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 feel like I am making some bad decisions and feeling like a screw up. Yes I am a perfectionist and tend to be hard on myself, but I am also a wreck right now. At work yesterday my boss told me that I was having conversations with customers that were inappropriate and he was right, before I could own my actions all I could croak out was okay and I walked away crying. Lately I have gone over to my AH's house late at night when he has called me. I leave my 2 yr old sleeping and my 13 yr old watching her. I am usually back by midnight, but I don't feel right about it and feel I am starting a new bad habit. I filed for divorce and dettached before and now I feel I have reattched again. I know I am sick. I am still taking better care of myself than I was with diet and exercise and am doing fun things with my kids. I just feel like it's 3 steps forward and 2 back. I need input. I do realize I need to leave my private life away from work and have to own that still. Anyone relate to me I am all over the place from high to low.
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God grant me the serenity To accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.
Al-Anon/Alateen Family Group Headquarters, Inc. 800-344-2666
Laughs silently at this - sometimes you take 3 forward and two back, I know! But the thing is to keep stepping, keep going, eventually one day you notice you took one step forward and none back - small victory! Sometimes I have to envision myself as a donkey with a carrot on a stick tied to its back, trudging along, (sometimes I feel like I'm tethered to one of those wheels that just goes around and around) - but I'm better today than I was a few months ago, I made it through Christmas, made it through the worst of the winter and spring is blustering in, rain is cleansing and summer sun is closer every day - hey my favorite day has arrived, spring forward - tonight it won't get dark until after 7 pm! Yippee! Small victories - i see more of the real me emerging, more of the usta be person I was before he came into my life - gotta take time to enjoy the little things. Sometimes I can hear Dory singing "just keep swimmin" when I'm half-convinced I should just quit. Sometimes its just a half step forward after the math is done - just don't give up!
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I am strong in the broken places. ~ Unknown
All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another! ~ Anatole France
Listen, we trigger and re-attach in an instant (I noticed) and yes it takes a change to get it back on track. Boundaries for me helped in this situation - if I ever felt I was losing my own self resepct- that is the thing you ought to consider avoiding for a while, and see if you dont value those changes (restrictions or whatever). I chose to boundary out toxic people that triggered me to pity them. It was death for my life, so I chose doing something healthier for me. If it even remotely looked like that same old thing - I turned around and walked away. HP kept on throwng me new A's that I could pick up, rescue and avoid me with by continuing this self imposed relationship with people who lack emotional availability. I identified this control-out of control -- watning intimacy and not facing myself but trying to get it from someone that felt familiar to me - bc of their lack of ability to feel-deal-heal like a healthier person can and does.
When we begin to focus on others, we lose ourselves to this tragic disease. If I take time to feel-deal-heal - I get the opportunity to respond in the moments of my life and not automatically react to what is happening. I feel it, witness it, accept it and let it go. I also have to always let go of any particular outcome (control) and other people's life choices (again, control). I can only own that self control for me and I only have the right to take my own inventory and not tell them how to live or change. I accept them or I don't. If I cant accept them, then I must get back to me and make my empowering changes.
Alanon never made much sense to me, until I got the book; 12 Steps for Adult Children (u can see a copy cover at bottom of main page, w the building blocks on it). I think this book can help anyone who grew up in any sort of dysfunction (be it a rager parent or a workaholic one) it has the same affect on the family. I traced the sick need to compare me, compete, be perfect, the fear of abandonment - all stemmed from this sort of dynamic we exhibit. Quite frankly, it is manipulative... I was manipualting me in these situations, going along with the belief that this behavior was effective for my life and no amount of trying to change them -ever helped me. I have found that in working my program diligently and (with emotional detachment and the awareness that I can only control me and not them) with loving detachment & resepct/dignity for their life journey and mine --> doing that created a ripple effect that when I work it with my miracle turned on (in a state of forgiving all and feeling my HP and the unity of us all) that it allowed others to see this was possible and something worth striving towards.
Share your stories with other alanons and not with coworkers or clients. I know what ur gooing through - I did hair for 18 years and that is where I would lament aall of my terrible problems and emotional diarrhea all over anyone within ear shot. Years later I could see how unprofessional that behavior was. There is time and a place for everything. With boundaries you can have certain roles in which you only discuss certain topics; with some family members maybe you dont discuss other topics; I learned that I was entitled to have a private life with exlicitly private thoughts and that my HP wants me to feel that privacy of personal freedom(s). It is ok. Below are the boundary guidlelines that helped me change my life here over the years. Only I can enforce a boundary for me. I cannot control another person.
I was also told that we all have basic needs and that I had to define them so I could know what was intolerable in my life. I found that other then the most basic ones: food, shelter, warmth, air, water - that I did have certain physiological needs as a human animal and we all have the need for (emotional) acknowledgement. The rest of the stuff are goals, dreams, wishes, wants and fantasies and it is all (ultiamtely) irrelevant. My needs however, I cannot compromise or negotiate, they must be taken care of - hence the term "need". Defining my needs versus the wants and fantasies - allowed me to realize how and where to set boundaries. If you do embark on this without a sponsor, know that when we change and begin to create and establish boundaries that you are easily and readily able to not only carry out the consequence to the specific boundary -but- that the A's in our lives will work harder to 'get us to ignore our boundary' bc in the past we always caved in before. Allowing this to happen with sabotage your program and allow you to feel deep self loathing - please do not create such a boundary that you cannot enforce yourself and expect them to try harder to get your goat or to bait you into that fight or guilt (this is one of the ways in which we enalbe them and lose us).
focus on you and ur great kids. I know that if a daughter or a friend ever came to me with my own scenario, I would immediately stand up for them and be their cheerleader. Only that doesnt work unless you are exhibiting that behavior of self respect, dignity, self love-worth and forgiveness to the kids. They will emulate the healthier (more sane) parent, they want boundaries and consequences and to know how to navigate this world/society. We teach by example.
6 GUIDELINES FOR SETTING BOUNDARIES
HAVE CLEARLY DEFINED EXPECTATIONS.
CLEARLY DEFINED CONSEQUENCES THAT DONT DISRUPT YOUR SERENITY.
SET THEM CLEARLY.
COMMUNICATE THEM THEMCLEARLY.
ENFORCE THEM CONSISTENTLY.
WITHOUT REGARD FOR THE RELATIONSHIP (RELEASE ANY EXPECTATIONS ABOUT THE OUTCOME).
Boundaries are to protect you. Not to control someone else. No one respects an empty threat, so make sure it is something you can follow through on.
The boundaries are for YOU. In time u may change/alter them to suit you or the circumstance. When u out grow a boundary and dont need it anymore - u will know that too. You can have emotional, intellectual, physical, sexual, spiritual, social, professional, financial, familial & marital boundaries.
I add this bc that is what happened to me a few times in dealing with my parents:I mademy first boundary that I would not visit my mom if her AH was there. Then I would visit her but if her AH began to abuse me emotionally - then I left. After about a year, I had detached so much from his behavior, that I didnt need to leave anymore bc his words had no power over me, I no longer believed them - I could detach from him entirely & he couldnt hurt me anymore.
Take what u like & leave the rest. Take care of YOU, whatever that looks like.If you dont stand up for YOU, who will?If not now, when?You can change right now.Life is consecutive moments of right now. Make it something you can feel good about owning.
We owe us our own respect and only we can deliver it.
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Light, Love, Peace, Blessings & Healing to Us All. God's Will Be Done. Amen.
Been there and done that and it was called working "my" program then. I don't know if you are participating in the Al-Anon Family Groups and if you are then taking 3 steps forward goes like this;
1. Admitted we were p o w e r l e s s and that our lives had become un - managable. 2. Came to believe that a Power greater than - ourselves - could lead us to sanity. (a continuous and orderly process of thought) "Insanity...doing the same things over and over again expecting different results. 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him. (him, her, it, them, that, those, etc.)
When I started walking those 3 steps on a daily basis the falling back two started to become less and less and still when I fell back two I was back at step 1., and if I fell back only one I was back at step 2. Not a bad fallback at all. This is from my experiences in recovery and for many days I have been grateful cause I don't have to live like I used to back when the disease in me was raging.
Messing up is temporary when you change from "your" program to "the" program.
Keep coming back cause this works when you work it. (((((hugs)))))
((((hugs))))) Yes, it feels like that quite often, one step forward and 2 steps back or whatever.
It's hard to let go. Give yourself credit for what you have managed to do under these difficult circumstances such as you are still taking care of yourself with diet and exercise.
Baby steps. I am still learning to not beat myself and to learn how to be my own best friend for a change.
Do you have a sponsor? You have so much going on and such a need to share it that maybe it's coming up at the wrong times. 30 minutes a day to talk to a sponsor will easily iron out the issue of seeking help in the right places. Also regular meetings. You can hold it together at work better when you know you are going to a meeting later. I had some of this in early recovery. I was hurting so bad. I remember someone asking me at work "How are you?" one day and my response was "Unstable." I didn't even feel good enough to lie and say "fine" to get them to go away. It's comical now, but it wasn't then.
This too shall pass. There is no easy way to go through a divorce. Be kind to yourself. Check your motives before interacting with the Ex.
I do have a sponsor, but she is undergoing surgery and chemo for cancer and I just feel like a nuisance right now to bug her with this stuff when she has so much going on in her life. We are still new as sponsor and sponsoree (2-3) months in. I go to a meeting once a week, that is all we have in my lil area. We have a small group and she is the only one I felt comfortable to be open with, I relate to her. It has been a great match, but things are what they are and there isn't another group member I would choose. I am just going to wait for her to get through this week and when I bring her dinner I will see how she is then. I am feeling more on my own again and yes need to spend more time with HP! YES, I need to staple the steps on my forhead. I actually am going to write them in a few different places for me myself to read throughout the day to be reminded. I am just so mad at myself, I actually filed for divorce, but yet run to him and do nice things for him, all the I am sucked back in and wonder why my mind is spiraling, grrrr. Alright I am going to read some Al-Anon material and write the steps down a few times for myself. Thanks so much for the advice it is needed and greatly appreciated.
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God grant me the serenity To accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.
Al-Anon/Alateen Family Group Headquarters, Inc. 800-344-2666