zoso77

...for me.

There were a couple of benchmarks that I hit this week.

The first was my annual review. 2012 started off slow due to my AXGF "doing what she did". 2011 was a down year because I allowed the drama my AXGF brought to overtake me time after time. And it was a choice on my part to stay coupled to a sick person, which goes to show you how sick I was.

My review went very, very well, and my boss feels I'm just about back to where I was before my AXGF was in my life. Which means I'm back in the hunt. It was gratifying, to say the least. The fact I have a boss that cares about me personally is something I'm very thankful for every day.

The second benchmark was an email from the registrar's office telling me I'm eligible to graduate in May, and with the email came a form that I need to fill out before the 15th. The last time I was taking two courses was when my AXGF was in the picture. Now that I'm doing it again this semester, I don't have a clue how I managed to even attempt doing it when she was around. Why?

Beware: geek stuff coming...

Yesterday in advanced electromagnetics, we developed an expression for multipole expansion when calculating the electric potential due to an arbitrary charge distribution in space. Tonight in advanced signal processing, we discussed adaptive techniques such as least mean squares and gradient descent which are used to estimate a signal when you don't know anything about it.

In other words, I'm in the thick of technical life. Factor in a sick person, and living a technical life becomes impossible. There is no way you can devote enough brain power to academic priorities when the sick person in your life is undercutting you. Because the addict doesn't care if they undercut you. The addict will resent you for paying attention to the things you should be paying attention to.

What occurred to me today, again, was my AXGF did her best on a day last January to bring me down one last time, and she took sadistic pleasure in doing so.

And she failed. She failed miserably.

Yeah, I allowed myself to get sidetracked for nearly a year. Yeah, that cost me a lot. But through Al Anon and lot of self examination, when the time came for her to leave, I was prepared to move on with my life, and I was prepared to succeed because she was no longer around.

So, what's the lesson? Or lessons?

If your boyfriend or girlfriend is an addict, look at the aggregate sum of their behavior, not their words. And if it's not something pretty, then remember you have no obligation towards the addict and every obligation to yourself. It's well within your rights to say, No more.

If your spouse is an addict, that's more complicated, especially when there's children in the mix. You then have to make your decisions based on what you know to be true instead of what you hope will happen. Hope doesn't translate into reality necessarily, especially when the addict's track record is often poor. Be aware that any decisions you make come with a price to pay, and doing the right thing doesn't mean you'll like doing the right thing.

And if your qualifier is a child...God bless you. Stories like yours helped me through hard times because I don't think there's anything harder in this world then watching your child suffer. You can ditch a boyfriend or a girlfriend. Children are for life. Please do what you need to do to be safe and healthy.

Best,
ZoSo

Ann

This mama had received a lot of inspiration from you too, Zoso. Our pain may be different but our struggle is the same...freeing ourselves from the addiction of our loved one.

Thank you for all you share here. You are a beacon of hope for those groping in the darkness, trying to find their way to a better path.

Hugs

Ilovemysonjj

Thanks Zoso from another Codie Mom (in recovery)
You are extremely inspiring to us all on this board.
TT

blackandblue

Thanks once again Zoso- your ESH has helped me greatly along the path of recovery.

tjp613

There you go again, Zoso....are you trying to make my head explode?

zoso77

Well, my head went boom, too...