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Miracles In Progress 12 Step Recovery Forums -> Al-Anon Family Group -> Al-Anon Family Group -> Despair
Post Info TOPIC: Despair
Heartbroken


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Despair
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 I am desparately looking for the way forward, knowing that my heart is broken again, and I feel that I am losing myself.

I was married to a voilent alcoholic for twenty years.  I thought that I had recovered after being afiliated to an alanon support group when we lost our home due to alcoholism.  But a recent visit to my daughter has again shown this is not the case.  My cousin suggested that I should get myself along to an alanon group but there are none nearby and due to my imobility (I have had five lots of surgery in the last seven years and live with chronic back pain and arthritis), this is the only solution that I could think of.

So, I hope that you will hear me out for I cannot do this on my own any longer.  I shall try to be succinct though it seems like a damn is bursting to be released from inside my heart and my head.

During my husband's absences I was both mother and father to my children until they were 16 and 14 respectively, with no other family support to help because both sets of grandparents lived so far away and there was no other family nearby either.

I juggled three jobs, [one full time and two part time] because their father never gave me housekeeping, saying he needed his money to live on when he was not at home, which meant that I paid all the bills and living expenses.  The children were my lifeline, my sanity, my all and the three of us grew very close.

I lost the love and support of my maternal/paternal family, my in-laws, and friends firstly because I would not divorce and secondly when my husband's abuse became so bad that his Pyschiatrist would not allow him to return to the marital home forcing him to be housed in barracks. 

I [partially] lost my children when the only option open for their safety was to place them into a military paid for boarding school, which broke my heart as I did NOT believe in sending children off to boarding school and had been living as a one parent family with them due to their father's service duties and absence. It was hard for all three of us when, due to dire straits, physical abuse and financial distress the only way forward was to split the family further.  The saving grace was that I insisted that the children went to the same boarding school and that it was near enough for me to get to, if necessary on a daily basis, whilst ensuring they were was a non voilent and threatening situation when their father moved back to the family into married quarters so that he could be home instead of living in barracks.  He had carefully bought a house in the north of England whilst he was stationed on the south coast of England much to my distress.  However, he embezzled the school fees, unbeknownest to me until his third or fourth attempted suicide when he was threatened with court martial and I found out that the mortgage had not been paid [his only financial responsibility].

Five years after the marriage was ended the custody of the children was awarded to him after he charmed the courts and the welfare officers and so disturbed the children with his threats of suicide if they did not stay with him that they, now young teenagers voted with their feet [as the judge told me - calling  the law an ass because his hands were tied and he could not over rule their decisions].

But the emotional blackmail, that I had lived with during the previous 15 years had, as I had predicted started and had affected both the children when I had to move away from the area in 1989 at the insistance of my husband's pyschatrist because of my husband abuse and voilence and threats to kill me.  And my daughter, who had been traumatised when the RM Welfare Office had insisted that it was within HIS rights to take her and her brother to see their father in the drying out hospital against my wishes but at their father's request, found it impossible to believe that her father would not commit suicuide if she did not live with him.

Which ever way I turned he stood, laughing, threatening and surrounded by the corp having threatened me that if I left him he would see me in the gutter and childless.  He succeeded, I ended up in a women's shelter and the children unwittingly and naively finally deserted me through fear in 1991. 

However, in 1989, when I was finally evicted from our married quarters,[divorce proceedings being the grounds for eviction] my son accompanied me to a safe house whilst his sister flatly refused to leave her father yelling, screaming and attacking me as we left the marital home.    A neighbour wrote to the courts to say that I had abused her daughter and another neighbour wrote a letter stating that I was running a 'red-light' house, which had to be explained to me and my husband sighted me as having had at least two affairs.    The Court Welfare Officer saw me on two occasions and threw these allegations out as did the judge, but none-the-less I was tainted by the allegations though no-one who knew me beleived them to be true. 

The children were close and my son went to visit his father and sister two months later during his half term holiday.  Our [i.e. my son and me] leaving [in 1989] had been traumatic as my daughter would not come with us and a room was found for her in the barracks [how, to this day, I do not know - it was unheard of but my husband had friends in high places and the Welfare Officer was his drinking partner in the same mess, it was officers together and the old boys network]and I a mere woman stood no chance.

The childrens' life from then on took a downward spiral into abuse, truancy, drink, drugs and violence and I could do nothing to stop it.  All I could do was chase around the country picking them up with their possessions when their father threw them out in his drunkeness.  Meanwhile I was sitting my finals, I was reading for an honours degree to ensure a decent salary at the end of it so that I could provide for them should their father be court marshalled out of the corp.

Within six months my daughter was out on the street and begging me to come down and collect her and her things.

Within a further three months my son ran away to a friends who rang me and told me what was going and and I again went to bring him home to me and his sister.

Nothing worked out, they were scared and both returned to their father within a week, and again my daughter was out on the streets and all I could do was collect her one again, but this time she did NOT go back, though she was now a very angry and aggressive teenage who towered over me and intimidated me,[she has her father's build and his temperament].

She turned to drugs as did her brother and I was torn apart.  She was with me whilst her brother still remained in the south with his father under the care of the courts and a social worker whom his father charmed and decieved at each turn.

I had no car, little money, there was a recession and I was looked upon as being over qualified and could not get a full time job so was trying to make ends meet on a part time salary, and pay back thousands of pounds that my husband had got through loan companies by forging my signature.

I cannot go on...please...wait a moment...

...suffice to say, sixteen years later and my daughter is an agressive, divorced mother of three who is struggling.  She has a difficult life and I try to support her and help her but having recently broken up with her father, who she lives close to in the south, she constantly turns to me for help and then when I do go, she is violent, threatening and foul-mouthed.  She does not respect me, has thrown me out onto the streets iwith my suitcase and left me to find my way back to the midlands regardless of the time of the day or if there is a coach leaving after taking all the money that she could  unconcerned how I was to make my way home or if I spent the night on the streets and I have in the past simply found shelter on the beach, or in a promade shelter until I could get a coach the next morning or arrange for someone to loan me the money for my fair. This has happened on a number of occasions and I do not know what I can do to make up for the failures I made in my parenting during her formative years, and for all the hurt I have inflicted in my weaknesses as a dreadfully incompetent mother. 

Yet I love her, I yearn for her, I so want to be a good mother. I cannot change the past but I am trying to change me and my responses so that the future might be better. 

Her attitude is despictable, and I am tired of being her 'whipping boy', she has been physically violent to me in the past and put me in hospital, and her deamour towards me is disturbing not only for me but for anyone else who witnesses it and most importantly her own children who copy and treat me with contempt too.

Two days ago, when I finally told her how I felt about the agression and her attitude and said I could not cope with any more voilence and abuse she wrote '...

I will disregard ALL of that because you have got it all wrong...

In my life or out it makes no difference to me what so ever... as you know....'

She stopped me communicating with her and the children, refusing me to even send birthday cards and presents as well as christmas presents and it was only in February this year after I had offered a further unconditional olive branch and with the help of her brother that she resumed communications.

I have time and again tried to put in place the ethics of the Serenity Prayer, and I feel that I have paid the debt of my failures.  I cannot go on like this and I cannot live without her and the children in my life.  I feel robbed of so many things, I cannot bear that I should be robbed of being a grandmother as well as a mother, a daughter, a sister, a neice and an aunt.  I did not choose to send them to boarding school, I did not choose that they live with their father, I did not choose to abandon the family.  I am so tired and ache, and I cry and the depression is unbearable and I thank you for letting me write this.

It feels so cathartic even though it hurts more than words could express.  If I scream now, I will never stop...

I need to recover, I need to change me, I need the programme and I want to know if the twelve steps will help me but I have no idea what these are because my head cannot remember them.

There will be others out there who have suffered far more than me, however my hell has been hell to me and I have no doubt that others will think my story is tame in comparison.  I know that I am a weak person and there are things that I cannot tell, but please if someone out there can help me in my search for healing then I will listen and take notice and examine myself.  I have no condemnation, there for the grace of God go.

Thank you.

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"The highest form of wisdom is kindness." The Talmund
Karilynn


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(((((((Heartbroken)))))))),

Welcome to the MIP family.  Here you will find great experience, hope, strength, wisdom, and just a touch of humor (good for the heart.gif ).   My heart goes out to you and your family for all you have been through.

Yes, the 12 steps can help you.  We have a 12 step workboard here on MIP.  Please check it out.  Come join us for online meetings or just come into the chat room.  Please go back and read old posts, there are a great source of information.  Many people have walked similar paths you as you and have found recovery.  Recovery is absoluetly possible.  If you can't find a local meeting, you might look for a support group that is not Alanon based.  I attend both meetings.  I do love my Alanon program though.  It has given me great tools.

Please keep coming back to us.  You have taken the first step.  You are not alone in this journey of recovery.  Love and blessings to you.

Live strong,
Karilynn & Pipers Kitty <--- the cat heart.gif

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It's your life. Take no prisoners. You will have it your way.
david62


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Welcome Heartbroken,

So glad you found this web site.  It has been a life saver for me over the past 3 years.  As our friend Karilynn said, please try all of the wonderful things this site has to offer.

Chat room with meetings twice a day, Steps board, you can even listen to "speaker tapes" if you click   http://www.12stepforums.net/speakers.html

Many of us have been in situations like yours and were at the end of our rope.  Al-anon can help you if you are ready and willing.

Please keep coming back.

Yours Still in Recovery,
David

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Laughter is the Beginning of Healing
Heartbroken


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Karilynn

Because of my rather isolated life style due to my physical immobility and the surgery,[I spent two of the last seven years in plaster and on crutches], I have lost some of the confidence I painfully gained after my divorce during the last 16 years. Seeking to go out alone is something I cannot face. The last two years have brought me wonderful friends who help me in practical ways, but they do not and would not know how to support me as a damaged alcoholics co-dependant. They have no experience of alcoholism.

My cousin suggested [she lives in America] that I hook up with Alanon in some manner. She is married to a recovering alcoholic and follows the programme constantly but the difference is she has lots of family around her to support her too, whereas I never have, and never will.

My nature is to hide away when hurting, ok if balanced with social interaction within a working environment, however not ok at my low level of social interaction; I have been struggling to keep myself focused and have felt I have no purpose in my life.

The first step is to be brutally be honest with myself and look at the whole situation; why I constantly go around in circles and experience reactive depression when faced with emotional distress, or confrontation, or aggression. And the second step is to not let my daughter project on me what she does not want to owe for herself. We are both damaged big time, by the one person we both adored.

With this in mind I want to own my responsibility in changing the way I respond in the future so that a wholeness might emerge from out of this brokeness and I realise it is my response that is the key to coping with my daughters responses.

So thank you, Karilynn for allowing me to join this room and talk out loud instead of silently going mad inside my head.





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"The highest form of wisdom is kindness." The Talmund
Heartbroken


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Thank you David62,

The warmth and the kindness you radiate in your reply touches me deeply, as did Karilynn's.

And thank you for the link to the 12 step programme. I just did not know where to begin looking.

I am so exhausted as I have not slept for 46 hours now that I think I must go away and rest; then I will investigate the link you have given me.

Now I know that I will not sink.

May God bless you.

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"The highest form of wisdom is kindness." The Talmund
hersh


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Heartbroken:

I, too, welcome you with hope to this family.  You will find a lot of answers here, in reading other people's stories of hope and their progress, not perfection.  This board saved my life last year.  It taught me SO much about life and hope and love.  I wish and pray for your heartache to heal and for you to begin this wonderful journey of recovery.  I know you can find it here, just pay attention and come here to vent and to read.  There are absolutely wonderful people here, and it seems when you are hurting the most, they are here to help you along.

You are hurting a great deal.  I am glad you have slept and you are letting it all out, it is so important to talk about your life, even if it is in writing, you know?  I am so glad you are here and my prayers and good thoughts are with you today!!

Love, HeidiXXX

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Jen


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(((((((((((((((Heartbroken))))))))))))))

Welcome!!!

We do understand and this board is a lifeline for many of us. I am very glad you have found us. We are your new family who is always here when you need us. You will get better.

In recovery,

__________________

~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
maresie2


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I can empathise a great deal. I certainly don't think you are weak by any means. I would not call anyone who manages to live with an active alcoholic weak.

I can understand the despair, the fear, the anger and the grief all too well. I can also understand the betrayal.

I know for me I have to work super hard on my boundaries day in day out. I do not permit people anymore to be abusive to me. I lived with that for years. I also do not permit people in my life who assassinate me. Of course I have to deal with people who are incredibly difficult. I can understand why you very much want to maintain a relationship with your daughter. How are you getting your own needs met. Do you have needs? How is your own life. I know I have also lived through a recession. I have been there with the issue of debt too. My ex forged papers on me. I went to court and went to court and went to court and he still got away with it. Now he is going to be jailed so there is nothing to get from him.

I am glad you are away from the A. I hope you do not feel guilty about your children's choices. They are adults now they have choices, one is recovery. People can choose it under any circumstances.

My own upbringing was incredilby dysfunctional. i no longer hold my parents responsible for my life as an adult. I'm responsible for it.

I hope you will use this room daily, by the hour, all the time. I have found enormous solace here. I can be myself here which is not something I can do many places.

Maresie.

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maresie
Heartbroken


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Dear Hersh and Jen and Maresie2

You are all incredible people to embrace me, a complete stranger, a total emotion and shattered ship wreck, however nothing gives me more hope than recognizing that I am being thrown a life line such as you all have.

I hungrily cling on, in my despair and emotional solitude; not because I want to be a victim but because I want to LIVE. I want to LIVE a FULL LIFE and not just simply get by and EXIST.

From the beginning of my trauma, which began to unfold as far back as 1972 to the disabilitating wrench of the dissolution of my marriage to an alcoholic in 1991. and then my tentative and lonely walk to becoming a whole person [which i recognise I am nowhere near at even after all the intervening years], and whilst enduring the next hideously unexpected battering from my daughter, which has continued until this day, I realise that I walked into this room an aged, battered and bombed out shell that was about to shatter completely beyond repair.

Even now, after only a few hours, I feel sured up by your support and experience and sharing. I feel that my wreck has be lashed tight to a lifeboat and that I am being dragged to a safe harbour. I cannot express in words the emotional and amazing sense of relief I feel inside.

The need I had NOT recognized as being primary to my survival was my need of a safe harbour where others that could understand and empathize with me totally could walk with me in my healing process. But I do recognise, for the first time that I do not have to do this on my own and that is good.

This is the first day of the rest of my life, which I felt this morning was so close to it's end for I felt I was breaking up inside.

The recognition of that need being met before I knew what I needed is sufficient for me for today. After 36 years of doing this almost completely without any support at all I am weary and at my wits end to stop the endless cycle of re-occurring events. I need to break that cycle whilst I have some strength left to even attempt it and I know it begins with me right now, by the grace of God, and I am so grateful for the lifelines I have been thrown.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for meeting that need and holding me and embracing me a bringing me into this safe harbour. I will come back and I will take ONE MOMENT AT A TAKE for now.

This time I hope I shall managed to sleep in order to face tomorrow.





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"The highest form of wisdom is kindness." The Talmund
Heartbroken


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I have just noticed that I have one private message, which has made me panic because I don't know how to access it.

Help.

And forgive me for all my errors, ommissions and grammatical spelling mistakes, it is the stress.

What do I do to open the private message and read it. I hope I have not said anything to offend anyone.

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"The highest form of wisdom is kindness." The Talmund
Kim65


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Hi Heartbroken! Unless you figured it out already, just click on the private message words.

Welcome to Alanon too! I look forward to hearing from you again soon, this is a great group of people :)

Kim

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Heartbroken


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Hello everyone

I have just managed to print out the Twelve Steps. NOW I REMEMBER THEM.

I worked the programme after my divorce from the A. Put away the programme - i.e. had to make room in my head to deal with other things and so felt I had no need of the programme once I had dealt with the A and separated myself from the marriage thing when he told me he was remarrying someone else.

Believe me, that took me ten years to do, but I am proud to say I am in a healthy and whole place as far as my marriage is concerned. I still love him, always will, he simply disappeared, changed into someone I could not relate to and decided that I WAS NOT FOR HIM.

Ok, I can live with that, however my marriage vows were made before God and have eternal bindings as far as I am concerned. Hence I have never, and will never look at marrying again. I may have divorce papers that says I am no longer married, but before God I am and that is what I believe.

Anyway, HOW WRONG I WAS TO PUT AWAY THE PROGRAMME AND I NOW REALISE THE ERROR OF MY DECISION. I NEED IT EVEN MORE NOW TO CORRECT MY RELATIONSHIP WITH MY DAUGHTER AND OTHER MEMBERS OF MY FAMILY.

I believe that I by arriving here in this room I may even now be at step 5 in the next few days and step 6,7,8 will not be too difficult to deal with if I remember to come back here for constant support and courage.

Step 9 will be THE GREATEST CHALLENGE, and I will need to remember the second part of that step.

STEP 9: Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.


HOWEVER THAT IS IN THE FUTURE. FOR THE MOMENT I AM GOING BACK TO STEP 1, and the powerlessness that I acknowledge is

STEP 1: - my powerlessness over my daughter

THE situation IS THIS - my life is unmanageable because I have no power over my daughter.
THE realisation IS THIS - I can change only MY RESPONSE to my daughter.
THE action IS THIS - I can gain control and manageability in my life, if I change my reaction to her actions.

JUST FOR TODAY I WILL ACKNOWLEDGE MY POWERLESSNESS OVER MY DAUGHTER.
Tomorrow I might be able to come to believe that God will restore me to sanity in this area.

How am I doing so far?

I am not ready for running, for I can barely stand, let alone walk!

One thing is for certain, I am feeling a sense of peace even at this stage, thanks to this room.




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"The highest form of wisdom is kindness." The Talmund
artygirl


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Welcome Heartbroken!
I read your story this morning and am happy that you came here. I'm also happy to know that you're feeling better and feeling peace. That's what this place does! Keep coming back and you'll never feel alone in your recovery.

Take care of you!
Artygirl



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Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, it is about learning to dance in the rain.
beaulahg


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heartbroken,


welcome,

step one..........,
''ADMITTED WE WERE POWERLESS OVER ALCOHOL AND THAT OUR LIFE HAD BECOME UNMANAGABLE.''
that's it,
that is all there is to it,
and,
you are on your way,
step two........,
" CAME TO BELIEVE IN A POWER GREATER THAN OURSELVES THAT COULD RESTORE US TO SANITY"
i too live in a very isolated area in northern alberta canada.
this forum has been a wonderful tool to help me come out of my isolation.
we all have one similarity,
THE DEVASTATING EFFECTS OF SOMEONE ELSE'S DRINKING ON OUR LIFE.
you are in the right place.
keep coming back.
we already love you in a very special way.


blessed be,
jewely


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Heartbroken


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Good morning Jewely

Bless you, step one was easy once I realised that on this occasion it was powerlessness over my daughter...

and the peace I felt on actually speaking that OUT LOUD and in this room has empowered me more than I could ever have imaged...

Today I awoke and looked at step two...

I DO BELIEVE IN A POWER GREATER THAN MYSELF WHO CAN RESTORE ME TO SANITY - he sent me an angel (in my Cousin) to remind me to get back to basics and USE THE STEP PROGRAMME, and just a three days ago I walked in here where HIS MIRACLES ARE IN PROGRESS, as I truly witness them through your chat and reading other people's chat.

Fragile, though now hopeful I continue, eager to learn and respond from all the wonderful support and grace that abounds in this room.

I called it my padded cell during the first day, but I realise that it is more than a padded cell for it is not a cell at all, I wander in and I wander out. Find a corner to sit and listen, or observe or take a walk on the wild side back to my world here at home, and then prayer and contemplate and LEARN and APPLY.

Today I am LIVING and not just EXISTING. I am still GRIEVING and crying and bewildered and amazed and overwhelmed but I FEEL COMFORTED AND SUPPORTED AND SAFE: even if I do have a "...frightened rabbit staring into the car headlights..." look about me.

Fear was what I was misunderstanding as insanity - my insanity!

Easy does not...I have the rest of my life to walk this path to recovery, by the grace of God and all those He puts my way to help. Amen




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"The highest form of wisdom is kindness." The Talmund
beaulahg


Veteran Member

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Date:
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good morning SDH,

what a beautiful, sensitive person you sound to me.

Keep Coming Back,

and,

i believe,

One Day At A Time,

you will emerge from your cocoon of despair as a

free flying butterfly.

love in recovery,
jewely

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