LifeRecovery

What a week of growth I have had.

An angry boss, great Al-anon meetings, a great therapy session, etc. I have not worked all of this out for myself so feel free to call my on any faulty thinking.

One of the things I am thinking about as this week comes to a close is how uncomfortable I am with people in my life who are inconsistant. On the other hand I have a lot of those people in my life right now, so I suspect that this might be more about me then them. Many of the inconsistant people have or had struggle with alcohol or a substance, but many do not.

While my boss had harsh personal words for me earlier this week, he could not come up with a single behavior for me that he would like me to change.

My ex-husband throughout our relationship oscillated on ideas, plans etc. It was definately more pronounced when alcohol was involved, but it was present all the time.

I have some very stable friendships from earlier in my life. In the last 10 years though I seem to be attracted to excitement rather than stability. Excitement as time of the relationship extends often means just what I wrote above. I then have a hard time not taking on that the "problems" are not all mine.

Maybe it is one of the ways that I get to express my rigidness, my "wanting to help," my control concerns, etc. It allows me to act out my worst codie behaviors.

It has me so confused though that in some ways I am like a deer in the headlight about wanting to connect. I have somewhat of a handle on what I have done wrong in the past (and right too). I feel pretty trigger shy though, and don't have a lot of confidence that I am in an okay enough place to jump into another potential growth opportunity.

Finally I know a lot of this stems from when I was very young. My father does not struggle with substance use, but I think at least his mom did, and maybe his father too. He had some rage issues though that would come out unexpectedly when I was a kid, and I know this is where I learned to feel like it was my fault.

I think I am just asking for experience, strength and hope around this topic. What has anyone else already discovered for themselves?

Thanks in advance.

wanttobehealthy

As you may or may not have seen, I had a week of surprises with blindsiding from "friends" and harsh words from a boss who has issues (same as yours-- can't tell me what she is not happy with-- just doesn't like that I am self assured and don't let her berate me I guess).

One thing I am recognizing in myself is that I do not trust my intuition or gut when I should. I have had many r/s (friendships and romantic r/s) with people who my gut told me early on weren't real or right for me. And instead of moving on and embracing r/s with people who treated me well, I stuck out the dramatic ones.

I grew up with parents who always fought and maybe I thought that r/s without drama weren't significant? Not sure.

What I do know now is this; when my gut tells me something does not feel quite right, I back off and reassess. I don't question myself nearly as much as I used to and while it can result in sadness like the crap with my "friends" this week, it is much preferable to me to end interactions of any sort with people who frustrate me/let me down, than it is to continue those r/s and hope that those people will change.

I spent a lot of time so far in my life being disappointed and let down by people who were inconsistent, unpredictable, unreliable and I tried to change them to be who I wanted. I thought that the problem was me and that I had some role in their behaving so irresponsibly. Now I know (even if I don't always act on it right away) that people who can't be predictable or consistent etc... are going to be that way with or without me around and all I can do is take care of me. And I do that by not being in r/s of any sort with people who don't treat me well.

You deserve more than inconsistency with your r/ships too. Others behavior isn't a reflection of you. People who can't be consistent with you won't be with anyone. You have the right to walk away and find people who value and respect you and will treat you well.

Willybluedog

I want to recommend the ACOA forum especially the stickies, if you read "The Big Red Book" which is the handbook of ACOA, they say (paraphrasing here) that a dysfunctional home without an alcoholic parent can result in much the same results for the child as one raised with an alcoholic. Many of the behaviors, reactions etc. are similar.

I also recommend counseling, I have a great therapist and she helps me work through my anger and responses to people whose actions I allow to make me lose my cool.

Hope this helps,

Bill

NYCDoglvr

One of the most freeing experiences of my life was letting go of expectations. It was MY expectations of others that caused me a great deal of anger, hurt and pain. It seemed almost magical that when I did this my "problem" relationships get much, much better on their own.

LifeRecovery

Thanks for the replies.

I have a great counselor in place, and feel a lot of support in my recovery. I had not thought of ACOA meetings but will consider.

I get pretty stuck on expectations, but honestly feel like that is in part what this is about. As I am working on taking care of myself in the moment "What do I need right now to take care of myself," is often indicating to me that I need out of many of these relationships....because they are not good for me. It has not been until this week that was even an option though. How this coincides with expectations though is tricky for me (boundaries and expectations have a shared edge that I often don't understand).

More to think about though. Thanks again.