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.
A friend of mine who is also in the program has been helping me a lot lately to break my stuff down into small pieces and keep working on those pieces. Normally a holiday with the A around would be a nightmare. If he is not drinking or using he is just a lump stuck in the middle of the TV feeling sorry for himself. This weekend I had to work (money is such a huge huge huge issue for me). I am really working on not feeling resentful about it. There are of course lots of issues/strains/tensions at work. There are at any job. I am grateful for a job but also know I am severely underpaid. I also never really know when I will be working so it is hard to plan things. I wanted to see the friend this weekend but work had to take priority I need money so badly as I have none.
I have been going through my stuff, what do I need, what don't I need. It is hard in ways because I have things I would like to save but I cannot as I need to get really streamlined. I also have to say goodbye to wanting someone to save me. That is what got me with the A in the first place. I just have to do it all myself! And that is painful because I want family/friends/anyone to comfort me at this time. I want to feel supported, cared for, loved, all the things I never get from the A. I once did, admittedly but that is all gone now. All that is left is this bitter, totally self absorbed self destructive nightmare. He will lash out over anything and everything.
One huge stress is his mother is getting married in a matter of weeks. She is likely to unload some of her junk on us. Of course there is no where to put it unless the place i live at becomes a storage heap. At one time we had some storage but now that has been torn down. So the junk probably won't be coming here. His brother is being made homeless by the issue. He has thus far refused to say what he is doing. So I am leaving it alone. He is an adult, he can deal with it. As he has not said anything I have not made any plans to put him up even temporarily. If he says anything I will say I asked. Nevertheless the brother is famous for springing his demands and the A who has a conflicted relationship with him will jump because that is what he does. So I feel nervous about who is coming into the house next but that is always the issue. Whoever the A is involved with it, be it friend, business partner, neighbor, whoever invades my space all the time. The A is always going on and on and on about how I invade his space when in actual fact he is the one who does most of the invading. What would it be like to live around respect and mutual space I do not know. I have not experienced that.
I am trying to learn whatever my HP has in store for me around this relationship. The boundary stuff, the invasion stuff, the people pleasing stuff. The focusing only on me stuff, the getting organized stuff, the letting go stuff. I so so want to hit the A over the head with nagging and reminders and prompts but he doesn't respond to them. He can stew in his self pity I cannot do anything about it. I have my own life to live and try to get free of all the enmeshment that surrounds us. When I uncover and unentangel one mess he just brings another one to get me into. But this time I am not stepping up to the plate.
you sound like you know exactly what this is about. I dont feel from your post any weaknes. You are so strong, we can learn from you. I wish you the best in your recovery and life itself, we all deserve happy and peaceful life.
I think for me any time someone I care about is in transition (or refuses to go through transition) my life also goes through transition. Theres a certain motivation for me to grow along with this person--I think about the trips I "should have" taken; the relationships I "would have" had; the things I "could have" done. But more and more I see that one of the key things that has brought me to where I am today is that I am in process with a higher power who knows my journey better than I do. I have found that 1)any time I try to manage another individual/ institution/ intervention, my life will become unmanageable, simply because I am really trying to "fit" another to my comfort level; 2)anytime another tries to manage ME, I rebel, resist, or other wise fight, and BOTH our lives become unmanageable because I refuse to see any benefit to what the person/ institution/ intervention is offering me, and instead focus on the fact that I am being "constrained" some how; 3) anytime I try to manage my spritual growth, my spritual progress, or my path that my God has set me on, my life will become unmanageable and miserable because I am assuming again that I know what is best for me and that God does not know how to do His/Her job, reguardless of how often S/He has proven to me that this is not the case.
I have to remember this is a life of progress not perfection and no matter how far I progress in this program there is no level of perfection. Control, perfectionism, judgmentalism, all of these for me are ego based character defects that imply I know what is best for me and for another individual/institution/ intervention, when I haven't an I iota what the specfic circumstances are that have brought about the current one.
