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Miracles In Progress 12 Step Recovery Forums -> Al-Anon Family Group -> Al-Anon Family Group -> How I remember them/moving forward
Post Info TOPIC: How I remember them/moving forward
Giancarlo


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How I remember them/moving forward
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I'm not really sure how to start this, my therapist thinks it would be productive for me to post here, maybe help me find some catharsis. I guess the easiest place to start is with the obvious. 
 
I'm here because I was raised in an abusive environment.. I like saying it like that "abusive environment" if feels very mechanical almost sanitary as if all the ugliness behind the words has been washed off. 
 
It also paints a very simple picture, there's me the abused and my parents the "abusers". But contrary too all the evidence I still don't see them that way. My abusers, they're just my Mom and Dad and they love me as best they can. Even if they hit me once in awhile or exposed me to things I shouldn't have seen. 
 
I don't hold it against them. How could I? They tried as best they could. I'm sure it wasn't easy, neither of them had good upbringings. In many ways they suffered worse mistreatment than me.
 
But that doesn't make it alright, does it? 
 
It doesn't make it okay to lock yourself in the bathroom and let your ten year old son beg you not to kill yourself. It doesn't make it okay to hit your wife in front of him to tell him he's worthless, or threaten to smash his skull because he loaded the dishwasher wrong. 
 
Just because they did a better job than there parents that doesn't make it ok. So why do I forgive them? Why don't I hate them?
 
I don't even mind when my mom lies about the drinking anymore. When I'm cleaning s**off her and she's lying naked in the bathtub crying and drunk. When my dad throws plates and mugs at me, or tells me I'm a f**** a*** because I had the nerve to suggest he see a  therapist.
 
Why don't I mind? That should hurt. It used to hurt. When I was younger it drove me mad, I lashed out got into fistfights, did drugs, I nearly went insane. Now it's just routine. 
 
See but the apathy that's not what keeps me up at night, not even all those ugly things I've seen or the just random cruelty of it all. 
 
No, I've spent hours upon hours passing memories back and forth with my therapist, taking them apart and putting them back together again. Till all the sharp edges are nearly rounded off. And with time and medication I'm confident eventually the nightmares will stop and the panic episodes will subside and all I'll be left with is the memories of my parents. 
 
That's What really hurts. How I'm going to remember them. Not as the loving parents who cared for me when I was a child; the mother who taught me how to ride a bike and the father who took me out of school to go see Star Wars because he missed me. Instead I'll remember them as angry drunken violent people. 
 
That's who they've become to me. 
 
I miss the people they were, I miss the person I was becoming with them. Who I am now, who I've had to become to co-exist with them. I'm callous and distrusting, constantly trying to pry people apart inspecting them ,never really trusting anyone. 
 
I want nothing more than to leave, to run away. So I can salvage whatever's left of myself.
 
But I can't leave because I've got people who rely on me. Brothers and sisters who need me to shield them and make sure their lives are better than mine was. And I've been told "you shouldn't light yourself on fire to keep others warm". But how could I live with myself knowing the cost of my happiness is theirs. 
 
I don't think I could. 
 
Alright I know that was meandering and not an entirely coherent wall of text, but surprise surprise my therapist was right I do feel better having said all that. If you read all this way thanks for listening and I hope you maybe got something out of it even if it's just the knowledge that your not suffering alone. 
 
 
 


-- Edited by hotrod on Wednesday 4th of May 2016 06:07:34 AM

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hotrod


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Welcome to Miracles in ProgressGiancarlo,I am pleased that you found us and had the courage to share with such clarity and honesty. Alcoholism is a dreadful, chronic, progressive disease that can be arrested but never cured. It is a disease over which we are powerless.  We who live with the disease develop many negative coping mechanisms in order to survive so I do understand your ambivalence and  uncertainty.  You are not alone. 

Living with the disease is destructive to everyone so that reaching out for support is a great step. I'm glad that you are in counseling and I would like to suggest that you search out either an Al-Anon or ACOA. Face-to-face meeting in order to get additional support from people who truly understand. Face-to-face meetings are held in most communities and the hotline number is in the white pages .

It is here that I learned how to keep the focus on myself, live one day at a time, let go of my anger, resentment, self-pity and fear generated by the past, and develop healthy tools to face life with courage serenity and wisdom. You can do the same

Please keep coming back you're not alone

 



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Betty

THE HIGHEST FORM OF WISDOM IS KINDNESS

Talmud
missmeliss


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Hi and welcome Giancarlo.
There is for sure a lot of healing to be found in sharing your story, listening to the story of others and realising that others have experienced the things that we thought were our "horrible secrets". I found that by working through the al-anon program I was released from a lot of the horrors of the past and instead became free to be myself. I also found that through that process I started to see (and pursue) choices that I had not been able to see before.
You may find that the same happens for you and the "impossible" situation you currently find yourself in with regards to being bound to the situation out of obligation and love for your siblings might have a lot of alternative solutions.

I see al-anon as a "teach a man to fish" sort of program; no-one will tell you what to do but if you work at it, clarity and the ability to make choices in your own best interest are the rewards.

Good on you for reaching out; there's plenty of healing to be found in al-anon and in ACOA as Betty mentioned, if you want it

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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)
Mirandac


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Face to face alanon meetings can help you.

The program is about you healing From the
inside out and you learning to make healthy
And good choices for yourself and your life.

Welcome and hugs

((((( giancarlo)))



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Jerry F


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(((Giancarlo )))  Aloha brother and welcome to the board.  I read your post and realize you found my biography with the exception of how Al-Anon and ACOA and AA are included.   Mine does also include the therapist...wonderful caring people.  My value systems kept me in the battle and the disease until I was 37 and then turned away toward where the help was.  My parents were also abusive with the focus more on my mother.  She didn't drink that I ever remember she was one of the several daughters of the disease and drank of her angst and anger and rage...she was good at punishing and it didn't work because I duplicated that emotional personality.  I let the abuses from  inside of my family and including the streets teach me how to even scores and yes I started to embellish it all with alcohol myself...I married women who drank and the picture of my life became complete.  Use your experience and imagination to fill in the empty spaces with consequences; the courts and the police and such.  I starved for sanity and serenity and at the age of 37, married to my second addict/alcoholic wife having just freshly stopped drinking and for the 2nd time entered the Al-Anon Family Groups in central valley California and they allowed me to stay even telling me "keep coming back" after I presented them with my own variation of hell. 

That was the first example I recognized as unconditional love.  The loved me and showed me love "in spite" of who I was at that time and how I presented that personality.

I was loving and caring conditionally when the chemicals  of insanity were not raging and when they were...oh well...I was doing the best I could with what I had which was oppositional defiance and attention deficit.

There were so many other entities besides my family of origin that played a part in the disease and were also attached to my family of origin and upbringing.  None of us knew at the time and didn't even know that we didn't know.  Blaming is moot.  I learned and came to understand that it was what it was and the only person who could and would heal me with the help of a power much greater than myself was in fact me.  When I got "the program of recovery" committed to it outside of any input from my sick family of origin (I separated from "all things alcohol" as suggested by my sponsor) and my alcoholic/addict wife and ex-wife, I was surrounded only by recovering people from the same genre and I started experiencing miracles of recovery.  The program is and was magic and mystery for me.  It works when you work it and working it for me comes with an attitude of humility...being teachable.  "If you keep an OPEN MIND you will find help" is only one direction mentioned at the end of our face to face meetings.

I empathize with you and offer you compassion.  What you have gone thru is real and ugly and your value system kept you in it and at it with out question.  You helped when it hurt and you created justifications to keep standing in the way of your sanity.  You arrived in the therapist's office and the therapist has turned you around to face a "self help, social model, recovery program" that is world wide and very successful for those who commit to working it.  We are not a religion and work the program religiously, daily within our minds, bodies, spirits and emotions.  That sounds fanatical however it is so very far from that description unless you imagine the picture of a man fighting for his life.

Alcoholism is a fatal disease...we fight for our lives...we do not surrender them as we use to because we have learned it was not necessary and was not sane.

Welcome to the board...stick around, keep coming back, listen and learn and then practice, practice, practice.    (((((hugs))))) smile 



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KennyFenderjazz


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Hi Giancarlo,

Perhaps these brothers and sisters that depend on you (I don't know their age, that would make a difference) could be taught how to deal with their family instead of shielded from them? perhaps they could all be taken to Al Anon or Ala Teen?

Kenny

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Iamhere


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Welcome Giancarlo to MIP - so glad that you found us and so very glad that you shared. I was at an Al-Anon meeting today and a gal was celebrating her Al-Anon anniversary. She's 77 years old, and first came to the rooms in 1965 - 51 years ago. She's been able to do some family history and has determined that she is the 6th generation living with the affects of the disease. She suggested she married an alcoholic and her offspring are also diseased as well as some grands. She did not say this with extreme sadness, she shared it so people can truly understand the reach this disease has and that it truly continues on in spite of the best efforts of recovery from either/both sides.

Your honest share tells me that you are already practicing self-care with your counseling and your post here. I also struggled with the concept of saving myself at the expense of others who depend on me - but came to understand that I am not of any value to anyone if I am as sick as the alcoholics that brought me to recovery/seek help. For all the time I spent protecting my boys from the disease, what I've learned is that they see me as far crazier than my Alcoholic Husband and they resent the heck out of me for trying to be both parents. They love him unconditionally.

So, my insanity caused by this disease and my never-ending 'love' caused as much damage as the diseased person, if not more in my home. My hope is that you continue to come back here, and go to a few meetings to get support from those who understand and will listen/share without judgement. People beyond this disease do not understand what it is like living with it, but those who have BTDT (Been There & Done That) get it and can offer support like no other.

So glad your writing here brought you a bit of peace - I often think that an issue shared is almost divided - more folks can share your pain, worry, frustration or _______________.

Keep coming back - you are not alone!

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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

 

 
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