lostascanbe

I am new to this forum but feel I can maybe let off some steam or get someone else's opinion. I am in my 30s. I was raised by an African American father who is an alcoholic and a Caucasian mother who is not. My father was and is still very abusive to my mother. He has been both physically and verbally abusive to her usually when he's drunk. The physical abuse is not frequent but she is afraid of him as I was made to be afraid of him too. My father is a monster! There is no other way to put it. He has caused me so much pain and sorrow I cannot even begin to type without becoming tearful. He has done so much damage to my soul, my personality, my psyche, my being.....that I don't know if I can ever truly recover. I can recount childhood memories of him running my mother out of the house on several occasions with nowhere to go. I remember my grandparents coming to pick us up when I was little and they took us to their house. I remember one time my father running us out and we had to find a pay phone (this was before the age of cell phones) and we had to cross a street and our family dog followed us and got ran over by a truck. I remember hiding in my bedroom so my drunken father would not know where I was so he would just leave me alone. I remember embarrassing me too many times to count. I remember never having a friend over the house for fear of people learning my father was such a drunk. You see my father has done irreparable damage to me. I have more issues than I know how to handle. I became desperately shy and awkward in school. I had little to no friends in school - and that is true today too! I am very serious, very lonely, very depressed. I have a severe social phobia, no social skills, and I cannot tolerate criticism. I have no idea how to socialize and avoid talking to people unless absolutely necessary. I hate talking about myself but do make up for it by talking about ideas, what's going on in the world. I don't know how to have fun and lighten up. I am a complete train wreck. I feel that my childhood growing up in "this house of horrors" turned me. I want to know from anyone reading this if they have been to the bottom of the barrel and come back. I want to know if it's possible to have some kind of a life. I want to know how to get better. I hurt every day. I try to find diversions to keep myself from thinking about my life but lately they don't work anymore. I am at a crossroads and feel I have to do something to get better or check out! I have been very depressed and have asked God to put me out of my misery - one way or another. I know I am the only one who can change my life but I need to know HOW to do it. I feel very timid, weak, afraid. How do I start? What do I have to do? Counseling, medication, move away. My mother once said she made her choice and I don't have to make the same choice. But it seems I'm too afraid to choose. Thank you for your taking the time to read this. God Bless You All!

EveningRose

How old are you?

Have you gone to al-anon? I highly recommend it. Also see if you can find some of the books of daily readings.

One thing that helped me was starting a list at 43things dot com and beginning to pursue those things. It's changed my life, in fact, and helped me focus on what I really want of myself.

Do you have interests or hobbies? Join a group for one of them--music, writing, acting, painting, dancing, a language, hiking, a sport, anything you've ever wanted to do.

Look into EMDR therapy. I initially sought it out in the wake of infidelity in my marriage, and it's intended for post traumatic stress, but many people who have found their spouses cheating on them swear by it, I found it very helpful, and during it is when all hell broke loose with my family, and it was very helpful for that, too.

Move away if you can.

There's nothing wrong with talking about ideas--in fact, some people will say that's the sign of greater character than talking about other people! ;-)

And whatever you do, don't be too hard on yourself. Give yourself credit for each step forward, and realize it takes time.

Welcome to the forums!

DesertEyes

Hello lostascanbe, and welcome to this little corner of recovery

Please do, that is what we are here for.

Goodness, you have lived through a nightmare. Many of the things you mention are almost identical to what I went through. Not exactly the same, but close. If you take a little time to browse through the posts on this forum you will see that many of us have lived through something similar.

Oh yes. I know a lot of people who have. In my case I ran away from home when I was 12 and ended up living on the streets. I found it safer on the streets, and I got paid for doing the same things I had to at home for free.

Once I got my head straightened out I had a wonderful life. I was able to shake loose all those fears you mention. I was able to feel comfortable with people. I found a wonderful woman, got married, helped raise a daughter into a delightful, and perfectly normal, adult.

Ok, so my life has not been _perfect_. I've had all the normal stuff that normal people have in life, but I am no longer tormented by all the "emotional injuries" that were done to me as a child.

Here's how I did it. I attended meetings of Adult Children of Alcoholics and listened to what the people had to say. I shopped around, interviewed a few therapists and found one that could show me what specific actions to take. I learned how to "interview" people and see if they were trustworthy. To me it was like going to school, except I chose the "professor" and the ultimate goal was to heal my injured emotions.

Start by reading the "sticky" posts at the top of this forum. Next, go to the closest library and see if they have any of the ACoA literature available. Go to the ACoA website and see if there are any meetings convenient to you.

Welcome to Adult Children of Alcoholics - World Service Organization, Inc.

If there are none then check al-anon, they have a few meetings that are specific to ACoA issues.

http://www.al-anon.org/

There are also online meetings, and telephone meetings you can try. A good therapist is a huge help, but I have found that it takes a little time to "interview" several until you find a good fit.

That will get you started As you do all of the above you will have more questions pop up, just write them up here and we will all share our personal experience.

Well sure. You are not your mother. And your choices are not the same as hers. I find it imposible to make _any_ choice if I don't know what the differences are between the choices. To me that means I need to find out a little more information, which in turn means I don't have to make _any_ choice _today_. I can choose _not_ to choose. I can choose to wait a day, or a week, or a month, until I _do_ have better information about those choices.

I think you have already made one choice. You decided to post here on this forum and ask for help and information. Sounds like a pretty big choice to me.

The rest of the "regulars" will be along over the next few days. This is a very small and quiet forum so you don't get a ton of people all at the same time. Personally I like it that way, I find solace in having just a few good friends instead of a large number of acquaintances.

Welcome again, I'm glad you decided to join us.

Mike

Kialua

Welcome. I too remember as a teen running out into the night to hang out in phone booths in the street downtown. It was so late at night I couldn't really call anyone so I would pretend like I was talking to someone so no one would bother me. I was beat almost daily till I left home at 18.

But I did make it, and I have had a wonderful life. You can too, don't give up. I guess it started with really forgiving both my parents, my Dad for being an alcoholic abusive jerk, and my enabler Mom for letting him. You can read about it on this thread
http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...rgiveness.html
I know it was an awful way for you to live, and it might be hard to do this, but read it over and put it away in your mind till you are able to try this.

Then I took care of myself and distanced myself from both of them. I've had a very nice life --without alcohol, and without much of my family of origin. But I wouldn't trade a day of it for the craziness I left behind.

If you are still a minor and living at home please get help from your school counselor. If you are an adult, take Mike's advice and start on your journey to healing.

chicory

Hello lostascanbe. Good to see you here.

I lived until I was 12 with an alcoholic father in the home. He made our lives miserable, and I was a fearful and timid child. I did not bring home friends either. The shame followed me like a dark cloud.

We would live with my grandma when dad would lose his job and we had to move. those times living with her were the best and most secure times of my childhood.

My mom divorced him finally, and we were glad that we were going to have a peaceful life(so she said). Then she took a job in a nearby bar, since she had no car, and began her journey into alcoholism. Life was pure hell, I married at 16 to get away, and she drank til she lost a kidney, having ruined her health, lived maybe 10 more years of sobriety.

I made some , many, bad choices in my young adult life, and finally a recovering alcoholic recognized things in me, and suggested I go to ACA meetings. There I learned that I wasn't a person of low morality, but I was making poor choices due to my inner pain, and looking for something to fix it. I had grown up with no boundaries, no self esteem due to the abusive home life with alcoholics.

I learned life changing truths, and it was so comforting to be understood for the first time in my life. My self esteem was so damaged , and trust was lacking in my relationships.

I personally think that learning what alcoholism does to the whole family has saved my life, and being understood by those who have lived through it, has made all the difference in my life. You are in a great place and will find understanding and hope here.

There is so much hope, for wonderful change. You are not your father, and you are worth so much, and can change the things you want to change.

hugs
chicory

Mracoa

Welcome lostascanbe!

I lived with AF until I was 10, then my parents divorced. We had to visit him every other weekend and a couple of weeks in the summer. My mother didn't want her divorce to keep us out of his life. But seeing him was a nightmare. I started drinking and smoking pot when I was 11. I stopped going to see him when I was 15. I would leave like I was going to see him, then just hang out with friends for the weekend. A year or so later I just started telling my mother that I didn't want to see him. She figured I was old enough to make my own choices by then and let it be.

I'm 43 now and still carry the emotional baggage from those early days. I keep working on healing my inner self and doing just a little better each day. The first part was giving up my own addictions. I used them to escape the pain and not deal with it. You will have some pain along your journey to healing. It's normal. As things suppressed or repressed resurface the tendency is to want to push it back down. Don't. Let is surface, have a good cry. It gets better and doesn't come back if you deal with it and accept it.