[Jackiejdajda]

RavenSong

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 am still afraid to stay up late because it is against some rule that was drummed into me..
I walk around in the middle of the nite and worry that someone is going to come out and yell at me..
Its so weird.. I know I have a right to just wander around.. and hubby says he no longer works so me waking him up is no big deal..
But still..
I can hear my dad saying.. “Go to bed Jackie!”
And I can hear my hubby telling me that I woke him up and he had to get up at five o’clock to go and work fourteen hours.. and if he gets fired its all my fault..
Darn..
But then its on me again.. I stayed in the situation with hubby.. I could have sorted a better way.. I finally got my own bedroom after the kids moved out and I no longer disturbed him when he had a fourteen hour day ahead of him..
But my dad.. is still in there..

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.

The either or.. scenario..
Panic mode.. I have to go today and get more x-rays or whatever they do.. radiology..
They are watching some ‘stuff’ on my body.. and making sure it is not growing and growing..
I am scared and I don’t want to go.. but I have to go to this in case there is ‘stuff’ growing.. which there is not..
But I want to go and hide.. coward that I am..

After I post this I am going to get ready.. wish me luck.

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.

Melody Beattie is a wise woman.. very very wise woman..
I have read all of her books.. I have digested them.. I have typed up them.. and I thank her with all my heart for writing down her words..

IMO that book (Codependents Guide to the Twelve Steps) is her personal twelve steps on codependency.. and she was willing to share them with the world..

I do not think we are ever done with the twelve steps.. every time we do them there is something new..

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...

From Codependents Guide to the Twelve Steps..

Step Two

Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity….

page 30

The Second Step puts us on track – a new track – a course that holds more power and direction than we have on our own. It is the transition Step. It takes us from where we are to where we want to go..

All we are asked to do now is believe. In fact, all we are asked to do is “come to believe.” We do that by opening our minds and hearts and connecting with other recovering people..


Soooo we are powerless.. over people places and things and we can not control..
If a woman/man has been in hiding.. keeping secrets.. the joining with others that really get it that they are powerless and they can not control.. takes a person to another place.. and gives us permission to finally share what we have gone through.. openly..
I can remember Bradshaw saying or writing.. that our secrets are all secrets.. and sharing them connects us..

I know keeping the secret about giving my son up separated me from my sister.. Separated me from my friends..
And I could not understand why no one wanted to get intimate with me.. not really intimate..
And all along it was me.. I was controlling it..

Page 34

“I kept wanting to go completely crazy. I never did, but I thought it would feel good because then I could express all the stuff inside me. I didn’t know that’s exactly what I needed to do.”

And this stuff is deep.. and this stuff renders us vulnerable..
But we can protect ourselves we can say no..

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.

Its such a wonderful thing to accept..
That control thing makes us nuts.. gives us hurts inside..

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.

We get approval from our peers.. from those who have walked the walk..
We accept that some people are never ever going to get it..
Ah.. the lessons of the desert..

page 19... Further Along the Road Less Traveled.. Scott Peck..

...So the myth is true. We really can not go back to Eden.. We must go
forward through the desert. But the journey is hard and consciousness
is often painful. And so most people stop their journey as quickly as
they can. They find what looks like a safe place, burrow into the
sand, and stay there rather than go forward through the painful
desert, which is filled with cactuses and thorns and sharp rocks..


Even if most people have been taught at one time or another that
"those things that hurt, instruct" (to borrow Benjamin Franklin's
phrase), the education of the desert is so painful they discontinue it
as early as they can..


Senility is not just a biological disorder. It can also be a
manifestation of a refusal to grow up, a psychological disorder
preventable by anyone who embarks on a lifetime pattern of
pyschospiritual growth. Those who stop learning and growing early in
their lives and stop changing and become fixed often lapse into what
is sometimes called their "second childhood". Then become whiny and
demanding and self-centered. But this isn't because they have entered
their second childhood. They have never left their first, and the
veneer of adulthood is worn thin, revealing the emotional child that
lurks underneath..



Growing up Painfully..

When we were banished form Paradise, we were banished forever. We can
never go back to Eden. If you remember the story, the way is barred
but cherubim's and a flaming sword..


We cannot go back. We can only go forward..


To go back to Eden would be like trying to return to our mother's
womb, to infancy.. Since we cannot go back to the womb or infancy, we
must grow up.. We can only go forward through the desert of life,
making our way painfully over parched and barren ground into
increasingly.. deeper levels of consciousness..


This is an extremely important truth because a great deal of human
pathology, including the abuse of drugs, arises out of the attempt to
get back to Eden.. At cocktail parties we tend to need at least that
one drink to help diminish our sef-consciousness, to diminish our
shyness. It works, right? And if we get just the right amount of pot
or coke or some combination thereof, for a few minutes or a few hours
we may regain temporarily the lost sense of oneness with the universe.
We may recapture that deliciously warm and fuzzy sense of being one
with nature again..


Of course, the feeling never lasts very long and the price isn't
usually worth it.. So the myth is true.. We cannot go back to Eden..


Jackie