I am so happy for you seachange.

Doxie

I know a little of your background because you shared about being the speaker at a meeting.  I do know that you did share about out how hard it was for you to go to live with your sister after you had been abandoned and how your sister was mean to you when you were desperate for acceptance.  What a place of healing for you to be accepting of her mental illness, limitations and final demise.    I know you also shared that you felt that you ran from your sister's house straight into the arms of an alcoholic.

I know many many of my issues at work in friendships and even with the A's family are founded on intense, conflicted, enmeshed relationships that started off with my sisters.  My elder sister was idolized and put on a pedastel by our parents.  My younger sister and I were relegated to the scapegoat (me) and the clown which was my younger sister.  I felt deeply unloved, uncherished and dumped on as a child. That left a lifelong terror of abandonment for me.

I think there is no coincidence that I left a home where there was a raging (and my elder sister was particularly violent and entitled) to eventually land with a raging alcoholic who feels entitled.  There are many many parallels between my elder sister and the A including the lies, the social charisma (my elder sister is a star at acting she can cry on the spot) and the blame game.  My sister like the a can twist every sentence I can say.  So can the A it is always always always about him never about me. The only me he can acknowledge is one to blame.

So I think it is amazing that you can feel at peace about the rages.  My elder sister's rages included punching, kicking, smashing my teeth (which still have to be repaired) and more.  My a's rages include smashing the furniture, the cars, the home, me and more.  He always has some justification for them. My elder sister always had some justification for hers. She has never shown a moment of remorse. The A's remorses for example when I point out that he takes my money to buy dope are heavily laden with guilt, blame and justification. He has never said he was sorry.  I have to him but he has never said it to me not ever.  Needless to say I have never had an authentic real conversation with my sister either and quite honestly I have given up hope of having one at all.  She is like a chameleon one thing to one person and another to others. 

I am not sure how your sister's rages manifested on you when you were her charge (and to some extent I was my sister's charge as my parents certainly abdicated that role) but I am sure they took a tremendous toll on you.  There are some days I can be in acceptance of my sisters but other days when I long for them to tell one second of the truth about our lives.  I can occasionally get something out of my younger sister but then she goes off into some fantasy about our father being a "father" rather than the raging monster he was.

I am so thrilled for you that you can be in acceptance of the deep deprivation, massive hurt, massive abanndonment you suffered as a child. I think that is an incredible testament to the work you have done on yourself which must have been tremendously difficult and nearly impossible to bear at times. To know it, accept it and let it go is a formidable piece of work. Someday I would like to be there.

I fear deeply that my two nephews will grow up to be alcoholics. They have a mother who is a end stage alcoholic and they really have never known anything else. I think it is a phenomenal thing that you can acknowledge your niece in recovery and witness that . I can hold onto that at some point I can be there for my nephews in recovery.  I really cannot influence the way they are growing up and have to surrender to that but maybe my HP will have me be there for them in recovery who knows.  I am willing to turn them over to their own HP I know that much.

I often despair and rage about my family of origin and I know that I do not often think that I will ever reach a place of acceptance about them.  Thank you for modelling what that might be for me.  I needed that on this particular day another day of trying to do the footwork to get me to a place I cannot even imagine a lot of the time.  I know I am willing even if I have no  idea where I am going or how to get there.

Maresie.