Vunerable

[Biscuits]

Just needed to share how i was feeling and can't get hold of anyone on the phone.

My sponsor left OA earlier this year and although she agreed to continue sponsoring me until i found another, she has changed her mind, she says she needs to cut ties with OA and get on with her life. I feel totally devasted as she had been my sponsor for years and i shared so much with her. I feel abandoned, rejected, isolated and really vunerable.

It couldn't have come at a worse time, i'm already feeling low due to lack of sleep and feel like everything is really piling up on me. I know that finding a new sponsor is hard for me as i still have real trust issues and find it hard to connect with people.

Right now i'm asking HP for the willingness to go to my meeting tonight because all i want to do it curl up into a ball and have a good cry.

Too late the tears are falling while i'm tapping away, i know in my heart that i am not alone and that God and fellow members and there for me but i find it so hard to reach out. My number one character defect is self reliance and it takes alot to trust and say how i am really feeling.

I share here because i feel safe, thanks everyone

[Neagrm]

Hi, Biscuits. I'm glad you wrote about how you're feeling here. I appreciate your sharing and I identify with what you said.

(I do wish there was more sharing on the ED's, more exchange would be helpful.) Oh well, here I am and I'll respond to your post, such as my response is, rather blah myself.

Even though you know it and I know it, I'll say it again :-), you are not alone. Even though we know that, it's hard without talking to people with skin on sometimes.

There is no OA group in my town, but there is Al-Anon and I go to that and found myself a sponsor there. It took me a while and I understand it can take some time and thought, before choosing or finding another sponsor. Keep with it, though. It's worth it and you'll find another eventually.

Does your OA group have a phone list? How about calling someone on it to say hi. Sometimes even a small gesture of reaching out can help us.

I hope you'll make the effort to get to your meeting tonight. Ohmygoodness, I know that feeling of isolating and succumb to it at times. But it sounds as if you'd feel better if you can get yourself there. Keep thinking of the result you want and of the support you'll find there regardless of how you feel in this moment. You'll be glad you went.

How's that for a pep talk, heheheh. I will try to listen to myself andhang in there with you.

I don't know where you live, but if you're in the northern latitudes, be assured Spring is coming! Sometimes I struggle with the winter blues especially at this time of year, even though the days are getting longer.

In March it's as if the winter catches up with my hypothalamus. Ha! Whatever it is or that part of the brain does I kinda forget, but doesn't it have something to do with processing emotions? Could be I mean the pituitary gland -- or the amygdala. Whoa, what the heck is that, LOL! Pulling these out of the hat of 40 years ago!

Anyway, I'm wishing you well and hope things turn around for you soon. I'd love to hear all about your OA meetings. How are they different from Al-Anon, etc., the things you discuss, how it helps people/you, what has helped the most for certain things, how people have overcome emotional eating, etc.

Be well ...

[Nina Kay]

Hey Biscuits,
I hope that you went to your meeting tonight. I really miss going to the OA meetings. I didn't go for too long, but long enough to know how much better I do with my ED when I attend the meetings, than I do when I'm not attending. I moved an hour away and there aren't any meetings where I am now and I'm way too tired in the evenings to drive that far.

I can understand about losing your sponsor and I'm know that it has to be so much worse to lose someone that you've shared so much with for so long. I hope that you'll be able to pick yourself up and go on for your own recovery and maybe learn some lessons from your sponsor, as how to not treat a sponsee, because you now know how it makes you feel. Maybe you could just take your time on choosing another sponsor, until you're feeling more sure as to who you would be able to trust the most. Maybe you could just use the whole group as a temporary sponsor for a while and just take your needs one day at a time. Just some thoughts.

I really want to apologize to you & Neagrm and everyone else for not getting here more often. I keep hoping that things might change again so that I can, but right now I'm babysitting all day so I can't get to the computer during the day and I'm so exhausted at night that I am slow getting here and too tired to respond intelligibly when I do get here. I do care about this ED Forum and I do care about all of you that come here for support. I'll try to get here more often.

Anyway, I do understand how you're feeling, as I've fought depression and isolation most of my life. You sound just like me, wanting to just curl up in a ball & have a good cry. Well, I'm sorry that I don't have any wise words for you but I wanted you to know that I am here for you and I do hear you and I certainly understand how you feel. I'd love to know if you were able to make it to the meeting tonight and how it went for you if you were.
(((((((((((Caring Hugs))))))))))))

[Biscuits]

Hi all

Thanks for all your words of wisdom and encouragement. I do feel a little better today after managing to get 6 hours undisturbed sleep last night. Funny i never thought to ask my HP for a good nights sleep until last night.

I did make my meeting and was so glad i did, we had a newcomer who reminded me of how ill i was emotionally when i entered the rooms of OA.
The meeeting was on step three, one of my fav's and it was good to remember that i have turned my will and life over to the care of God and that all that is happening right now is his plan for my life. I realised after writing my journal this morning that i kept contact with my sponsor through my own insecurities and also in the belief that if i did she may come back into OA.

for info: i joined OA in February of 1997 and it truly saved my life, i came in on the back of my father dying and a suicide bid. To look at my life from the outside most people would believe i had no problems. I was and am still married to a wonderful guy, have two beautiful children and a lovely home so what was my problem - i was dead on the inside, i hated everything about me, i had never dealt with the pain of being abused as a child and was struggling to get through each day. Most days i went to bed asking God to not let me wake up that way my husband could find a better, prettier, thinner wife and my kids could have a mom who was there for them emotionally.

Well God had other ideas and i entered the rooms of OA, it has been a long painful journey into recovery but i don't regret a minute of it. I no longer feel like a piece of me is missing, and i definetly don't feel dead inside. Life is i've realised challenging at best and my defects will always surface now and again but i do belong to a wonderful group and am very close to many of the members, i greatfully sponsor and give service and know that its the only place i have found true family and a way to live life free from the obsession of food.

[Wino40]

Biscuits

I kinda feel like I know you since I've read your previous posts.

You will find the right person.

I too have trust issues. I have them because I have found out most people are not trustworthy. I have had few people I have met, in a long life, that I trust like I do a good dog.

I have dealt with this problem by being careful what I trust people with. My program tells me to share the exact NATURE of my wrongs, not the specifics. The exact nature of my wrongs may be that I was an adulterer. Who and where, I need not share because it would serve no purpose.

I have had to work real hard to take the time of my HP for trivial things like sleep, nicotine addiction and eating problems. I now talk to Him regularly and ANYTHING that keeps me from being effective I consider a character defect and we discuss whether I am ready to have it removed.

I am pretty sure nothing I have typed will help you much. They are just the ramblings of an old man who woke up early and did not want to wake my darling wife, so I came in here and typed.

Thanks to you all for your companionship.

I am kinda concerned about a fine old man who will have surgery this morning. If things do not go well I will miss the old coot. We have become quite close, in fact he is my friend. That is a word I use VERY rarely.

Y'all have a great day. Remember this ain't practice, it's the real deal. :>)

Ray

[Nina Kay]

Hi Biscuits & Wino.
Thanks to both of you for sharing so much of your stories here. You both are very inspiring. I can see that each of you have put alot of work into your recovery programs and I hear in each of your posts how it is paying off. Gives new meaning to the saying, It works if you work it. I'm gonna remember you both as good examples. Wino, I hope that your friend comes through the surgery okay.

[TheGirlInside]

Originally Posted by Biscuits

Hi all

- i was dead on the inside, i hated everything about me, i had never dealt with the pain of being abused as a child and was struggling to get through each day. Most days i went to bed asking God to not let me wake up that way my husband could find a better, prettier, thinner wife and my kids could have a mom who was there for them emotionally.

Well God had other ideas.

Wow, does that sound like me...just before being shown the road of recovery.

When it rains, it does pour, doesn't it? I've just gone through a similar feeling...of all sorts of things piling up all at once, and feeling like my recovery was disappearing during it. But, the truth is, I actually did prove to myself that I am continuing to grow, even when sometimes it doesn't feel like it.

As much as I tried to pin it all on God, and them tell him to go away, I never really did push Him away...

Thanks for sharing your story. I think it's great that you can think positively of your sponsor.

[Pony]

Biscuits, Thanks for sharing with us here. I know it is hard to find a new sponsor but really it sounds like it was time anyway. I say that because we can become so used to one person and go along doing fine with that person, but our growth kind of stops. Sometimes it is good for us to introduce a change into out lives so that we can move on forward into other facets of our recovery. Maybe your HP, working through your old sponsor, was giving you a little push out there with her moving on in her life. Does that make little sense?

You will find the right one....until then we are all here.......... talk away.