soberista

Oh jeez tell me about manipulative daughters. I need to write a post on this but its late here in the UK and mine, at 25, is not getting better. I shall write about this in the morning. Ive had counselling to help me work my way along this path. I do hope to one day have a relationship with her.

Over and out for now. Xx

Stayingsassy

Frick, how old is your daughter? Is she an adult? I have a 19 year old who doesn't like me very much. But she is an adult, she handles her own business, and she is doing well, so she gets to feel however she wants to feel.

manipulation works when we let it. The more rope I give my adult kids (19 and 21) the better they do. We provided her a car, and we cover tuition and books, but other than that? Her work, her school, her dating life, her apartment: are completely and totally her business. she can share or not share....we are here if she needs us and out of her hair when she doesnt.

the more I think of them as adults with their own lives the better they do.

17-25 they have a psychological need to separate. They don't do well when we don't allow it. It's part of the task of late adolescence. The struggle, the confrontations, the enmity are part of this maturation process. It's all ok. As long as they are safe, not getting pregnant or addicted, they get to do whatever they want. I have raised them already.

Cow

Soberista, to post picture from you computer just do "go advance" repy button and click on the paper clip to attach.

I get my tubes blasted while in early 20's, cuz already I knew I not ever gonna have what it take to be parent. ... ...and plus also I not can stand the childrens.

I also not anywhere close to other romantic involvement, cuz I too unwell. ... ...and plus also I not can stand the mens.

entropy1964

Soberista...I look forward to your post.

Dropsie, thanks. Unfortunately the SS office was not crowded so I was in and out of there. Haha. The one time I wish it had taken hours. So I came home. She was doing what I asked her to do. I grabbed my laptop and took off. I just need space.

Sassy, she is 17. And I know much of what is going on is normal. I'm the one who can't figure out how to deal. I just need a bit of space to sort myself. For now, its black and white. And I'm putting up emotional walls because I have to. That won't last long I'm sure.

Cow, you are hilarious. I probably shouldn't have had a child but I'm awfully glad I did. I love her to pieces but she's making me crazy right now. And men? Oh gawd the whole thought makes me barf in my mouth. I mean, men are fine. I like men. Just not right next to me, or in my (barf) bed. Haha. Yikes. I has issues.

Stayingsassy

I love all the men and all the children, teens and young people.

It's mothers I simply cannot deal with. Mine or my husbands'. Blech.

I have issues with women. Usually when I make new friends its a man, then I can't get too close because boundaries. so I have a a bunch of superficial, but fun male friendships.

Mommy was mean and daddy was awesome, growing up....

Obladi

Cow, congratulations on your milestone! Have you started writing yet and if so how goes? If not, why not?

Wisconsin trip was a limited success. I'd like to tell you all but don't want any lectures about making choices and how simple it all is. Nor do I wish to trigger or disappoint you, dear spotted friend. Bottom line - I did drink, I did not get drunk.

Stayingsassy

It's a simple choice, BUT: obladi, you have the right to choose to drink, and if you don't want to quit, or talk about quitting, you could talk about other things in here.

Except coffee! Not that. Or Keanu Reeves. Or cigarettes or snickers bars, although I don't want to talk about quitting sugar right now either.

.

Obladi

Thanks Sassy.
Not.

All hysteria aside, I do not jest.

Plenny

Had another "intent to drink" night tonight. What the hell is with me and pushing myself up against the boundaries, squishing my face on the glass, marching into the lion's den. It's my thing. I have so many psychological tricks I use to keep myself on the path I feel I should be on. I am always tricking myself, playing opposites, predicting my next stubborn move, it is a constant game. Sometimes I do miss a beat and then I slip.

When I was quitting smoking once, I carried a pack of cigarettes around with me and didn't have a one. I felt better with it there. I've been walking in to bars, giving my friends speeches about how "it's not them and they didn't cause it and I am not using them as my excuse if I drink," and then ordering ginger ales. What's up with this? Why is it helping? Any theories about just parking it right in the mouth of the dragon?

soberista

Daughters and sons

I think what you say Sassy is absolutely spot on and I am glad that its working for you. Unfortunately, in my situation, i have some rather difficult people to throw into the mix.

My narcissistic mother (on the narcissistic spectrum hits a 10. Example: when I was 7 a piece of wire poked through my eye and rendered me blind. It was Christmas and my mother was holding her first Christmas party for the staff she employed. No way was she missing that so she said it will only be a scratch and took me to the party.) I curled up in a ball behind a fridge in a cupboard in the dark with the pain in my eye for the evening. It wasnt until my school teacher questioned my writing some 6 months later that I was taken to the Dr who found I had no lens, a cataract growing and blindness.

A narcissist normally has one person that they scapegoat and that was me so I spent my entire life (until in my late 40's and the death of my father) trying to please her. She fills me with dread now and it wasn't until my fathers death (who kept a lid on her so to speak) that I went for counselling and realised what she was. I have a zero contact relationship with my mother and have maintained that since my father died some 4 years ago. Last time I saw her was at my dads funeral.

So my kids live in a house together. I helped them with the deposit. As soon as they moved in so did their bum of a father. A dope smoking waste of space whose life had led him to living in a caravan. He has been living with them for a year now. He is another manipulator and he follows the money (according to him work is for fools - amazing how all this work is putting a roof over his head). Now my mother has kept a relationship going with my ex husband and so he pops by to visit "mum" as he calls her and so they all play manipulative happy families. He cries and tells her how **** his life is, she gives them all money, bitches about me, and then sends me cards at Christmas saying **** like "your children are coming to me for Christmas". Bitch.

My kids are not allowed to be adults in their own right with their father living in their home so they behave like rude adolescents (25 and 27 years old). My daughter is like my mother at times (share the same birthsign) and I see a great deal of her, her father, her Aunt in them and a little of my influence. My mother feeds her relationship with them by financial sweetness and so they have these weird examples of how to behave.

My partner who has been so wonderful and supportive I feel they see as a threat. Their father didnt like the fact that I had a good and stable man in my life. I think he thought the door was banging in the wind for his return () So along with his poison and my mothers the kids had started to bully us whenever they came round. It became untenable and so, after a trip to the counselor, we decided to cut our losses and minimize contact. Its worked for me. Less stressful and although I keep some modicum of text contact I see them rarely. My daughter still tries to manipulate me but I see it now I am more removed and do as you Sassy - don't get engaged. My relationship with my daughter has mostly in the past been about what she can get from me. Usually she doesnt see me unless there is something in it for her.

I find it hard because I have spent my life running around trying to make my mum love me and playing the rescuer role from the drama triangle (such a helpful tool and I can see so many of them surrounding me. Their father living with them in the house as one triangle. My mother and that triangle)

I now live away from that town with my man.

My mother is 90. She fell a week ago and they revived her in the ambulance. Alive and moaning to my sister in hospital i wonder what will happen next when her influence drops this mortal coil. My ex husband will scuttle about hoping she left something to him in her Will.

My hope is that whatever I have shown them, well one day, the scales fall from their eyes and they wake up. Who knows. That's their journey and I must do mine.

I think Cow I shouldnt have had any kids! Too late now though . I think Sassy I am now applying what you said and its working for me.

I find being a mother the biggest head f*ck. I love my kids but I often (mostly) dont like the people they have become. I think if they werent my kids I wouldnt have anything to do with them. I hold out that it will change in the future.

Cant add the picture as its too big so will have to be a link

https://photos.app.goo.gl/2HeVV6GGqTKS4o4Z8

Have a good day folks. Stay sober in the field

Dropsie

Soberista,

I LOVE the painting. Totally LOVE it.

Will think and send more about the kid puzzle.

XX

entropy1964

Hey Soberista

Ugh. That's a tough dynamic for sure.

I have often wondered 'what' my mom is. She's so confusing. She's a 'good' lady. But she has zero ability to connect on an emotional level. And she doesn't want to 'talk'. It has to be light and surface. Anything below that and its off limits. I don't even know where she was born. Haha. Isn't that weird?

I relate to the injury story. We were going to Palm Springs for Christmas my sophomore year in college. None of us wanted to go (all adult children at this point) but Mom was on fire about it. The only message I got was this was the second wife of her Dad's family. They are from the south (so is my Mom...or I think she is) and they are rich. So this was a big deal....to impress them. Night before we leave I make the huge mistake of trying to break up a cat fight with my hand (bad idea...hose, broom, not the hand) and Seymore bites on to my hand so hard I literally had to shake him off. The bite was viscous. Not sure if anyone has had a very deep animal bite but it was really bad. My Mom was furious. She wouldn't let me go to the Dr. So I had to sit in the car the next day for 10 hours in horrid pain. By the time we got to Palm Springs I had a fever, my whole arm was swollen and I was listless. So she dropped me off at the ER. I had to spend the night in the hospital because the infection was so bad. She wouldn't speak to me for the whole trip. Haha. I'm not sure if that's narcissistic but she sure was pissed off. We all made jokes about it years later and she would just fume. Holy smokes.

My daughter wanted to 'talk' last night which comprised of me just reassuring her that I wasn't going to sell her into slavery. She cares, and has a good heart. She's just a kid, pushing the boundaries, and I'm letting her. But man I was off yesterday. Its up to me to keep those boundaries set in stone. Let's see how I do!

Cow

O, please tell us. I has ask you repeated time to share about it, and I make clear to you I not disappoint, nor will judge, and god know I obvious not think anything about this easy fcking peasy. Whole point of this thread was to be real and raw about relapse! I only ever say that to wax rhapsodic about coffee put the coffee worms in my head. I not trigger by talk of relapse.

If I may, you sounding very defenisve to me, and I not understand. I mean, I total understand you not want lecture, but I think we all face lecture or two when we brave enough to admit we fck up, yes? I really not think any lectures here is of unkind spirit. I think they meant to help, even if sometime they maybe seem dismissive.

And plus also O, since time immemorial, sober people gonna lecture drunk people, just as thin people gonna lecture fat people, just as non-smoker gonna lecture smoker, just as Oprah gonna lecture everybody --it just a standard human arrogance we all has. Once you done something, you think you know how it done. Please not take defensive stance. I not think that move anybody forward.


Soberista, I like painting too. I saw hope, actually.

fini

it's a lot of work, isn't it, Plenny, this obsessing in all its guises.

fini

you know, O and Cow, what strikes you as lectures strikes those posting it probably solely as sharing what has worked; the only thing that has worked for them/us.
those of us "lecturing" have been where you are, and finally found a way out. and that is what people can offer, since you are looking for a way out.
but this probably sounds like a lecture, too

Stayingsassy

Soberista: good lord. Stay in contact with those kids. Eventually they may see the light and it will be nice to have them in your life later, possibl y. You got too many toxic peeps in the way right now. I'm glad you have a good partner! that's a blessing.

Obladi: it is NOT a lecture. I was making a joke about it in a general sense yes: but you DO have a right to drink. And if drinking needs to be in your life right now, this is still your thread and you don't have to address it. Just remember that fence sitting is tough. Drink or don't drink: and just let it be what it needs to be. I guess I never really wavered much, if I drank, I effing drank, and really didn't give a crap who cared about it and same for sobriety. Sorry in advance but eff amends. Not making any. Don't care.

And yeah, ladies: I am sorry for all the narcissistic mothers. It was tough growing up with that so I feel for you all. I get it.

Obladi

You guys are fine. But Sassy, I did not find your joke to be funny and I knew for certain you would tell me something like, "You're making a choice, it's as simple as making the choice in the opposite direction." Well no duh, as we used to say. I know the only thing it takes to stop drinking is to stop drinking. Wisdom like this I can pull out of my own thick skull.

Defensive a bit, yeah.

entropy1964

Thinking of you O. It isn't easy...if it were I sure wouldn't be here. I'm here because I have to remember how easily I can return to drinking.

I was so emotionally uncomfortable yesterday I thought I was gonna blow. I didn't want to drink, but I was thinking really sick thoughts. Like, I'll drink, and show my daughter what 'she does to me'. Ha! How flucked up is that? And I 'know' its flucked up. But I felt powerless to stop the crazy thinking....and I know I'm not. But there are times when I just have to let stuff wash over me. So there I am, in my Bodypump class, fuming and thinking and barely paying any attention to what I'm doing. And today, I'm ok. Not great, but ok. It has passed. At least the serious red flag stuff.

Its hard owning everything. Its hard feeling everything. But that's just life, for me anyway. I seem to over feel or under feel. Maybe one of these days I'll figure it out.

Anyway, I hope today is a better day. For all of us!

Dropsie

O, sorry to say, but it really is that simple. Not easy, but simple.

Its making a choice not to drink and then never to change your mind.

I actually disagree with Sass about one thing -- for me, it didn't require rock bottom, it required a decision. Whatever precipiates that decision is personal. How you keep your decision is also personal. But the rock solid decision is uniform accross the board. No decision, no stop.

Sames as when I quit smoking. Harder but same process.

soberista

I hadnt reached rock bottom.

Just yet another bloody hangover. I'd relasped more times than i can even remember. Every month, every week, every day. And on and on and on. But i'd just had enough. I'd had enough of wasted days, hangovers, worrying about my health but mostly the shame and guilt. I couldnt live with that and me anymore. The decision had been made. I then found this site and joined. Logged in every day and when it got tough logged on again. I watched YouTube programs about alcoholics, read books about drinking, kept on reinforcing my decision. Even managed a holiday to Thailand 7 days after i quit and just kept on reinforcing the decision id made. Its what comes after the decision that counts.

Whats the plan. And thats what i keep seeing people here saying...whats your plan? I saw the other day someone who was 5 years sober posted to say they'd been drinking. Its quite a shock to see that after such a period of time one could pick up the bottle. It reminds me to stay mindful of this...not take it.for granted. So O. I can say i get where you are. Ive stood there too many many times. I could stand there again. Have a plan for when times get tough. The longer youre sober the easier it will get. Life has more meaning. Find something to do that occupies all the drinking time and whether ypu havent had a drink for one day or 5 years always remember the plan that comes to your rescue. Love to you. Xx