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 have a bad feeling today will be a struggle from moment to moment. Detachment will probably be the most difficult thing for me to actualize. For 20 yrs I felt like there was something wrong with me, like I was always letting my parents down. I couldn't really find peace of mind, joy or statisfaction. I thought I was meant to be depressed.
Forgiveness is going to be slow going ~ although my mom raised me with the saying: "If you can understand, than you must be understanding." I didn't want to hang out with our "A" before - now I don't want to look at him or hear his voice. Personally, I think being civil with him is only going to make him think "things are ok, or it's business as usual" -- It's going to take me time for things to ever be "okay" again. I can be "ok" & my mother & I can be "ok" with each other. But not for the "A". Drunk or not, he never listened to me over the years anyway.
I must need to be very angry for a while. I am not going to turn this evergy back on myself, like I have done all of my life. Things are different now. I feel like today I even despise him - how dare he be such a shitty psychopathic person! I guess a part of me whill always love him, but I can't deny how much I hate him right now - I think that's healthy, I need to be angry & vent it. All this time he burdened my mother & I will feelings of inadequecy. The psychological abuse is far more damaging. I know 'cause thinking about hurting him or torturing him right back doesn't even feel like it would be equal to what I've been through, feeling despair - being suicidal.
I do know the truth (a little more this month, now) and I know God. I have honor & integrity. Hell the dogs have that! They are true!
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Light, Love, Peace, Blessings & Healing to Us All. God's Will Be Done. Amen.
I'm nearly 40 & I am realizing AGAIN that only I can save myself or know what is best for me. It is so convoluted for those of us that love them. I guess everyone simply has to go through their own lives to get to the next point, wtvr that may be.
I know how you feel about getting even wouldn't make much differance. Try to stay in yourself & not angry with him. I know it is hard because when my A is loaded he disgusts me. Getting angry only upsets me more and makes my insides churn - it affects him in no way because he ia an A.
When I feel so angry at him I could slap him - I know that I need to take 10 minutes, sometimes more, to do something nice for me. A cup of tea, a bath, read AA or Al Anon literature. What ever it takes.
Try & be good to yourself, post, read posts & keep coming back.
One of the skills I recently learned was to draw a picture of an ice berg. Stick with me now.....so it looks like a mountain, now draw a horizontal line, like a line for the water, half of the iceberg should be submerged. Above the water line is the anger.....now under the surface what other feelings are going on. I thought I was angry all the time. Now I am learning that sometimes I'm tired, frustrated, hurt, overwhelmed, etc. The visual helps me to deal with each feeling I have. Hope this helps...
Hurt always precedes anger. It's part of the process. It's what we do with the anger that defines us. I am thinking that with the amount of raw, concentrated anger I have to work with today, I should be able to go on the elliptical machine for 75 minutes, another 20 minutes on Pilates, and still have plenty of anger left to write a couple of scathing, cathartic pages ridding myself of angst over what he did and then a couple more detailing what I want to do and where I want to go and bascially what I want to do when I grow up.
