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Originally Posted by Jackiejdajda
I grew up trying to control the situations in my home.. I was so scared that my mom would flip out.. get angry..
I still can not stand anger.. hate it.. I get panic attacks when anger is present.. in my home..
I run and hide and do not want to go on.. If I fight with my husband I go to divorce.. I am going to leave this life as it is and get on with the next one because this one is crap and awful and no one loves me..
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Jackie, I am scared of other peoples' anger, not so much my own, but that of family members and friends. I grew up feeling terrified of my mother, of her moods, of her judgments, of her expectations, of her anger. If she was angry at a situation or at someone else, her anger would inevitably fall on me. Sometimes I was fairly adept at feeling the change in the air, and I could escape to my bedroom and into my books. But often I was too late to escape...
I have a hard time dealing with anger in my own home. Like you, I tend to panic. Yesterday, we lost all our electrical power...it was off for 30 hours. And I started ranting and raving about how I hate living here in the mountains...how I miss the ocean. First, I started railing against the electric company, and soon I focused my anger and outburst on my partner. And then I went to that horrid place you talk about, this life is all crap and I want to get on to the next one, blah, blah, blah. I scared myself... I felt so hopeless, so helpless.
So I sat all alone in my living room last night and read the first three chapters in Beattie's
Codependents' Guide to the Twelve Steps. I sat there with a battery-operated headlamp on my head, and really read those chapters with a new understanding, I think.
Today, I know and accept that I am powerless over others--that my life has become unmanageable. I don't know how I'll feel tomorrow, but for today I think I've done Step One. And I think I'm ready to start looking at Step Two...
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Originally Posted by Jackiejdajda
From Codependents Guide to the Twelve Steps.. Melody Beattie.. page 25.. Step One.
Often, this Step puts us in touch with our feelings – feelings of fear, hurt, or shame. It puts us in touch with grief. At first, this Step can feel dark and frightening. It doesn’t have to, not for long. It renders us powerless over what we cannot control, so we can become empowered. Once we accept whatever loss or area of powerlessness we’re facing, we’re free to feel and deal with our feelings, then move forward with life.
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I think that's what happened to me last night--I accepted my powerlessness: over the electricity, over my partner, over current economic conditions, over where I'm living, over my relatives, over everything. God, I just can't seem to control any of it anymore! And I'm the one who's getting hurt by insisting I can make things better, when in reality I cannot. The unmanageability is inside me...it's that feeling that I'm going crazy.
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Originally Posted by Jackiejdajda
I can remember a therapist telling me that when someone can not control their lives around them they attack others.. my dad would attack me.. He would check to see if my home was clean.. he would shake his head when I would fall from grace.
And I was terrified of him when he was in his prime..
I hated his judgment.. hated it..
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Been there, done that... I think your therapist was very wise. I think most of my mom's anger when I was a child came out of her not being able to control her life. And I know that last night, my fit of anger came because I could not control the things around me...
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Originally Posted by Jackiejdajda
I grieve this inability of his to accept me as I was and to rejoice that I had finally bought a home.. mom was upset that the home was not on a ravine that was across the road.. I felt bad about that as well..
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Jackie, this sounds like the proverbial "are you proud of me now?", "do you love me now?" The adult child of a dysfunctional family... Whew, I do this all the time. And the results are never what I want them to be.
When I studied to be a physician, I wanted to be a pediatric oncologist. My dad didn't think that was good enough...he wanted me to be a surgeon, because that's where "the big bucks are". When I left med school, he didn't have to worry about that one anymore. I didn't have to listen to his judgments anymore on what type of doctor I should be.
When I first became a premed student, my parents were proud of me, I think. I was doing it all on my own, with no financial assistance from either of them...just my own student loans and grants and part-time jobs. But when I was actually accepted into med school, suddenly they both had their own ideas of what I should be. And I felt like I didn't meet their approval--so I just gave up in the end. (There were other reasons, as well.)
It's a hard thing to accept that we will never gain our parents' approval about
anything. I'm 54 years old, and I still hold onto that glimmer of hope that says, "maybe one day..." I know it's never going to come, but the hope is still inside me.