thrashej

Been a long time, yall....

Ok, I know something like 90% of all american families have some sort of dysfunction going on...so, with that in mind.....

let's assume you are the healthy one of the bunch. Ok, let's say you are the one TRYING to get healthy. You are starting to open your eyes, see things different. You are starting to not feel guilty when everyone else says you should AND you are starting to realize that may be the right thing!!

Ok, so that is all well and good for you. GOOD FOR YOU, right? BUT........how do you still love the rest of your family without going nuts? For example, my sister and I used to love to vent, vent, vent and then vent. Over the years I realized how we would never come to solutions about any of the problems, that the problems never changed, and it was one big bit!# fest. I hate those conversations now....my blood pressure shoots up and I can't get off the phone (she doesn not come up for air and talks for 2 hours sometimes)! Plus, she calls me intoxicated to boot. She will start crying over crap that happened 20 years ago!!! ...... But, she has told me before that venting helps her. I have told her before that it tends to hurt me. I am all for talking about something new, something that didn't just happen today while I WAS THERE, and please, anything that is not beating a dead horse. If I were to be honest and basically say, "don't call me unless you have something new to say and I would like it if we just talked about US" she would be offended. I gaurantee it. Not my problem you say? Maybe so. But how do I maintain any relationships with them?


I am starting to think that the only way would be to move away. Then you can only talk over the phone but I think that would be less and less since I would not be involved in their day to day life. Sure, my brother could ask for money over the phone, but atleast I wouldn't have to go to his house and "help him" clean and refurbish (he never gets anything done but never sleeps and has no job.. he is a meth addict) HIS house just to see my dying father!!! Because that is where my dying father wants to live, we go over there every day and pick up, get there the next day, crap everywhere! I mean, like we did not touch a thing and THEN SOME. Now I refuse to clean........I go there to see my Dad anyway, right? and time is precious....but I am still looked at like the big bit%# and the one unwilling to help when everyone else is willing to roll their sleeves up. No one is willing to look at tweaker boy over there and see that their efforts are wasted. Or they see it but feel too guilty to stop!! I say, when my brother quits drugs, I will be the first person there. I love my brother so much. My father is dying of cancer. I want to be there for him. But he is a tweaker and he doesn't think right, feel right. He is a freakin' mess.

Anyway, don't want to turn this into a vent (ha ha) but really, I was very curious how those of you in dysfunctional families, especially riddled with addiction, keep relationships and/or keep your sanity. How far did you have to go to stay alive?? How do you keep from being sucked down the big black hole of your family??????

GingerM

I think what you're trying to do is laudable. I also think it's the absolute hardest thing any of us ACs try to do. It's much easier to just walk away and not talk to anyone anymore than it is to face them, say "here is my boundary, don't cross it' and then follow through on defending that boundary.

How did I do it? Well, I basically hit rock bottom (don't all good changes start from rock bottom?) where I was ready to walk away from my family. Many people here talk about disengaging and detaching. I was prepared to detach if I had to, to save my own sanity.

It's really really really hard to set those boundaries, but like you said, your brother's meth problem isn't your meth problem. You are chosing to set your boundaries by saying "I am not responsible for his house, if he can't keep up, that's his problem, not mine". It sounds like you've done a good job setting the boundary, but are under a lot of pressure to not defend it. The only way I know of to stay centered on yourself in that kind of situation is to remind yourself that this is their illness, that you are not responsible and you do not want to be involved in it. That doesn't mean you don't care about them, it means you refuse to get sucked back into that poisonous vortex.

I'm sure other people here will have better ideas than I do. All I can really say is 'great job!" for finding your boundaries and setting them. I don't always do that great a job defending my own, but I'm getting better at it. You may want to read my post "New to the board" in this forum, it details a situation I went through in the past 3 weeks. It may or may not be useful to you (not meaning what I said, but other's replies to me)

DesertEyes

Hey there thrashej,

Welcome back, we saved a seat for ya

I agree with everything Ginger said. It's all about _my_ boundaries.

I see a big difference between supporting a dysfunctional person who is making honest efforts to get well, and a dysfunctional person who is not.

When I get calls from intoxicated family members, or the just plain crazy ones, I tell them to call me back when they've been clean and sober for 24 hrs. The crazy ones I tell 'em to call me when they want to talk _recovery_ instead of disease. I use the answering machine a lot. I let the machine handle it at night when I am sleeping, I need to work for a living and loosing too much sleep eventually leads to loosing the job. My boundary is I will not loose a job cuz my crazy relatives are looking for a "codie" to leech on to.

My mother I flat out told that I wanted 150bucks an hour cash up front if she wanted me to be her shrink. That settled our relationship right quick.

My biggest challenge is that I still feel the old echoes of my childhood where my physical safety depended on playing their "co-dependent game". My emotions still surge and the guilt still grips me if I refuse to play the game. It has taken me a lot of practice to learn how to experience the feelings _without_ the reflex behavior. It's not easy, but I'm able to feel negative emotions yet respond with positive behavior.

What has helped me the most is the program of Al-Anon. There's two great forums right here, the "Friends and Family" and the "Nar-Anon". Lots of wise people there and tons of information. Hop on over there and see if they are helpful to you.

Mike