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.
The first (and most difficult) exam done and I have to say I was grinning from ear to ear when I read through the paper because there was only 1 single question I wasn't absolutely sure of the answer to. Yay!! Here's to my new non-freaking out study method!!
But truly this is the first time...ever...that I have gotten through a semester without being plunged into some kind of agonising personal drama and then messing it up. I first enrolled in this degree 7 years ago. Yep, 7. Full time it's meant to take 4 years and here I am....not even half way through really because the course has changed so much, I've been enrolled for so long. And semester after semester I began with a positive attitude and determination and again and again I either allowed myself to be so consumed by A and his conveniently timed crises and my own unhappiness and hopelessness that I failed a heap of units, and eventually just gave up. Not to mention 2 years at home when my daughter wasn't well enough for school and I just sort of stopped trying and condemned myself. So it's so weird to be back, to be actually getting through it, and to see a light at the end of the tunnel. I am really quite stunned at how possible it is to concentrate and pass when there is no yelling screaming attention seeking energy sucking horror show taking place in my home every night. I've even started wearing makeup and nice clothes to school and that's something new; for years I have attended classes (and life) in sneakers and baggy jumpers and tried to be invisible. So it just feels really good.
Now for my next trick I need to stop being overly consumed by how I imagine other people must be feeling.
As an example, the exam I had today was for a psych unit. A lot of other students in my course hate those classes because they see them as irrelevant, especially this semester as it was basically a history of psychology. So some of my classmates were pretty negative about it, and I really enjoyed it, I find it really interesting. (Also so NOT irrelevant). So the teacher has been very kind and helpful towards me and he has been pretty enthusiastic about the class bringing in extra videos and interesting stuff and often they ran over time which was fine with me. But a couple of weeks ago we had our student feedback surveys and he made a point of asking the class to be sure to fill them out and be honest and take it seriously as feedback is so very important. And I know that some of these students would have been scathing and thus the last couple of classes he has been a completely different teacher, quiet, no jokes, delivering the bare minimum of material and really looking quite sad, dismissing us up to an hour early and some of his comments showed that he felt no-one wanted to be there anyway. Today we were meant to have a class after the exam and he actually said "I don't think we'll bother, we've covered everything anyway and I am sure none of you are interested anyway". So I assumed (and I don't know really) that there has been unkind feedback and he feels unhappy about it. So I felt so overwhelmingly sad on his behalf today (and it's silly because there could be a million reasons to explain his change in demeanour, maybe he has the flu, maybe he's tired, maybe he's hungover lol as if I can possibly KNOW!!) and as if I should do something. What? What could I do? Nothing! I gave good honest feedback and also had expressed to him earlier in the semester that I enjoyed the material he shared with us and found his class enjoyable. Anyway this happens a LOT. Students, particularly those just out of high school can be really unkind to the teachers who are often really lovely people and I feel excessively sad and guilty and as if I should do something......it really upsets me. Hmm. I'm not responsible for how I perceive other people make other people feel, it's ridiculous to get so upset about it!!
Example 2- I am a member of about 20 local community trading pages on facebook, the purpose being obviously to support local business and to promote my own. And recently I sent an enquiry to someone who makes candles to ask what ingredients she uses and to request a price list and she replied, I told her I didn't need anything right away but I would keep her in mind for future orders. So she kept messaging me and I got the impression from her profile and words that she might not be socially...um....struggling for a word here....lets say I felt she was not someone familiar with boundaries or usual social etiquette. And this was confirmed when i didn't respond to the strange overly familiar messages and she sent me some sort of "rainbows and unicorns you're an angel to me send this back to me if I'm an angel to you too" nonsense and I didn't respond (this is how it starts with me, I ignore the red flags because I feel sorry for someone and then suddenly I have unwell people in my life and home driving me crazy). But I have felt sad and guilty about it ever since. Now I don't know this chick; there could be a million reasons for her to send me weird overly familiar messages.
But this need to rescue people I think are sad or lonely is so destructive; it's how I ended up with that woman and her poor child in my home last year, remember, she turned up in the middle of the night under extremely suspicious circumstances and stole my daughter's ipad....and smashed up my garden ornaments when she turned up earlier and I wasn't home...
OK so it filters through to everything else. Like feeling sad and sorry for A because he seems sad that I don't want to get back together. After all he did...and just this week he had made such a song and dance about how he was going to start making payments of a large sum of money he owes me and then he didn't, he decided he couldn't spare it as he "needed wine". Having paid his brother back as top priority he couldn't manage a measly $50 first installment to me...I have given up on the money but the principal of it....that he used paying the money back as an excuse to keep up contact and then couldn't part with a single cent...I am angry, and angry with myself for feeling too sorry for him to express that anger or not speak to him at all, so I am all nice and sympathetic to him and then angry with myself after, UGH.
Sorry, I'm just rambling now. But this is so the next thing I want to get under control, feeling so sorry for people that it damages my own wellbeing and serenity. I have to even talk myself through not feeling horribly sad when someone has their fictitious feelings hurt on TV, it's ridiculous.
Anyway thanks for listening.
(((everyone)))
__________________
If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see? (Lewis Caroll)
Ms. M love your new profile picture-- you look beautiful. Congratulations on completing the exam and feeling so confident. It is apparent that you love learning and that is a huge asset that will continue to serve you well.
I can so identify with feeling sorry for people to your own detriment. Yesterday, as I was walking down the street I came across so many homeless young men, some with guard dogs others so lost and I found myself descending into a black hole of sadness for them and for the world. I can remember feeling this way many years ago prior to Al-Anon.
I am grateful that I was present and aware enough so as to be able to identify the cause of my unhappiness. I used my tools said a positive prayer for them and then the reminded myself that I was powerless over people, places and things and to stay in my own hula hoop. Within a short time I was back in my serene place with the world firmly in HP's hands.
Please keep taking care of yourself, you continue to be a Miracle in Progress.
As far as that 'desire to comfort' and 'rescue' - one of my tools I learned in the program was PAUSE and NO.
My reacting before thinking was ever present even when I wasn't in my own chaotic home. I believe I had a need to fix, help, rescue, resolve for others almost as a "See Crazy Family - I am an AWESOME person REALLY!!!"
That NO isn't about over-committing any longer. It's a NO to me when I feel that 'desire to fix, rescue, etc.'.
I've started focusing on my service work where I feel it really matters. I will help just about any program person, when asked. I've given my number out to thousands over the years and have had very few calls. Many just aren't ready to reach out and while I would love to lead them to sanity, recovery and a better life - I've learned they have to want it.
You did your part with your honest feedback for your teacher.
You did your part in inquiring about the candles.
You did your part in making your husband accountable for monies due.
Be proud of what you have done and redirect the want to help, comfort others to you and those who add value to your life.
I turned 50 a few years back, and my HP whacked me with a 2x4. I had this unexplained desire to weed out negative 'friends'. It wasn't hard to do; since I work from home, I figured out that I was the caller more often than not. I started instead investing in those relationships that truly matter - program friends, parents, etc. So - more boundaries is what it amounts to - and while I have 'fewer friends', those I am close to are more treasured and our time is way better quality.
I suspect that I say the serenity prayer 20+ times a day. It is what comes in my head when I PAUSE. It provides me with peace enough to determine IF I have action I need to take.
Thanks for the post - it reminded me that if I try to be all things to all people, I am not of as much value as when I focus on what's in front of me and truly the next right thing.
((((Hugs)))) and way to go!!
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Practice the PAUSE...Pause before judging. Pause before assuming. Pause before accusing. Pause whenever you are about to react harshly and you will avoid doing and saying things you will later regret. ~~~~ Lori Deschene
I agree with Betty, I noticed your new profile pic right away, you are looking very chipper these days!
The way I look at these things is generally that there probably isn't anything I can do for the guy, because, as you said, I wouldn't know what upset him. I only know one small dimension of his life. I would probably make sure he got one more "he, I really enjoyed your class, I think it will be valuable to me going forward in my plans in life" just to make sure he knows how *I* feel, and then not have any further responsibility for what he does with that feedback. If nothing else, it could be valuable to me later, because I might have him again (at my engineering school there were really only about 5 professors, so I was guaranteed to have other classes with any professor) and it would be valuable for him and me to know that I am one of the students who is actually there to get an education rather than just there because mommy and daddy sent me.
BTW I noticed the further along I got in school, the less those kinds of students were around. They had all dropped out because they found out that studying was actually work, and they were there because they got free tuition from parents and figured they owuld get out of a couple of years of real work. BY the time I was in my 3rd and 4th year, everyone there was serious, and the classes developed into such that the prof knew this.
I can absolutely relate to your post missmeliss. I feel other people's feelings for them too. I feel what I imagine they might feel. I feel what they could feel if I was to feel like X. Sometimes I get in such a muddle I don't know which way is up anymore. By that stage I've certainly lost sight of what I actually feel for me. I'm particularly sensitive to anticipating potential feelings of shame, embarrassment, sadness, disappointment. I anticipate that they might feel these things if such and such would happen and then I get in the way and intervene so they never have to feel it. In the meantime, I feel it and it wasn't even mine to feel in the first place! I guess that's part of the 'enabling' behaviour. It's not just limited to my qualifier though, it applies to everyone else too as you describe. Sometimes I think I don't know where I stop and the other person begins, there is such leakage/permeation of feelings between us. I guess this is where boundaries come in handy. I want to work on this but am starting by bringing my awareness to it. Your post helps with that. Thankyou.
