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 in a bad mood today. About an hour ago I threw a tantrum at my computer and the cried like an overtired 3 year old while my daughter sat staring at me in horror.
So I figure I'll write it out here and try to figure out where the silver linings are.
Issue 1. I had to withdraw from a couple of subjects this semester; they had an attendance requirement and daughter and I were both sick for several weeks meaning I missed too many classes from the outset to pass. I was still enrolled in a full time study load and I withdrew from these extraneous subjects prior to census date.
Well apparently I have to pay a $200 administration fee for each subject. And I don't have $400. At all. And if I did it would go to something urgent, not an arbitrary fee for having a receptionist click 'delete' one time. It's pretty over the top.
So as long as I have this debt I cannot access my results, or enrol in anything ie the summer school and online classes I now need to access to catch up on the 2 classes I withdrew from.
Anyway there is a form for this and it states that i must have documentation from a professional (a professional what?). I have a couple of med certificates for myself but not for daughter who was just home in bed with the flu and I wasn't going to drag her to the doctor just to get me a medical certificate if you see my reasoning. (And it's far too late now).(I didn't even know I would need to do any of this).
So I decided earlier to give up (on everything) (I've really got the miseries today lol) and I have heard that we have a student assistance program which I thought was just a telephone advisory service for coping with exam stress etc. Well I called it hoping for some sort of great idea and I was told that actually, my university provides payment for 3 counselling sessions with a counsellor of my choice (from a vast list) to discuss whatever I want/need to discuss. OK there's my silver lining. I've been wishing I could afford to see a counsellor for years and the budget just won't allow it. I've made a lot of progress with myself and my HP and my program and chatting to other al-anoners but there are things I remain stuck on and 3 free sessions and my pick of people...that's gold. That's a big fat gift from HP. So I'm going tomorrow and first I will have them hopefully write a letter that explains that stress and over-commitment and single parenthood and illness all led to my incurring a fee that I cannot pay...and then after that maybe we can work on some of the other nonsense that my head is full of.
Issue 2)
I contacted a mowing guy who was advertising a good price and he got back in touch with me at 11:30pm when he seemed quite..chatty? I suspected he was drunk but we made a date and time anyway (I figured it was Friday night and if I hadn't been awake I wouldn't have seen the message so no harm).
Anyway the night before he was due to come and mow he sent me a message to say "if it's too wet tomorrow I wont come until the ground has dried". We had no rain but he didn't turn up anyway and then sent me some weird messages in the morning from which I deduced, he was either drunk or hungover and that was why he hadn't turned up.
Now I used to mow with my xabf who was always drunk or hungover and never turned up to jobs so I recognised it all very quickly. And old me would have felt sympathy and, I think, probably would have wanted him to KNOW I felt sympathy/ that I understood. he messaged me later in the day to say that he would come by and mow in the evening...i told him I would be out so no thank you...he suggested I leave the money in the meter box...I've never met him and he's already unreliable so, no thanks. Once I would have; I would have felt too guilty to indicate that i didnt trust him and I probably would have cancelled my plans so as to be home at the inconvenient time he had arbitrarily announced that he would turn up at.
But that was then and I really don't have any time or patience for this nonsense any longer. So the lawn grows longer and more lush by the day and I have now spent the money i had put aside for mowing so, just lol. What is it with me and the lawns? The house is sort of starting to look like it might contain a princess who has been asleep for 100 years (which is sort of what I feel like today lol). We will soon need machetes to hack our way through the front yard whenever we need to leave the premises.
The silver lining is, I didn't allow sympathy or that weird habit I have of thinking I HAVE to do what someone requests that I do to influence my decision to unceremoniously fire drunk mowing guy.
So there we go, 2 silver linings to today's most pressing problems. Now i just need to think up some gratitudes and I'll be set.
Thanks for reading.
(((everyone)))
-- Edited by MissM on Tuesday 11th of October 2016 02:03:05 AM
-- Edited by MissM on Tuesday 11th of October 2016 02:21:25 AM
Ah Miss M -- great share. Congrats on getting therapy and congrats on doing the "next right thing" with drunk lawn guy. I put an ad up for someone to do some home repair jobs for me and got a response from a guy who said he could be there in an hour to take a look at it -- he came on time but was drunk. It was him and his assistant and they smelled like the inside of a keg. I was thinking, "oh, I should let them do it, because maybe they really need the work and they'll do okay, and their poor families must be hurting and could really use the money" and then I dope slapped myself and said -- I do NOT need to give this job to these people - why am I jumping right in here????. In the end, they never even got back to me with a quote for the job. Oh the crazy things we do! :)
They are crazy things we do; I was contemplating this just before and thinking, you know it has been my choice, for almost 40 years, to always make decisions based on what i think will be best for other people (or what i think will make them like me/love me/ rescue me). The result has been so many ruined opportunities and poor financial decisions and general compromises that went against my better judgement and in turn I have not succeeded at a lot of things (a good example of this is, when my xabf had his mowing business he was always too drunk/hung over/depressed to go to work and he would insist that unless I "helped" him he would not work and thus he would not pay his half of the rent leaving me in an awful situation).
Instead of saying 'so be it" and moving out I quit my studies for over a year because i had to go and mow lawns (for no pay) because I couldn't leave him and if he lost his business then he might give up on life and maybe I could keep it going until he 'got better" and blah blah blah. This is one example of about a million where I chose to do something harmful to my own life/well-being/ambitions to "help" someone who clearly wasn't actually benefiting or growing or doing anything other than making short term trivial gains from my inept decisions.
And then, on top of this, I have elected to berate myself for my failure to progress financially, academically, socially, etc etc. I've really been an ass to myself in every way possible.
I'm so glad to be finally learning better ways and seeing the value in valuing and honoring myself for everyone....not just me (example to daughter, consequences for others, listening to My HP instead of trying to be everyone else's).
Now to cap off this craptacular day I've just colored my hair (roots) and when i checked on it daughter and I both sort of stood there gaping in shock and horror because the color smeared all over my roots is not blonde as on the package but brown...OMG right? Disaster! Well I've washed it out and it's actually brilliant; I don't think I could have gotten a better balayage effect if I'd paid hundreds of dollars for it. It's one of the grooviest mistakes I've ever made.
More silver linings, thanks HP
-- Edited by MissM on Tuesday 11th of October 2016 05:39:47 AM
Hi Ms.M. Thanks for the great share. I too am pleased that you have found the way to receive support with resolving these charges and whatever other issues you may choose. Good luck.
As for the "Drunken Lawn man" and people pleasing I too have made decisions to please strangers so they would not feel bad about their behavior . Thanks to alanon I see we have both learned from out past mistakes.
Today's quote in C2C by Soren Kienkegaard; "life can only be understood backwards but it must be lived going forward" says it all.
I know the lawn will be mowed eventually and love your new descriptive word. "craptacular day" I have had many such days.
Keep on keeping on You will get through this -- You have walked through more difficult storms.
To me, you're describing one of the wonderful miracles of AlAnon: I matter.
How is it that most of the time I need to look up words in what you write? Love it!
Congrats and kudos to you for knowing deep down that you, too, matter.
Aaand...it's 3am. I've been up too late binge watching a show and telling myself that I will go to bed in 10 minutes for the last 3 hours.
Drunk oldest brother has just started to message me, a lot. Thus far I have learned that he believes our parents have split up and will announce it soon (could be true, mother hasn't said anything but she probably wouldn't and I've wondered myself if they were headed for a split..)....he feels middle brother is off the reservation and suicidal (middle brother hasn't been answering texts for 2 weeks, after we had a long depressing chat one night and mother is worried enough to stay home while he sleeps for 40 hours at a time so, once again, could be true and probably is) AND...brother the first also wants me to know that he enlisted himself today, so there's that. He wants a change of scene. Maybe he'll love it; he's very disciplined. IDK. I live 2 hours away; there's very little I can do about any of it. He's also very sensitive to criticism so, the army? Does he know he won't be able to be drunk all the time?
Just when you think you have it all worked out; it's 3am and the worst problem you have is possibly being a little tired in the morning, the family crazy train shows up outside your door tooting it's whistle while freaking Brother the First leans drunkenly out the door screaming "ALL ABOARD!!!!!"
I'm sure all of these things have silver linings and they will become apparent in the morning.
-- Edited by MissM on Tuesday 11th of October 2016 07:30:37 PM
Thanks Betty, I did sleep. And was woken by the phone early this morning to let me know that the psychologist I was booked in to see today has called in sick. I cancelled my other appointments today so that I could attend so, hmm. I mean the guy is allowed to get sick but my first image was of him at the pub with the mowing guy, laughing at me, lol.
I guess i have mountains of work I should be doing and maybe that's the whole point to this day going the way that it has. Maybe I need some focus and discipline and less trying to distract myself with 'problems".
Still, gah.
Does he know he won't be able to be drunk all the time?