burning desire

[kpaul32]

I'm really feeling lonely,unappreciated, and mad right now. My sister, and neices for years begged me to move to this state so that we could all enjoy being family. My sister is a crack addict and her husband and adult kids had given up hope that she would ever be sober. I am a recovering alcoholic, so I understood addiction. I came here and had her committed to treatment twice against her will because she was literraly near death from smoking crack. She is now 3 months sober and now they are all one big happy family. They have picnics, bbq, go to movies and resturants. Whats the problem. They never bother to invite me 90 percent of the time. This is my birthday weekend and my sister and neice had promised to spend time with me. Each cancelled to pursue their own plans. One to go to outing with her sister and sister's boyfriend, another to have a weekend getaway with her husband. What is so cold is the way it was done. My sister called me and said I needed to come get her grandaughter and baby sit over the weekend because she and her husband were going away. My neice than cancelled her outing with me to go somewhere with others. I am through with all of them. I feel like they could at least show some appreciation. Were it not for me they would be sitting around depressed wondering if there mother was dead. And my sister would be prostituting herself for crack or dead. The least I would think they could do is to include me in family events or al the very least not cancel plans with me at the last minute. I am pissed and almost wish my sister would relaspe so they could all go back to being miserable. I know that is not right, but I am mad as hell. Someone give me some insight please

[kj3880]

Kpaul,
I understand completely, and your feelings are natural. I moved from a house that was 5 minutes away from work about 8 years ago to be in the same little community with my brothers, sisters, and Mom and Dad. Everyone assured me that when my marriage fell apart that they would be able to be there more for me and my teenagers if I was nearby as a single Mom. So I braved the continual commute for my kids to have an extended family, only to find none of them had time for me unless they suddenly needed babysitters for my many baby nieces and nephews and their many dogs. They've proceded to stand me up, let me down, and generally make me feel unloved and unwanted. I now have a big house with a newly-bigger electric bill that is really too expensive for me and an hour commute with higher priced gas than I'm now struggling to afford. And the recession has made it impossible for me to sell. So I'm stuck working tons of overtime to hang in there spending less time with my almost-grown-up kids than ever before. I'm full of resentments. I made a bad decision, and my family lets me down. I know I should just stop expecting what isn't going to happen, but it's hard to stop hoping when you love your family as much as I do (and I'm sure you do, too). I don't go to the extent of wishing ill on any of them, but I understand how you got to that place.
I don't want to share without coming up with some suggestions for us to improve things. Here's all I can think of:
1. We need to pray to minimize our resentment, especially the serenity prayer, which is very appropriate for our situation here.
2. We need to form a new support network (maybe our friends at NA/AA?) to help up with fellowship.
3. We can develop our own "family" of wonderful friends to take the place of family members that disappoint us.
4. We can limit what we're giving to our family to what is more appropriate. If they're not giving to us, we have to stop burning ourselves out giving to the takers of the world endlessly and catching resentment as a result. We can give our support more to friends who are more sharing instead.
5. We can share that we feel disappointed with a member or two of our family that seems like a person who could possibly change if they knew how we felt. But not with all of them, not everyone seems able to change or be in a give-and-take relationship.
6. We can refuse to be victims or martyrs. We can read Melody Beatties' Codependant No More again and see if we are having some codie issues.
That's all I have right now? Do you have anything for me to use to make this better?
Thanks.
I'm KJ and I'm an addict.

[kj3880]

Kpaul,
Not as many people seem to read this forum as the "newcomers to recovery", the "substance abuse", or the "friends and family" ones. If you don't get many responses here, repost it over on one of those. Hope I helped a little.
kj