Patience with how long it takes to make changes
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Join Date: Jun 2012
Posts: 1,452
Patience with how long it takes to make changes
There has been some real impatience expressed on some threads about how long it is taking some people who post to "get it" and change their behavior. Sometimes people have been a bit demanding that their point of view be heard and absorbed, and sometimes people have been a bit critical of choices that they think aren't good ones.
They may be right; they often are right. But I don't think that's why we are here. I am 62, and it has taken me my entire life - and many major decades of living with the consequences of bad choices - to get to the point where I am. Somehow, this time, it is all coming together for me and I "get it". So many of the "lambs" I have chosen over my lifetime turned out to be the same "wolf", just wearing a different skin each time. I couldn't see it until now.
I think sometimes here we forget that many people have a long complicated back story of how they got to be with an alcoholic partner.
We all have to deal with the current crisis of our relationship with our alcoholic. But for many of us, to really resolve that, we need to make progress on what aspects of ourselves let us choose this crisis relationship.
For me, finally, at 62, this time round, the many layers of dysfunctional families and relationships that I have lived through over the decades are all coming to the foreground. My healing from my 20 year marriage with an abusive alcoholic porn addict is not just that. That I got into that marriage is a choice I made based on the dysfunction I had lived with that seemed normal to me.
It's like the shoreline and the sea: the perimeter of each is exactly the same because they fit together. Who I chose to be in relationship with was a representation of my emotional health or lack of it.
When I was 37, my first husband, and my two young kids and I went to a huge reunion celebrating my grandmother's 104th birthday. She was a lovely lady, frail but in great shape mentally. Her children and her grandchildren did not fare so well. Addiction to alcohol, drugs, devastated lives were the legacy of my grandfather and grandmother's genetics.
I remember looking around the banquet hall. One aunt had seven children, 6 of them boys. Only one made it out, and he was a recovered alcoholic. My oldest cousin was dead of a drug overdose; another died of alcohol and prescription medicine overdose, a third hung himself in a jail after being arrested to for disorderly and drunken conduct. Another was schizophrenic and on permanent disability with a restraining order to never come home. The sixth cousin had made famous guitars for rock stars you'd recognize, used so much coke that his mind was blown, and bought an orchard with the money from his guitar and lived there alone, riding his bike.
The stories for my other aunt's kids were similar, especially the boys. My uncle was an alcoholic and had 9 kids, many of them also dysfunctional.
(And, the other side of my family was very small, but fared no better with devastating addictions.)
My own childhood home was a scary place to live. My dad was an executive who managed 2000 people, yet he was a raging alcoholic at home, and I was abused in many ways. My mother was probably psychotic, and my younger sibling became an alcoholic at 15 when I left for college and the attention focused on them. I was the only "functional" one, and I excelled at school, my way out. However, I was always to blame, I was always to be the "adult" and I was always supposed to fix everything or at least own it and keep quiet about it. We always looked perfect, however, to the outsider.
The most illustrative story - and it is a metaphor worthy of a medal - is that my parents had a little house on a beautiful lake where they went during the summer. The basement had a dirt floor, and they let water accumulate there and then complained when the plumber didn't want to go down in the spring and turn on the water because the stairs had rotted out. D@&m lazy plumber. So I got there to visit one summer, and my dad had gone to the building supply store to get paneling. Why did he need paneling? Because there were mushrooms the size of portabellos growing out of the kitchen walls, and he needed to cover them up. Yes, that's true. Later the floor almost collapsed in the bedroom they were sleeping in, and the carpenter had to forbid them in horror to ever step on that floor again till he fixed it.
So back to my grandmother's 104th birthday reunion.
I looked around the banquet hall, and at my two children, and said to myself that the buck stops here. This is not the legacy I am going to pass down to my son and daughter. And I didn't. They may have thought I was a bit nuts and overboard about alcohol and drugs, but with the grace of God, they are both wonderful, non-addicted happy and successful adults.
Me, however, I didn't get it yet. Some years later, I was swept off my feet by my charismatic, charming, compelling and fascinating second husband. We didn't drink at home at all for 2 or 3 years. But that began my odyssey with my current STBXAH.
Now that I am unraveling what happened to me in this marriage, I find that each thread that I pull is caught on a major thread from my childhood. So when I start to see a pattern of dysfunctional behavior in me, along with it comes insight into how many other times I did that same behavior, with equally disastrous results.
It is scary, fascinating, painful as h%ll, and freeing. My psychiatrist says "the demons make as much noise coming out as they did going in".
It has taken me 62 years to get here, and I don't even know yet all that it is. As they say: "what you don't know that you don't know."
I don't tell you guys this because I want sympathy. I don't. It was what it was, it is what it is. I own my choices - - I just wish I could have seen this so much younger and fixed it then, and had more years left.
I remember saying to my minister after my first divorce when my family of origin was going nuts with bad behavior, that if this was what God gave me this lifetime, I wanted to get through it all because I sure didn't want to sign on for another tour of duty like this.
It's 25 years later, and I'm still at it. Very happy on my own with my little dog by the ocean. Starting back in my studio, making art. A little more peace, a little more contentment, each day.
The sun also rises.
ShootingStar1
They may be right; they often are right. But I don't think that's why we are here. I am 62, and it has taken me my entire life - and many major decades of living with the consequences of bad choices - to get to the point where I am. Somehow, this time, it is all coming together for me and I "get it". So many of the "lambs" I have chosen over my lifetime turned out to be the same "wolf", just wearing a different skin each time. I couldn't see it until now.
I think sometimes here we forget that many people have a long complicated back story of how they got to be with an alcoholic partner.
We all have to deal with the current crisis of our relationship with our alcoholic. But for many of us, to really resolve that, we need to make progress on what aspects of ourselves let us choose this crisis relationship.
For me, finally, at 62, this time round, the many layers of dysfunctional families and relationships that I have lived through over the decades are all coming to the foreground. My healing from my 20 year marriage with an abusive alcoholic porn addict is not just that. That I got into that marriage is a choice I made based on the dysfunction I had lived with that seemed normal to me.
It's like the shoreline and the sea: the perimeter of each is exactly the same because they fit together. Who I chose to be in relationship with was a representation of my emotional health or lack of it.
When I was 37, my first husband, and my two young kids and I went to a huge reunion celebrating my grandmother's 104th birthday. She was a lovely lady, frail but in great shape mentally. Her children and her grandchildren did not fare so well. Addiction to alcohol, drugs, devastated lives were the legacy of my grandfather and grandmother's genetics.
I remember looking around the banquet hall. One aunt had seven children, 6 of them boys. Only one made it out, and he was a recovered alcoholic. My oldest cousin was dead of a drug overdose; another died of alcohol and prescription medicine overdose, a third hung himself in a jail after being arrested to for disorderly and drunken conduct. Another was schizophrenic and on permanent disability with a restraining order to never come home. The sixth cousin had made famous guitars for rock stars you'd recognize, used so much coke that his mind was blown, and bought an orchard with the money from his guitar and lived there alone, riding his bike.
The stories for my other aunt's kids were similar, especially the boys. My uncle was an alcoholic and had 9 kids, many of them also dysfunctional.
(And, the other side of my family was very small, but fared no better with devastating addictions.)
My own childhood home was a scary place to live. My dad was an executive who managed 2000 people, yet he was a raging alcoholic at home, and I was abused in many ways. My mother was probably psychotic, and my younger sibling became an alcoholic at 15 when I left for college and the attention focused on them. I was the only "functional" one, and I excelled at school, my way out. However, I was always to blame, I was always to be the "adult" and I was always supposed to fix everything or at least own it and keep quiet about it. We always looked perfect, however, to the outsider.
The most illustrative story - and it is a metaphor worthy of a medal - is that my parents had a little house on a beautiful lake where they went during the summer. The basement had a dirt floor, and they let water accumulate there and then complained when the plumber didn't want to go down in the spring and turn on the water because the stairs had rotted out. D@&m lazy plumber. So I got there to visit one summer, and my dad had gone to the building supply store to get paneling. Why did he need paneling? Because there were mushrooms the size of portabellos growing out of the kitchen walls, and he needed to cover them up. Yes, that's true. Later the floor almost collapsed in the bedroom they were sleeping in, and the carpenter had to forbid them in horror to ever step on that floor again till he fixed it.
So back to my grandmother's 104th birthday reunion.
I looked around the banquet hall, and at my two children, and said to myself that the buck stops here. This is not the legacy I am going to pass down to my son and daughter. And I didn't. They may have thought I was a bit nuts and overboard about alcohol and drugs, but with the grace of God, they are both wonderful, non-addicted happy and successful adults.
Me, however, I didn't get it yet. Some years later, I was swept off my feet by my charismatic, charming, compelling and fascinating second husband. We didn't drink at home at all for 2 or 3 years. But that began my odyssey with my current STBXAH.
Now that I am unraveling what happened to me in this marriage, I find that each thread that I pull is caught on a major thread from my childhood. So when I start to see a pattern of dysfunctional behavior in me, along with it comes insight into how many other times I did that same behavior, with equally disastrous results.
It is scary, fascinating, painful as h%ll, and freeing. My psychiatrist says "the demons make as much noise coming out as they did going in".
It has taken me 62 years to get here, and I don't even know yet all that it is. As they say: "what you don't know that you don't know."
I don't tell you guys this because I want sympathy. I don't. It was what it was, it is what it is. I own my choices - - I just wish I could have seen this so much younger and fixed it then, and had more years left.
I remember saying to my minister after my first divorce when my family of origin was going nuts with bad behavior, that if this was what God gave me this lifetime, I wanted to get through it all because I sure didn't want to sign on for another tour of duty like this.
It's 25 years later, and I'm still at it. Very happy on my own with my little dog by the ocean. Starting back in my studio, making art. A little more peace, a little more contentment, each day.
The sun also rises.
ShootingStar1
A work in progress
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: South Jersey
Posts: 16,633
Thanks for sharing that, ShootingStar. I feel much the same way (minus the dysfunctional childhood--some of us manage to bring chaos into our lives even without that).
We all have our own journeys. We've all made choices that we now wish we hadn't. Still, the sun DOES continue to rise, and we can choose our paths going forward. Every day can be a "do-over"--it doesn't undo what came before, but we can step off the moving sidewalk and change direction.
Congrats on the studio--that sounds awesome!
We all have our own journeys. We've all made choices that we now wish we hadn't. Still, the sun DOES continue to rise, and we can choose our paths going forward. Every day can be a "do-over"--it doesn't undo what came before, but we can step off the moving sidewalk and change direction.
Congrats on the studio--that sounds awesome!
Linkin Park Enthusiast
Join Date: Feb 2012
Posts: 548
We all have a part in the lives we touch.
I am very angry at what I have been through myself, some addicts, some not, but without them, I would be in a worse place. It is hard to wrap my head around. But true.
Everyone has hard times, we all know that, and us more than others. A lot of times, we get judged for our decisions, but speaking for myself, I make the best decision that I can make at the time. Looking back, sometimes, I could have done better, but to err is human. We all make mistakes. We all have lessons to learn, and we all have a chance to come out better because of it.
None of us walked on water today. So if we don't "get it" today, so be it. That's what tomorrow is for, God willing that we get tomorrow. And if we don't, we at least had a chance to live today.
I am grateful for the good times, and that is how I know I am recovering, because I used to just hate, hate, hate. Without my past, I would have no future. Without the present, I would have nothing.
Compassion is a hard thing to learn when you think you have already learned something. When you try to beat it into someone's head, they automatically become defensive. It is better to try to have empathy, because no one knows how to be anyone but themselves.
I am very angry at what I have been through myself, some addicts, some not, but without them, I would be in a worse place. It is hard to wrap my head around. But true.
Everyone has hard times, we all know that, and us more than others. A lot of times, we get judged for our decisions, but speaking for myself, I make the best decision that I can make at the time. Looking back, sometimes, I could have done better, but to err is human. We all make mistakes. We all have lessons to learn, and we all have a chance to come out better because of it.
None of us walked on water today. So if we don't "get it" today, so be it. That's what tomorrow is for, God willing that we get tomorrow. And if we don't, we at least had a chance to live today.
I am grateful for the good times, and that is how I know I am recovering, because I used to just hate, hate, hate. Without my past, I would have no future. Without the present, I would have nothing.
Compassion is a hard thing to learn when you think you have already learned something. When you try to beat it into someone's head, they automatically become defensive. It is better to try to have empathy, because no one knows how to be anyone but themselves.
Member
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: ny/nj
Posts: 182
Shoot, wish we could go out for coffee! Our lives track pretty well. I'm also an ACOA, the "responsible" one, the superstar, the fixer, the one who could get it done.
I'm currently working with my therapist when I can afford her, and alone when I can't, on realizing that 53 years as a victim of dysfunction will not be fixed overnight. I too, stopped the buck for my kids, and hope that I've given them enough real strength to become whole, healthy adults (they're 17 and 14). I have multiple cousins who have died before 50 from drug/alcohol abuse.
I'm trying to be gentle with myself, but it is hard, being superwoman and all
!
I feel like bursting into tears most of the time. It almost feels like I am a child again. If so, I hope to leave some of the dysfunction behind.
Thanks for your post, needed it.
I'm currently working with my therapist when I can afford her, and alone when I can't, on realizing that 53 years as a victim of dysfunction will not be fixed overnight. I too, stopped the buck for my kids, and hope that I've given them enough real strength to become whole, healthy adults (they're 17 and 14). I have multiple cousins who have died before 50 from drug/alcohol abuse.
I'm trying to be gentle with myself, but it is hard, being superwoman and all
!I feel like bursting into tears most of the time. It almost feels like I am a child again. If so, I hope to leave some of the dysfunction behind.
Thanks for your post, needed it.
Member
Join Date: Jul 2012
Posts: 654
Thank you for this post. We all need a reminder that staying with an addict is only a symptom of a huge web of things from our pasts. If it was as easy being told to leave, then none of us would ever look into ourselves, figure out of pasts, and find our true selves. If we left and never worked on ourselves, chances are we would just find another addict/alcoholic and then another and then another.
I will always remember reading "You accept the love you think you deserve" and it really opened my eyes to it is not just the alcoholic/addict that has the problem, we have our own host of problems also. Them sobering up isn't the answer, changing ourselves is.
Enjoy the studio, beach, and little dog. That sounds like a wonderful life and I'm happy that you finally have found some peace.
I will always remember reading "You accept the love you think you deserve" and it really opened my eyes to it is not just the alcoholic/addict that has the problem, we have our own host of problems also. Them sobering up isn't the answer, changing ourselves is.
Enjoy the studio, beach, and little dog. That sounds like a wonderful life and I'm happy that you finally have found some peace.
Member
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: atlanta, ga
Posts: 3,581
Originally Posted by ShootingStar1 
I don't tell you guys this because I want sympathy. I don't. It was what it was, it is what it is. I own my choices - - I just wish I could have seen this so much younger and fixed it then, and had more years left.
I hate the things that happened to you - Your post was very inspiring to me. A reminder to never, ever give up.
You rock shootingstar1!
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