silentrun

I figured out that as unhealthy and sometimes bizarre my actions were it was completely normal. Children having certain things done to them will react in predictable ways. Feeling like I was worthless or defective was exactly how I should have reacted. Poisoning my mind with alcohol did the damage it was supposed to do. It's all fixable taking the necessary action.

alphaomega

Codependent ? (Raises hand).

Not so much anymore.

Drinking kept me stuck in the victim cycle. When I stopped, I had to take a hard long look at my life. I was my own worst enemy. It's not everybody else, it was me. I allowed it. I permitted it and I perpetuated it. We teach people how to treat us, and active addiction just screams ABUSE THE CRAP OUTTA ME. PLEASE.

I'm not worthy.

I allowed myself to be shorn at the hands of my perpetrators because then I didn't have to actually take freaking responsibility for myself and my choices. It became easier to be tossed around like a rag doll then it was to actually do something about it.

Then what would I have to whine about ? <<<SICK>>>

Cow

I total agrees AO, but when you subject to unhealthy relationships as a child, is very hard to figure out what "normal" and "healthy" and is easy to accept and get comfy with codependent dynamics. Then (unless you has help) you has to somehow get smart on you own, break these ties, and come into you own. Is huge task which can take very long time for brain to wrap it head around. I very glad for you and all who muster the awareness to do so.

PS. Hi AO!

kittycat3

Yes that's it cow, so easy to crave that dynamic we had in childhood, it's comfortable, as sick as it is. Or as my therapist suggested, trying to recreate a new ending with someone with the same dynamic. I haven't figured it all out yet, but I know drinking majorly clouds my judgement, and not just when I'm drunk. Essentially the last several years since my divorce I've been intermittently drinking, a slip here and there. It is a crazy way to live, my family and close friends think I've quit, then my coworkers and other friends know me as the girl who likes to go to HH and sometimes has 1 or 3 too many....I thank my lucky stars I didn't do anything damaging long term, and I just finally decided (after a scary night 12 days ago) I can't keep living the double life.

My continuing to drink means I treat myself in the same neglectful way that my mom did when I was a kid and my ex-husband did when we were married. If I don't take care of myself nobody else will. It's a start. I know that living a life in alignment with my desire to be sober will build up my self esteem more than this secret agent double life BS.....I'm only on day 12 today so I gotta be patient.

kittycat3

AO I like the way you said it, drinking keeps us in victim mentality. Well said.

courage2

First and absolutely the most important -- 12 days for kittycat!!!

And thanks for the very useful description of codependency, which I would never have understood even a little bit without the points of view of people I like.

Hmmm. I'm not codependent. Surprised? I thought not, I'm always the last to know.

I've been known to collude in psychologically unhealthy relationships -- usually, when I think of it, because the relationship brought one of my favorite open trashcans into easy proximity -- but I've been pretty aware of what I'm doing, and I bail effectively and mercilessly when needed. I've been living on my own since I was 16 and I'm independent to a fault, as was my mother -- fiercely independent, they called her at her funeral.

(Which, a funeral, she explicitly did not want. You never met a glacier if you never met my mother. Instead my siblings gave her 2 funerals. Hah! It's like they finally got to raid the cookie jar.)

I'm not a narcissist either, I don't think I'm more important than others, I just think we're all equally unimportant. For me, it's just kind of passing the time as well as you can, trying to avoid the really bad soup and get the best pass out the door. I quit drinking because it didn't look like the best pass out the door. All the rest, like trying to learn to care, that kind of snuck in, and I'm not sure how strong a foothold it has.

This, kittycat, is true. You deserve health, stability, and sobriety every single bit as much as any other human being. I guarantee it.

Cow

OMG, is you me? ...but I does want more. I see others have more, and I would like for that. It look more satisfying, you know?

courage2

How very cow-like, other pastures looking greener & all that.

But I don't buy it. The people I know are at least as ****** up as I am, & at least I recognize it. I had that major insight also when I was 16, and time has proved it true. Anyway, I'm better off now than I've been in decades, so if my perspective is still splenetic, vituperative, and jaundiced, so be it. My husband says I'm just the same as always, but not irrational.

As for me being you, why not? Pinch yourself & I'll squeal.

Cow

Is not just greener pastures, Bunny, although, those is tasty. Honest, I have lot of friend and associates who is simply enjoy and engage in life WAY more than me. And not like they rich and beautiful and have boats and boyfriend and stuff. Is just, they has more fun, laugh more, like more things. They genuine is more interested in life and social activity and other peoples. I pretty good at looking beneath surfaces, and I can tell I usually most apathetic sad sack in the room.

I is glad I have acute self awareness and perceptions. But would I trade that to be dumb and happy? Yeah. Oh hell yeah.

silentrun

You made me look up words. Are you at all aware that you come across as the opposite of splenetic and vituperative? I would use wicked intelligent and gasp caring to describe you. I wonder if you are seeing yourself as you really are or are just being vituperative toward yourself.

When I was drinking I had a huge anger problem, when my brain was resetting itself in the first part, crazy amounts of hate and anger. I will do anything to get away from it. It never felt comfortable to me. I went back on celexa even though it puts weight on me just to help control it. My endgame is peace, whatever it takes. Maybe you have gotten comfortable seeing the world that way. I vote that you are still unraveling 35 years of alcohol damage and after that you will work on icemom.

courage2

a) silentrun -- you only see the writing on the forum. Honestly. I'm insufferably rude, arrogant, and morbid. I always go to the bleak. I make a strenuous effort, especially here, where it's easy, to act otherwise. But icemom is super-internalized. I know I have a strong streak of decency. It's just not intellectual, not emotional. Not yet, anyway.

b) Cow, go see Annie Hall (again). Anyway, the young beautiful and laughing will get cancer, too. And they won't have the consolation of a lifetime of perseverance through hardship to see them through. And anyway, anyway, I think and always have thought you have some fun in your future. Just let yourself have it, and you will, one of these days.

alphaomega

One of the hardest things I ever had to hear, truly, was my former therapist refusing to work with me in the future unless I was willing to commit to either AA or go to rehab. Her words that punched me right on the cervix were "AO, I believe in you. But you will NEVER live up to your potential if you continue to drink."

That tough love was delivered while I stood in a hospital room with my dying mother, and I was quite certain I was thisclose to a nervous breakdown.

I strongly disliked that woman for a good 6 months. Maybe even bordering on hatred. How dare she ? I was broken beyond repair. And she shattered me further.

And maybe to even spite her, that's how I've stayed sober these last 8 months. Ill show you that it can be done without those you ratchet...,........

Not my finest hour.
But damn it if she wasn't right .

These past 8 months I have been able to do more healing then in all my decades in psychotherapy. The only difference between then and now is that I'm not drinking. I have a looonnnng way to go, but I know I sure as hell ain't get ANYWHERE if I'm still tethered to the bottle. It's self sabotage. At its absolute finest.

This play I'm studying - The Last Days of Judas Iscariot - is a fascinating peer into a concept of how there is no real hell. No Satan. And quite possibly, no God. The basic premise is how WE keep ourselves in a self imposed hell. We conjure the Devil and we make our lives torturous by cyclically and perpetually reiterating to ourselves that we aren't capable, worthy, or will ever be good enough.

Satan says to Judas - "You don't have to stay here. You can leave anytime. And frankly, I wish you would. I could really use the room."

PS - Hi Cow.

silentrun

If you say so Courage . I am going to have to take your word for it because that's not what I see at all. I guess I can understand because people only saw the tip of the iceberg were my hate was concerned. I just got tired of it and figured out a better way.

I love that AO. Undoing the indoctrination as well as getting recovering from the alcohol has brought me to realize that.

Cow

Okay, now I CERTAIN you is me. But, I not wish to "perservere" anymore. I actual like my self very much, so is not about that. I root for my self. I do. I got some good stuff. I proud I survive so much. But, I just tired of perservering. I want to has fun and feel alive. Not ALL the time. Just now and then, little bit. I can go on faking for rest of life, but I wish for fake self and real self to close the gap. I know I not got lot of sober time, so yes, is still hope for me and while I not big "hope" person, I giving it my best and probable last push. Cuz, as I sure you all know, hope can get exhausting after long time.

courage2

I) Good job, Cow. When I approached my 49th birthday, I told myself I only had 1 more year of successful debauchery, and I'd better take it to the limit. I tried, but couldn't quite make it to 50 before the crash. So I admire you for choosing a push at fun. I do think you'll get it. As you know, I'd try to help you along, if you'd only let me And if you want to compare your psychic state favorably, come to NYC.

II) Thinking on the impression my posts make, vs how I see myself (Dee gives me a similar hard time about that) -- there is courage2, and there's snarkbunny. Very very few people irl see courage2. Maybe an occasional glimpse. And courage2 doesn't even make a move in secret without snarkbunny's consent. I have a very protective and severe internal cost-benefit analyst. If it doesn't put me at any risk to be pleasant, honest, or express sympathy, I'll choose that option. When my sense of risk is at all in play, snarkbunny is prepared to yank me emotionally out of any situation at a moment's notice. I just shut down. With that safety net, I can actually quite enjoy life. There's such a lot of it!

c) Thanks, AO. I think you'll get a lot out of this play -- you get a lot out life, don't you?

alphaomega

Oh now THIS is a juicy and pulchritudinous dish. (I have a thesaurus too SR).

Safety Hatches and Escape Clauses. I helped write that book, for sure.

Come to think of it, that a great title for a book. Or a band.

C dog, NYC rode me hard and put me up wet. I have no idea how you function. Truly.

Cow

Woo hoo! An egregiously supercilious word fight!

My only escape hatch is to total isolate when I know I not of any "benefit" to others. And yes plus also, if I not can get it up to fake my persona and I gonna be Debbie Downer of the room, this make me feel bad, so is also self protections.

courage2

In public I don't do Debbie Downer as much as Cruella Deville. I don't enjoy sharpening my hatchet on other people much, but it's usually why people want me around. Nobody's ever paid me for my nice side, but withering criticism couched in SAT language goes over well in my trade.

Ye gods, I think I'm back where I started on this thread. It looks like it's going to be a long fall. If I start posting about my invisible dog, call my shrink, please, ok?

Cow

Number please?

PS. AO giving me hug make me cry, I just wish to put that out there.

courage2

606-0842

OK let's face it, I want to go on a tear. I've been real good for a long time. Brought in almost $2 mill to serve the public good (no small beans in my field, though it looks pitiful to you entertainment tycoons); acted all proper at sonny-boy's wedding, when mostly I was ogling the traductrice; treated my spouse w/affection in Paris, the whole Pont des Arts thing & all; and suffered through the sneezles. Must I shave my head or start piercing myself again?

I'm not angry. I'm not sad. I'm barely even bored.

Get to a meeting. Eat chocolate. Pick up a biker.

If anyone tells me to get some exercise, I will reach through your screen and throttle you!