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.
thanks so much for your replies to my last post. the kindness and understanding flow right into me and give me new thoughts to think. i'm scared. i guess that is what it's boiling down to for me. i am seeing so much fear in myself trying to strike out and do this "live my own life" thing. my next hurdle is to give my mother back her gas credit cards which i have been using for years. and listening to her bitch about the bill for years. she has give me so much money. i have never been finacially independent from her. ever. it is a very sick relationship. she feels that she can abuse me in any way she wants because of all the money she gives me and i take it because i feel so damn guilty. i am petrified that when i give her these cards back and i start paying for my own gas (200 plus a week) i am going to crash and burn (not literally!). i only make a little over 200 a week. no counting on my ex for any money. but i am at a point in my recovery that i can't keep playing the game. maybe this is my bottom? time to grow up? just to get her out of my life i think it will be worth it. it's just not working for me anymore. but oh am i scared! that snotty little devil on my shoulder telling me that there is no way i can make it on my own, that i will lose her love, that she has never let me go before why do i think this time will be any different, etc. i have said in meetings before that she tried her hardest to make me an alcoholic--buying me my favorite liquior when i was under age--keeping me stocked in cigs--giving me the best room in the house so i wouldn't move out. and i tried my hardest to be an alcoholic--i drank, had no job, idiot friends, whatever. it didn't take. so she found that money was a good substitute in my case and that i could do. like handing me a credit card and saying "just don't go wild with it" and me thinking 90 percent of the time " new shoes, pay the bills, go out to eat..." and 10 percent of the time "i hate myself...i don't want it... but i need it" i wonder if it's like looking an a in the eye and offering him a drink, just one but leaving the bottle with him and saying" just don't go hog wild". but the best part for her is when i give her back the card and she gets the statement and then screams and cries over what i have done. seems like that should be enough for me to break the cycle? it hasn't been until now. nothing changes if nothing changes.....to bad there is no insurance funded rehab for the likes of me....god forbid there is one and my mother had to pay for it! lol!
It has taken me a long time to figure out the connection between my mother and the money that she gives to myself and my siblings. All five of us are over 40 years old. When we were younger I think that it was an expression of love. She never said I love you but here is $20. As we get older I think that it is definitely for a purpose. I think that it guarantees that we are always in the loop, always close by, always think well of her, guarantees that she has friends, and yes manipulates everyone's opinion of her. Can't believe I said this about my own mother. But I don't think that she is all that innocent. And yes she would comment over the years about how you used the money. I hear you on this one. Keep trying for your independence.
Well Serendipity , you can be the master of yor own ship . Yes it may be to control you and yes it's probably because she loves you and wants u to have nice things, can't tell u that but shows in the gifts she has given you . My oldest son and I had this converstation along time ago to me there is a solution - u have found it Don't take the money ~~~ to continue to take what she offers and then complain about it just dosn't make much sence to me. good luck Louise
My hat's off to you. I think you are very brave. I know you can do it. Change can feel scary. I know it feels very scary for me, like when I transferred to a new job and ended up working for a boss from hell. But that is another story.
I could only do it one day at a time. I asked God/hp for strength each and every day to get thru it. I asked for him to take away my feelings of fear. Change doesn't always feel good. It doesn't feel comfortable. I know I do not like not feeling comfortable in my own skin..... Like a duck out of water.
But as time goes on, it'll all feel right and you will get stronger. And then you will look back at all the bs you went thru and realize how much stronger you are. This is what is happening for me and I thank God/hp for bringing me thru it all.
As for mothers......I love my mother. I do not like the guilt trips she tries to pack my bags for. She doesn't have program. It feels like she holds onto me for her emotional rescue. Usually I only have one day off a week. (not my choice). I don't have enough time for me and she would want me to feel guilty if we don't get together. I don't want to feel obligated. I don't want to see her out of guilt. It spoils everything. I don't like feeling smothered......
I've held my feelings inside for so many years in order to protect her. I need to live for me. And she needs to put her big girl panties on.
I hope and pray that you find a way to believe in yourself. Believe that you can do the things you set out to do and you can accomplish them. If you are fearful of giving the cards back to your mother, can you just stop using them? Or is this something you need to do for you? Whatever it is you want for yourself...imagine the best possible outcome and go after it. You can do it!
Christy
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If we think that miracles are normal, we will expect them. And expecting a miracle is the surest way to get one.
Whenever I want to do anything rash like up and leave the A tonight and be homeless... I sit on it for a while. I try to set up plan b's for myself. If I don't have enough money how can I get it, what are the steps for getting it. I know what it is to feel up against the wall with certain people/places/things. I also know for me personally taking rash actions just put me into another cycle. Chaos is my middle name. Getting out of chaos is often hard hard work for some of us. Debtors anonymous helps some. Adult Children of Alcholics helps some too in getting to what were the dynamics in my family (Claudia Black helped a lot too). Some of it is pretty simple to start we don't debt unless we have to (life emergencies). Some people can do that day one, some can't. I'm one of those who couldn't. For me there is connection between food (over eating), deprivation, codependence, love addiction and debting. I have to dip into all the programs to get relief from some of my behaviors.
I don't take rash quick actions anymore. Whenever I feel like I have to do something I sit on them for a while. I discuss the actions with a few friends in the program and out of it. I think about the pros and cons then I act. I may postpone acting for a while and that's new for me. I was the queen of act now pay later before now. And of course I always had someone to blame, my parents, the A whoever. I work on sharing my feelings. I work on my plan b. I work on self care. What do I need today to take care of me? What do I feel, how can I manage those feelings?
They key for me is to take small actions not large ones and build on them. If I do something then have to go back and undo it I am in a whole other cycle. I try to see the big picture rather than the small picture. What will I need in the next 3 months. Sometimes yes for me it is a day by day thing. What do I need today (and al anon seems to be something I really need a lot of ). I also need a whole financial review (I am in serious debt) and I need a regular job that pays benefits - I won't get it overnight as much as I want it and I am prepared these days not to create another problem that I then have to clean up or not clean up (another speciality of mine). There are no magical solutions for me there is a day by day progression. I do better some months financially. I set goals I try to meet them. I share. I progress. I would love to be in a place where I changed certain dynamics in my life overnight that doesn't happen for me. Nevertheless the beauty of al anon and other programs is that over time I get to a place of a lot of change and a lot of insight and a lot of self lover rather than pure self hate.
Counselling and being in an ACA group helped me for a long long time separating myself from my family emotionally. My mother paid lots of my bills for years (for me that is now decades ago). My mother also castigated, abused, denied my childhood and was generally all round mean to me. When I cut myself off from her at certain points it was always because I felt "desperate" rather than in control of my actions or emotions. I didn't speak to my family for years on the notion that somehow I wasn't participating in their dynamics. It helped some but what really helped was to do the work of working on my feelings about them and that took quite a while and a lot of being willing to look at my own issues not just theirs. That also didn't happen overnight although I often created situations to try to make it happen (I did a geographic which was disastorous for me among other rash decisions). I choose today not to interact with my family. I may choose to interact with them again sometime later. That "choice" is a lot different than saying I can't do this. Choice is a hard one. I can make very very rash choices that hurt me easily (I know what it is to self sabatage and claim I could do nothing else) and I can make measured careful choices but I didn't have much experience of that till I got here and was here a while.
