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.
Both the A and his brother have significant substance abuse issues. When the A's mother decided out of the blue to move out and go marry some guy several states away she didn't think twice about kicking the A's older brother out to live on his own.
Right now the older brother is showing lots of signs of a deep depression. First of all he is living in a deprived state, he doesn't have cooking facilities where he is, secondly he just let his car go, refuses to fix it and is withdrawing from life. The A says he is concerned about him.
Normally this would be the cue for me to run in on my white charger and save him. I am just a junkie for rescue. Everything in me wants to rush over and fix him. Of course I can't really. He has to grieve whatever issues he has with his mother and her dumping him and moving out. I am sorry I know I should be all sweetness and light about this woman's need to go off and marry some guy at that age in her life. I am happy for her at the same time I think she has no concern for anyone but herself. I know where the A learned to be totally self centered from her.
Right now of course after being in al anon for a year (almost) I have some sense of self preservation. I have very very little energy to spare. What I have to spare I am using to try to get a better job. I have been working two jobs and it is back breaking physically and emotionally. I've been setting limits with the A left right and center.
I know this latest issue with his brother is my cue to pull off aother "rescue" and I am not doing it. I am concerned about him but I am also concerned about me. The new issue is that I am in the picture, I am no longer willing to sacrifice me for others. I know the A would also like me to go all out and cook thanksgiving and right now I am not. I have a ton of bills (some of which are his which I have had to pay like the insurance on the truck) I am not taking on his brother too.
Rescue is huge for me. I have nearly destroyed myself resucing others wihtout putting me in the picturre. I know I was trained to do this as a child and I am not willing to do it anymore. I have to stop and this is one day when I say I can't help.
When I inventoried my rescuing, what was glaringly apparent was my motive. I was self serving in every reguard. I had never asked you if you wanted me to interviene; I had never asked you if you wanted to be saved; I had never asked you if your methods of living weren't working, or if you were in the process of refining living methods, or if you were changing living methods and were in a transition period. No, I assumed as soon as I percieved (note that I am assuming here) that you are having difficulties, that you needed rescuing.
As was shared in a meeting here earlier, the results were never as intended. You would become resentful, defiant, obnixious, and self serving yourself--from your prospective, what had you done to deserve my abrasive forms of control? What hell hath you wroght to earn the dubious privlige of my insanity? What could you do to free yourself from my grasp? Of course, the harder you tried to free yourself of a relationship to me, the harder I tried to keep you in a relationship, and the more destructive methods each of us turned to in order to try and stop the behavior of the other. In some cases, rightfully, you were in need of assistance; but, justifiably, you wanted the dignity to make mistakes. In other cases, rightfully, it was none of my business, and I needed to step out of the way--I owed you an amends, clear and simple.
But as so can a motive to interviene be dubious if not destructive, so also can a motive to not interviene. It is consistent that any person held prisoner to their addiction needs to suffer direct consequences of their addicion to fully actualize what their addiction causes others and themselves. Any decision made with intense emotion--anger, shame, shock, fear--has resentment built in, pre installed. Perhaps it is that the results will not come out as we wanted to; perhaps it is that time will not go as we expect; perhaps it is simply, (I'm guilty of this too) we will wish harm upon others that are already suffering. Whatever the case decisions not made in prayer are bound to backfire, cause hurt to the hurting, and resentments against ourselves especially.
Step aside so God can get at him . rescue only prolongs the problem . And I don't see mom dumping him if he is older than your husb he should be on his own anyway and mom definetly has a right to a life of her own. remember MYOB and you will be just fine .
I certainly agree Mum has her right to her own life.
Unfortunately for me I allowed her needs to dominate mine just as I allowed everyone else's needs to dominate.
I did a really good job staying out of her wedding and when she had to pack which demanded that everyone stop everything for her. Nevertheless her actions affected me. I lessened their affect but there they were. For the last 6 years her demand that all the holidays be about HER only affected me. This year I don't have to deal with that but I do have to deal the demand from her sons implicitly that I rescue them and pay for their thanksigivng. Since I am barely making it financially I am opting out but it is hard to say no when you are manipulated. Even to get to the point of saying I am being manipulated is hard because I want to believe in fairy tales rather than in reality. My reality at the moment is ugly.
I don't think it is wrong to care about others. I just have to stop and think before I take actions that might affect me down the road. Right now I have nothing much to give so I don't.
I don't know that I would go so far as being asTiger is. I grew up in an incredibly dysfunctional family where my mother and father effectively reversed roles. They wer ethe children who had to be taken care of in every way. Their methods of doing that were to lie, cheat, steal, manipulate, abuse, cajole do whatever it took to get them met because they certainly had no idea how to meet their own needs (which undoutedly included professional counselling).
I had no idea how to take care of myself and meet my own needs, I was and still am incredibly easily manipulated and abused. I am less so now. I am also really prone to being "played" by people like the A I live with. They want me to pull out al the holiday stops I'm not going to. I am not going to not because I want to punish them but because I don't have it to give. That is a different place for me to be in. I don't have it I don't give it. I have given myself away to the point of emotional, spiritual and moral bankruptcy I just do not do that anymore.
Surrender is really it for me. The kind of rotting horrible resentment I have had towards the A has had to stop because I could not live in that cesspit anymore and one way is to stop giving to him when it hurts me. I have told him that of course he believes in his power to manipulate but I'm at the point of surrender which is a powerful place rather than a powerless place.
Well TT I totally think its ok for the mother to run off and marry whoever she chooses. I chose not to be part of the wedding or any of the celebrations. Nevertheless I do not think some of the things she said to me about being fat, about being lazy, and her berating me when I called her when her son was in the hospital were not ok. I recognize she has her own issues, I have mine but that was not ok in my book there was never any reason for her to be rude to me. That is one reason I choose not to have much to do with her. She can have whatever life she wants I certainly don't allow her the opening to berate me again. I certainly understand she has had a very very hard life and certainly having two sons who have substance abuse issues can't be easy. I understand that too. At the same time I have boundaries these days and if someone is rude to me the walls come down, no matter who they are they come down. I didnt have them before and that's one reason I ended up with an A.
It sounds like your self preservation is improving, as it usually does in Alanon. That's great! Just an observation now, and some devil's advocate... Do you 'have to' pay his car insurance bill? Are the consequences of the bill not being paid yours or his? When it's time, does he 'have to' pay your insurance? Just food for thought. It *WILL* get better.
No I don't pay his car insurance. I pay the insurance for a truck that has his name on it too (don't ask me why that's a long long story). The truck is the metaphor for the relationship. He uses it I get access very very rarely. If I get access he acts like he is doing some incredible favor to me. I've been to some pretty raw places over that truck but that is indeed the metaphor for the relationship. It all has to be on his terms otherwise he will get nasty and leave and go on some binge or punish me in many many ways.
I used to believe him that he was paying insurance for the truck well he wasn't. Right now he has a speeding ticket, he is very very likely not to pay the speeding ticket, he usually doesn't. Therefore at some point he is going to be picked up probably in the truck. If I didn't have insurance on it I probably wouldn't get it back (new law in CA).
So I don't pay for anything I don't have to anymore (no Thanksgiving for example) but while I own the truck I try to keep it legal. I have not yet formulated the plan of how to get it back to entirely mine. I know since he is violent, mean, a liar, and more that I will probalby have to leave to do that. I also know it may mean a court order so the more I pay for it and take care of it the more likely I am going to get it legally transferred to my name in time. Long long story never help an A they totally destroy you in the helping. I know without a doubt now anytime I help him he will punish me for it so I no longer help him.
I also know the kind of resentment I have felt about that truck has nearly destroyed me. I helped him out he doesn't appreciate it. That is what it comes down to. What more do I expect with an A. He respects no one except a few friends who he will do anything for. I don't believ these days he ever loved me for one second. I also think that he just sees me as a bank, an emotional bank, a financial bank and as someone who will always be there for him. Those days are now numbered. I have been to the point of total despair over his crashing the truck and then finding out he wouldn't even put out a hundred dollars a month for the insurance. He clearly does not care, does not want to be responsible and just wants always to lay it all at my feet. Whatever he does I am always responsible for his not having more. I'm tired of hearing it. I am also tired of dealing with his tantrums, sulks, chaos and craziness.
Normally I have to say I would be worried sick about his speeding ticket. I'm not I detached there is nothing I can do about it and I am not going into debt to help him again no way no how not after all he has put me through. I have covered my side of the street. If the truck is impounded I am the co owner they will have to let me know. I 'll deal with it then, I may not want to but I will just as I deal with him every day of the week one day at a time. . I am certainly absolutely not paying his ticket for him. Those days of "helping him" are gone, very very long gone. I am also certainly not losing sleep over it. He was the one in the truck driving at warp speed not me. I was not with him in the truck then but no doubt he'll find some way to blame me. I am through being blamed.
Now when he goes out I don't wonder when he'll be back I'm just glad he's gone. I don't miss him at all and I don't even have any grief about not having a holiday this year. I never had anything with him but grief, anger and sadness anyways. Why try anymore?
