Invalidating feelings? - Al-Anon Family Group

hotrod · ~*Service Worker*~

Invalidating feelings?

Breakingfree · ~*Service Worker*~

I am a rebel by nature, but by working step 4 and realizing what was a defect and what I actually enjoyed about my spunky self helped a lot. I want to be strong and confident. I want to listen to my red flags and not stuff my feelings or feel like someone else is more important than I any longer. I have and to tend to over react, but the pendulum swings and eventually it will even out. I am not going to beat myself up any longer, enough of that has been done. I will be accountable for my mistakes and make amends and move through things in my time. I have made mistakes it is a human condition and I am okay with that. I move onward and upward with my head held high after being called out on things, because I learned something and am better for it and I can own it.
I remember when I was 24 at my dads funeral and I had been away from my parents home since I was 19. My mom told me not to cry while my older brother in the pew behind me sobbed away, I know she thought we had to be strong. My husband at the time sitting on the other side of me told me to cry away if I needed to, but I was programmed and held it in. After the funeral I went into the bathroom and sobbed away while my husband held me. The families we grew up in taught us one way and now it is time to learn another. I can relate to your share and I know you work an excellent program sister! Sending you love and support on your journey!

-- Edited by Breakingfree on Thursday 3rd of May 2012 01:32:19 PM

Pushka · ~*Service Worker*~

I grew up being told I didn't feel one way or the other in specific situations. My grandpa died I wasn't allowed to be sad. This was my perception of the situation as a kid, I was stuttered in how I grieved (My mother and grandma fell apart, there was no place for me TO fall apart in my minds eye). I wasn't allowed to go when they spread his ashes and I was 15 at the time. That's one situation of many. It was a top 10 of affecting me greatly. Obviously I had no clue how to process anything.

How can you validate your own feelings? How do you not get sucked into holding on to them when someone invalidates how you feel about something? Again it could be my perception of the situation, this is such a character defect for me. If I think someone is telling me I can't feel something boy oh boy .. I hit a big wall and I literally will waste time trying to go through it vs just changing my path. I will also hold those feelings soooo tight and I can't seem to let go of them nor do I want to because it's as if what I think (and this is my perception) doesn't really matter. I will be lost if I let go of them.

HELP!!! LOL .. I really don't know what to do with this and UGH .. I've been struggling with this big time. It is a key trigger for me that I will act out, throw my program out the window and so on.

Today is a much better day I just got struck by lightening in a HUGE way!!

Hugs P :)

Jackie11 · ~*Service Worker*~

I think this is something the 3 A's, Awareness, Acceptance, Action, can be applied to.

Sending you lots of hugs and support!!!

Pushka · ~*Service Worker*~

Thanks as always Jackie .. I keep looking at what step this is .. what part of the program. Is it a step 4? Is it something that will be lifted as I work all of the steps? I'm pushing I think when I just should tie myself down and sit!

Hugs P :)

ilovedogs · ~*Service Worker*~

I think this is familiar for all of us. Here's a few that my dad threw at me when I was a kid, and as an adult:
1. Knock it off, it's not that big of a deal
2. Stop crying, it was just a stupid cat that died
3. Ugh, Bonnie, why don't you just shut up and go find a friend to cry to because I'm tired of listening to you.

And, he pulled the third one on me about 4 years ago when he was out here visiting and I wasn't feeling well while we were at dinner. My AH almost punched him at that point because he saw how hurt my dad made me feel. It's amazing how we think our childhoods are normal and then we come into adulthood and try to find our place in life and realize we just don't cope well. I am reading a book that I think you might find interesting because it really focuses on the childhood stuff. It's called, "Love is a Choice: The Definitive Book on Letting go of Unhealthy Relationships" by Dr Robert Hemfelt. He really hits the codependency buttons hard in the first few chapters but really focuses on our childhoods and the unfinished business that gets created when we fail to bond or are abandoned in any way.
Hugs!

pinkchip · ~*Service Worker*~

There is a fine line between repressing feelings and coping. I had to reel mine in during my recovery cuz I was all about the drama. I'm more on the side of "feelings are not facts" cuz my feelings are problematic. This doesn't help you much to know I have the opposite problem though. lol.

Pushka · ~*Service Worker*~

I"m going to look for that book ILD, thank you.

Betty, I haven't tackled step 10. I am going to journal and think about all this .. I will need to just limit my time or I get into my head to much. I AM going to talk to my sponsor. Thank you for the reminder! I don't have to do this alone and I have someone who will support me unconditionally face to face.

Thanks again .. this ALL really has helped my day!!

Hugs P :)

Pushka · ~*Service Worker*~

pinkchip wrote:
There is a fine line between repressing feelings and coping. I had to reel mine in during my recovery cuz I was all about the drama. I'm more on the side of "feelings are not facts" cuz my feelings are problematic. This doesn't help you much to know I have the opposite problem though. lol.

LOL .. pink, .. hugs .. I have to laugh because I went to therapy on Monday and I see an addictions counselor as I'm bawling my eyes out I see an alanon slogan forming on her lips and I about snapped. I told her if I hear one more f'ing slogan today I'm going to loose my mind. I just need to feel them know they aren't facts and be ok in that. They do pass if I can let go of them .. letting go has been a BIG challenge.

Today .. I am embracing the slogans .. I have emotionally repressed so much I think what you have said makes so much sense about the drama. I need to release these emotions though in a healthy productive way. In a way that is not damaging to me or people that I love around me. It's hard to find that balance as I"m in the middle of this kind of thing having someone say to me .. well look at this way .. umm .. I call BS .. no I don't want to look at that way I'm needing to have a tantrum and when I'm done hand me the box of kleenex and say feel better? LOL. Very honestly, it goes a long way to hear .. any normal rational person would feel just like you do in this situation. This is NOT normal. I don't feel so crazy. Like I'm the one who is having the distorted thought process like I am the one who is crazy. I'm not .. this is a very unreasonable situation at the moment and I will not own someone else's choices .. they are their own.

I'm not searching for the drama .. someone else keeps bringing it and I've cut them off .. however because of my reactions the damage has been done. Truthfully I'm not willing to say much of an apology only because it would harm me at this point. I've prayed about it. I said at Tuesday's meeting I went walking by an open window and made a conscious choice to chuck my program out of it for a time being, I threw it hard and long, because so much of this is such BS!! Now I'm responsible for making a different choice today and picking up the pieces and getting my peace of mind back. Which, I'm getting there and sooooo grateful I am. It just took me a couple of days to get there .. LOL .. progress not perfection is right!

Hugs P :)

Dolly Llama · Senior Member

Pushka, I had a very similar experience when my grandma died. I was 16...my mother fell apart and like you wrote, there was no room for me to grieve. I remember her even saying I was a bad granddaughter because I skipped the wake. I know (i guess) she said that out of her own pain, but man, it still makes me feel angry.

I am learning how to validate myself, too. One thing I have found helpful is to just find that one friend or person/therapist you can talk to and ask them to validate you. This was sort of like training wheels for me until I could do it for myself. I really had to go line by line from my past and ask things like- was this abusive? Was this ok? I really didn't know. What I got was an overwhelming YES OMG...and then I was relieved and felt that the complicated feelings I had were a normal response to abnormal situations.

I learned from Hot Rod to validate myself...I tried this with my mother and I really liked the technique. My mom was irritating me by referring to me as a poor little baby, etc. for hiking alone even when she knew I didn't like being referred to that way. So I used Hot Rod's suggestion- "I enjoy time alone in nature and find it refreshing." or whatever. That is self-validation. That is a true statement for me and when I wrote it, it felt like I was standing up for myself in a very important way. Just that permission to stand in my own truth, and have that be *enough*...well, that was such a powerful lesson for me. (Thanks Hot Rod!)

Maybe it will help you too. I love reading your posts and relate so much to your story.

orchidlover · ~*Service Worker*~

Grief can take a long long time to work out. I know I grew up in a family with a mentally ill mother and a psychotic father. We were poor, there were few if any resources. I have had to look to who was "there" for me. At times it was a neighbor, other times it was a friend at school. One time it was a teacher. Those were my mentors.

Some of us don't have an ideal family it is very hard when we are surrounded with sentimentality like "mother's day". I didn't have a mother to give to on Mother's day. I went through the motions certainly but she wasn't able to "mother" me. We can't give away what we haven't got.

I don't think we can silence those feelings, but we can work them through. First of all but being acknowledged. Not all of us get a pretty picture, white picket fence family. We do the best we can and then we heal.

The fact you can even talk about this is pretty big. I know my two sisters pretty up our childhood tremendously. Their only defence (besides drinking themselves to death) is to be in really solid denial.

Grief does eventually subside to a sadness rather than a raw gut wrenching experience. You have a lot of people along side of you in this journey. You aren't alone as you were when you were a child.

Maresie.

Oksie · Senior Member

I would like to pass on what my psych has been telling me and what I have been doing around my own feelings for the past few months.

First... I have had to learn to trust my feelings. Trust that they are real. Believe that what I am feeling is what I am feeling. I was told for so long 'that isn't how you feel', that I had no trust that what I felt was actually true. (child abuse will do that).

Second... Once I realised that what I feel is real and true and I can trust that it is what it is.. I had to learn HOW to feel them appropriately. Distress tolerance taught me that. At an appropriate time sit with my feeling. Remember the incident and allow the feelings to come like waves, ride them.. but the key.. Do NOT judge the feelings. Do not label them as good, bad, weird or whatever. Just look at them and acknowledge them. Then allow the wave to change and move and notice what feeling takes over from it.

Third.. allow that feeling to be real and let it go. Understand that feelings are not facts (you got that bit already) and this too shall pass. Acknowledge how the feeling may make me act and decide if I want to act in that way based on that feeling. Or woudl I rather act in a different way.

I have to work on my impulsivity and my emotional regulation.

I hope that helps

Breakingfree · ~*Service Worker*~

I love the ESH on this one and have reread it for myself a couple times now! I love this program and how we learn so much from each other! Sending you all love and support on your journey's!

sookie · Senior Member

Reading a great book on this idea right now called "the dance of connection" by someone or other. Great thread...thanks.

Pushka · ~*Service Worker*~

Oh sookie,

She also wrote the book Dance of Anger I am soooo going to check this out!! Thanks!!

I have really really really enjoyed reading this thread and everything everyone has had to share it means a great deal to me.

Hugs P :)

sookie · Senior Member

I am probably going to get all her books

This one is about communication...I picked it up now even though I have owned it for months because I feel some difficult conversations coming on soon. So far, I love it.

(Hugs) So good to be here tonight.

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.