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Miracles In Progress 12 Step Recovery Forums -> Al-Anon Family Group -> Al-Anon Family Group -> Funny how we tend to forget the past... LONG
Post Info TOPIC: Funny how we tend to forget the past... LONG
roonpugs


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Funny how we tend to forget the past... LONG
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So I ran across an old external hard drive today and found a poem I started to write back in 2009 along with a journal I had started.  It was a rough time  dealing with a depressed drug/alcoholic/suicidal mother and depressed alcoholic/gaming husband.  

Reading my words from 2 years ago made me realize how strong and how weak I am... How 2 years ago I thought I was down to my last bit a strength, had no hope and here I am today feeling that same way...  I am proud I have been strong enough to make it another 2 years, but saddened that I have dealt with the same thing and it has only gotten worse and so have I...  Will I be traveling this same road still in another 2 years?  What does my HP have planned for me?  

Here is the poem that I started to write and couldn't finish way back when because of my hurt & tears that maybe some of you can relate to:

 

I wish I had known by:  Roonpugs 2009

 

I wish I had known, I wish I had tried.

To find out sooner, what was eating you alive.

A disease called alcoholism, ever so dark.

Eating your soul and tearing you apart.

We were once care free souls, happy and free,

Now this damn angry disease won't let us be.

It eats at you, and reaches out to me, and now

Continues onto our family tree.

Generation after generation, it is carried on,

Are we doomed to be consumed by an ever ticking bomb?

Doomed to lurk in the unemotional state,

Where we sit in silence and finish our plate.

Not knowing how to deal,

Not knowing how to cope,

If I had only known maybe I could have given you some hope...

I use to be enough to make you happy and fill that void,

But what we had is now only a memory, something your damn depression & alocoholism have destroyed....

by:  Roonpugs 2009

 

**I also found my journal notes so here are some quotes from it that I'm sure someone else can relate to so you do not feel so alone:

 

Over the years he (AH) has pulled away, become quiet, angry, negative, unsupportive, unproductive, un active, disconnected with friends and family, un social, un motivated, sleeping more and more, and drowning himself in work, sleep and alcohol.  My soulmate has been devoured by depression & alcohol.  A man who would at one point in time moved the earth and sun to spend time with me, or support me.  Now, we are strangers.  Angry, resentful, depressed strangers.   I do not know this quiet individual that will barely give me a hug or call to see how I am doing.

  He (AH) has engulfed himself in a high stress, high demanding job during the day and a social/drinking gaming world at  night.  He just sleeps and drinks and has no energy left for his family.  I've been made to feel neglected, insignificant, belittled, am a nag,  I ask too much,  I am boring, there is something wrong with me, that I am unattractive, that I am not loved, that I would be better off single, negative, hormonal, distant, diminished, burned out... Just to name a few.  I have lost contact with whom I am, what I am, what I could be.  I have taken to walking on eggshells to not anger or upset my husband for fear that it would flare up his disease...  I have taken on every possible task around the inside & outside of the house, vehicle's, bills, shopping, doctors appts., our childs care, pets care, cleaning, cooking, yard work, working PT.  I have put so much energy into trying to make my husband happy that I have put my own wants, needs, hobbies aside that I don't even know what they are anymore.  I have officially burnt out...

I am terrified of what is to come in our near future.  Over these past 6-8yrs I have always found a way to keep myself occupied, upbeat, busy, but now I am just so worn out, beaten that the dreaded "depression" has found it's way into me.

All I need is a glimmer of hope to pull me from my depression, and I cannot get that from my husband for he has nothing left to give.  I'm at my last resort of energy and wonder when it will run out.  I literally cry in the shower daily so my husband and daughter do not see.  I don't want to make my husband feel any worse than he already does and definatley don't want my daughter to see me down.  I am totally on the verge of a breakdown.  I told my husband that this morning, but again, he's not there.  It's just a wall.  A quiet wall that I pore my heart out to occasionally when I can no longer handle things by myself, and hope it will come alive and just hug and love me once again... I'm tired of feeling so alone when there is someone around.  When will my soulmate love and care for me again the way I need him to?  Will he ever be able to?

How do we climb our way out?  Is my husband beyond the point of getting help, and have I become so resentful, angry and negative that I'm ready to walk away?  I took a vow, for better or worse, in sickness and in health.  Do I stand by a man who is not my husband and stay unhappy?  I have told him I've been unhappy for a few years, however he just doesn't get it.  He's so down and absorbed into what he is feeling and going through it doesn't even phase him what is going on around him.  I love this man with all my heart and cry for him.  I'm a widow, a room mate most days.  Occasionally my true husband comes out briefly, but the damn depression and alcohol suck him back away from and he's gone again...

I'm so lonely and sad today.  I miss "us" and am just starting to realize that I'm the only one putting in an effort in our relationship anymore.  Why, when I get nothing in return?  I  have to "ask" for a kiss hello, or "ask" for him to put his arm around me or "move" his arm to hold me.  I'm tired of "asking" for him to spend time with me and the family...  It hurts and I know it's not healthy for our marriage, but I seem to be the only one who cares.  Why fight for something that isn't there and for someone who doesn't care if the fight is won...???  I hate depression & alcohol...  It has ruined my life...  Damn you....

 

The ever lost,

 

Roonpugs



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Roo "The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears."
hotrod


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roonpugs wrote:

Reading my words from 2 years ago made me realize how strong and how weak I am... How 2 years ago I thought I was down to my last bit a strength, had no hope and here I am today feeling that same way...  I am proud I have been strong enough to make it another 2 years, but saddened that I have dealt with the same thing and it has only gotten worse and so have I...  Will I be traveling this same road still in another 2 years?  What does my HP have planned for me?  

 

Dear Roon

I loved your poem and can truly identify with where you where

  You have now found alanon and new tools to recover from this powerful dieases.  Recovery is not easy and takes baby steps but it will save your life.  The promises that you can live with courage, serenity and wisdom are true.

   Please keep coming back  Work the steps, get a sponser, live One day at a Time attend meetings and do not leave before the miraclea



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Betty

THE HIGHEST FORM OF WISDOM IS KINDNESS

Talmud
Otie


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Dear roonpugs, LISTEN TO HOTROD! 

You are just getting started on yourself.   PLEASE don't leave before the MIRACLE arrives.

 

Love ((((((()))))))).Otie



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Sweet Stanley


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(((Pugs)))  I thought you needed a big hug!  Read your post and I don't know about the rest of the members here... but you could have been talking about ME about 15 months ago.  I felt the exact same way. Tired of holding everything together, tired of all the responsibility, tired of being tired... I have worked really hard on myself since then.  I have to say, my life today is very different from what it was 15 months ago. I have worked hard with my self analysis and in the principles and the steps of Alanon. I work on these things every day.  I still have scars from the many years that I was "helpless"  and "hopeless", but I hope that one day, the scars will be just reminders of what I can't go back to. I love the saying: nothing changes if nothing changes.  How true is that?!

Stick around and work the program... the miracles are amazing and WILL change your life!

When the WORLD said "Give Up"... HOPE whispered..."Try one more time."  Peace.



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Sweet Stanley
roonpugs


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Thank you all for your words and support. Much needed.

__________________
Roo "The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears."
likemyheart


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Dear Roonpugs - your post made me think of a movie scene I replay often in my head because it hits me deep - Movie is Good Will Hunting and psychiatrist Robin Williams is moving closer to smart and smart aleck Matt Damon repeating the phrase - it's not your fault, it's not your fault, it's not your fault, moving closer until he's almost on top of him and Will caves in crying. That scene really reaches into me; I physically survived my childhood abuse but emotionally I did not begin to heal until I came to realize it wasn't my fault - nothing I could have done would have made my parents happy enough to not hurt their children. The very same thing can be said about my AH - all the horrible things he says, flinging the shower curtain open and saying something mean about me crying in the shower - like - if I had turned on the tears to get his sympathy forget it! His problem with alcohol is not my fault and there is nothing i can do for him to right the wrongs in his world. I have to turn away, let it all go and see where fate takes him. I grieve for the man I married, but, the quiet gentle mannered man I fell in love with would never scream at me, be derisive and mean at me crying; it is not my fault.

I am so sorry for this disease (even though I'm not yet sound in believing its a disease) for the devasted hearts it leaves in its wake - so sad to read the same stories over and over, that Getting them Sober sounds like so many of "our" lives. I miss the man I married but, he isn't the man I married, is he? I wanted to spend the rest of my life waking up in his arms, falling asleep in his arms as he watched his movies, (God, that is about the most perfect feeling, to lean against him, feel the sleep taking me over, loving the way it feels, relaxing so deeply that sleep just carried me away). I miss that the most, and sitting on the front porch steps drinking coffee and talking about things, throwing the toy for the dog. That man is not available and its not my fault - I created the environment I live in, he loved it and married me and blossomed, then the thirst took him and I lost him to it and its not my fault, I could not do ONE DARN THING to fix it. (scuse me folks, fingers hit the tab button instead of caps lock, ha,) There is more than one kind of death and letting him go, scares me to death because what if he doesn't find his way back? But ask yourself this - do I want him the way it is now? do I want to spend the rest of your life living like this? No - you don't and its not your fault for wanting what you can see as the possibilities.

-- Edited by likemyheart on Tuesday 19th of April 2011 10:11:19 PM

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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
roonpugs


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likemyheart - Wow, all of your words really hit home...  It has been like widowing for someone you "knew" and how we long for that person to return to us, you said it perfect.  My AH use to never raise his voice at me or be in "rages" so that is all new in our relationship over the past year.  It hurts and I have felt my heart literally breaking over the past few years as I slowly watched him morph into something else while mourning for the real man I knew with his shell right in front of me.  

I am truelly hopeful though for he has been dry 3 1/2 weeks and I told him yesterday that I didn't know if we'd work out and he was positive on my weak day and said, "Let's reinvent ourselves, let's reinvent us".  So I can only hope that I fall in love with this new man that he is becoming without his alcohol and after all the damage.  I am truelly clinging to hope now and my one day at a time approach.

Thank you for sharing your words, it means the world.  Best wishs!



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Roo "The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears."
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