings come and I don't spend time despairing over it.
I'm in an upswing right now. I know it won't last. I'm sure trying to enjoy it, though. But I'll be swinging low again in a while, and it's great knowing I have my Al-Anon friends and other non-program friends and family who I know are loving that can help me through when I'm down in the muck.
Sorry you are feeling down. I know for me I have to take it one day at a time and work on acceptance. That's pretty hard for me but when I do I'm no longer despairing.
you don't say how old your daughter is. Is she old enough for Alateen?
Our Alateen is on at the same time as the Alanon meeting so parents can leave them which going to their own meeting...
I know how you feel. I never wanted to leave my kids home with my husband. I ended up taking them to one of their friends houses and told my husband they went to play. nothing to do with my meeting,,, but it was a convenient time for me to kill 2 birds with one stone. The meeting was on a Monday though and i didn't pick them up till 9.30 p.m which wasn't ideal at the beginning of the school week. Good during school holidays though.
It does seem to be hard work though I agree. without Alanon though I find it harder. I suppose medicine doesn't always taste nice. I needed to be there for me...not necessarily to 'work' on me. Sometimes i just shut my eyes and listened. It just seem like an oasis in the chaos. A time when I could relax among people who understood
I have to practice happiness. I can be content in pretty much any situation or at least find a way to make myself comfortable but happiness is different for me. It takes constant exercise kind of like walking go a few blocks the first outing, a mile the second, someday I hope to achieve the equivalent of the Boston Marathon of happiness where it just happens without quite so much constant effort
You're not alone in having to work for that feeling and it does get easier the more I learn and work toward it. Take care of you.
I think all the ESH that you have received is awesome I would just like to add that at one point I had the same feelings but then my recovered self spoke up and said" You are going to be on this plant for another 50 years at least and if your are not focusing on yourself and learning new constructive tools to face life. then what are you going to be doing?
Sure the immediate answerr was work, take care of family travel But if I brought my old self to these activities I would still be miserable. I returned to alanon and have been a member for over 25 years. I have absolutely no regrets and belive it or net I really enjoy going to meetings, watching myself and others grow and learn ODAT
I do believe that Daily Gratitude lists enabled me to let goo fthe negative and start to feel the gratitude in my hart at the samll things I see each day and use to take for granted.
Sometimes that burn-out just takes over. I wonder if you can give yourself some extra time out/off in some way? More sleep, more relaxation? That's often what I'm in need of when I just can't face any more self-improvement for a while.
Our town has several Al-Anon meetings with childcare -- are there any in your town? That might be a way to get to meetings without having to leave your daughter at home.
Running a continual sleep deficit can be mentally and emotionally draining; I find it difficult to get anything to really stick to my brain when I'm underslept.
Exercise is a real mood elevator and energizer. There was a period when other demands prevented me from walking my dogs, and I could feel myself getting depressed. I've made a pact to walk at lunch time with a coworker, and both of us notice how much better we feel in the afternoons. Having that commitment to another person keeps me from sloughing it off.
I started attending Al-Anon in January of this year. Because I like to have a thorough understanding (I over-research, lol) of stuff, I started reading conference approved literature like crazy. Fairly early in this process I made plans to visit a friend in another city at the end of May, so I decided to dedicate myself completely to immersion in Al-Anon until my vacation. Having a defined end-point, and a sort of "reward" to keep me motivated, really helped me stick with the plan.
Not that I gave up my work after May, but I certainly decreased the intensity and shifted my focus from "understanding" to "doing".
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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 know how you feel.. I work to just try to keep some sort of sanity, only for it to dissolve. Hugs hang in there.. hope for better, and then strive for it for yourself. You'll get there.
I think at times I can find Alanon very time and though consuming. I can begin to feel detached from the rest of the world. It would be nice to just start to think about other things. To be honest though, when I have stepped back and got involved in other things my brain naturally start obsessing over the alcoholic and how difficult he has made things over the years. Woe is me can easily begin to creep in. But when I am involved and reading the literature daily I begin again to find my focus change back to my needs. Before I know it I am succesfully finding other things to focus on. I think its all about balance (as alot of this stuff is) Finding where that balance is really is up to the individual. I have never considered myself to be an obsessive minded person. I really think that is now part of my sickness and something I have to accept. I've only got to honestly look at how much time I can spend on facebook games to see how obsessive minded I am capeable of being.
But now I know it is one of my shortcomings which I can address slowly and with higher Powers help. Keeping things balanced..... really hard for me to do at times
I so know how you feel. The failing grade analogy is perfect, sadly so. It leaves me always feeling like there is more I could be doing and I just can't ever get there, even though I am trying so hard. I have been in and out of Al-Anon and I am back again. It just plain helps. It is always helpful for me to know there are others who get what living with active alcoholism is like. Hang in there!
-- Edited by bcg on Monday 30th of August 2010 01:30:54 PM
