DoubleDragons

Hi all,

I feel like I need to reach out and be honest. I think I have hit my codependency lowpoint. I am very, very sad. Despite having a loving normal husband and wonderful children, I feel very alone. I feel suspicious and mistrustful of everyone, even my precious family. I went NC with my alcoholic mother and extremely enabling father almost a year ago only to hear from my mother on rare occasions with mean texts about how terrible I am and what I should be doing for my parents. I only heard from my father once, the day after Father's Day, which was about 16 mean, mean voicemails about not honoring him on FD. My sister, who I once thought was my closest ally, tried to damage my marriage with "mysterious" texts and so I went NC with her back in September. She has never owned what she did (despite obvious proof). Just once, I would love to have someone who has hurt me in my life, own what they have done and show true remorse. I feel like I continually apologize to people, even for trivial things, because I can't stand the idea of hurting anybody, but rarely do I feel that kind repricocity. In short, everything that I believed (or at least went along with the charade, no scratch that, I was an amazing actress) to be true, is shattered and not true. Now I feel crazy, like I don't know what to believe about anything.

I finally set up an appointment with a therapist who has excellent reviews, particularly in the field of addiction, but I won't be able to see him until the end of March because he is already too booked up with patients. I know I need an objective, one-on-one person to bounce things off of and I waited too long to admit this to myself.

I am a spiritual person. I am a strong person, but lately I feel like I am holding on to being my normal self by a string. I was listening to Miranda Lambert' s The House That Built Me and when her line "this brokenness inside me might start healing" came on, I started bawling. I like to think that this is my codependency bottom and that all of the feelings that I have stuffed for so long are rising up. I just need to process them and hopefully, they will leave me. In the meantime, I am so afraid of damaging the people and the relationships that are good in my life, in the process.

Thank you for letting me get this out. I want to be a positive force on this forum. Like the rest of you, I don't want to be a codependent any longer. But coming to terms with it all and making it happen feels like such an uphill battle sometimes.

DoubleDragons

Sorry to add to my long post but I have done a lot of reflection lately and this might be helpful to those of you with alcoholics in recovery. I quit drinking over three years ago and truthfully, the first year was not the toughest year. That year was a year of very clear goals and milestones (i.e. changing habits and routines, getting through each "event" like birthdays and holidays and other celebrations). It was a very concrete, clearly routine, physical process in many ways. The next two years were tougher, because I was facing a lot of issues that I had covered up with drinking and learning about who I "really was", as I had been a drinker since I was 15 years old. I am now seeing the parallels with my first year of truly putting my needs and my family's needs above my alcoholic parents' needs. It really has been a year of "wait and see" and still hoping that there would be an aha moment for them. Also, we got through all of the major events of the year with NC and nothing has changed in regards to their alcoholism or our relationship, but each event felt that a test or a clearly delineated goal to achieve. I am now coming to the beginning of Year 2 and beyond of conquering my codependency and I see that the real hard work has in some ways just begun . . . .

LexieCat

Good for you, for taking constructive action to get out of this miserable place. I know that hopeless feeling (different circumstances, similar feelings), and just deciding to do something about it brought some relief.

Can you ask the therapist to keep an eye out for any cancellations in case they can squeeze you in sooner?

heartcore

I believe it is a sign of healing already happening that such things are welling up in you.

When you were born to & raised in that broken house it can take many many years even to recognize its brokenness, many many years to salvage what you can from the wreckage, and a tremendous amount of internal strength to turn around and begin the walk away...

I know it is over-used in recovery, but here I think it is apt - "you are exactly where you are supposed to be..." Right now. Right here.

dandylion

doubledragons...well. for starters--you are not"crazy''....if you were you wouldn
t be here talking about it like this...lol...
Of course, you would feel very.very sad. From what you relate...you are grieving, I am sure...Going contact with family...even if it is temporary, can feel, literally, like a death....and, worse, sometimes. The pain of grieving can feel ike it cuts all the way into your soul....It takes a longer time to grieve...especially since the boundaries between you and your family are still very blurry (from what you say).
It is teriffic that you have an appointment with a therapist...
I suggest that you co nsider going to meetings of Adult Children of Alcoholics as soon as possible. You could use the validation and compassion of those who have been through the same kinds of thing with their family as you! do not underestimate the power of this kind of face to face contact with others. I think it would give you some solace while you are in this waiting period.
Desert Eyes has a lot of experience with ACOA...and this whole subject.....You might want to talk to him........
Your reaction to the song says how much emotion that you are holding in...
I think that you could really benefit from doing the "wailing wall" exercise on a regular basis (I will describe it if you don't know what that is)......

You deserve so much help...and this, too shall pass....
You are not alone....many, many others have walked in your same shoes....

biminiblue

I can't post much on this thread because I'm feeling a bit triggered, but I just want to send you a hug.

PhoenixJ

Many prayers.

maia1234

DD,
Oh, you sound just exhausted. You have been on SR for many years, my friend. You have learned so much. You are a strong, brave, beautiful, and compassionate women. You had no other choice but to cut toxic people out of your life, so you can "survive". Your parents are doing exactly what addicts do, they fight tooth and nail, to defend their addiction, this is part of the whole picture, as sad as it is.

You sound so sad, but you have come to the right place to reach out for help. We all get it here. We are all sad at what this horrible disease has done to each and every one of us and our love ones. But we are no longer alone. We are so strong in numbers. We applaud you for having the strength to do what you did. There are many enablers that would think you were awesome to have done what you did, and wished they were strong enough to do it.

Keep posting my friend, cry, yell, and get mad. Just stick with your plan with no contact. They don't deserve such a wonderful daughter in their life, until they can get their act together.

Sending many, many hugs to you. You are a loving, caring mom and wife. That is the most important job you need to be worrying about today. Say the serenity prayer and pray for them, that's all you can do!!

LifeRecovery

Double Dragons-

Your post, Lizatola's last week and a number of other ones recently have offered me hope and peace.

I have been in this place. I occasionally cycle through this place still about old, hard ways of being from when I was young. My recovery has been about peeling back layers......

I have not been able to find ways to so eloquently write the way you did.....and thus have missed out on some of the ideas/support you have gotten. But the words you write and other's support of you support me too.

I think I had the idea that once I "finished" a big layer of recovery I would be happy and all would be well. I needed to get through that outer layer first, but the underneath stuff has taken some time and it was hard to trust the process when it first really started to bubble up.

Therapy really helped me in this realm.

For me I would struggle on some hard stuff for 3-4 weeks, then release and feel great for a week or so, then a new topic would bubble up.

I had to unearth this stuff to allow it to move through me, and then I could heal. I was tired, emotional, distracted, and really questioning for some time that "I paid someone to feel this way."

It was the best thing I ever did for myself.

Thanks again for sharing.

DesertEyes

Oh yes, I know that feeling well. When I first started recovery I felt that all the time. Now it just pops up once in a while and with not much strength.

uh-huh. That is a very healthy skill to have when involved with toxic people. I've heard in meetings that nobody ever died from too much paranoia

It doesn't work that way. It's like wanting fish to fly and birds to breathe water. The way you know a person is toxic is because they do not own the damage they do to others. The fact that they have not shown remorse is evidence that you are the healthy one.

well yeah, another vital survival skill in a toxic family.

Everything? Totally absolutely eternally everything? <trying to be silly here and lighten things up>

Yup, I know that one too.

Here's what works for me, let me know if I am making sense.

One of my "symptoms" of ACoA is what my sponsor call "dictionary-itis". It means that the words I use to describe my self and my feelings come from that insane family and do not match the reality of the world.

Like the world "normal". My definition of "normal" is "similar to the people that raised me". That is not what "normal" means in the real world. So whenever I use one of my "toxic definitions" my sponsor told me to use an adjective.

"I feel like I am holding on to being my old toxic normal self by a string"

So the question to you becomes: Which "self" are you holding on to? The healthy self you have been building these last 3 years since you quit the self-medication? Or the old toxic self?

Sure sounds like that to me.

The process of healing will not damage anybody. What is damaging is keeping secrets and not being honest and transparent with them.

Oh yes, that is exactly how I feel sometimes. The good news is that it gets easier with practice and eventually they become just minor annoyances.

That is one of the standard techniques of ACoA recovery. That therapist you found should set you up with exactly that kind of program. In the meantime you can set your own "schedule". The idea is to start with really small things and slowly build it up over time.

- Start a "gratitude list". Pick a time of day that you can have like 10 minutes just for your healing. Every day. During these ten minutes write down all the things that are good in your life that start with the letter "A". The next day you to letter "B", and so on. The idea is to get your mind focusing away from the bad feelings.

- Make a physical goal. I don't know, how about running a 5K race in one year? That means that you also do one thing every day that is a tiny improvement in your physical health. I use the stairs at my work, and never the elevator. Ok, so that's not ever going to get me to that 5K race But the idea is to do something that I can feel is positive and healthy, no matter how small.

- Make a serenity goal. I go to the Salvation Army and find something cheap that will make my apartment feel more serene and restful. A pillow, a colorful towel, a small pot to stick a flower in. Anything small. The idea is that you are taking action to make your life better for you.

- Make a relationship goal. Every day pick a different person and tell them how you appreciate that they are in your life. That's it. Nothing more. The next time that person's turn comes up let then know you appreciate them but do it in a different way. It has to be small, no big gifts, no parties, etc.

I dunno. I think you already got past the hardest. Imagine trying to do this while still drinking / using? This part of recovery is emotionally hard, but you get better as you move forward and you also tend to accelerate. Kind of like learning to ski downhill. Gonna have a sore body the first few tries, but once you get the hang of it ....

Mike