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.
My life is filled with so many dysfunctional people around me that it is so difficult to find support and help. A friend of mine agreed to help me this evening by watching my kids while my A and I went to marriage counseling. She called me on the way home from work and gave me a huge guilt trip about how tired she was. I know that she was waiting for me to say that I could ask someone else instead. I didn't have anyone else. She kept making rude comments to me. I know she didn't really want to help me. People always do this to me. Helping me always has strings attached too or it gets thrown back in my face later on. My friend doesn't have kids, so she is just used to going home and watching TV. Why agree to help me when you really don't want to and you have to whine about it the whole way. When they do this to me...I just generally sit there quietly and don't respond or I apologize for not having any other options.I am so tired of people trying to cut me down to make themselves feel better. I would never do this to them. The few people I do have have to make me feel like I owe them big for them helping me. If they want help later and I can't "repay" them at that moment then they call me ungrateful. I hate asking for help for this reason (although I do it anyway.) I also never ask (except maybe once a year) for help that is for myself (like a night out)...it is always for one of my children's dr or therapy appts. The response given when I ask for help is a long list of complaints and then finally a "I guess." They almost make me beg first. I always try and "repay" whenever I can and give a thousand thanks for their help. I hate feeling like I am in debt to everyone!
The way I see it, if they are "friends" then there should be a repayment required. Friends are people that are there for you no matter what. They would drop whatever they are doing to come to the aid of someone they care about. I had people like that in my life that I was friends with for 20+ years and had to learn to let go and move on. It's been difficult, but it's so much better. Find other avenues of meeting new people. Church, volunteer groups, etc. Go to places where "healthy" people hang out.
I agree with Nettie - reach out, find heathier relationships. And try not to let people manipulate your feelings - they agreed to help, you accepted, it is not your problem now if they want to make you feel guilty. You don't have to feel something just because they want you to. You also don't really have to be the 'good' one all the time - sometimes you can be the taker instead of the giver.
I just want to say one more thing, just for you to think about - why is it OK to accept help for your children, but not for your own needs? Are your children important, but you are not?
No "true friend" would act that way. I have only a few true friends. However 90% of them are from face 2 face meetings. These are true friends because they understand what I am going through and can be there for me. I babysit (which is not always fun) for an al-anon friend. She has to ask for help constantly because her A husband is again in treatment and she has no family close by. I do it because I understand how it feels to have no one to ask and how it feels to be so helpless. Besides...she helped me out with housing when I had no place to go the first time she met me. I have 2 or 3 other friends I have known for years who would be there for me. But they too have their own issues. For the most part I find my family too dysfunctional to lend support or help. Asking for help has always been hard for me. I hear it is part of "our disease" being an adult child of an alcoholic.
Keep coming back and try focusing on what you can control. That always helps me when I am feeling helpless.
I guess I didn't specifically say it ...but these dysfunctional people "are" my famliy and close friends (the friend I referred to I have known for 15 years.) And I don't generally ask for time to myself because they make rude comments about how they don't have time and only help when I am desperately in need such as for an appt. In my opinion, I am surrounded by very selfish people. I have been searching for "new" people for years. I don't know where you find them, but I have been trying. I have a church and have volunteered many times for VBS and find people try and keep to a "hows the weather conversation or how old is your child". I have yet to find the people that are interested in starting a friendship with someone new. Maybe it is because our church is so big and has a huge amount of members (but I like it there because they have activites such as soccer and t-ball for the kids.) I always just pray that somehow "someone" will be brought to me. I have 2 friends that I have known for 15 years and that is basically it.
How do you find people who really want to be friends? It's not like they're lined up at the door?
I've found myself with the same type of people, the want to hear all the gossip and say Call if you need anything, but then you call and tell them what you need, and they can't give.
So I'm also someone who has NOBODY, and I have 4 kids, so it's hell.
I think recovery does bring new friendships and knowing what to look for . I know I have spent a lot of time resenting others that they were not there for me. That is everyone from my boss who is oblivious to this stuff to the guy next door. They never felt the resentment I did.
I do look for very very very different things in recovery these days. I do note that I gave way too much of myself and still give too much and I cut back 1,000 per cent. I think its normal for a long long time to feel resentment and in some ways the resentment acts as a boundary somewhat. After a while I learned not to give the energy to the resentment and to give the energy to a new life.
