BrendaChenowyth

Well, I was going to talk more, because it does help me.. but I do just end up backing myself in to a corner where kind-intentioned people advise I stop and do something else..

I just wish I could be as forward with her as she is with me. You know? Not rude. And I wasn't rude. I mean say what needs to be said. I feel like the addictive mind always reads more in to a person's words than is there... I have trained my mind not to do that. So when I said a very literal, straight forward statement, and her response had nothing to do with that statement, I did have the need to defend myself. Anyone in their right mind and having self respect would have.

I told her that I am good at handling almost all situations. I knew that I could handle that crazy guy for the duration of my shift. I knew that I would not be able to going forward. He was crazy. I could not stay. These are facts I couldn't side step. And she said "try not to do that". It was not something that could have been anticipated or prevented and it couldn't be ameliorated. It's not like I didn't give her enough information to know that, it was literally what I said.

It's baffling... just like addictive thought processes are baffling... I can't force the world to think in a sane way. Sigh.

I already took a shower today, I don't want to go to the gym because that crazy guy goes to my gym. I don't want to organize my desk drawers or sock drawers. I think I will continue with reading Codependent No More. Figure out how to stop fixating on fixating.

BrendaChenowyth

Am I now being hyper-rational to the point of alienating myself to the other extreme?

People tend to think I'm focusing on situations and people, and obsessing over something I need to let go... But if I don't understand, I won't learn how to better navigate similar situations in the future. That's all.

BrendaChenowyth

Oh wait! I get it. I'm not mad anymore.

I'm just more future oriented and present in the moment now. It actually takes WORK for me to connect things in a conversation I am currently having to events or things that were said in the past.

This is fantastic, actually.

Gilmer

gleefan

Brenda - Sorry for your frustrations. I could relate to some of your challenges. My post isn't advice or suggestions on what you should do. It's simply my experience.

For me, the path to peace and serenity comes from working on understanding others' points of view.

Seeking to be understood has led to some of my life's biggest frustrations. I never seemed to get the validation I was looking for.

I find that coworkers and colleagues understand challenges I face at work best. As much as friends or family may try to understand, they don't get the unique demands of the role or interpersonal dynamics as well as coworkers.

BrendaChenowyth

I agree... it is the only way to closure. I had to seek to understand everything that has happened to me, because I have lived a life that from the very beginning would seem to anyone to be completely unfair. I was taught to hate myself, and to get over that I had to understand why I was treated the way other people treated me. That takes a lot of humility, I think.

I feel like I was unclear about how this relates to emotional maturity, or to put it another way, taking responsibility for my emotions. This has been the biggest goal in my sobriety, having appropriate emotions, and being able to interact with other people in appropriate ways in all situations, home, work, school, whatever.

I am frustrated that even when I have appropriate reactions, I end up triggering other people and they put on a show of crying and they shame me. As much as I tried to show compassion, it fell flat, because she was righteously indignant. I had crossed her and how dare I? Never mind that she had offended me first.

I hope I never become the type of person who thinks that my position in life allows me the right to speak out of turn to someone, offend and upset them, and then shame them for their responses, because I think I am somehow owed unconditional respect, even when I am unreasonable in expecting that in some situations...

God, please humble me, so that I can use my life to do what you sent me here to do, to love others... It is just so very hard sometimes.

BrendaChenowyth

And let me just point out how dangerous it is to feel like I am failing to achieve the one thing that sobriety was supposed to bring me. That really scares me..

Edit: It does and it doesn't! I do not consider relapse a possibility, ever. There's a voice in the back of my head that says "Beware, you could go back to that". I can't. I am just so frustrated.

I feel like if I could somehow sit down and talk to my mother about my sobriety and how and why I'm different, our relationship could be different. I fear that when I tell her I'm sober and better and done drinking, her response will be "How do I know that?" Because every person is an entire world unto themselves, and what is meaningful in my world, means jack in hers, and that doesn't make her necessarily wrong.

I guess I am just starting to feel secure and trust my own mind, if that makes sense.. I am joining the Catholic church.. and I have all this anxiety that my newfound sobriety and newfound faith and all the profound changes I'm making are actually alienating me from people who matter in my life..

CAPTAINZING2000

We learn to pick and choose our battles as we age

Have you ever read this before?

From the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous
Page 449 in the 3rd edition or page 417 in the 4th

And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation—some fact of my life —unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God’s world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life’s terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes

BrendaChenowyth

Thank you Zing... It's a really hard thing for me...

BrendaChenowyth

I don't as a rule cry in front of people because I do not want to affect them. It can set people off in ways that end up hurting me further. "What are you crying for?" That kind of thing. Women always cry and it's weak, that's what we're taught.

I have a very hard time accepting that my mother's tears may be sincere when I grew up with a woman who would "turn the water works on" to win an argument with a boyfriend or get out of a speeding ticket. I remember even being asked in the same situation, why I didn't make myself cry in order to get out of a ticket, as if that would be a normal thing to do. It was never normal to me. And of course, because we are talking about emotional manipulators here, if I would cry in front of her because I was actually hurting, I would be told I was overreacting. "Quit your bellyaching" was her phrase.

I do not know why I would look to her for emotional security... She is better now I believe but she still does a lot of things that don't make sense... and it's really sad to think that I could possibly be a little more emotionally stable than my mother, who is 57.

I need new examples in my life.. Again, I think the Church is the place for me.

Sorry, just rambling. It's so rainy and chilly and I just don't want to go out.. I need t-shirts for work..

Gilmer

I pray that the Lord will carry you in the palm of his hand as you seek to join the church. There is so much beauty in the Catholic Church. May it call out to you and inspire you.

gleefan

Brenda - Emotional maturity is at the core of my aspirations in recovery as well. I see the connection in what you share to emotional maturity.

I found, for me, that any disconnect with the people close to me that I felt in early recovery has been temporary. As I get healthier, my boundaries get healthier - and paradoxically my ability to connect with others gets stronger.

Captain - The acceptance passage is one of my personal favorites.

Gilmer - Are you Catholic?

So much love, support and food for thought here.

GroundhogDay

Brenda,

It sounds like you are making real progress on your emotional maturity and better understanding your mother's limits. I have had to learn to deal with my sister's limits. She's actually better since I accepted her limits.

All,

I just got back from a trying experience with family. Acceptance is the key. I just need to remain civil even when others behave badly. Keeping my mouth shut and getting away ASAP works even better.

gleefan

Someone told me they kept their AA coins in their pockets to hold onto when they needed to remember NOT to talk. I've borrowed that suggestion!

BrendaChenowyth

It just really knocks you off your bearings when.. the conversation you think you're having is not the conversation the other person thinks you're having?

I'm in the moment. I say something, and their next words should be a direct and specific response that solely pertains to what I have just said. That's a conversation to me.

Do you think that it is unusual to approach communication in this way? Or do most people always interpret the words they're hearing in the broader of context of the past, up to, and including the present?

I love living in the present moment, after years of living in anxiety because of things that were long past.

Is it wishful thinking to expect to find many people who don't carry the past around with them and relate everything you say to something you've said before?

I don't understand it but I know that I've done it. I just don't understand why I did it. I know I lacked the ability to think rationally, and not automatically interpret everyone's words as a threat or think "what do they mean by that?"

Is it normal to mean what you say and say what you mean? If it is normal, why don't more people do that?

I thought I was the backward one. I fix it. I quit drinking. I'm facing the right direction and others who were never alcoholics are backward.. but I am so accustomed to being the one in the wrong, that I have trouble computing being right.. this feels like addictive thinking lol

Gilmer

Glee, I spent a lot of happy and enriching years in the Catholic Church--but now I attend a Protestant church.

gleefan

Gilmer - I was raised Catholic and went to Catholic school.

Well today I let my immature side get the better of me a couple times at work. I should have taken a break from talking when I felt frustrated. I should ask myself if my initial reaction passes the emotional maturity litmus test before I speak out.

BrendaChenowyth

It's hard to do when you're at work and it's not easy to get away from those people. You may be focused on a problem that needs solved, and you have a time limit to do it in, and you may be stressed and tired.. Don't know if that was the case for you today, but I am learning that there will be extenuating circumstances throughout my life where my patience wears thin.. and I have to let myself off the hook for being blunt or hurtful.. if it really goes that far and I am pushed to that point!

My day was long and I was kinda tired but my spirits held up and I didn't have any conflict with the four other individuals I worked with.

I have this weird new habit in sobriety where I trust the reality I am living in. LoL And I speak up and say things that I feel are useful and necessary. In the past I would have somehow doubted the validity of my thoughts, no matter what they were, and the majority of the time I was unsure of whether or not to speak up. Often I would not speak up, to my detriment, or worse, to someone else's.

Today was funny, myself and another care giver were pulling one of our client's up in bed.. she has a hospital bed in her home, and with the head of the bed elevated, gravity will make the person slide down and then their feet are pushing up against the metal foot of the bed, so you gotta pull them up.. The other care giver said she had an easier time pulling the client up in bed with the head of the bed raised.. I said why don't we lower it, lay her flat first.. she said no, sometimes I find it easier this way.. I said "You got gravity fighting against ya this way" very matter of factly. Both women said "Oh yeah that is true, you are right."

The old me would have felt a twinge of pride that someone had said I was right about something, and then would have wondered if maybe I had come across as a know it all! But now? I just wouldn't feel that way. I made a point that needed to be raised because it was saving the other care giver's back some extra work! And hopefully now she will heed that advice, because there's a sound reason behind it. I don't have to pat myself on the back or fear judgment, because I wasn't right, I wasn't anything, the statement I stated was right. It just was.

Not to focus too much on what's past or anything, but it hasn't been that long that I've been in healthier thinking patterns, so I remember the old ones very well! So I like the moments where I can recognize how much growth I've had. I live in a reality that I can trust and that meant I can have appropriate emotional responses to things.

People who have never been alcoholics could never understand the awesomeness of this change..

GroundhogDay

It would be great if people always said what they mean and mean what they say. I assume so unless it becomes apparent a person doesn't mean what they say.

People do tend to approach conversations from their own world view and historical interactions. I try to be aware of it, and not take things they say as a result personally.

Gilmer

I'm sorry work was frustrating, Glee.