What's Moo?
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Join Date: Jul 2010
Posts: 10,912
Brenda, for me it's sort of the opposite... My mom actually flooded me with attention and (her form of) love, but it was quite twisted. Like feeding me with food far beyond nutritional needs, why I became an overweight child and then an anorexic/bulimic teen... And not wanting to separate from me even in physical space, little respect for privacy etc. All in a very erratic way, often very intrusive and invasive but not in a form to provide healthy emotional nurture that a kid needs. So I rejected her already as a young child (like 4-5 yo) and kept detaching myself from her, sadly, till her death. I was very angry at her when I was young and before I understood her but unfortunately by the time in my life when I did understand pretty well, she was dead. One of my big regrets why that knowledge, awakening and forgiveness did not come earlier in my life, I would know now how to connect with her and perhaps compensate to a lot of that for both of us to a certain extent... Anyhow, past stuff. I was also in one of the worst phases of my addictions when she passed on.
So for me it's not that I was rejected or abandoned, more the opposite. But not in a healthy form. So I do not fear abandonment at all, I fear intrusion and lack of boundaries (yet I can be intrusive and a boundary breaker at times... well not so much at this point but certainly earlier, especially while drinking). One of the consequences in my behavior is that I tend to reject and abandon others who try to nurture me in ways that I perceive similar to mom. Why I isolate myself from maternal love in general and it's hard to open up to possibly healthy forms of it even with all this awareness. With my dad, I did not have any similar issues and we were very close except a few years in my teens, why my attitude toward that is so different. Pretty much all of my young adult attachments were to males also and while it's a bit different now, there is still a bias. One example: one thing that initially put me off of AA was the segregation of the genders and that I was expected to team up with a female authority. I did in the end but it did not last long.
On Christianity and women: I am not a Christian but not sure how it demeans women specifically?... not something I feel qualified to discuss though.
So for me it's not that I was rejected or abandoned, more the opposite. But not in a healthy form. So I do not fear abandonment at all, I fear intrusion and lack of boundaries (yet I can be intrusive and a boundary breaker at times... well not so much at this point but certainly earlier, especially while drinking). One of the consequences in my behavior is that I tend to reject and abandon others who try to nurture me in ways that I perceive similar to mom. Why I isolate myself from maternal love in general and it's hard to open up to possibly healthy forms of it even with all this awareness. With my dad, I did not have any similar issues and we were very close except a few years in my teens, why my attitude toward that is so different. Pretty much all of my young adult attachments were to males also and while it's a bit different now, there is still a bias. One example: one thing that initially put me off of AA was the segregation of the genders and that I was expected to team up with a female authority. I did in the end but it did not last long.
On Christianity and women: I am not a Christian but not sure how it demeans women specifically?... not something I feel qualified to discuss though.
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Join Date: May 2014
Posts: 2,950
That's interesting. We learn what love is from our parents! It programs the ways that we will treat ourselves, and that determines the types of relationships we attract as adults. Understanding how this works has been very helpful to me.
So a month ago I had to leave a home care case because of a relationship that existed between myself and my client's nephew. What I came to realize in the end, was that the man had reminded me of my father! He was an alcoholic, whose drinking escalated over the year that I knew him. He was a sad person who carries around a lot of pain. He and I clicked because we had compatible energies. We were lonely. We had a similar dark sense of humor. We helped each other and made each other laugh. We didn't mean to, but we developed a relationship of sorts. I was STRONGLY attracted to him and made many attempts to pursue a physical/romantic relationship with him. And when it never evolved and he became distant, I grew resentful.
I got sober in August and it all began to unravel because I could see that the true reason I'd been so strongly attracted to him was because he represented my father. My subconscious latched on to this man, projected on to him all of the unresolved feelings I'd carried around with me since we left my father 23 years ago, and in my addictive frame of mind, I had become addicted to this man. I believe to a smaller extent he became addicted to me, there were some behaviors that indicated he was more drawn to me than he should have been. But all along, as long as he was giving me an opening to keep trying to get his love, he could hurt me as much as he wanted to - my brain recognized that as the love I'd been programmed by my father to expect!
Pretty crazy. This was the most recent and last case of this happening in my life, but not the first. I pursued many older men who hurt me.
So a month ago I had to leave a home care case because of a relationship that existed between myself and my client's nephew. What I came to realize in the end, was that the man had reminded me of my father! He was an alcoholic, whose drinking escalated over the year that I knew him. He was a sad person who carries around a lot of pain. He and I clicked because we had compatible energies. We were lonely. We had a similar dark sense of humor. We helped each other and made each other laugh. We didn't mean to, but we developed a relationship of sorts. I was STRONGLY attracted to him and made many attempts to pursue a physical/romantic relationship with him. And when it never evolved and he became distant, I grew resentful.
I got sober in August and it all began to unravel because I could see that the true reason I'd been so strongly attracted to him was because he represented my father. My subconscious latched on to this man, projected on to him all of the unresolved feelings I'd carried around with me since we left my father 23 years ago, and in my addictive frame of mind, I had become addicted to this man. I believe to a smaller extent he became addicted to me, there were some behaviors that indicated he was more drawn to me than he should have been. But all along, as long as he was giving me an opening to keep trying to get his love, he could hurt me as much as he wanted to - my brain recognized that as the love I'd been programmed by my father to expect!
Pretty crazy. This was the most recent and last case of this happening in my life, but not the first. I pursued many older men who hurt me.
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Join Date: May 2014
Posts: 2,950
And so, I have to add, because I don't really want to leave the thread there.. In recognizing that, I can forgive myself. That was instrumental in learning to love myself properly. I even looked back on my relationship with my father and blamed myself because I was there, I was a willing participant in that dynamic.. This was hard to stomach, when I got sober and it all started coming back to me, the trauma and the implications and the shame.. I had to put it in proper perspective. I was a six year old child who knew nothing better. I was taught that there was a way to earn my father's love and I responded innocently as a child who craved love would. I actually didn't do anything wrong. He was an alcoholic who had been hurt by his parents. Hurting people hurt people. There was no sense in blaming myself for that anymore. And as far as this last relationship, I can look at it objectively, understand why it happened, take lessons from it, and move on with a feeling of acceptance. 
I still want to read this book Healing The Inner Child or whatever the title is.. After I finish Codependent No More, if that ever happens lol
It is easier to find closure in relationships that have ended.. I can't make sense out of something evolving, ie my relationship with my mother...
I still want to read this book Healing The Inner Child or whatever the title is.. After I finish Codependent No More, if that ever happens lol
It is easier to find closure in relationships that have ended.. I can't make sense out of something evolving, ie my relationship with my mother...
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Join Date: May 2014
Posts: 2,950
Well I may not be familiar with that term, but I sense that it applies to the relationship patterns I have just detailed..
It's funny how often on this forum you hear the same phenomenon reiterated in different terms..
Hey, I just hopped on the train that was already moving, if it was a hijack of the thread.. To quote Billy Joel, I didn't start the fire
It's funny how often on this forum you hear the same phenomenon reiterated in different terms..
Hey, I just hopped on the train that was already moving, if it was a hijack of the thread.. To quote Billy Joel, I didn't start the fire
Woe is Moo.
Thread Starter
Join Date: Aug 2013
Posts: 2,746
Glimmer... ... is okay you guys keep chatting. And thank you for talk today Ael and BC. It keep me engage and help to get through tough day. Brain just on outskirts of seizureville and I has to initiate seizure protocols now.
Is anybody have good news for reporting?
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Join Date: May 2014
Posts: 2,950
Originally Posted by Cow 
Glimmer... ... is okay you guys keep chatting. And thank you for talk today Ael and BC. It keep me engage and help to get through tough day. Brain just on outskirts of seizureville and I has to initiate seizure protocols now.
Is anybody have good news for reporting?
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Join Date: Apr 2010
Posts: 8,614
I have been reading "The Boy Who Was raised as a Dog".. It is a really, really interesting and enlightening read if you can handle very sad stories.
It really goes into what you were saying earlier Alleyce and Cow about things being chemical and physiological. And how our brains physically change in response to things.
It also goes into detail about how getting what we need is the way back to health. .
It really goes into what you were saying earlier Alleyce and Cow about things being chemical and physiological. And how our brains physically change in response to things.
It also goes into detail about how getting what we need is the way back to health. .
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Join Date: Oct 2013
Posts: 11,431
Originally Posted by Cow
Is anybody have good news for reporting?
His health complaints are quickly improving and he's feeling a lot more positive with much better blood work numbers already.
I think he's really done--he's good at making up his mind and sticking to things.
He took the last of the vodka from the taper and dumped it in the driveway.
I felt, watching it, that I was in someone else's movie.
I'm in shock in a way, but very very happy I finally have an alcohol-free home at long last.
We've been getting along much better--funny how the positions are reversed--I was the drinker, he the caretaker, then the switch.
Now we can both just be partners again--that's the hope, anyway.
Love Love Love the picture sleepie
Cow
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