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.
One suggestion since you've asked: Put yourself in his place in your writing and see if what you're thinking and feeling about him is really a projection? Are you mad at him or are you mad at you? I don't need an answer. Just offering a suggestion for working through thoughts and feelings following a complicated relationship that has helped me. The good news is you can't change his thinking or feeling but you can change yours using the tools of the program and some care and compassion for you.
-- Edited by grateful2be on Monday 16th of September 2013 08:57:18 PM
it had to happen. since a couple of days I'm torn between resentment and anger and melancholy and gratitude. Gratitude is where I would like to end up with, to find my peace. But I feel like I have to climb Mt.Everest...with no oxygen. I'm still doubting if I can do it.
for a long time I didn't allow myself to feel ALL feelings. Yes, I let sorrow come, I let mourning come, I let even compassion come. But i didn't let anger and resentment stand there. I tried to ignore them. for they ruined my day. for the ruined my dreams. for i didn't want to blame anyone BUT myself. but to be honest, I can be REALLY ANGRY. but under these conditions it is turning me in a dry sarcastic frustrated woman that I'm not by nature. It's my defense mechanism at what it thinks its best. I am angry that much that i wish my exA really really bad stuff happening sometimes, secretly of course. I hate him for having treated me like he did, called me like he did, and his oh so crappy arrogant attitude. WHO THE F%&ç* does he think he is????! worst was when it was all over, when we were both already damaged enough by all our addictions, he dares to step one step more on me and turn it all around, talking like a saint, that he has it all figured out, that he never would have had a problem if it wouldn't have been for me. I think arrogant attitude is the worst in addicts...why can't they just have a real close look at themselves and be really small and quiet for their behavior is really poor and small.
Yes right, he is sick and I should handle with care and compassion. But damn, I'm sick too, so who is handling me with care and compassion. I'm soooo much aaangryyyyyyyy.
I got to know all the tools and I will apply them shortly. and let go and love myself again one day. it's a process really, it just doesn't happen overnight. i just had to come here and vent and admit that I'm really disturbingly deeply hurt. at he same time really confused, so much that i really believe his accusations of me being deranged, since I move from despair of loosing him to complete happiness that I'm without him in seconds.it's irrational. somewhere in between lies the truth. I just don't see right now. maybe I'm just in the middle of the grieving process. He took so much away from me, dreams, good memories, hopes....it was all there, and I liked the possibility of us moving together in a new direction. That is what I have never expressed, not even here. Because everybody, literally everybody tells me to 'let go'. and i will. My rhythm is jus a longer one. it might take months, years. and I know people get inpatient with me, because I'm becoming inpatient with me. I get only glimpses, moments of serenity right now, and it feels so much hard work to get there, for only a moment, that I'm sometimes about to give up. not wanting to climb that mountain anymore. But somehow I know the view from up there is going to be amazingly peaceful. I have climbed mountains before. I just need more training. and being able to deal with ALL my feelings, i think that's the best preparation for that climb. It's all about mental strength. I want to wake up in the morning and breathe and be my own beautiful self again, really detached and free of all my 're-actions' towards the past. I want to get up there.
So if anybody out there has any really good tips on how to work through these feelings of anger and resentments, please share with me, i am really wanting to hear how you did it... I don't want to ignore this side no more. I have a right to feel whatever i feel. I just don't want it to be about him anymore, he got already enough of my attention in the past.
yes thank you grateful, i have indeed a lot to forgive myself as well. in this relationship I did many things the wrong way. am working on that too.
but this post is actually about acknowledging my anger for once. It is existing and it is a reaction to unfair treatment. Not all is projection here. but i know what you are pointing at. I want to feel it all, to get it out of my system. just one of those days...walking forward!
Thanks though for the input, much appreciated... helps changing my feeling, slowly...out of bitterness.
yes i need to learn to love myself, just myself!i thought i did, but noticed that i couldn't , too busy taking care of other people's business......
That really wasn't my meaning - to find out that you did many things the wrong way or even forgiveness. Just a suggestion for working through feelings of resentment and anger that you asked for in your post that I found helped me do that. Now that you are saying that you really just want to acknowledge the anger that exists and is a reaction to unfair treatment for you, then I'll just say I hear you.
I spent more time focused on other's people's business than I did on my own when I couldn't shut off my feelings anymore and tried to control the outside world rather than look at the world inside me. I just didn't know how to do it. I don't know if that's true for you. It was true for me.
I found that simply writing out all my feelings: the anger, the sadness, and the resentments, without assessing judgement or blame worked for me . This helped to make the feeling concrete and real to me. Once I had them all on the paper I could sort out the anger and sadness and consider my part in each situation.
It is all a process First and most important write it all down.
T, thank you for sharing. Your post and feelings are so like mine right now. When i first got this program I felt the joy of being at the top of that mountain. I thought I had dealt with the intense anger that came from deep within me for my ex a. No, its not all gone because I feel like you, Im right at the bottom of the mountain again, feeling resentment, anti social, twisted, sarcastic, intolerant as if I had offered nothing up to my higher power. Im at the start again. The anger has returned with a vengence. I feel that intense hate for the way I was treated by this human being who has no clue, not really of the pain he caused this family. He is in AA and at what point is he going to realise the pain and sufferering he has caused? Im waiting, been waiting over 20 long years. To top it all for me his abandonment of our grown children continues, Youngest 16 but as far as I can see no interest in him or his life, god at this moment I could hurt him, if I got my hands on him.
I really like what Hotrod suggests - write a letter or just write down your feelings. I wouldnt send it though - amends would have to be made for a letter like that. Thanks again for sharing, its good to know we are not alone and maybe we are going through this for a better level of recovery.x
