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'm new here...second post. Something that I have been really struggling with is not taking insulting, hurtful words personally. When they are said by someone who is supposed to love you. The worst part about it is that I already feel like crap about certain areas of my life....especially my social life. We live about 10 miles out of town in a beautiful canyon in a beautiful home. We built this home when my daughter was 6 and she loved it at first. We went above and beyond to make sure she and my son had social lives with little friends coming and going - driving back and forth so she wouldn't be feeling left out, trying different activities. But now, at 17, she says that I don't do anything or go anywhere. She keeps bringing this up. I don't know why I feel like I have to justify my life to her. I don't - I keep my mouth shut when she does this. I do what other moms do as a SAHM plus I have a career I built by myself which I have been doing for 13 years. So because the majority of my life is at home, I guess I am now a loser in her eyes. The sad thing is that she is the one actually doing "nothing"...she goes to the town park and sits around with homeless friends and drinks and who knows what else. So maybe she's projecting onto me. Because I have dedicated my life to being a mother and wife - arranging Dr. appointments, volunteering at school, dealing with pets, cooking meals, doing chores that every adult has to do, trying to fit exercise in, trying to meet people once in a great while for social gatherings, plus building my art career to the point where I can now truly help with our finances...for some reason her digs get to me way more than they should. I guess I feel like I left a lot of social ties behind when I got busy with my family - and I was perfectly happy when the kids were little. When my daughter started having problems around age 11/12 I suddenly realized what a vacuum I was in with her with little support. So that has been something I've been forcing myself to do...get out more - go for walks with other moms and small stuff like that. Try to have a separate life away from this, but we always end up talking about our kids or problems. I fear I will push people away by talking to much about this.
Sometimes I feel like I am looking at a reflection of myself when I see my daughter's problems - it's that she triggers me and sends me back to the days that I was a black out drunk, doing stupid and dangerous things, thinking I wasn't doing anything different from anyone else my age. I'm sure many of you can relate if you are an ex drinker. I was so proud of myself for quitting and my new focus was on my baby - this gorgeous, sweet girl who is now my troubled, defiant daughter. I realize now how much social life I had when I was drinking - during the early years. It felt good and I felt free. But then came the drinking alone at night in another world, or worse, driving drunk to the bars after I had already had way too much while my husband was passed out in bed. Then the DUI and time in jail and fines. Awful memories this is triggering. I have never told my daughter that I don't drink because I have a problem with alcohol, but she knows I don't drink. Maybe she has put two and two together. She knows why her grandparents and aunt and uncle on my husband's side are gone.. three of them drank themselves to death and her uncle is homeless on drugs. My poor husband has enough to grieve and really I don't think he ever has greived. He is sort of a dry drunk as they call it...never went to AA or Al-Anon and he still drinks occasionally when we go out sometimes. I have let this go for now because I figure it is his path and he knows how much is at stake. It bothers me sometimes but I try to just not dwell. It's his path and if I start to go there, I will only resent him more instead of being proud of how far he has come. I know it's time to tell her about my former drinking problem, but it's so awkward and she despises me already. My therapist first said that I shouldn't tell her, then my therapist said maybe I should. Sorry for this rambling but I just don't know how to separate my feelings from reality. Reality is I should be proud of where I am today - our life is pretty good really. But it sure seems impossible to feel it right now because she keeps bringing up how small my life is...how boring...how ordinary. I'm really not trying to have a pity party but I guess I am. Time to get up and do something useful rather than dwell on this negativity. Have a great day everyone.
Strangeworld The results of living with the disease of alcoholism is that we lose our self esteem, make our needs and selves invisible, and take to heart any thing said about us.
Alanon offers a great tool to overcome this problem-- Each day writing out a gratitude and asset list, adding a new one each morning as well as sharing at an alanon meeting
The sharing keeps us focused on our own selves so we can easily see or motives, achievements, and successes. We learn how to own them and validate our selves as we process the program How great is that?
Hey strangeworld - before this program, I listened and took personally everything that my qualifiers said to me. I did not have the capacity to separate the disease from the person, and I was crushed further down with each nasty name, word, phrase, judgement, etc. Living with this disease can make us as insane as those with it, but there is hope and recovery in the program. I was provided with some great tools from the start and began practicing all that was shared with me. Things like detachment with love, boundaries, slogans - One Day at a Time, First Things First, JADE, QTIP - all of these were a gift to me that I had never spent a ton of time practicing relative to my qualifiers.
Choose to keep your focus on you and work this program - you will find answers, tools, solutions and much more - including support, fellowship and wonderful ESH.
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
I'm sorry this is happening. I learned something when I complained to my therapist about an interaction I had with my son. My son had said something insulting to me and I got upset. I was saying to my therapist that I should have been able to restrain myself and not get upset. She said, "Maybe he needs to learn that it's not okay to say insulting things to people." ! That had never occurred to me. I was so used to being insulted, in my family of origin, that I just assumed it was a given. I assumed it was my fault for minding. As it happens, my son is actually very considerate and that was an unusual event. I did express to him, calmly, later, that I was hurt at his remark, and tried to tell him better ways to handle things. (He insulted me because he himself was feeling upset about something else.) But if he were chronically insulting me, I think I would say, "Those things are hurtful and I just can't listen to them," and I'd remove myself. We don't have to live in environments where people are critical of us. That was a big revelation to me. I hear you worrying about whether you're actually boring and withdrawn, as your daughter accuses you. I think that's unlikely, but the bigger thing is - so what if you were? That doesn't give her license to critcize you. You get to choose how to live your life, and as long as it's not damaging to other people, your choice is perfectly fine. What is not perfectly fine is criticizing other people. I hope you'll take good care of yourself.
These times are so hard. Learning to separate from your teen is hard enough but then to be at the brink of throwing her out because of her alcohol use and refusing to go to school or look for work...I am so bad at this. I told her to find somewhere to stay tonight because she wanted to be picked up at 9...too late for us. It's getting very old this pretending to go to school... We drive her to school...hopeful she will go to at least some classes...and the deal has been that she stays after. When we found out about the drinking, it was too late to set rules because she will not show up to the car after school...so we've been allowing her to stay after "school" hoping by giving her space, she will continue to go to school on her own will. WE, as parents, have made mistakes and the biggest one is letting her run the show for so long - but honestly we have tried consequences too, and for some people, they simply don't work. All they do is push them further away and against you even more. And into the fire they go. Maybe we were too weak at the time - and she was determined to make life for everyone a living hell. So instead we decided to give her space. It hurts me to say that part of the reason we gave her space is because we needed space too - the house feels healthier without her in it most of the time. It's time she starts to move on and gain some responsibility. But instead, she chooses to sit around at the park drinking with these people - only God knows who. She does have a few friends that went to her school who are older - she says she's staying there but I think she might be sleeping in the park. Dangerous life. And she's 17 and out of her mind. I pray to God that she has some true friends who will help her and hopefully protect her if anything does happen because right now she is vulnerable to pretty much anything. I'm babbling, sorry. I just feel like I'm straightening out my thoughts on here.
Betty, you are so right. We do lose our self esteem. And I'm so worried about my daughter's self esteem - probably why she is in this situation right now...also with genetic alcoholism now coming into the picture.
Iamhere, thanks, you give me hope that it can be done through knowledge and hard work. The detaching with love is truly difficult concept for me right now. I want to protect her from the world but that wouldn't do her any good in the long run. I want her to grow up and allowing her to run the show is not working at all anymore.
Mattie, your therapist sounds great. You always hear that you have to be the adult and keep calm and be the "example". Dr. Phil always blames the parents when their kids get like this...my daughter used to watch Dr. Phil religiously...thanks Dr. Phil. I agree to an extent, but when we have tried to provide a healthy, sober enviornment and she still ended up reckless, I blame society and peers and my daughter - maybe not in that order. I let my daughter have it the other night and I am not proud of it...I have never used the f bomb with her but she used it at me in a text and I was livid about how she spoke to me. So I said exactly what she said to me back at her. She was drunk though so she probably didn't even care. I could hardly control myself I was so angry.
I will keep going to the F2F meetings. I enjoy being around peaceful individuals who seem intelligent and caring. I need to find another one with a different format - the one I've been going to is "literature" and there is no cross talk. But I still enjoy listening to the shares. I will keep reading and going to the meetings. Even before my daughter got into alcohol and pot, a therapist in 2013 suggested Al-anon. She said it helps anyone learn to not be so co-dependent. This therapist had to ask her son to leave at 17 because of his drinking and he lived on the streets for a year. I keep thinking about that and thinking to myself - and here she is a therapist...and her son went down the wrong path too.
