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'm new here. There is one alcoholic and one recovered alcoholic in my mother's immediate family. I hardly have a story to tell about them because I totally and completely avoid them, and have since I was a little kid.
But...it's like there's a second-hand effect. I ended up dating an alcoholic (4 years ago), and after a relationship that felt like it was between me and a hurricane, I began to discover my predisposition--that I was primed for that relationship by how I was raised and by everything I was taught about relationships growing up.
The one thing that I have been able to unearth, piece by piece, that influences my codependent relationship decisions is terror. If I don't do the things I was trained to do, it's like Pavlov's dog, I automatically become terrified--it's a trigger. I become engulfed in terror that I can't manage and I spend several days hiding out in my room (sometimes with the door locked), unable to eat much. I feel like the only way to resolve it is to give in and make the other person happy.
No one even has to do anything anymore (this stuff goes back to childhood). It's totally in my head. I make a mistake such as set a boundary, stand up for myself or have an opinion, thought, belief or emotion that doesn't mirror the other person, and then I regret it and wait for the other shoe to drop.
I've had a number of dreams where these people kill me, and I find that when I'm awake I still don't trust them to be mentally healthy, or in control, enough not to lose it and kill me one day. I fear pushing them over the edge and being held responsible for it.
I'd say it was paranoia if it weren't for the fact that I know it is not about external things, but that I have triggered terror in my head from childhood. The problem is that I am immobilized, mentally, by it until I feel like I have pacified the other person.
Alea, I'm glad you have found us. I hope you can also find face-to-face meetings. The more support we have, the better. It may be that a good individual counselor could also be an enormous help.
I suspect the healing will come little by little from many different sources. I just wanted to add one observation to the puzzle. I had a friend who belonged to a support group for people with phobias. She said she had learned something that also struck me as important for the rest of us too. Say you have a phobia or a compulsion, like, say, that you're afraid to leave the house because you're afraid of dogs. (I don't mean "you," specifically, of course, I mean all of us.) So you think about leaving the house, and then you think "But I might see a dog," and your anxiety levels shoot up. And so then you think, "Okay, I won't leave the house," and your anxiety levels are reduced. That trains your mind to think, "I can lessen my anxiety by deciding not to do this or that (in this instance, leave the house). You reward yourself for your decision to limit your life.
So next time the situation comes up, you think about leaving the house, you think of the dogs you might see, your anxiety levels shoot up, and your mind thinks, "Last time I felt much better after deciding not to leave the house! If I make that decision again, I'll feel much better!" So your mind gets trained in one direction -- it doesn't find out that leaving the house and having a successful errand might also result in reduced anxiety. So pretty soon your mind thinks there's only one way to relieve the pain and anxiety. And you get boxed into a corner.
The people in the group needed more than this to help them make steps towards enlarging their lives. But that idea made my friend realize that she wanted to take those steps. I think about it a lot too -- I think, "Am I rewarding my anxiety by choosing an unhealthy thing? Am I pointing myself in the direction I want to go?"
What's also helped me is the Al-Anon saying, "Feelings aren't facts."
It's so hard living with pain and worry. It sounds as if you've been through a lot and you you have some great awareness. I hope you can keep coming back.
I too would like to suggest that you begin to break the isolation and look for alanon face to face meetings in your community. Look in the white pages of the telephone directory and call. You will be directed to meetings in your area.
I can recognize the " constant terrorizing voices that you describe. My sponser called them my "ANTs" Automatice Negative Thoughts. Alanon tools helped me to learn how to detach from these messages and develop new tools to live by
I urge you to keep coming back here and sharing You are worth it.
Big hugs to you dear one! You are not alone. I am learning that I should never go into the neighborhood of my own mind alone. Through this program I am getting out of my head. It is weird that sometimes I feel like it is my enemy lol. Keep coming back, we love you being here! Daisy
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It is very difficult to have a pity party when I am celebrating all the gratitude I have in my life!
It will aither work out, . . . or, . . . It will work out."
Aloha Alea and another welcome to the board. I related to your post and hope you will post more. I related because your expressions are very similar to what I went thru also and rarely go thru now because of my membership in Al-Anon. No it is not psychiatry or psychology though many members use those services; it is one member helping another with where we were at one time, what we learned in Al-Anon and what we do today that is different. Alcoholism does exist on the mental and emotional levels as you understand and much of it results in fear emotionally. Like yourself I was taught that those thoughts and feelings were not reality and so I adopted the acronym for FEAR...False Evidence (just) Appearing Real. When I came to understand I could move on more and become freer.
Still around and keep coming back...look into the face to face meetings of Al-Anon in your area...the hotline number is in the white pages of your local telephone book.
