dbh

I almost posted this on the Adult Children of Alcoholics forum, but then thought this must be something that many people recovering from dysfunctional families and relationships must deal with.

I'm at a point in my recovery where certain personality types are driving me crazy. It's funny, for so many years all my concentration was on members of my family of origin and what I thought they were doing wrong. Now, I've have pretty much accepted my family for who they are and have been able to detach with love.

What I'm struggling with now are random people in my life - people from church, parents at school, and people that I work with.

I have often read that the people who trigger you have more to do with you than it does with them. I can't figure out what to do when I'm around a person that triggers me.

It's usually people that remind me of my pre-recovery self. The mom at the school that overextends herself, joins every committee, and wants everyone to like her. That used to be me, but now when I'm confronted with a personality like this I want to run screaming (or tell them how working the 12-steps have helped me :-)

I'm also extremely judgmental about people who gossip and those that try to play people against each other. That reminds me of my family of origin too much.

I know I can't change anyone and that I can only change how I react to others. I'm still learning how to set boundaries and what healthy boundaries actually are.

There a part of me that just wants to avoid these challenging personalities, but in the past that has lead to isolation. There are days when I find almost everyone annoying; I'd end up with no one in my life!

I think I need to learning how healthy relationships work. When you're part of a community, you have conflicts and you disagree, but ultimately you figure out how to work/live together.

Unfortunately, the family that I grew up in never provided examples of how you go about doing that!

What I'm doing right now isn't working. I tend to give mixed signals to people. I'm friendly some days and give a cold shoulder the next. I want to try and figure out how to be consistent.

Does this make sense to anyone else?

Thank you for letting me share.

db