| Welcome to the Forums. | Register |
| If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ. You may have to register before you can post or search: click here to proceed. To start viewing messages, select a forum below that you would like to view or click View All of Todays Posts. | |
| Forum Categories |
|
 |
|
|
Thread Tools | Search this Thread | Display Modes |
|
#61
03-21-2006, 05:39 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
The thing is.. I believe we need to make ourselves strong.. Need to do this when we have a family (member) that ‘needs’ to control.. Needs to control the members in it..
Can others share on how they became strong? Strong enough to not let any of the past situations hurt or destroy them.. How do we get past the anger and into the calm? Away from the fear of them and into the power.. I can remember a meditation.. Bob Hoffman I think was the guy who thought this up.. He had a person visualize a castle in a big park.. He had a person think of themselves in the park and then building walls.. Big powerful walls around this place.. A place so strong that no one can get in.. Unless permission is given.. I used to sit and meditate in this one.. My walls were strong and made of very old stone.. I can remember my mom on the outside telling me she had to come in.. I kept telling her no.. she can not come in.. I kept slamming doors on her.. I know for me.. that this is the key to the ones that make us crazy.. the ones who have done horrible things in the past in order to control us.. Control the situation.. and in turn continue to control our heart of heart thinking.. I can remember reading my self help books and thinking.. this is me and this is also me and on and on.. For a long time I did not realize that this recognition was the problem and not the solution.. I had to actually do what the authors requested.. or the therapist.. I once wrote a post about how my mom and dad had left me alone when I was very little.. (I was posting in a recovery forum in Compuserve at the time).. I printed it up and took it to therapy.. In the post I told about how I had pasted myself on the window (it was nite).. How I had turned on every lite in the house.. Mom and dad came home and mom lectured me on how I had done the wrong thing.. She told me that a man could have gotten me because she could see through the nightgown.. as she walked up to the front door.. I was frightened and she lectured.. I went to my room.. with no emotion acknowledged and or addressed.. no hugs.. just you were wrong.. The therapist said to me..”Would you do that to your daughter?”.. “No” I said.. I had a real hard time getting angry with my mom.. The therapist said that some of us have a hard time getting angry with our parents.. the ones who are supposed to love us.. And this is on terms of remembered things.. Childhood things sorted as a child.. Stuff that is in there and has never been addressed.. I was left alone and I was in the wrong.. How unfair is that.. What the therapist had me do was to was go back and re-map what happened.. Look at it from my adult eyes.. and see what really happened.. And realize that I am not wrong when I need an emotional hug when I am afraid.. Realize that I can ask for help when something scares me.. and that I do not have to feel like there is something wrong with me.. Soooo… Getting strong is a process IMO.. As Peter Gabriel wrote.. “Finding the places we got hurt.” Cause there are triggers in us.. And if those triggers are ‘triggered’.. some of us act as the child we were when the original trauma happened.. Or the adult.. Grieving what happened and talking and writing about it makes us strong.. Strong enough to not be afraid of the ones who have hurt us in the past.. Strong enough to put up boundaries.. (or firm stone walls in our meditations…) Jackie Last edited by Jackiejdajda : 03-21-2006 at 05:43 PM. 
|
Pregnancy Information
Pregnancy Websites
|
#62
03-21-2006, 08:48 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
originally posted by Jackiejdajda
Quote:
Jackie, this reminds me of the work John Bradshaw recommends in his book "The Homecoming: Reclaiming Your Inner Child"....that was painful reading the book. I just have to keep telling myself that my parents loved both my brother and I and did the best they could..... I believe we both touched on this topic in another thread way back when. I enjoy your posts. Last edited by Jessiedo : 03-21-2006 at 08:51 PM.
|
|
#63
03-22-2006, 07:18 AM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Hi Jackie! I know you were only 'away' for a day, it just seemed like longer...! Your posts always 'trigger' something in me. I know you said that I could go to any ACO meeting and find people just like you there who would be having the same types of conversations that we are having, but I don't get out much due to health reasons, so I want you to know how much I appreciate your insight.
When my sister had me incarcerated against my will in a mental hospital, the Mental Inquest Warrant was - by law - only supposed to be for 72 hours. The legal loophole at the psychiatric facility was that a patient couldn't be discharged - for ANY reason - until they had gone before an in-house judge. They conveniently didn't hold 'court' but twice a month, so your 72 hours could turn into 2 weeks... Nice. From the moment I arrived, patients and Doctor's alike knew that I didn't belong there. I didn't fit the 'criteria' for being in that unit, but, according to Doctor's, they couldn't do anything about it... Still made me line up, herding us like cattle, to receive coma-inducing meds...Still refused each time... I was stuck. There was nothing I could do from my end while in the facility. My soon-to-be husband -- again-- stepped up to the plate and went to the state capital to speak with the head Mental Health Advisor in the state and described the actions of my sister on my behalf. He was as outraged as we were that she could manipulate the system like that and have me committed. He knew that I was looking at being in that Hell-hole for another 13 days at that point and went to work on getting me out. As soon as the staff at the hospital heard that he was coming, they knew that it was for me, because they all knew that I didn't belong there. Just the mention of this guy's name sent terror through the staff, scurrying around getting files in order, etc. I was released on the 6th day, thanks to the quick actions of my husband. The guy from the capital wanted me to file charges against my sister, take her to court and he would testify on my behalf and teach her a lesson in meddling in other people's lives, manipulating the system to your advantage when it's convenient, and monetary compensation. As MAD as I was at my sister at that exact moment, I could not see doing that to her and putting her through a court battle, and I certainly didn't want any MONEY from her (besides, my family would've said that was the only motivation for taking her to court in the first place, they're all rich and I'm not...). So I let it go....Just like I've let a thousand things 'go' in my life........ Another of my mottos as a kid (I'm beginning to see a pattern here with my mottos!) was "Pick your Battles". I still practice that one with my children on a daily basis...! I learned how to just let it go, it wasn't ever going to be worth the aggravation, it wasn't EVER going to turn in my direction as long as I was the household scapegoat. I look at it now and I SHOULD have filed charges against her. Obviously, she thinks she is God Almighty when it comes to my life. I am last in the pecking order, she is FIRST... BFD. Her own personal family dynamics are so fouled up, I guess she has nothing else to do with her time but try and foul up mine (misery does love company, right?!) I think she's noticed that I'm not playing the game any more. She can't pull my strings on this one. I'm not going to be backed into a corner and be made to feel like I have to defend myself to them any longer. Total strangers can accept me for who and what I am, can offer up sympathy and empathy when needed, can see that what I have to say is believable, understandable given the circumstances, and not subject to scrutiny. Not my own family, though. The one's that I am supposed to love and honor do not honor me. Never have. I can't think of a single time when one of them validated my feelings or my existance, for that matter. When you're labeled as a problem child from a very young age, it's hard not to live up to that over a period of time... I remember one time when I was in high school that I filled in at my Dad's company while his secretary was on vacation. My guess would be that Mom just wanted me out of her hair for the week... But, I went anyway! Haha! After work one night, my dad and I went bar-hopping. Now, mind you, I was all of 17 at the time, this was back in the 70's when things - as you well know - were very different! I remember thinking "Okay, now I'll get to see the old man in action!", cuz he went out drinking EVERY night after work and came home blitzed and ornery. We hit all of his favorite 'spots' from the office downtown out to Suburbia where we lived, the first one being a Mafia bar in a seedy part of downtown. My dad told me to 'stay close' when we were in that bar... By the time we got to his last stop before reaching the road into Suburbia (where they didn't allow BARS at that time), he was 2 sheets to the wind and had only had a beer or two at each stop. I thought he was a total lightweight, drank him under the table, and took his keys and drove us home (I didn't have a license until I was 22, long story there). I was drinking whiskey sours and he was drinking beer that night. I realized then that it didn't take NEAR as much to get him wasted as I had thought it would... I wondered if he had so much alcohol in his system on a regular daily basis, that over a period of time it took less and less to get him drunk... He asked how we got home the next morning, I lied (I have ALWAYS admitted I lied as a kid) and told him he drove - very BADLY, I MIGHT ADD, DAD - home. He and I didn't go out again that week; my mom had a COW when we both got home that night drunk... My parents didn't have any idea what kinds of examples they set for me in my childhood. By the time I came along, they were tired. Tired of each other, tired of being married, tired of raising children, tired of fighting... But not tired off drinking and nagging... They never seemed to tire of that!! The fact that I WAS different from the rest of them was in my favor all along, I just didn't see it then... I was my own person, I did what I felt was a good thing to do at the time without regards to 'consequences' later on. My 'escape' from the yelling matches was to go upstairs in my room, shut the door, and entertain myself. I liked my own company, which was really good, considering the fact that nobody else seemed to... As I got older, I turned to friends - that my parents always IMMEDIATELY deemed unsuitable - to escape from that house. My room was no longer big enough to keep their dysfunction out... I retreated into my own dysfunctional behavior starting in Junior High. It was 1974 and I was introduced to pot. I immediately enjoyed its soothing effect on me, it was EXTREMELY medicinal for me at the time... My dad got through his miserable life by numbing himself up with booze, I felt like my drug of choice was much better and less detrimental in the long run... I stayed stoned for the next 4 years solid, every single day of my life I got high several times a day. I still say it's the one thing that got me through the rest of my schooling and got me through living at my parents house... I did experiment with mind-altering drugs at times, but never did them on a regular basis. It was always pot. That caused more than a few additional problems with my parents, now I was a hippie on top of everything else. I started dressing in leather moccassin boots, leather fringed jackets, Panama Red patches sewn on my jeans, T-shirts with big marijuana leaves all over them... Not very discreet about it, I might observe now, but at the time, I was but one of MANY who were in full hippie attire... Whenever they would HAVE to take me someplace, they would always look at me and say,"You're not going to wear THAT, are you?" Of course I was!! My sister's son is my favorite person in my entire family. All three of us girls were pregnant at the same time; the oldest had hers first, then me, then the second oldest had her baby. All within 5 months of each other... My oldest sister's baby is 5 months older than the son I placed. I always had a bond with him. He used to spend hours, days, or weeks at a time with me and my ex-husband. I looked at it two ways : one, I needed a baby to hold and love on after I placed and he was right there and available, and two, I needed to 'rescue' him from his dysfunctional parents as often as possible to keep him sane. He still remembers his times with us, says he always looked forward to his visits with us, and was grateful to have been taken away from his parents on a regular basis. To this day, he and I have a fantastic relationship - and he and his mother do not. She has never tried to understand him and I not only try to, I DO understand him. He isn't on the rest of the family's bandwagon where my rape is concerned. He believes me 100% and knows that I'm not capable of doing something like that. He is the only one who believes me, besides my husband and children...And all of you! Wow. Sorry to have been rambling so much here, I can just type so fast that I go on and on... Did want to say that I liked the meditation technique you described. Big thick castle walls, huh? I'm going to try that one, see how it goes... Keep out the Boogey Family! And you're right - my family is just horrible and me and the nephew are the only one's who see it... The rest have their rose-colored glasses on and their heads permanently stuck in the sand... Or up their butts, not sure which... Tammi
__________________
A drunken mouth speaks a sober heart.
|
|
#64
03-23-2006, 05:26 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
My son is visiting.. There was no hockey game last nite so I was able to interact with him.. He is 27 and now that we have moved to the country his visits do not happen very often..
Diane wrote.. Jackie, this reminds me of the work John Bradshaw recommends in his book "The Homecoming: Reclaiming Your Inner Child"....that was painful reading the book. I just have to keep telling myself that my parents loved both my brother and I and did the best they could..... I went and saw Bradshaw speak.. I did a lot of the work in those books.. I remember reading in one of his books.. the final stage in a marriage is ‘individuation’ .. Each person in the relationship guards the privacy of the other person.. There is no enmeshment.. There is no bouncing off of each other.. I like this individuation.. Tammi.. I remember dark times in bars.. I remember a lot of dark times.. I can feel that night with your dad.. My mom and dad drank constantly.. I knew that when they were in a party mood there would be trouble.. because they drank more than their normal.. I can remember the code in this.. I remember their pride at being able to drink constantly and it never showed.. We used to drive from Florida to Canada.. or they used to drive it every year.. One year I went down there with my two kids.. my second and third born.. The kids were pre-school.. I think… I flew down and mom and dad drove me and the kids back.. They would drink their gin and tonic as they drove.. We would stop at a rest stop and dad would mix fresh drinks.. I never thought anything of it.. it was a common experience.. Once dad was mixing the drinks and I was talking with him outside the car in a rest stop.. and I looked up.. Two people were watching (sitting in their car) my dad mix the drinks.. Shock on their faces.. I realized I was putting my children at risk.. I allowed them in the car driven by a man drinking constantly.. But I went along with it.. I got stoned in 1968/9… When Buffalo Springfield sang.. For What It’s Worth… I had my bson in 1965.. I spent a year and a half living with my mom and dad.. and working after that.. and then I headed back to Toronto.. In 1967 I think… I was straight for about a year.. then I tuned in and dropped out.. What fun.. I met my husband in 1970 and we married the year after.. We were stoned for more than a few years.. You wrote.. I think she's noticed that I'm not playing the game any more. She can't pull my strings on this one. I'm not going to be backed into a corner and be made to feel like I have to defend myself to them any longer. And we learn how to keep those thoughts when the going gets tough by exploring ourselves.. By writing about it like you are doing now and sorting it.. yourself.. This thread is becoming like a meeting.. A person shares what has happened and knows others are listening.. In a good meeting everyone just listens to the share and does not offer ways out of the situation.. The person doing the share can do that.. You see your words and you see what is going down.. Maybe this is a watershed moment in your life.. Maybe this is when you get it that that woman is not thinking of you when she acts like she acts.. The Artist Way.. (I want to start a thread on working this book again).. Julia Cameron.. in that book talks about crazy makers.. People that make a person nuts.. Takes all their time and manipulates the situation every moment they can.. Cameron (in the book) looks at how some of us allow the crazy makers to make us crazy.. do it to defeat ourselves.. To make an excuse to not show up at the pages or the creative endeavor.. or just having a good and happy life.. We allow these people our time and our energy.. and they IMO suck it dry.. I do not think we can change them.. I do not think we can argue at them and expect them to see the light.. see the harm they are causing.. It’s the hook.. It’s the.. why don’t they act proper enigma.. Melody Beattie speaks on control.. in her book.. Codependents' Guide to the Twelve Steps : How to Find the Right Program for You and Apply Each of the Twelve Steps to Your Own Issues by Melody Beattie Page 23 .. I cant control what others do, think, or feel, whether or how they choose to interact with me, whether or when they choose to grow and change, and whether or when they choose to recover from their addictions.. Those words are incredibly important to me.. Beattie wrote further down in that page that when we try and control the people situation etc.. all we end up doing is make ourselves crazy.. I hope your sister does you no harm right now.. I hope she just backs off and gets on with her life.. Letting go of the anger over how unfair it was .. is the way out.. IMO Jackie Last edited by Jackiejdajda : 03-23-2006 at 05:32 PM.
|
|
#65
03-24-2006, 05:05 AM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Hi Jackie. I've never been to any kind of twelve step meeting. I don't know how they work, but I am appreciating the memories in a different light lately...I see that they helped to mold and shape me to become the no-nonsense, take no crap person that I am today...I also know that my childhood forced my comedic talent out at a very early age. I found that humor got me through an awful lot as a kid. I was the class clown, I was the one who made friends at the drop of a hat, I was the kid who could make the adults in the neighborhood laugh their heads off... I remember times as a little kid when my parents would be introduced to somebody new in the subdivision, and the people would say, "Oh! You're Tammi's parents!!!" My parents would be angry that I already had met these people and that they seemed to like me... I knew everybody for miles around. I would ride my bike so far from my house, it is scary to look back on it now...If my own daughter would ever venture away from the house that far, I would be mortified...wouldn't happen, though, because I actually KEEP AN EYE ON MY CHILDREN... Unlike my parents, who figured any time I was not there was time that I wasn't in their hair... Worked for them...
It is sad to me that I turned around and married somone very much like my father the first time around... My ex didn't exhibit those behaviors when we first married, I swear...but by the time our 20's were coming to an end, his drinking was exactly like my father's...Functional alcoholics...those who can still maintain their status in the world, can still be responsible in the sense that they pay their bills on time and show up ready for work each day...Own there own business and live a high and mighty lifestyle...But drink themselves into a stupor every night... I was never much of a drinker. I was a pothead. Drinking was not something that my family was able to do socially apparently...You were either a teetotaler or a drunk... I never acquired a taste for beer, but went through a Gin and Tonic era in my early 20's...Always the obscenely expensive Gin... As my ex husband's drinking started to increase, and his behavior began to morph, I got the bright idea to start joining him...logic at the time was, if I help him drink it, it will mean that's less for him to drink, therefore, he won't get as drunk tonight.... I guess it never worked, and I'm not the only numnuts who ever tried that particular technique...He would just go back out to the store - now driving while impaired - to get more booze to drink...Then yell at me because I drank it all........Divorcing him was one of the best moves I ever made. The night before I moved out, when the moving truck was to come the next day and get my things, he was eerily calm... Going from room to room, taking quick inventory of the possessions, making concessions here and there... Being amicable... I knew the bomb was going to drop... I had been conditioned, had I not??? I might not have seen this coming when we walked down the aisle, but I sure as heck saw what was about to happen. After I fell asleep that night, he sat up drinking...And drinking....I awoke to something shattering loudly out in the living room... Got up, as I'm walking down the hall, something whizzes by my hair and smashes into the wall behind me... He is breaking each thing we had amicably made a concession on... He is staggering towards me now... Mean as a snake, drunker than a barrel full of monkeys, veins popping out on the side of his head... And I start laughing at him. Laughing that kind of whole-hearted, jovial, this is the funniest thing I have ever heard in my life laugh... And as he comes at me again, I cold cock him right in his jaw, punched him like a man would punch him, punched him two more times as hard as I could (and trust me, it was HARD) before he fell to the floor. I kicked him in the stomach and ribs a couple of times...he wasn't moving...It's 2 o'clock in the morning... I call my best friend, tell her I think I killed him...I am calm about it...I tell her what happened...I put the phone down and go over and kick him as hard as I can...He moans...I know he isn't dead... He stayed on the hall floor until the next morning when the moving guys came... I got accused of sleeping with all of them...In front of all of them... They understood immediately why I was leaving this jerk and didn't know either one of us from Adam... My ex husband called my mom up about a year ago. Just wanted to boo-hoo his fate, I guess. Told her he had had a heart attack (SURPRISE!!! Didn't see THAT one coming, eh?!), the sleaze he was messing around with when we were married had taken him to the cleaners (SURPRISE!!!), he was going to have to sell his home (that was on the Historic Registry) to pay his bills because he couldn't work since the heart attack...BOO-HOO, whiney butt... Sounded to me like he was hitting her up for money... Why else would a guy call his ex mother in law - when there were no children involved in our 10 year relationship - to whine about his poor life?.... I'm surprised my mother didn't offer to help him...They always liked him, he fit the profile of how my life was to be...Carrying on the dysfunction... They were outraged when I filed for divorce. That was my first positive step that I think I ever took in my life. The first time that I saw the situation for what it was.....Hopeless. Tammi
__________________
A drunken mouth speaks a sober heart. Last edited by eastendmommy : 03-24-2006 at 05:10 AM.
|
|
#66
03-25-2006, 08:40 AM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Hi to everyone who has responded to this original request for help! It sure has taken off since I was here last! I'm not able to get online much, I'm not home alot of the time, and when I am, I have to work around the kids and my wife for computer time... Sure some of you know how that goes...!
Things have been calm this week. No relatives hassling my wife, no e-mails that upset her. But still, her Bson hasn't sent in his cell samples for lab analysis yet, and I know that has to be weighing on her right now. I think she's wondering if he's had a change of heart or something... Hope not. She's had enough dissappointment lately to last her a lifetime... I know that my wife has grown so much since she started coming on this forum, the advice and friendships she has formed are a lifeline to her now. She looks forward to logging on each day and checking the threads. You all have really turned things around for her, she is receiving invaluable insight from each of you. I feel like I can't do anything other than to be here for her right now. I can offer up no advice, haven't 'been there' , but I can offer her a sympathetic ear to listen when she needs to vent, I can offer her unconditional love (she already had that!), I can offer her a big shoulder to lean on, or cry on... My father and grandfather were alcoholics. I remember making them highballs as a small child. My mom and dad fought alot when they were drinking; sounds a little like your parents, Jackie. My parents would make up pitchers of mixed drinks and take us kids to the drive-in, sit in the station wagon and get rip-roaring drunk. When they fought, my mother was a thrower of things. Anything she could get her hands on... My dad bought a cheap set of dishes for her to throw, I think she went through 3 different sets in my childhood... I have had issues with alcohol in my past, it was learned behaviour... Took some growing up on my part to realize that I was continuing the cycle of alcoholism to drown your sorrows. Been sober for 14 years now. Not tempted one iota; it was ruining my life. Now, cigarettes, that's a whole different ballgame...Can't seem to get rid of that particular monkey. My wife went cold turkey (as I'm sure some of you know!) and I am not helping matters in that department...I know I should stop, and I know it a great temptation to her when she smells it on me and has the pack of Marlboro's on the counter in front of her face... I've been trying to go outside and keep my pack in my shirt pocket, but every now and then I just don't think..... She's very tolerant of me; I would've knocked me around a bit by now!! I appreciate all the insight that all of you give to us. It really helps me sort through things to help my wife, but I find that it helps me, too! We all gain! StepDad
|
|
#67
03-25-2006, 09:01 AM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Quote:
 Co-incidentally, today is our 40th anniversary!   The real reason I have chimed in here is to tell you how supportive my husband was especially in the early years of my reunion with my first born son. They were hard years, my son wasn't ready then for reunion and I was heartbroken. My husband was so helpful just explaining how he thought my son was reacting and thinking from a man's POV. Your input in this regard will be invaluable to Tammi, you are obviously a man who is sensitive to the feelings of others. Reunion is often one step forward, one and a half backwards but with the passage of time and great determination, positive results are very possible so hang in there and above it all never forget that your own marriage has to come first. Wishing you and you family great success. Audrey
|
|
#68
03-25-2006, 09:16 AM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Thank you, Audrey and Happy Anniversary!!! What an accomplishment and something to be quite proud of! I hope that my wife and I can celebrate 40 years together. We will be on lucky number 13 this year! Happy Anniversary, and many more years to come! (P.S. my wife really likes you! thanks for your support) StepDad
And I will take your advice to heart!
|
|
#69
03-25-2006, 04:17 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
You are strong.. Good you were strong.. I had a few nights like that and I can remember sitting there as my husband raved.. He smashed his hand on a plate and broke the plate.. He must of cut a very important artery or vein or something because the blood just flowed.. I can remember sitting there staring at him while he shouted his drunken words.. He passed out and then drove to work and work sent him to the hospital.. The doctor told him he should have come in right away.. He lost feeling on one side of his hand..But I did not care.. I was past the point.. My husband stopped drinking soon after that incident.. (And I have to say that today he is a totally different man.. Totally.. I do not like alcohol.) Alanon says you don’t enable them.. Or that is my interpretation on what Alanon or the Alanon reader etc says.. I stopped enabling my husband.. I had two kids at that point.. and I was terrified of leaving him.. Stepdad.. I remember the smell of Christmas.. and I remember sipping that smell.. It was rye and ginger.. Ice in the glass.. Tammi.. twelve step meetings are about sharing the situation.. What happened.. I can remember sharing one night on how my hubby got very rough.. he was a black out drunk.. When he was gone.. look out.. I always knew when he was gone.. I remember the meeting ended up being about abuse and alcoholism.. a woman shared before me.. about being abused and then somehow I ended up sharing about a night that to this day terrifies me.. I went home that night and finally felt the emotions from that terrible night.. I finally looked at it and cried.. Cried about my terror.. my fear.. No one told me (at that Alanon meeting) that I should get angry or grieve or any of that.. they just looked at me and their eyes told me they understood..Been there done that.. And I agree typing up a share is good as well.. I have done a lot of sharing on the internet.. typed up a lot of posts.. about this.. I was a sysop in the Recovery Forum on Compuserve.. circa 1995/6 I was in charge of the Adult Children of Alcoholic section.. I did a lot of John Bradshaw as I was really into him.. at that time. How is it going with your mother? Has she contacted you since all this happened? Stepdad wrote.. I feel like I can't do anything other than to be here for her right now. I can offer up no advice, haven't 'been there' , but I can offer her a sympathetic ear to listen when she needs to vent, I can offer her unconditional love (she already had that!), I can offer her a big shoulder to lean on, or cry on... Ohhh stepdad.. that’s all that is needed. As I wrote above.. Telling someone what to do.. is wrong.. Its controlling a person IMO.. I can remember Bradshaw saying that us ACA’s..(and as you write I see you are one) are very vulnerable to suggestions.. Bradshaw said that once he was looking for a place to live.. Someone suggested a highrise apartment.. He said he did not like highrise aparents but he ended up looking at them.. We got to sort our own stuff.. This business with Tammi and her family.. They IMO are trying to sort her stuff for her.. “Give her answers to questions she has not even asked..” (<that’s a Bradshaw) Can anyone else share on this kind of issue in this virtual quasi ACA meeting? Jackie Last edited by Jackiejdajda : 03-25-2006 at 04:21 PM.
|
|
#70
03-26-2006, 07:36 AM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Jackie, one of the hardest things about growing up with a raging alcoholic is how you learn to walk on eggshells. You get to know what's going to trigger a negative reaction, when to run and hide... I knew when it would be best if I didn't give him any lip.. Often, I did give him lots of backtalk, but never when he was rip-roaring drunk. The consequences were swift and unpleasant. My mother would often add fuel to the fire by instantly unleashing my latest "antics" on him the minute he walked in the door drunk. She knew he'd turn his attention to me and leave her alone. She'd throw me under the bus...
My dad and I finally got along in my late 20's. He understood why I was divorcing my ex, was supportive in private... He quit drinking 8 years before his fatal heart attack happened... He was a completely different person... I felt like I was just getting to know my real dad, not the inebriated version... He was funny. I finally understood where my bizarre sense of humor had come from... I had never seen that side of him before, only glimpses here and there... I then felt cheated when he died, felt as if I had only had my dad in my life for 8 years, not nearly enough... If he had died when I was younger, I probably would've rejoiced in the release of bad times... bad memories... but he and I had found peace with one another before he passed. I guess that's something to be able to say that, considering how it was between us for most of my life... My sisters can't take that away from me... I actually have some fond memories with my dad to slide in there with all the other memories... I feel good about that. My dad and I discovered that we had much more in common than we ever would've guessed. Along with that wacky sense of humor came a love for crossword puzzles, baseball, and a James Dean-ish rebel streak... I remember one time, sitting on his back deck talking, I thought it seemed as if mom had remarried and this guy was my stepfather, he was so dramatically different from the dad I had known. Amazing how alcohol clouds even your basic personality traits... Hides them, masks them... I'm glad we made peace. It is very much appreciated to be able to put it all into its proper perspective now. If only peace could be attained with the rest of my family... I will not concede to them, so it is doubtful... Tammi
__________________
A drunken mouth speaks a sober heart.
|
|
#71
03-27-2006, 04:22 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Tammi wrote..
I'm glad we made peace. It is very much appreciated to be able to put it all into its proper perspective now. If only peace could be attained with the rest of my family... I will not concede to them, so it is doubtful... Maybe the rest of your family is addicted to something else... I can remember a friend saying.. (AA sponsor) to one of his sponsees when the sponsee was talking with someone who was still drinking and who was brought to the meeting by a girl friend.. The fellow said.. “Remember you are talking with the alcohol.” I have never forgotten this.. I think the addiction of caretaking and or making others crazy is something that needs to be looked at very carefully.. I had a girlfriend who was an ACA and who in some ways dominated my life.. She was needy and she was demanding.. She needed me IMO to say to her.. Yes and yes and yes again.. I did my best to go along with her.. Then I went off in another direction.. in my thoughts.. I no longer wanted to sit around and talk about the bad times.. I no longer wanted to hate the world.. or something like that.. I started looking for solutions.. That was where we split.. I guess she did not want solutions.. I decided that she was my personal crazy maker.. Maybe your sister has harmful effects from your dads drinking.. She may be aggressive with her harmful effects.. Heck she sure was aggressive with you.. Jackie
|
|
#72
03-27-2006, 04:53 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
"Remember you are talking with the alcohol". I have said those very words to myself many times. Like you said in an earlier post, forgive them, for they know not what they do...
My oldest sister has never acknowledged that our father was a raging alcoholic. He was a social drinker, at best, as far as memory serves her. She was grown and out of the house by the time the alcohol shifted its hold on him... And since she was "Daddy's Little Girl", she refuses to take him down off the pedestal she put him up on and see him for what he became... To look at our father in anything other than the good light she's had him in for all these years would be to admit he wasn't Ward Cleaver and that maybe, just maybe, he had some problems... My mom and dad and I went for 'family' counseling one time when I was in high school. As soon as we walked in the place, I turned to my mother and said, "Well, this will be a waste of time". The reason I said that was because #1. The counselor was a woman. My dad was a male chauvanist pig. Women had their place - in the home cooking and cleaning and raising babies... and #2. She was African American. I knew that my racist father would never take advice from her and would do everything in his power to undermine her attempts to help our family... He lasted all of 5 minutes. The second she honed in on his 'drinking problem' as a source of contention, he stormed out of her office. My mother went chasing behind him like the dutiful wife... The counselor ran behind her, leaving me in her office alone... What to do? Why, rifle through her desk, of course!! I found a bottle of Quaaludes in her top desk drawer. What she did with THAT many Quaaludes, I'll never know... But I took all 350 of them, bottle and all. I knew that she would know it was me, but thought she'd understand since she had just met my parents...! I gave them out like candy at school for the next 3 months. They called me "The Quaalude Kid"! I wore it like a badge of honor... Gave more away than I took, I preferred weed... He never wanted to go for counseling again. Said therapy was for 'wimps' anyway, real people could solve their own problems. Took him more than 20 years to 'solve his own problem'. He died a very different man than he had lived for most of his time on Earth... He died as a human being, he had lived as an alcoholic. Tammi
__________________
A drunken mouth speaks a sober heart.
|
|
#73
03-28-2006, 05:20 PM
|
||
|