Something my therapist said really stuck. She said, "you've been in survival mode since childhood and never had the proper environment in which to find yourself. You've been lost at sea for so long and programmed to survive...it's OK to grow up, to come back to land."
Then, she drew a timeline of my life. She marked from 7 years-old to 17 in red because these were the darkest and most traumatizing times, riddled with my bipolar mother's rampant alcoholism that resulted in us being thrown into the foster care system and/or bounced around between other relative's. She also marked from age 30 to 32 for the past 2 painful years I've spent with XABF. The red spanned 10 years, or 1/3 of my life. She extended the timeline to age 65+ and used a yellow marker to highlight all of the remaining years not marked in red. The happy years in the past, and the rest of the future in which the choice is mine: red or yellow? Without recovery and NC with active A's that future will be red.
The truth is I am afraid to recover, to "grow up." I don't think I've ever stopped being that scared little girl who just wants to fix everything and be normal like everyone else. I've always felt different, wrong. Good is never good enough. I do not love myself, I loathe myself. In fact, my ultimate goal seems to be to destroy me.
I am an addict. XABF provided an escape from reality. A distraction from the utter mess of my life. From my responsibilities and the sense of being lost and not knowing who I am or what I want. From the self-sabotaging behaviors I'd developed in childhood that hold me back in life. From not dealing properly with the trauma and abuse that was my childhood, just stuffing it down with relationships and addict behaviors.
XABF led me further and further out to sea, where I feel right at home. I don't know how to get to land, let alone adapt to its environment. Land is for normal people.
It's comforting to know that there are others stranded out at sea too, although I don't wish such harsh conditions on anyone. It's even nicer to know that many of you found land as well as peace on that land. Gives a girl hope!
