Hi all!
I met my AH ten years ago. I noticed he drank a lot but, hey we were in college everyone was doing it! (except me)
Fast forward to the present: we are currenlty seperated and have been for about 6 weeks. I finally had enough one day, it wasn't anything in particular but I guess you could say I finally hit my "bottom". I told him he had to leave and couldn't return home until he had six months sobriety under his belt.
His is one month sober and attending AA and I am attending Alanon and for the first time since I met him I am taking care of myself. I am doing my best to no longer obsess about whether or not he is truly in recover or not, whether he has truly been sober a month a not, and whether we have a future together or not, etc....
My main problem now is the anxiety! Not anxiety about the things currently going on now but the repressed anxiety from the past ten years.
We had only been dating for six months when I suffered an anxiety attack (go figure) and learned then how to kinda put a "cap" on my feelings of anxiety to prevent future attacks. I convinced myself over the ensuing ten years to just "put on my big girl panties and deal with it". As a result, for the past decade I've had that smothering "heaviness" on my chest of anxiety and have been barely keeping myself from having a full blown panic attack.
Through my recovery from codependency I have learned that I need to stop repressing emotions so I started on my biggest one: the anxiety.
I have acknowledged my anxiety for the first time and instead of alleviating the pain, the pain in my chest has increased tremendously and become a burning ache and I have to fight the urge to just stuff it back in the bottle and put a cap on the emotion so I don't have to deal with it. I would almost rather go back to the constant feeling of "heaviness" on my chest than feel this but I don't want to go back to that!!! I have been doing strenuous cardio every day, running, riding my bike, singing in a chior, meditating, praying etc.... and nothing alleviates this anxiety for longer than the activity lasts. I don't know what to do to release this anxiety!!!!!
I have been studying step two of al-anon and I guess my biggest roadblock is I am having extreme difficulty in connecting with my Higher Power. I guess maybe I feel that I have to do all the heavy work i.e. "God helps those who help themselves".
Ugh...... I am in physical and spirtual pain and I need help letting go of my anxiety.......
Has anyone had any experience in this area?????
