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.
I am working hard on my serenity. I am using the heck out of my tools and hitting a meeting everyday. I hear what I need to hear and it is keeping me from being lonley and feeling sorry for myself. I am feeling pretty good. I am still driving the long way home so as not to drive by "her" house.
I am comming out of denile....again. I really started to think that I was the crazy one. I really started to think that he was "working" a program, so what if he's moved on, "fell in love". Maybe I am just being insane, a bitch, immature, etc etc etc. I should just let go and let the kids be with him under his conditions. But, there was this part of me that just knew. I am not crazy, I have been thru this for 13 years. He is doing things he said he never would and just because he goes to meetings, "works a program" does not make him sane. He has a very serious mental illness which is unmedicated. Left untreated it will become worse. I am not crazy! It really does go straight back to my childhood when I would see a fact, the truth right in front of me and my mother or grandmother would deny it. I would say "wow the sky is blue today!" and to this day my mother will say "no it isn't. It's pink." And I automatically think,as I am looking at a blue sky, as I ask passers by (is the sky pink? no it's blue) " She must be right....it must be pink..." It is so hard to believe myself. That I do know the truth. I am crazy but not criminally insane. I am crazy in a I-Lived_with_An-Alcoholic kind of way.
Anyway, it has been a struggle getting my mother to do the right thing and press charges. But she is. It is so very obvious how sick she is too. Her blaming me for everything that went wrong in her life. She even said that the reason she is physically and mentally abusive towards the wet brain alcoholic she lives with is because of me. I take out my anger towards my ex on her and she takes it out on her A. I was like "WHAT?" It doesn't even occur to her that my anger towards her is because of her! It has nothing to do with my ex. I took my anger towards him, out on him. My anger towards her is because of what she has done to me and how she treats me! LOL! How alcoholic is that thinking. I know I am not focusing on her but, that was eye opening. I have said before I started counsiling when I was 12, I grew up with Phil Donahue and Oprah and I have been in Alanon for a solid 4 years and on and off before that. I am well aware of many of MY character defects. I am also aware of others character defects and that is where my program helps me. Insted of blaming others for my pain. Like I was raised to do. I can do this differently. I already am. I am so not perfect. So far from it. But for the moment, I am ok. I am stable and refusing to let the A's state of being affect me. I have my own state of being and it is all mine. I will be OK. And then I won't and then I will, such is life. Thanks everyone for being here and all your kind support.
Ok you, I invite you to go do something frivolous, or something like go swimming, buy a raft find someone with a raft or have them get one too and go ride a river, take a book and all ya need.
Just allow it to take you. It is a great anti stressor. go on a picnic, feed the ducks, but do something totally light.
Lotta baggage there! The raft suggestion sounds like one I'd like to do to. After that I may just put into action one of my first thoughts I had after prayer and meditation this morning, which was, "I'm gonna dump a lot of the crap I got lying around here today." Extra thick garbage bags so that the crap doesn't break thru and remain around me.
It's all crap just gotta dump it.
Many meetings worked wonders for me also. Gawd those people are smart!!
The thing is, were you crazy when you thought he had it all together? Do your emotions fly all over the place when you think he has it all together. But when you realize he doesn't you're fine?
For right now you have a reprieve....a bit of calm, use this time to remember where you just were. Figure out why it was that you were pulled so quickly into those emotional extreems. The thing about it is, you can have your serenity no matter what he is doing, or how good it appears his life is.
This has everything to do with you, not him. Keep working it, you really are getting there
My younger sister's birthday was this week. I was sorely tempted to contact her. At the same time its rather like you and your mother there is a lot of anger there. She can be angry with me in a way she can't be angry with my elder sister. I get fed up with that. We have had very very little contact for years but when she does speak to me there is this enormous sibling rivalry and anger. She insists on being sentimental about our mother (who is dead now).
So given I am already on overwhelm with the A's issues I chose not to. One day I may be able to resolve stuff with her.
My own family is very much like yours. I have had to spend years detaching. I do not envy your task.
I think that makes everything very very very complicated.
