ILD --

I am working with resentment...because, as usual...I am responsible for EVERYTHING. The plumbing, the painting, the powerwashing, the mowing and weed wacking, tinkering with the lawn mower, all the laundry, housework, groceries and meals...and making and keeping track of everyone's appointments etc. I feel like there is nothing to life but work...

Being self-sufficient is a double edged sword for me...on one hand I don't "need" anyone...I can do it myself. On the other hand, I struggle with wanting people to care enough about me to help out and hang out. That part is what feeds my resentment. People don't do what I think they should do for me. So I cut them off.  I have resentment issues for my exAH...because he is at his sister's pool, reading books all summer...while I try to figure out finances...

I need to learn to let people in, but create boundaries so I don't get so hurt by them...and then resentful...

RP

Sounds like excellent recovery work. Yeah - it's not about the AH but it extends to all your relationships. I have to read this repeatedly sometimes for comfort and in meditation- It's a commonly cited passage on acceptance:

"And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing or situation - some fact of my life - unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing happens in God's world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism (insert "my issues" or whatever), I could not stay sober (insert "serene" or whatever); unless I can accept life completely on life's terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes."

I have the acceptance prayer on my phone in a reading list and I read it daily, Mark. As RP said, it's hard to not get resentful when you expect others to read your mind or do things for you that really, they aren't equipped to do. I used to get so frustrated because I would ask my AH to do something for me and he'd get angry or passive aggressive or stomp his feet or complain and he made it so uncomfortable for me so that I decided to 'do it all'. I bought into his crap and placated his immaturity because it made ME feel NOT RIGHT. I am learning, though, that my HP is leading me to better places but I have no expectations on whether my AH will be with me or not. His journey is not my journey, right?

rehprof wrote:

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ILD --

I am working with resentment...because, as usual...I am responsible for EVERYTHING. The plumbing, the painting, the powerwashing, the mowing and weed wacking, tinkering with the lawn mower, all the laundry, housework, groceries and meals...and making and keeping track of everyone's appointments etc. I feel like there is nothing to life but work...

Being self-sufficient is a double edged sword for me...on one hand I don't "need" anyone...I can do it myself. On the other hand, I struggle with wanting people to care enough about me to help out and hang out. That part is what feeds my resentment. People don't do what I think they should do for me. So I cut them off.  I have resentment issues for my exAH...because he is at his sister's pool, reading books all summer...while I try to figure out finances...

I need to learn to let people in, but create boundaries so I don't get so hurt by them...and then resentful...

RP

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 WOW..I can relate to a lot of this....i was at one point so independent that I actually drove people off b/c I was "miss tough guy"   now, with program, I have softened....yea, I take no S*** from anyone, but I also can be soft and huggable when treated right  AND I can actually say to another  "Hey I just can't do this, will you help me????"  

People love to know they are needed...Really, not in the CODA sense, but they love to know that "hey I was useful to a person today"   so I get help...They feel like they did something good..... I am very reserved w/people in my life....my younger sister knows no strangers...my girlfriends who are like sisters to me know no strangers, but my oldest sister is like me....reserved...has to feel safe w/someone b4 they are admitted into my life.....

I am nice, but I keep my distance.....when they show me they are safe as time goes by, I let them a bit closer and closer.....there is a way to protect my heart w/out being soo standoffish that I drive them away.....I used to have walls...NOONE got in..........now I have a chain link fence.....I can see the folks outside of it, I can even talk with them, chat w/them,   AS they prove safe, I can open the gate and let thm in the yard....not in the house but the yard...then as they prove safe, I let them closer to the house, like on the porch....its a step by step thing w/me....I am careful....I am "pained out by life and people"  but I don't want to imprison myself either...I just am real careful...the good ones will understand...the bad ones wll move on to another victim.............

Funny...In the program and my CLOSE intimates, I am soo open, and honest and what u see is what u get....i share my little heart b/c that is recovery......in recover I learned that we are all in the same boat, rowing in the same direction to good health...so its easier to be open with my recovery mates....on the "outside" world, I am REAL careful, but in time I CAN share intimacy with folks....I hope this post made sense....LOL....but yea, I hear ya

I most definitely came from the same bandwagon, abandonment, abuse, neglect, survival.  Basically that was what I did most of my life barely survive, holding on for dear life to some job, friends, man (oh I had to have one of them no matter where I found them)if I wasn't in a relationship I felt incredibly lonely and desperate. When I was in a relationship I felt incredibly lonely and desperate but of course for me a relationship was the moment I met someone the abandonment issues I had meant I was always incredibly attached to anyone I met.  At some point I got to put the big stick down, the why why why stuff.  I got to the point of having compassion for me.  Who is it exactly I am comparing myself to when I am saying why can't I? 

At one time I went to a lecture about child abuse and one child psychiatrist said that when you are dealing with that kind of abuse, abject abandonment, sexual abuse, tremendous neglect, who are your contemporaries.  He spelled it out that your contemporaries were probably dead.  Most people don't survive that kind of onslaught when they are a child.  Most people self destruct.  Most people die, go to prison, go mad and go to all kinds of hell in their life.  Certainly the addicts have their own issues but I am no longer someone who compares my pain to an addicts.  Comparing my pain isn't useful.  For me there is no beginner recovery, intermediate recovery or advanced recovery (it seems a little stupid these days to say how I always jumped to that advanced recovery stage and looked down on anyone I didn't think was in the same category I felt that kind of shame at being in recovery at all).  I had some notion that some people, I dunno who they were didn't have any issues at all.  I really bought their carefully silk screened lives.  Wow! 

I most definitely expected myself to be consistently on top of what was happening with the alcoholic/addict but that was a survival skill.  As a child if I could try to predict what was coming next in terms of beatings, neglect, bullying whatever it was (and there was always something) I could get to try to divert it.  What better character trait for someone who hooks up with an alcoholic.  Hypervigilance works perfectly around them because there is always some catastrophe along the way, in process or coming down the line.  Why would I want now to beat myself up for something that absolutely saved my life as a child.  I can learn to develop other skills like being grateful (oh I had a merry dance with my sponsor about that one).  I can learn skills like detaching that is sometimes pretty difficult for me to hold onto.  I can learn other ways to be but the hypervigilance got me to here and I don't need to lambast myself because I got to here that was a good thing not a failure on my part. 

I can absolutely tell you that the urge to beat yourself to smithereens because you have a certain "feeling" can be worked through.  So what I took decades to work through this stuff!  Was that some kind of a race.  I used to hang out some people who measured it like a yard stick if you weren't at a certain stage at a certain time well then you were not trying to hard.  I guess that was part of my urge to recriminate and label myself in other ways.  I was never expected to survive it anyway.  So what if I encountered many an alcoholic along the way, look around, alcoholics are everywhere.  There is no getting away from them, they are going to be at work, in the neighborhood.  Whatever happens even if I manage to stay out of a relationship with one (which I have but barely I came close a few times to diving in again) I am going to be dealing with the infuriating nature of an alcoholic sometime during the day.  That's to be absolutely practical.  Those alcoholics are so good at trampling on everyone else's feeling but oh no none of the rest of us can have those feelings or be hurt by something they did!  I am still very very human but working through isn't some huge chore anymore so days it even feels kinda lighthearted.  I can laugh at some issues today in ways I could never laugh before.   In fact there were probably a few decades when I didn't laugh at all.   I am lucky enough to have a few role models along the way but these days I do feel lucky rather than feel I was shortchanged in some way.  I also got to the point of being able to say "why not me" rather than "why me" and that was certainly a huge one because "why me" definitely drove me into the arms of many an alcoholic they so so love that question don't they? 

I am so grateful to have " recovery" (without stages!) , to have people around me who understand me, no matter how many people there are around who try to bully me, manipulate me and trample all over my barely constructed boundaries.  Oh yeah I still got them on so many different levels but not in my immediate vicinity right now.   These days when someone pushes on those boundaries I push back.  I didn't push back before and I am certainly not that gracious about it at this time ( I am working on that one) but I do push back and I know where my limits are.  I sometimes get confused and angry and resentful but my whole day isn't swollen up with that. When I am around people who don't listen to what I say I let them go with love but I do let them go.  I don't try to persuade them to stop.  I spent years and years trying to do that.  I exit they can keep on being angry, resentful and not listening but I am not participating in their dance with them. 

There are times when I can get close to that point of accepting exactly who I am, where I am and what it took for me to get here.  Those moments of self acceptance are so pivotal in learning how to love myself and let myself be rather than be on the "shoulda" "woulda" "coulda".  That is one thing I do not allow other people to do to me any more if I hear the words, should, could, would from other people I'm off now.  I don't hang around.  No one gets to decide but me anymore.  To get to the point of not needing approval from everyone outside me I had to learn to get lighter about issues and deal with frustration.  Managing frustration was so so key to my working through my childhood issues (and who knows what those issues might bring in the future) I had to learn to live with that frustration (frustration mean growth, denial doesn't involve frustration) , grief and anger.  That stuff swallowed me up for such a long long time but on some level I had to be swallowed up by it to get to the other side, the acceptance, that doesn't just happen like a light switch.  I had to wade through a lot to get to the other side but there absolutely is another side to this stuff and I can tell you absolutely no matter how hard it is that it is absolutely worth getting there. 

Only when I ploughed through it for years (with therapists and oh so patient and kind sponsors on so many levels not to mention all the recovery people I had helping me out at all kinds of junctures and help was something I did not believe I was worthy of).  and started to see patterns, behaviors and outcomes did I get to the point of seeing any meaning in it.  When I was suffering all the time there was no meaning in anything. I felt an abject failure, and my only yard stick was what other people did not what I had survived, transformed and made something out of.   Nowadays there is meaning in everything for me.  Even the arthritis my aging dog has today.  Rather than be annoyed that she isn't well (definitely my fallback in the past) I find other ways to love her and cherish her because she has helped me to learn so much and given me so much acceptance and when I got to protect her from chaos and drama I protected myself too.  That doesn't mean we have an idyllic life in fact we have anything but that.  The only change is that I no longer smash myself to pieces about where I am, who I am or how I got here.   Right now I couldn't be at a better space in my life not because I have anything monetarily (I don't I am broke) have the fixings of a perfect life (I don't have that either) right now what I have is my own self regard and care which I never had before.  All the other stuff, the husband, the home, the great job were there in the past but I hated myself abjectly so what did they mean, not too much.    Someday I would not mind having all those trappings but I am so so grateful to be where I am in so many ways I would never have believed I would ever feel this way about my life.   That is okay rather than feel like I didn't deserve to be alive. 

I am always grateful to people who share about abandonment issues.  I know those issues ran me for years, those issues were what trapped me in relationships, kept me staying in different "stuck" situations (not that I am not stuck right now in various ways either) and kept me thinking I was never going to.....  Getting to even speak about them took such courage for me.  The pain of abandonment on so many levels was one of the most difficult things to work through.   But really it was all difficult you don't just breeze through this stuff. 

Acknowledging my truth the rapes, the incest, the beatings, the neglect, the abandonment was so very very  key for me.  Awareness was so painful, so debilitating but at the same time transformative because I got to name what got me to here. 

I am always in awe of people who are willing to take on those kinds of issues because I know absolutely what is involved in that task.    I know just what work is involved in being honest about such a terrible childhood and how brave you are to even speak of it.   You have tremendous courage, strength and determination and I am glad to know you.

Maresie.