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Old 06-08-2022, 03:20 PM
  # 7 (permalink)  
SmallButMighty
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Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: The Beach
Posts: 1,107
Hi Iso. I understand exactly how you are feeling. I lived in that kind of chaos for a long time. My (ex)husband did and said similar things to me. It was done on purpose, to keep me off balance, upset and scared.. to prevent me from saying things he didn't want to hear ( for the umpteenth time) and to keep me from taking any actions that would "rock his boat". He was happy with things just the way they were and I was starting to threaten that way of life, his alcoholic demons didn't like that. It made me the "enemy" to be thwarted. He wanted to be able to just keep drinking (which included drunk driving for him, and all the dozens of different fears I lived with because of it) and have me just calm down and be OK with it because I always knew he was a drinker, why did I have to be a witch about it now?"

After a few years of his alcoholism getting worse, and my codependency right along side it, I developed a serious anxiety disorder, having several anxiety/panic attacks a day and having anxiety induced insomnia. If I did sleep I had awful nightmares. He got a DUI and lost his DL, I was the only driver in the home. I got injured at work and had to be off work for months with severe shoulder pain. My dad was also drinking himself to his death. At the time we had teenage children... my life was a living hell. The fear, the fury, the frustration... it consumed me. I ended up having to be medicated, which I hated, but it got to the point I couldn't function due to the anxiety attacks so I had no choice. BUT...actually I did have a choice, I just didn't think I did, because I didn't like it. The day I finally had the strength to move into my own place was the last day I ever had to take that medication. My anxiety went away almost immediately when I got away from living that way.

You are not crazy. I don't doubt you sometimes feel like you are losing it, I sure as heck did. Living in that kind of dysfunction will make anyone feel off balance and out of whack... even fragile. It's awful.

Besides being here at SRF&F, the book "Codependent No More" by Melody Beattie was an integral part of getting me rolling on fixing my own life, I'd wasted years trying in vain to fix him. I had to learn the hardest of ways that there is no amount of Love that can fix another person. They have to want to fix themselves. I decided to spend that energy on myself and then my life slowly began to improve.

Deep breaths friend, lots and lots of deep breaths.
You are not crazy.
Be gentle with yourself.
Drink lots of water.
You are among friends here who truly do understand.
*hugs*
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