lillamy

I have to preface this with a caveat: I've often found, in recovery as in other things, that what is a life-changing insight to me might not work that way for other people, and vice versa. Like the Buddhists say: "When the pupil is ready, the teacher will appear."

That said -- I'm reading a book that is really stunning to me. On Combat by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman. And HOW is this relevant, you ask? Because learning how the body and mind reacts to tremendous amounts of stress and trauma is really helpful. And there are gems of insights in this book that are really eye-opening. And the one I wanted to share sounds obvious, maybe, but it hit home for me:

I guess what this book is doing, in part, is giving me permission to be shattered and devastated. I'm good at being strong (that's what attracted me to addicts in the first place) and sucking it up and getting through it. I have had my counselor and a DV counselor tell me that what I went through in my marriage was devastating and that they're amazed that I've gotten through it as well as I have. But somehow, those words -- objective, scientific -- drove it home for me.

That doesn't mean I'll take to bed and relish my right to be a victim. Far from it. I've been digging in to my responsibility in the marriage -- how my codependency harmed not only me, but him, and the relationship. Taking responsibility, by definition, prevents you from seeing yourself as a victim.

But somehow, I needed that confirmation that it is normal to be a wreck. It's normal to feel like you've been pummeled by waves and tossed up on the beach to dry. I don't have to pooh-pooh my pain and say "it could have been worse" (even though that is no doubt true, given that I have all my limbs and senses and a heartbeat). But I can acknowledge that after what I've experienced, my emotions are not abnormal.

And I just wanted to share that, on the off-chance that it might help someone else. Just don't take it as license to be a victim. Please.

LifeRecovery

I read it as a liscense to feel, to have emotions about it. I can say what happened in the trauma in my life (with my A, but also prior to that). To actually feel it though was a whole different experience and was a whole nother level of healing for me.

I think that is different from being a victum.

Thanks for posting and the book suggestion. I have been reading about trauma in animals and finding similar things.

baileyboop

very good stuff , you posted there. In a post that was recently deleted, I shared that during this last year, I was diagnosed with Complex post traumatic stress disorder, directly related to my relationship with my AH and my co-dependency. I didn't accept that at first and was highly offended. It took me months to grasp and accept this as part of myself. I was in such denial about the damage the disease was doing to myself and my family. I would be sucked into the fantasy that things weren't too bad, only to be emotionally assaulted back into reality with each big crisis.

My therapist says that when we are faced with high levels of ongoing stressors, our body's natural response is fight or flight. This is a defense mechanism and is only designed to be temporary. In dysfunctional relationships the fight or flight mode tends to be often and ongoing, and our minds and bodies accept this as the norm. She explained that my diagnosis was a simply an acknowledgement/validation that I had been in an on-going dysfunctional relationships, I did not set good personal boundaries, and as a result, my mind and body remains in fight/flight mode,whether I want it to or not.

I'm learning boundary setting and working hard at being good to my mind and body-with yoga, taking good personal care of myself an going to therapy. I realize now that I am the only person who can take care of me. With time and some hard personal work, I believe I can get back to where I need to be.

Rosiepetal

It's great when you read & make little dicoveries.
I was just reading "Women who love to much: Robyn Norwood" & it was giving examples of bad relationships.
There was one I was reading & the words hit me "The alcoholic doesn't want to be with someone who tries to help them get better, they want to be with someone who allows them to remain sick".
So now I see all my efforts & progress were a waste of time, he will go find someone else who lets him be sick but I will save myself.

ZiggyB

I was certainly a wreck after my relationship ended due to the verbal abuse I endured. That was one of the only times in my life I had to go to the doctor for benzos in order to be able to calm down. I was a complete anxious mess from getting raged at. It certainly felt like I had PTSD, I don't know. It took me 2 months to even feel human again and I'm still making slow progress but getting there!

dandylion

Dear Lillamy------Thanks!!


dandylion

Katiekate

Thanks so much Lillamy!!!! xo

Graceland

In other words, when it is another human being who causes us fear, pain, and suffering, it shatters, destroys, and devastates us.

This quote speaks to me because it address the very thing that my RAH will not. Whenever I bring up the fact that his alcoholic verbal abuse shattered and destroyed me, he accuses me of living in the past. When I mention that he said that our marriage was a "sexless sham," he replies that he didn't mean it. He was drunk. He is also tired of me bringing it up.

I wonder why I do that, bring it up. And I realize that this is what I need from him. My co-dependent self wants him to say "I hurt you"; "I devastated you"; and "I am aware that I am an alcoholic, but that is no excuse. I am sorry."

Odds are that I will never, ever, ever, ever hear this from him. I need to stop wanting it and be able to say, and own it, myself.

Thank you Lillamy.

Learn2Live

So glad you can see it now. IDK when it was I figured it out but I have a problem with anger I didn't use to have. It apparently manifested itself some 15 years ago when I first was forced to learn about alcoholism and addiction and my own codependency. I went from a mostly naive, completely trusting girl in her late 20s, to a paranoid, over-reacting, suspicious woman. I've never been able to conquer it yet. When I see or sense certain things in a relationship, I am triggered and this fear rises up in me so horrible, it is like my life is being threatened. I never was this way in all the previous relationships I had had. I wish I wasn't this way now. I think the trauma I experienced back then actually changed the way my brain perceives things now.

TakingCharge999

to a paranoid, over-reacting, suspicious woman

Hey.. that's me nowadays! and I also detected my black and white approach to things that I don't think I had before. I also have social anxiety now.. sheesh


Graceland, I was also told by someone that the XABF was "certainly not living in the past" as if among everything else, I was also an idiot and he had a "smart way to enjoy life". I suffered due to this BS for a long time. Feeling emotions and trying to learn and recover from them is different than "living in the past".

I know I have set up myself to be a victim many times but I find more healing and recovery when I see myself as a human being with errors and try to feel more compassion towards myself and the situation and everyone involved.. for me it is still confusing ground though, because I have indeed been a victim of forms of abuse, and in other situations I COULD have done something different and didn't, or stayed for a long time accepting the unacceptable.


lillamy Thanks for sharing this validation. I agree and have seen how human-induced traumas can last decades.

Titanic

Good quotes lillamy & Rosiepetal!

baileyboop: Complex PTSD, exactly. http://202.68.89.83/NR/rdonlyres/D4D...perLegalBa.pdf

Milestone 1,000.