The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
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information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
Greetings, I am struggling in a big way with family issues and I'm really in a bad place...Due to the issues that my older kids are having right now my family has basically alienated me and my kids and I'm having an extremely difficult time as family was everything to me. We were uninvited from Thanksgiving dinner ,and it hurt so bad...today my mom called to discuss Christmas dinner and it was so anxiety pproducing and drug up all of the hrt and pain from Nov....I'm not quite sure what to do with the pain as it is dibilitating to me mentally and emotionally...I just had to get it off of my chest safely..thaks for listening. Carla
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"I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God's hands, that I still possess."
When I am overwhelmed with those kind of feelings, I just have to feel my way through them. They do pass. It just takes time. I know family is everything, but maybe you could start some of your own new traditions with the kids that would help ease the pain. I love my family, too, but we are far away from most of them. We take comfort in our own new traditions and they help the kids feel a continuity from year to year that they can identify with. I too wish for the days of my childhood when we had holiday dinners with Grandparents and family, but to be honest, I also love our own newer routine and the kids feel safe and sound, so all is well.
Anyway, here's a big ((((((((((((((hug))))))))))))))))) and I am praying you find peace this season.
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~Jen~
"When you come to the edge of all you know you must believe in one of two things... there will be earth on which to stand or you will be given wings." ~Unknown
((carla)) try and take care of yourself and be easy on yourself. Sorry to hear your in pain. This to shall pass (a slogan im using alot at the minute!) Like Jen says we sometimes just have to feel our way through hurts and situations - sometimes there is nothing more we can do. Serenity prayer it.
love and support
Simone x
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What a caterpiller calls the end of the world....God calls a butterfly
(((((Carla))))) I use to have such a hard time with those situations myself and no matter who or what caused the problem or what happened I was the victim and always felt it was all about me and had to be responsible. My family liked this idea because they could leave it with me and just go on their merry way while holding the event over my head for some later time if necessary. We never got to the real situation or the real solution when I constantly accepted "my fault" for it all. Thank God of Al-Anon because when I learned, with my sponsor, how to look at the picture with the honest question "What is my part in it" I stopped taking blame as if they were diamonds. I learned how to leave the problem with those who brought it and went along on my own journey. If I was struggling with something the best place for me was inside a meeting or with my sponsor and/or with the literature and a journal...now I have MIP to add into the solutions...Are we not blessed? Sending prayers...((((hugs))))
((Carla)) A few years ago - during a family crisis - my world fell apart. I felt so devastated by the pain, I considered suicide. I talked with a few close friends, considered my options, and kept turning over the entire situation and my siblings and father to my HP. Little by little, I healed one day at a time. Now, almost 5 years later, I am aware that as the only person in my family in an active recovery program, I am a threat to family members because I am no longer part of the untreated alcoholic system and they are not able or willing to make changes right now. I am no longer hurting and spend holidays with my children, my grandson and myself - in peace and comfort. Something that wasn't happening with my siblings when we were all together. I did ask each of them what I might have done that could have hurt them and how I might be able to make it right. None could give me an answer. I let it all go.
I think when I am having that kind of anxiety about something in the future (no matter how far away or close it may be) I need to take extra care not project how things are 'going' to be and to also just let go of expectations of other people (obviously easier said than done). I try hard to be in each moment and trust that when the time comes, I will have the tools available to me to deal with it as best I can at *that* moment. The more I work the program, the better choices I make when having to deal with the people that bring me the most anxiety.
On the other hand, if what I am experiencing is resentment about the past, I try to bring myself to the present in a different way by letting go, even if I have to let go over and over and over until it can no longer hurt me. Trying to accept what I cannot change...and using the serenity prayer to shed light on the present day so I can find peace. I do understand what you are saying and it is so hard when you are in it. It is so important that we be gentle with ourselves--we have a lot of emotional and difficult experiences and yet we pick ourselves up and keep going.
