[quantum]

I was thinking about this thread earlier today. We got a Christmas card from the boyfriend I had directly after I left my abusive second husband.
This boyfriend was someone who had been a friend, and should have stayed a friend, because that is what I really and truly needed at that time. But this guy, he had some 'issues' and had never really been able to have an adult relationship and sort of 'tried it out' with me. NOT what I needed. A lot of things he would say to me were things like 'maybe I can't love you because of your weight'. Huh? He was interested in having a relationship with me, but couldn't 'love' me and blamed that on me.
I stayed with him for 2 months while I tried to figure out what to do with my life, but I wasn't allowed to answer the phone, or come in to meet him for lunch because he didn't want to have to 'explain' me to anyone.

Anyhoo, we got a Christmas card today, a picture of him with his new live in girlfriend! I knew about her, and figured wow, he must have sorted out some of his issues. I'd been curious, what did this girl look like that he was finally 'able' to fall in love with?
You'll never guess.
She looks kinda like me.
Enough like me that it's kind of weirded my husband out as well.

[Janeytwo]

Hey Quantum!!! Merry Christmas!!!

I'd been curious, what did this girl look like that he was finally 'able' to fall in love with?
You'll never guess.
She looks kinda like me.
Enough like me that it's kind of weirded my husband out as well

:-) There's this saying in AlAnon. If you line up ten codependents and then have an Alcoholic walk along and talk to each one; within five minutes he/she will know what buttons to push.

IMO - I think it's the same with nonrecovering people; those ill people we once loved. After we've moved on; gotten hip to the crapolio....they keep running the same games on someone else (as well as on themselves). And it's so good to be on the other side of that (for the most part anyway)....to be able to look back and see what it was and what it is not now.

So glad your life is full of joy today! :-)

[Janeytwo]

Hey everybody!

I sort of got punched in the gut a couple days ago. No one in any way did it deliberately. Something just popped up that I didn't see coming:

I got a Christmas card from my cousin who adopted the two babies (a boy and a girl). It turns out that the picture was taken at the courthouse the day the babies were adopted.

My heart twisted in my chest seeing that courthouse backdrop. You know lately, this adoption stuff hurts me physically. I have to say I don't particularly care for that. Back in my basement days, it hurt but more like pain feels when you're on a morphine drip, ya know? It hurts in a far off, foggy place that you can ignore.

(Dear God: Thank you for opening my eyes but I could really do without the literal stabbing pain to my aorta that I get when stuff like this happens. Please do something about this immediately. Thanks - Your friend/daughter/disappointment on many levels, Janey.)

Anyhoo...stupidly (there's no other word for it) I reached out to hubby. Hubby looks at me with that blank and terrified "Oh my God, is this going to turn into one of those crying fits of hers?" looks and he says, "So baby? Where is a person 'spose to sign legal papers? At the drugstore?"

(What I wanted to do to hubby at that moment).

However, I used the best ammo possible. I stopped speaking to him, which is an odd sort of power. I mean men want us to shut up right? But then when we do they start panicking. LOL! I mean, honestly ladies, what are we supposed to do with them? Good grief!!

Anyhoo....ripping pain in heart continues followed with low-grade sorrow.

Sigh.........

[sstuart]

I am so sorry Janey! I understand that pain that never really seems to go away. I would like to say that in reunion it does, but it has not for me. Maybe it is because I have not gotten out of "the cage. But men especially do not get it.
My DH yesterday was mad when I got home from work because a friend called and had a bag of gently used clothes and wanted me to come and go through them for my 5 yo. Dh says "I have been home with them all day" -----Yeah---so what. I do that all the time.

But back to you. Although most of the time we can keep the pain at a low moan. Some days something triggers it and it comes back and slaps us in the face. I wish that I really could get over it and move on, like many people have told me to do.......but oh well.

[GA Songbird]

Janey, I'm feelin' you......
I drive by the courthouse, where I lost custody of my children, every day, when I go to work.

Nope, hasn't quit hurting yet - the building itself houses my most troubled memory:

I remember walking those hallways to leave that morning, wailing and crying pitifully - loudly, as in old testament style - the sheer mourning of my loss.......uncaring that anyone heard my agony.
Empty, at rock-bottom, and alone, with no one to hold me......or to comfort me.

That building holds that memory for me.....
and it never stops rewinding that piece of tape.

Some people can't fathom that kind of hurt until they've lived it......that there's nothing more painful than losing your child.

Much love to your big and gracious heart - I'll take you as is, pain and all, and consider myself incredibly blessed to have found a kindred spirit.
You mean alot to me because you're always putting into words what it hurts too much to express. Your trials have been used for good things, and that's something worth remembering on the days when the past pain tries to undo the progress!

- Bet you never dreamed what a ripple your finger could make in the dark pond of someone's heart -

Rock on,
GA Songbird

[Janeytwo]

Dear SStuart & GA Songbird[quote=sstuart]

Thank you both for the support. I have been feeling selfish about the struggles I'm having over my cousin and his wife's adoption of the two babies. I don't want to be down about something that is so wonderful for two such deserving people. You guys are helping me to see that there's probably still (and always will be) some PTSD in there.

GA Songbird Wow! Thanks for the very kind words! It does my heart good to know that I am connecting to people outside of myself. That is a gift to me on many levels.

God Bless You Guys Both!! :-)

[Janeytwo]

Hey All! Just wanted to share this. It's a bit off topic but I figured maybe some could use the smiles.....

....Yesterday hubby and I discovered the Fountain of Youth.

If you're wondering where it's located, it's at the AMC30 Cinema on Hall Road and Mound (just in case anyone's coming to visit the Motor City or environs anytime soon).

Yep! I'm telling you no lies! The Fountain of Youth!

There hubby and I were slurping our Cherry Coke slushies and eating from our bucket of AMC popcorn which we purchased by securing a small bank loan. We were sitting suffering through inane movie theater trivia while we waited to see "Gran Torino" starring Clint Eastwood.

So hubby looks at me and says in his still barely detectable southern, "Bay-bee, yew notice anything unsual about the audience?"

I squinted to adjust to the dimmed lights and then took a look around. Hubby was right! He and I were the only ones in the full-to-capacity theater who had brown/red hair!! Everyone else there had one of the following 3 shades: Distinguished Silver, Snowy-Egret White or Little Ol' Lady Blue.

(Well...that's not entirely true. There was a guy in his early 30's there wearing an NRA hat on his head, a camoflage jacket and sporting a scraggly long red beard with popcorn in it. He was there with a white-haired lady I assumed was his mother - or an elderly aunt maybe.)

Yessiree! From one side of the aisle to the other....from the bottom row to the top....we were surrounded by septegenarians, octagenarians....all sorts of "arians"!!! Hubby cupped his hands to his eyes and said "I think I see my gran'pah down they-ah in the front row!" (Gramps is 97 and would need to be in the front row just to see the movie)

We were both elated!!! We'd just taken years off our life - and all without the help of plastic surgery!! We were the youngest ones there!! We were young whipper-snappers barely out of our teens compared to everyone else!!

After the movie was over, hubby and I held hands and skipped out of the the theater like Frankie and Annette on a date at the drive-in!!

Of course, actually getting out of the cinema proper proved to be a time-consuming exercise. Hubby walked along fidgeting, cursing beneath his breath, teeth floating (he had to use the facilities), while we waited for the old folks in front of us to move along with their canes and walkers. Hubby whispered to me, "Bay-bee I ain't never seen no one actually use them cinema handrails before! They holdin on to 'em for dear life!"

By the time we'd reached the main area of the cinema, hubby was turning 10 shades of purple!! I tell ya folks, there's nothing like watching a grown 6' 5" 330 lb. man running for the toidey yelling "get out of my way!!" to bring a smile to one's face.

Sadly, the effect of the Fountain didnt' last. When we got home our youngest daughter got into a conversation with us about Linkin Park. She was shocked that we knew who they were. "You know who they are! You guys!" she said with huge, shocked eyes. Then she says, "But you guys are old! You like that Rick Jagger guy!"

Sigh...we were feeling our age there for a minute but never fear...we have the cure!!

We're going back to see Gran Torino tomorrow!

Only as someone in here suggested, we're bringing Depens next time for hubby. That wait in line after the show was a killer on his bladder!

[quantum]

You gotta watch out for those Cherry Coke Slushies!

My fountain of youth is the quilt group I meet with every other week! I'm the youngest by about 15 years...

[RavenSong]

Janey, that story is great! You really should be writing for a magazine or newspaper. Your writing is absolutely priceless...I so enjoy it.

Your daughter's comment about "Rick Jagger" got me thinking about something my niece called the Stones back in the 1990s. I was getting ready to go to the Rolling Stones' Babylon tour, and I was reminiscing about all the other Stones' concerts I've seen. (I have never missed one tour...I saw the Stones for the first time back in October 1969 at the San Diego Sports Arena and was at the Altamont Speedway for their December 1969 free concert, which gave us the "Gimme Shelter" movie.)

Anyway, there I was babbling on about going to the concert that night, when my niece looked at me and said, "So, what are you going to wear to the Strolling Bones' concert, Aunt Raven?" The Strolling Bones is such a great name, don't you think?

Aw, to be young again just for one day....

[Janeytwo]

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

A power greater than ourselves. This was the Step that freed me from alcoholism......though admittedly it took near 10 years for that to happen. I'm not sure people truly grasp the extreme power of alcoholism. You know? Really...after all this time, I still stand in awe of it. It is an incredible disease and in my battle with it - to save the alcoholic from themself (good grief) - I went to the absolute edge of insanity. It became a test of wills. I was going to win; alcohol was going to lose. End of story. And the end of me as I knew me, which is both a good and bad thing.

It's terrifying to realize that something can be more powerful than we can - I mean on an emotional level. On a physical one of course; anyone with half a brain gets that. Like I can't stand in the desert 10 feet from a nuclear blast and expect not be dust for the cosmos five seconds later.

But in my life I've asked this of myself emotionally. And in the context of this forum I asked it of myself in that I commanded myself to never look back with any sympathy for me. I would go forward with no admittance that relinquishing my children was so overwhelming that it threatened to kill my soul.

And that's what's been the crux of it. Because everyone dies, right? We're not getting out of here alive. But when something's got your soul because you're in denial......that's hell. With a capital "H". It's a living death. The light's on but nobody's home.

I will tell you something - though Kathy, if she reads this - may have better insight.

But I lost my soul once. I did. God had it in good keeping I think, but I lost sight of it. See the street takes a person to places so dark that we lose concern for what we are; we just give up. That's the truth of it; the poverty I fear most. Loss of one's self.

Uhmmm...I can't talk about that no more.

Let's see....anyway. It's strange to say that alcoholism delivered me back into God's hands.

Even stranger still that a little industrial clock was the eventual salvation whereupon I began to understand that maybe....just maybe....I had some right - however small - to know if my children were alive.

I think maybe I can't talk anymore right now.

It's a shame we have to die my dear. No one's getting out of here alive.FOO FIGHTERS

[quantum]

Originally Posted by Janeytwo

But I lost my soul once. I did. God had it in good keeping I think, but I lost sight of it. See the street takes a person to places so dark that we lose concern for what we are; we just give up. That's the truth of it; the poverty I fear most. Loss of one's self.

I hear you sister, loud and clear. I fear I nearly lost mine once as well, I felt myself going down that slippery path.

[RavenSong]

I'm not quite sure if I've ever lost my soul, but I've come close to throwing it in the garbage a couple times. I've been down that dark ladder too many times, and I've tried extinguishing my soul, my life, on those journeys. But I just kept getting sent back...unfinished business, so I was told.

The Second Step...is a blessing for me...it brings serenity and peace. The first time I ever read about it, I thought, well sure, I believe that a Higher Power can restore me to sanity. I just don't know whether He wants to or not... That was a long time ago.

I've been having trouble feeling God's presence in my life lately, so I guess it's appropriate to take this step again. Sometimes I'm afraid that God/Goddess/Higher Power is just plain fed up with me. I can't really explain why I've felt that way lately...I just do.

I know that my Higher Power can restore me to sanity. The question is will He want to? I've kind of been in a bad place lately, as you can probably tell. Family dysfunction in my family of origin has really taken a toll on me this past year, especially after my mom had her stroke. It's what has driven me into examining my codependency issues.

LOL, sometimes I think this forum is a codependent's dream...it's so easy for me to focus on trying to solve everybody else's problems...it takes my focus off of me for a while. I wonder if I use it as an escape of sorts?

[quantum]

Raven, perhaps through helping others we find the path to heal ourselves?

My thought for a Monday.

[RavenSong]

Quantum, my dear friend, you are so right. When I read what you just posted, it reminded me of my very favorite prayer, the Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi. When I was growing up, there was a TV station in San Diego that always signed off for the day with a recitation of this prayer. It always touched me very deeply (although I can't tell you to this day what in the world I was doing up in the middle of the night, lol). Anyhoo, here's the prayer:

Prayer of Saint Francis

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.

[Janeytwo]

Hey everyone! Good stuff!

Wow! What to address first? LOL! Think I'll just go in order of what hit me first, if that's okay with you guys.

Raven

LOL, sometimes I think this forum is a codependent's dream...it's so easy for me to focus on trying to solve everybody else's problems

Nahh buddy. Don't do that to yourself. Like Quantum said...we heal ourselves through healing others. Pardon this conceit everybody but this place - unbeknownst to the non-12 Steppers (and don't tell anyone) But this place is pure Program. To share our experience, strength and hope in order to solve our common problem of living with......adoption

I shall now wait for the WWA to come in here and kick my butt for quoting CAL on the AF.

Seriously though, I think this place just might save souls and that's what 12 Step is about (my opinion only).

know that my Higher Power can restore me to sanity. The question is will He want to?

((( Raven ))) The hallmark of abused children. I.e., even God thinks I'm slime. I've been there; some days I still fall back and I have to call Kathy. I think it's no accident that the child of athiests - a child raised to despise religion and question the sanity of people who believe in God - I think it's no accident I would find a Minister in here. Because adoption was the last front on which I felt God truly despised me. Actually, I hung on to that belief so that I could despise myself - truth be told.

You know I never felt I lost my soul in relinquishment. I will say that, because even though I'd been raised to live outside of God with no hope of his existence when I discovered I was pregnant it was God I turned to. I asked Him to carry me because I couldn't carry myself. So in that regard, I felt cared for by Him. Even though I did ask Him to forgive me for speaking to Him because I had no right to do so. I think I vaguely said something like, "I know I'm not good enough to speak to you but...." That kind of prayer.

It was in coming up against alcohol that I lost my soul for a time. I reached a point where I just didn't give a **** anymore and I stood in my mom's basement and said, "Hey God! Just so we're clear! Alcohol is greater than You'll ever be! You might be all that up Your infinite sky up there but down here on Earth, You ain't s**t next to booze! So I'm turning my back on You and I'm pledging my allegiance to alcohol. You can go suck an egg!"

The days grew dark after that. I turned my back on people I'd known who'd helped me. I really didn't care if they lived or died. I would go to family functions and stare at people while they drank. If they picked up a beer, I'd just stand there with my arms crossed glaring at them, shaking my head in disgust. People stopped inviting me to things. A member of AlAnon with only a year in called and asked me to be her Sponsor. I said, "I can't help you. I'm too sick" and slammed the phone down on her. My sister asked me to help a friend of hers who's husband was deep into drinking and the girl was desparate. I looked at the girl and said, "There's nothing I can do for you and I wouldn't help you if I could". A friend of mine became pregnant and was hoping that her some-time boyfriend would marry her. I got up right in her face and said, "Give up! You're fooling yourself!" and turned and walked away. I would be driving down the road and if someone swerved even a tiny bit, I'd get on the phone and call the police on the "loser drunk scum" driving in front of me because "they" were going to pay for being sub-human.

If anyone ever wants to know what hell truly is, I can testify. It's indifference. Not caring one whit about anyone else. Not hating them; not loving them. Just not really caring one way or the other. Drop dead; see ya, I got dry cleaning to pick up. That's hell. And of all the experience I don't recommend - that would be number one.

My new husband stood back quietly watching all this, waiting. Then one day about a year after I turned my back on God, the guy in the trailer park next to us got drunk and beat up his family. I called the cops and offered to be there to help prosecute the guy so that he'd spend "the rest of his scum life in prison where s**t drunks like him belonged".

A couple days later.........whew boy......a member of the family showed up with a cast on her arm to thank me for calling the police, saying that she was embarrassed that the scene had happened. And I looked at her and said, "Welp! That's life with a drunk! What d'ya want me to say!" And I shut the door in her face.

I didn't know my husband was standing behind me and when I turned around, he was standing there - all 6' 5" of him - looking down at me with his arms crossed, shaking his head in disgust and he said, "What are you?"

You understand you guys? He didn't ask "who are you", he asked what are you.

I didn't know what I was anymore. I was just this ball of contempt. I stood there looking back at my husband and I couldn't give him an answer. And he said, "I don't even know you anymore" and turned and walked away to the den.

And as so often happens in Recovery, in that moment God called. He used the phone (the Dude does that by the way). God called in the form of an old friend of mine from AA who's first name happened to start with "G"...(no lie). "G" said he was just phoning to see how married life was going. It was the general concensus among my Program friends that I had married another alkie because I'd gotten married so soon after divorce.

Anyway, I broke down and told "G" what had been happening and he called an impromptu phone meeting right there with me, cracking open the AA Big Book!! I'd never heard of such a thing. And I told him I couldn't do that because I wasn't an alcoholic and he said, "Yeah you are Janey. You're an alkie from hell! You've reached the point where you think alcohol is more powerful than love, than dreams, than God, than hope. You're in trouble and AA's the only thing that can get your sorry a** out of it!" Then he proceeded to kick my sorry a**.

Sigh....Man! I thought AlAnon folk were tough! Yowzer!! Those AA guys are wicked!!

I apologized to the person who came to my door that day. So I felt better about that.

And later in my meditations, imagining myself walking towards God's garage where He was as He always is...just hanging out waiting for people to "get it", I walked up and said, "I'm ahh...I'm back." And He said, "Hey Janey! Welcome back and by the way.......I never left." Then He asked me to hand Him a wrench. You guys should see God's ride!! Dang!! That car rocks!!!