Having some difficulties
 

Haven't been around SR; my wife's father got very sick, we visited and he passed during that visit. We rushed home to get Michelle back to work but they gave all her shifts away for the week. Then we turned around and went back for the funeral...just got back yesterday. Which brings us to now:

I'm having some difficulties.

This disease of mine is kicking my butt. Heck of a teacher though. Lessons I'm not thrilled to learn though. I want to know the truth of course, I just would prefer if the truth was different.

For instance, once upon a time, I needed to be perfect. After years in recovery, I finally learned that I don't need to be perfect. Nope, my best is good enough. I tell you that I'll jump in the car and be there as fast as I can then I'm going to try and make the 700 mile car ride in a straight shot, stopping once for gas and a bathroom break at about the half-way mark. Nine times out of ten I'm going to do it just like that. The tenth time I'm going to have to pull over and take an hour nap. Hey, no problem I mean, who makes a 700 mile trip in eleven hours anyway? So it took me twelve this once so what? I did my best but needed a nap so I took it.

Once, this would have been completely unacceptable. Using the program, I learned to accept my limitations such that they were and move on with serenity. Then this disease hit. Saturday morning I was driving home from a funeral 500 miles from home. Taking my new limitations into account, I got a hotel for the night after Friday's funeral so that I could drive fresh in the morning. Forty miles into the trip on Saturday after a good night's sleep, I found that I couldn't drive any longer. That I couldn't accept. I took a break anyway and continued an hour later. One hundred miles up the road and fighting exhaustion, I fell asleep at the wheel. I woke in time to prevent an accident and pulled over again. Once again, no acceptance or serenity with this stop.

I have discovered that I while I may not need to be perfect, it wasn't my best that was good enough it was my healthy best that I accepted was good enough. If I had the occasional flu or something and my best dipped momentarily, I could accept that too after all, it was temporary. Accepting my best as good enough when my best has become 3-4% of what my best was just a year ago...that is giving me conniptions.

Too, how many times have I encouraged others to just be? You're a human being, not a human doing! Your worth is as a human being, not what you do. Too many to count. Yet, when my wife comes home after working thirteen hours in a split shift trying desperately to support us on minimum wage she's too tired to make herself something to eat and I don't have the strength to have dinner waiting for her when she comes home when I answer her good-natured question, What have you been up to today? and I have to point to the chair and say, Been sitting there for thirteen hours minus bathroom breaks I've got to tell you, the self-worth plummets.

I've said elsewhere and repeatedly, that I'm okay with this - it's just my body...but it's affecting more than that these days. By way of an example that will only make sense to a chess player, my rating has dropped at least 600 points in the last year. Two years ago I played three games simultaneously, blindfolded against two masters and an expert. I tell them where to move me and they tell me where they moved and I move on to the next board. It requires one to be able to hold three different boards in ones head at the same time. I won two of those games and drew one. Today I am playing at about club level. The chess world doesn't even have a system for awarding points to someone who beats a person over 400 points higher rated than them - because it is assumed that it cannot happen...and I'm playing at a level at least 600 points below where I was a year ago. It's not considered possible.

Anywho, so getting used to this lack of mental prowess has been the most difficult. Thinking up solutions to intractable problems has been my forte. Now that I need to be able to think more than ever - to solve some of my physical issues, I can't think clearly enough to do so. What's left to go?

So, I know the drill. I get to re-learn these lessons all over again at the graduate level. But I don't want to go back to school. #pout #tantrum very modern, eh? Anyway, if I graduate I know I'll be happy for the education but in the meantime I'm fighting a plummeting self-respect, esteem, worth, etc. and it sucks. It'll pass, like everything, but today it sucks. Appreciate the opportunity to vent.

I am sorry to hear you are dealing with some real challenges. Both mental and physical. Is there anything we can help you with specifically? Do you belong to a support group for your particular challenges?

Well, just being here is help - good place to vent. As for the support group - nothing specific to the disease itself, it's so rare as to not really have the numbers for a support group. But really, problems start and stop between my ears. It's my mental state that determines my happiness and serenity level. Since so many of the buttons this disease is pushing are ACoA related (for me) then yeah, I've got support.

Sincere thanks for your response.

Ok. Well I am glad just being here helps you. The ACoA stuff is a real challenge at times. I am just beginning to really explore my issues and started reading the big red book. Have you read the book or joined an ACoA group?

I am very involved in an ACoA group online. It's a great alternative for those of us who don't live near f2f meetings. They're a great group and I've shared this with them as well. We have four meetings a week and many of us talk regularly on the phone as well.

I have read the book although I don't have a copy handy. That said, a sponsee of mine posts excerpts regularly online and I'm sure she's posted the whole book by now - so lots of little reminders constantly. :)

Thats awesome. I had no idea they had online meetings. Might be something for me to look into.