Payne

Four years ago I was driven, and a perfectionist, I had goals and would do anything for it. I am an ACoA and I leaned solidly on the side of overachieving perfectionist. Life got in the way as it undoubtably does, and I reached to far when too many things were falling apart. I was full time in school working a full time job and another nearly full time job along with buying a house and completely renovating it. At the end of the three months of buying the house I quit my second job and settled into a slower lifestyle with my then two year old golden retriever.

I managed to hold onto that drive through school, and through dog training. During that time I finally acknowledged and accepted that my parents are ACoAs also if not alcoholics. I spent quite a few months angry as I noticed more what their actions had done. I had always considered myself defective and I think that's what drove me to perfection, for something to be right. When I finally started seeing a reason for my "defective" behavior and understanding more, I started slacking off on my professional life and focused more on my personal life.

I see the importance of that. However, a year ago I graduated from dog training then went back to my old job. I'm over worked but I hate it. I'm striving to make a living with a job I detest. Everyones been there, not the problem. THe problem is I want to dog train. I have a wonderful mentor who has offered me a slot in her business free of overhead charge in order to practice and become comfortable in my new profession. I have started and frozen on writing classes a hundred times. Again tonight I sit here staring at the page knowing what to write, but not knowing how.

Looking at it from a distance I'm guessing I'm back to being afraid of failure, but instead of pushing for perfection, I'm pushing for inactivity. I know moderation is important and I would like to find a road in between both extremes but in this moment I'm frozen.

Kialua

Wow I so relate. I choose inactivity a lot. It just seems right. We talked about this before and for me it comes from growing up having to be quiet at all times --or else. Spent a lot of time hiding out, reading, watching tv, drawing. But nothing productive. I am still the same way even though I had a career I loved and succeeded in. Right now I have a personal project with a tutor that I am just flat out ignoring. And I really want to do it. I have an understanding friend who is highly skilled that has been urging me to do this for the last 3 years! I'm about half way done and just find other stuff to do instead, stuff that is inactivity, like tv, read, sit. Frozen.

So what do we do? hmm.

dbh

Thanks for posting.

I can relate too. Most of my early drive and motivation came from me wanting to prove to the world that I had value. I also wanted to please others.

When I started realizing that this was unhealthy behavior I wasn't sure where my motivation was suppose to come from. I spent most of my life trying to be what I thought others wanted me to be. I have spent very little time thinking about what I actually wanted and needed.

At times I feel frustrated by this, it makes me still feel broken. During more positive moments I try to think of it as exciting. When you grow up with an alcoholic, you're own needs usually don't matter. So now is my time to figure out who I am. But this is scary and can cause paralysis.

I'm still sort of struggling with this so I have no true ESH to share.

Just wanted you to know that you're not alone.

db

Payne

You make a good point that I used to be driven by "proving" things. I have gotten far enough on my recovery that I have begun to try and focus on what I want and need. This weekend a friend and o were discussing renovations and dream scenarios to decorate my house and no less than four times did my best friend who remembers every detail I tell her said "I would have never guessed you like that, your right its gorgeous just I would have never guessed you've always said different." Im blessed to have people in my life who love me whether I like bold colors or pastels and encourage me to follow those wishes.

On Saturday I was invited to carve pumpkins with my surrogate sister and her guy and his son. I made an awesome pumpkin I was so proud of. My am has been doing counseling and much better. So I swung by to reach out to her and showed her the pumpkin. She tore it down several times before finally congratulating me. My friend is ready to kill her, however she reminded me "it was great I'm proud of you.but you know what I'm proud of, you're proud of you. I wish you could do that more. But until you can I will be."

Long story short, I agree we get so used to being motivated by outside sources that during recovery I think we lose our motivation and have to find a way to get.it internally like self confident "normies" can.

justanothrday

I have this same problem and have thus been in college for about seven years (yikes!). I am the only one in my family to have gone to college and I feel almost like if I am not going to school and working two jobs and overwhelming myself I will have to figure out who I am and what I want to do. I don't even know what having a hobby is like. When I do have time to do what I want I freeze like you do and instead of doing something for myself I do nothing.

Little by little I am learning to do what makes me happy and even though its a strange feeling I am trying and that is all we can do.

Payne

So the other day I was saying something to a friend and I said "I'm trying." She kinda snickered and said, "I know, you're always trying, and I don't mean that in a bad way, I admire it. But you say you're "trying" like I need to know because I'm losing patience with you.I'm not. Youre the only one whos pushing.youvans judging how hard you "try" relax. I know its an acoa thing, but ill love you even if you aren't perfect. And you'll never find yourself trying, you'll find yourself by relaxing and listening instead of thinking."
I personally fixate and obsess on perfection. It wasn't until then that I realized how much I was fixating on making my recovery perfect. I guess your use of the word try reminded me .

megamay

wow! I had no idea this was a ACOA characteristic, but I can definitely relate to this!

All of my life my parents told me that if I wanted a good life, I had to go to college and if I wanted to go to college I had to get a scholarship. I was driven, a perfectionist. I graduated valedictorian and got a scholarship to a GREAT school. Once in college, I struggled because I was unprepared for the academic rigors of a top notch university - having come from a rural farm school. It was hard for me to deal with being unable to be perfect, but after a really rough freshman year which included lots of binge drinking and self mutilation, I got through the rest of college and graduated.... And totally lost my drive.

My husband asks me all the time why I have no drive to do my job. I could never really explain it to him. I found drive for my hobby, but with my job, I show up, do the minimum and go home.

I thought the answer was that I needed a different career, but now you all have made me wonder if I need to look for where the motivation can or should come from.

Payne

That's what's great about a site like this is seeing how many people in.your position feel that way. And the lightbulb realization that we never learned how to internally motivate and that can.become a whole different road block during recovery is definitely interesting! And annoying, have I mentioned annoying? :P

tromboneliness

YES. This is a point that a widely-used bowling psychologist (there are such things) makes. "You can prove, or you can just be." What he means is that if you feel that you have something to prove (for example, that you belong in a field of elite pro bowlers), that means you're not really there yet. If you are really there, there's no need to prove it -- you just set 'em up and knock 'em down!

I think it's important not to talk too much about our recovery program with people who are outside [pointing to the window] -- those people don't understand what we do and why, and they're not really going to get why we do the "recovery" thing, especially if we no longer live with alcoholics. So instead of telling my friends about my recovery (such as it is), I just... well, recover, and let that speak for itself....

T

Payne

I love the pro bowling metaphor. That makes a lot of sense, its that urge to always become better for yourself that helps to push!

I do however for myself like getting very different opinions. From normies and otherwise. I know sometimes ill hear an opinion I would have never seen without talking to others and its helpful. But that's me personally and I am well aware that I'm very lucky with my non familial support system and it works for me.

Jur123

I can totally relate. I have always fluctuated between extreames - either overdid something or would freeze and do not do anything. At school and in college I was either in the top 5 or bottom 5 depending how I felt that semester. At work I was the same - either overworking or doing minimum. However 80% of the time I was in a perfectionist mode and still feeling that I'm not good enaugh. Moderation was never my trait. I always thought that it's just me how I am and never contributed this to my upbringing.

Payne

I guess its both. Well never be able to fully seperate every trait from nature and nurture. I think the important part is self awareness. If I do something acoa like that I don't like in myself what caused it and what behavior that I do like can replace it. If I do something acoa like and I like it, what can I do to assure this is long term healthy for me and how in my ever changing.recovery can I preserve it. Personally I feel I'm a slacker when I'm not challenged, and I can be entirely too needy, and I look for outside assurance too much. But I am loyal and loving and dedicated and kind. It's balancing between finding and protecting myself without losing the me I like.

NWGRITS

I'm actually a bit of both at once. I don't half-a$$ my work, but I'm known to just give up on it out of nowhere. When I was younger, I threw myself into school work. It was the only place I was ever good enough. Then as I got older I just... Lost it. I would go into semesters in college full tilt boogie, and then give up and crash. I finally stopped altogether. I realized I was only doing it to prove to my AM that I was good enough, but she will never care. Once I got past that, I found that I'm happy with my life. I can advance in my career without a degree, and my kids know that I do value education, but that being happy with your life is the most important thing. I'm a Navy wife, mom, writer, and a hospitality professional. But most of all, I'm happy. Can't ask for much more than that.

Payne

I absolutely agree that's definitely what I'm shooting for. However my freeze problem is that this is something I want for me to be happy and I freeze

dbh

I've gotten a lot out of the discussion on this thread.

Can so relate to being either "all in" or "all out". I too was drawn to school as a means of feeling worthy. It was something I excelled at and getting good grades made me feel smart. I went through a long period of time where I hung most of my identity and self-esteem on my academic achievements.

Got a bachelors, masters, and spent 5+ years working on a PhD. Something happened during the course of my PhD that made me freeze. Still not sure if it was fear or my unconscious realization that I was STILL going to feel unworthy no matter how many degrees I accumulated. One of the positive things that came out of this experience was that it got me into therapy and it was the start of me addressing my ACA issues.

More recently, I have been frustrated with myself because I too don't feel like I'm moving ahead in my personal goals. Therapy and 12-step work has helped me feel more stable emotionally and I have resolved many of my problems with interacting with members from my family of origin. However, I do still feel stuck when it come to pursuing my own needs, wants, and desires. I can identify things that I want, put have a hard time putting a plan into action.

Last month I made an appointment with my therapist to talk about my struggles. She's helping me identify my goals and encouraging me to make a detailed list of the steps I need to take to achieve these goals. Again, I think part of my problem could be that previously I was driven by a need to please/prove myself. Now, I need to value my own desires. I need to show up for me and be accountable.

During my session last month I surprisingly got emotional when we were discussing things that I wanted to achieve. The emotion that surfaced was that I'm not used to anyone caring about my wants and needs. When I was growing up, I lived a lot in my head. I would daydream about the type family I wanted to have, the house I wanted to live in, the trips I wanted to go on, etc. Also spent a lot of time losing myself in movies.

I don't even think I shared these dreams with anyone. It was a fantasy world that I created for myself to distract myself from my actually life.

I don't remember either of my parents talking to me about things that I wanted to achieve. We just needed lay low and not cause any more problems for own family.

Wow, didn't realize this was going to be so long!

To quickly wrap this up ...
I've decided to work with my therapist over the next couple of months to help me define and achieve some of my personal goals. I think this is something that I truly never learned to do. I have to learn to put as much value on my own needs/wants/desires as I did when trying to please others.

Thank you for letting me share.

db

Payne

I totally get it and I'm glad I posted knowing I'm not alone has been great. But breaking it down into small manageable pieces sounds like a great idea. I went the same route and ordered a book that goes step by step for designing classes. I thought that would help me for my first couple til I het into a comfort zone

VickiACA

Payne - with regards to the writing and other creative activities you might check out Steven Pressfield's "The War of Art." Nice read on resistance.

Vicki

Payne

It's writing a class. Ironically creative writing I'm always fine.