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 grew up in an alcoholic home. There was violence physical, emotional and verbal abuse.
My father was the alcoholic, a daily drunk but always home by 4.30, dinner on the table by 5 PM and passed out by 6.30 in his easy chair, cigarette burning in hand with the local news station on. My dad and I got along like peas and carrots. Each time I saw him when he arrived home we would play a game competing with one another with the phrase, "I love you most, I told you first." He is a wonderful even tempered lovely fellow today as he was to me then. Dad's routine was very simple and predictible as described above.
I am not sure if there are enough words to describe my mother. My mother hated anyone and everyone who loved my father, including me. We would sit at the dinner table eating in stone cold silence I guess to "punish" dad. All of us children would be lined up on the couch, dad in his chair until she would go down the line and dress us down with a resovoir rage and hostility that seemed to never end. I was brutally compared to my other sisters never being smart enough, pretty enough, thin enough or good enough. Essentially, I would have to work twice as hard to be half as good. There was the breaking of dishes, slamming of doors, stomping of feet which was common from mom in the home. Physical abuse was present, you would never know when it would happen. The best plan was to do what you were told and to stay far away. So the household was composed of five people each living separate lives, trying to stay away from one another.
A bit about me now, I have always been a rule follower and a score keeper. When growing up I have always had in the back of my mind, someday I was going to make her pay. A saying that often ran in my mind was "one of these days I'm going to get you sucker. I may be small now, but I will get you"
Dad quit drinking without the AA program when I was about 13. However, the violence in the household remained unchanged. My parents divorced when I started college. My mom was busy having multiple affairs in the background so she opted for a geographic cure and moved 2500 miles away. Guess who had the gumption to report her behavior to dad. Today it was clearly none of my business, but then I absolutely hated her for the way she treated me growing up.
When asked, mom would not attend my college graduation. My mother married a man and had a wedding and didn't bother to tell her children. Her side of the family were there, my two sisters and I werent invited. When I was engaged to be married reports from my sisters were that she said there was no way she would go to "that" wedding. So, I flew up North to confront her. I asked her if she would please come to my wedding. She said no. In the face of disappointment I never show a reaction. I simply said o.k. walked out of the room and cried. Her new husband did manage to get her there, however, she was involved more like a guest of the family than the mother of the bride. Our ties were pretty much broken, permanently severed. I erased her from memory as if I never knew her. It is easily done if you don't have to see a person on a regular basis.
I began attending Alanon meetings shortly after I was married. I fell in love with the program, got a lot of relief but no recovery. I listened, took notes, never shared. I did not work the steps and was too afraid to ask someone to be my sponsor. Life did get tremendously better and as such I stopped attending meetings.
I came crawling back into Alanon four years after that spiritually on my knees. I was desperate and willing to get started. My first inventory really for me dealt with another alcoholic in my life at the moment. I remember my sponsor asking in the fifth step what about your mother? I said I don't think we have any problems. We hardly ever talk and she lives miles away. I don't feel like there are any issues there. In all seriousness, the denial and detachment with a machete was so ingrained, I had no clue. I buried my mother alive along with the pain in my heart so deep I had no idea it was there.
Fast foward a few more years in the program and it began clear to me through situations with my mother in law that something in me was terribly wrong. Suddenly hatred and rage I had not felt in years started to come up. It was my higher power through another person peeling my onion making it clear I had work to do on my mother. I did step work on that relationship and prayed to God asking Him to be the mother I had always wanted and needed. I asked God to help me see she was a child of His doing the best she could with what she had at the time. I then asked God to help me to be the daughter a mother would ask for. I left the results up to him and began to act as if. I started to call my mother and tell her I loved her on the phone to which no response was made. As this continued she would eventually turn no response into "we love you". Finally, she graduated to "I love you" This took a lot of time.
You know I was making my mom pay for years of abuse I had suffered as a child. The tab on that bill was NEVER ENDING. Her interactions with me as an adult must have been uncomfortable and painful. Prior to the program she would visit me and I was stressed before she came, and praying that she would leave shortly after she arrived.
My relationship today has been healed thanks to the Alanon program. I didnt realize "when" the miracle happened until one of her visits were over. Years ago she and her husband came down for a visit after I had a baby. We had a great time. We hung out and talked, really enjoyed ourselves. The day came when she had to go. After the airport drop off I was alone in my house, baby sleeping, as I watched t.v. I felt a wave of emotion come over me. I had no idea what it was. I kept saying what is this all about? It was then I realized that I missed my mom. For the first time in my life, 35 years, I missed my mom when she was gone. I spent so much time praying she would leave and now I was sad she was gone. That was a miracle for me. I am able to have a relationship with this woman through love and forgiveness that my higher power has graced me with.
There is no more garbage of the past left. History is just that, history. She is no longer picking up the tab from the past. I am so grateful I have had the opportunity to have a relationship with my mother while she is still alive rather than make an admends to her when she dead. We have been on this journey for several years now. I am just getting to know the wonderful layers and sides of my mom. She did the best she could. I know that now.
Grateful to the Alanon Program For Learning How to Live One Day At A Time.
My mother has been dead now for more than a decade. My feelings towards her have changed tremendously. I did ceratainly have that edict of wanting to have a mother before she died (dysfunctionally as she did everything), I felt abandoned, brutalized, deceived, betayed and most of all lost. I also had lots of issues around her death (which was of course handled with tremendous drama by my family), needless to say at that time I didn't have much of a program so I over reacted, had no sense of perspective and felt totally unsupported by the now ex A. Lately I have found myself changed largely through the programa and most of all because I have a sponsor and some measure of self preservation these days. That doesn't mean I downplay or even deny the reality of my life as a child. The difference is I can put it in perspective. My mother never had the courage, conviction or sense of hope to seek help. I did. I met other people here who did and that gave me the family I never had before.
I know absolutely I had issues with my inlaws and certainly later with the ex A's mother because of my own unresolved issues with my mother. I couldn't work through those issues overnight, they were large, laden with despair, crippling emotions, pain and much grief. I behaved badly, I either over reacted or shut down. They were the tools I had back then. I have others now. I used what tools I had and I made a real botch up job but that was all I knew. Over time I did work through them but at the times I was dealing with those "mother figures" I was triggered all the time. I blamed, I catastrophized. I re-created the home I had and I felt much of what was cut off from me as a child. That was my way of actually getting to a point of being willing to see the truth.
The person I have the most forgiveness for these days is me. I grew up in a family where few needs were met. We barely survived. Emotionally I had to come with many dysfunctional methods on my own in order to not go under. I carried those dysfunctional ways of relating with me. I had few if any boundaries. I looked to to others to provide me with self esteem. I was dependent. I was demanding and I was absolutely totally and completely lost in the seas of despair, anger, shame and pain that ruled me as a chld. Climbing out didn't happen overnight.
In al anon I learned some tools, I learned to start taking care of me instead of me last. I was willing to take action rather than cause reaction. Most of all I found acceptance, courage and the resources to keep getting back up and carrying on.
Maresie.
-- Edited by maresie on Saturday 7th of May 2011 01:24:11 PM
Kudos to those of you who've worked your program where your mothers are concerned! I've been working on "mother issues" for about a year now, but I don't feel I've gotten very far. J (I refuse to call her "mom" anymore) died in Feb., but we hadn't spoken for the last ten years of her life. I don't know what to say when friends tell me they were sorry to hear about her passing - she's been dead to me for ten years, why would I cry now? Actually, it would probably be more accurate to say that she's always been dead to me. She was a toxic person who did nothing but poison me. While I don't doubt in the least that she did the best she could at the time, the fact remains that the last ten years of my life were far healthier than they would have been if she'd been around, and I don't in the least regret taking care of myself by not having any contact with her. The hurt she dished out to me is huge, deep and all-encompassing. Sometimes I wish I COULD bury it, even just for a little while, but I know that wouldn't be the best thing for me in the long run. One of the first things I learned in ACoA was, "If you bury it alive, it'll come back to haunt you." It haunts us in our physical health, sometimes in our dreams, and always in our relationships with other people. It haunted me just a week ago when I went to a girl's bat mitzvah ceremony at synagogue (that's a "coming of age" type of ceremony), and I had to leave when we got to the part where her parents stood up and talked about what a great kid she is. I got in the car and bawled my eyes out because my parents would never have said such wonderful things about me. Not only were they not capable of seeing anything good in me, but they also weren't capable of raising me to be someone they could say those kinds of things about. I've become who I am in spite of them, not because of them, and "becoming me" is still an uphill battle every day.
The woman I call mom now is actually my husband's mother. She's sweet, kind, loving and generous, and she welcomed me to the family with open arms when we got married. She's probably the most amazing person I've ever known (next to her son, of course! lol). I also view my Higher Power as female, and that's brought a measure of healing, too, but I still have a long way to go before I can even THINK about forgiving. I know I'll get there someday, but - like everything else - it'll be a process that I'll have to walk through a step at a time. I admire those of you who've already made it through that process, and thank you for sharing your experiences with us!
Red Hawk
__________________
My heart is moved by all I cannot save: so much has been destroyed. I have to cast my lot with those who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world. A passion to make, and make again, where such un-making reigns.
Thanks to all of you in the program for teaching me how to forgive. It is through members like yourselves that have gone before me "passing it on" to have made this relationship possible.
lol). I also view my Higher Power as female, and that's brought a measure of healing, too, but I still have a long way to go before I can even THINK about forgiving. I know I'll get there someday, but - like everything else - it'll be a process that I'll have to walk through a step at a time. I admire those of you who've already made it through that process, and thank you for sharing your experiences with us!