memory lane - SoberRecovery : Alcoholism Drug Addiction Help and Information

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.

GiveLove · 05-15-2009, 07:50 AM

Psalm, that's such a beautiful, sad set of observations. I am glad I'm not the only one for what specific places still hold these powerful conflicting emotions. Sometimes I think I would like to "reclaim" all of the places that still hold such anxiety and tension for me, almost like an exorcism for some of them LOL.

I know I do not like visiting certain places from my past because it seems to take a couple of days to recover from the mental/spiritual trips they take me on, but with some of them I have had the chance to drive out the painful memories with more powerful good memories, and that helps.

And I know that writing helps me more than anything else. Journaling and writing your feelings (as you've done) about what that place made you feel - that can be very strong healing. It is hard for some dark painful thoughts to survive once we bring them up to the bright, cleansing light of day.

GL

Psalm12140 · 05-16-2009, 09:12 PM

Thanks for the encouragement. Another thing that was striking- I had visited the place once before, just about seven months after she'd died. At that time, there wasn't any of the shadow stuff whatsoever, just some vague sadness. The following six years were doing something in me, I feel... that I'd been numb to just how much pain was there, but going back at this point brought a lot more that I could tangibly experience.

dothi · 05-17-2009, 07:58 AM

Hey Psalm. re: no shadow stuff previously. It can really take your subconscious a long time to chew through the heavy emotional stuff of the past. IMO it's safe to say that whatever heavy experience you've endured that would have a profound impact on any "normal" person invariably did have a profound effect on you as well - so much that it got packed away until you were mentally healthy enough to finally process it. It sounds like your brain is finally letting go of some of that old pressure.

Psalm12140 · 05-20-2009, 11:58 PM

re: "It sounds like your brain is finally letting go of some of that old pressure."
I like the image- would like to speed the pressure-release up!

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.

05-15-2009, 07:50 AM	#2 (permalink)
GiveLove Forum Leader Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Stumbling toward happiness Posts: 4,818 Blog Entries: 2	Psalm, that's such a beautiful, sad set of observations. I am glad I'm not the only one for what specific places still hold these powerful conflicting emotions. Sometimes I think I would like to "reclaim" all of the places that still hold such anxiety and tension for me, almost like an exorcism for some of them LOL. I know I do not like visiting certain places from my past because it seems to take a couple of days to recover from the mental/spiritual trips they take me on, but with some of them I have had the chance to drive out the painful memories with more powerful good memories, and that helps. And I know that writing helps me more than anything else. Journaling and writing your feelings (as you've done) about what that place made you feel - that can be very strong healing. It is hard for some dark painful thoughts to survive once we bring them up to the bright, cleansing light of day. GL __________________ "Tell me, what are you going to do with your one wild and precious life?" --Mary Oliver "Action is the antidote to despair." --Joan Baez "False hopes bind us to unlivable situations, and blind us to real possibilities." --Derrick Jensen

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05-16-2009, 09:12 PM	#3 (permalink)
Psalm12140 Member Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Seattle, WA Posts: 13	Thanks for the encouragement. Another thing that was striking- I had visited the place once before, just about seven months after she'd died. At that time, there wasn't any of the shadow stuff whatsoever, just some vague sadness. The following six years were doing something in me, I feel... that I'd been numb to just how much pain was there, but going back at this point brought a lot more that I could tangibly experience.

05-17-2009, 07:58 AM	#4 (permalink)
dothi Member Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Anywhere but the mainstream. Posts: 402	Hey Psalm. re: no shadow stuff previously. It can really take your subconscious a long time to chew through the heavy emotional stuff of the past. IMO it's safe to say that whatever heavy experience you've endured that would have a profound impact on any "normal" person invariably did have a profound effect on you as well - so much that it got packed away until you were mentally healthy enough to finally process it. It sounds like your brain is finally letting go of some of that old pressure.

05-20-2009, 11:58 PM	#5 (permalink)
Psalm12140 Member Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Seattle, WA Posts: 13	re: "It sounds like your brain is finally letting go of some of that old pressure." I like the image- would like to speed the pressure-release up!

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