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Psalm12140 · 05-15-2009, 01:19 AM

Hi everyone,

I wanted to share an experience I had a couple of weeks ago. I visited the apartment complex where I lived with my alcoholic Mom from and took some time to walk around. And man, it was a rush. What follows is lengthy, but I'm choosing to share it out interest in "comparing notes" about the emotional experience with visiting a place from your past and using that experience to move on with healing.

I had decided to live with my Mom over my Dad because I was utterly miserable in my school (bullied incessantly) and Mom was living where I had grown up before my parents divorced; it just felt like home- and Mom seemed to have stopped drinking. Shortly after I moved back, she began showing signs of being intoxicated at night while hiding any overt drinking from me. Because I wanted it to work so badly, I spent a fair piece of that year denying Mom was drinking again and simply enduring the behavior throughout the following years because I was determined to justify the decision i'd made to move back to "home."

My mom has since passed on and I hadn't been back there since shortly after her death several years ago. This time it was as though I was feeling what come to mind as "shadow" emotions. Walking around this beautifully landscaped complex, the feelings that come up seem to form words of "it's going to be okay, right? Everything's okay, right?" The most powerful place was where I used to walk down the sidewalk that led to our dumpster where I'd take out the trash at night- after she'd started, knowing when I got back it'd be more drunken teary monologues on the same endless themes. I felt, seemingly out of nowhere, all of this fear coupled with "gee, what a beautiful night","it's okay, it's okay".

Most profound was the realization that these feelings were a near constant state of being for me growing up- constantly walking alongside this mobile invisible block of anxiety. And two, how striking it was to realize that these emotions are from my past- but not the present. That my current home life's dynamics are nothing like that, while my old patterns do re-assert themselves.

Any thoughts are welcome. Thanks for reading.

05-15-2009, 01:19 AM	#1 (permalink)
Psalm12140 Member Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Seattle, WA Posts: 13	memory lane Hi everyone, I wanted to share an experience I had a couple of weeks ago. I visited the apartment complex where I lived with my alcoholic Mom from and took some time to walk around. And man, it was a rush. What follows is lengthy, but I'm choosing to share it out interest in "comparing notes" about the emotional experience with visiting a place from your past and using that experience to move on with healing. I had decided to live with my Mom over my Dad because I was utterly miserable in my school (bullied incessantly) and Mom was living where I had grown up before my parents divorced; it just felt like home- and Mom seemed to have stopped drinking. Shortly after I moved back, she began showing signs of being intoxicated at night while hiding any overt drinking from me. Because I wanted it to work so badly, I spent a fair piece of that year denying Mom was drinking again and simply enduring the behavior throughout the following years because I was determined to justify the decision i'd made to move back to "home." My mom has since passed on and I hadn't been back there since shortly after her death several years ago. This time it was as though I was feeling what come to mind as "shadow" emotions. Walking around this beautifully landscaped complex, the feelings that come up seem to form words of "it's going to be okay, right? Everything's okay, right?" The most powerful place was where I used to walk down the sidewalk that led to our dumpster where I'd take out the trash at night- after she'd started, knowing when I got back it'd be more drunken teary monologues on the same endless themes. I felt, seemingly out of nowhere, all of this fear coupled with "gee, what a beautiful night","it's okay, it's okay". Most profound was the realization that these feelings were a near constant state of being for me growing up- constantly walking alongside this mobile invisible block of anxiety. And two, how striking it was to realize that these emotions are from my past- but not the present. That my current home life's dynamics are nothing like that, while my old patterns do re-assert themselves. Any thoughts are welcome. Thanks for reading.