Today was Bearable
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Join Date: Feb 2010
Posts: 524
Today was Bearable
I got through today without feeling like I was going to shatter into a million pieces. I've been reading different things on the internet about acceptance and minding my own business and courage and letting go, I've been praying, thinking, and trying not to think. I've been thinking about Saturdays visit with my husband for the first time. Trying to think "correctly" - worrying that every thought I have is codependent and then trying not to think about I'm thinking which gets me thinking all over again.
I feel like something happened in that empty church parking lot last night. I feel like I have evolved into another place in this mess.
I will see him Saturday for the first time. I have my Cost Letter. I'm not sure what to expect. I know this is when I hear about progress and after care. I'm not sure if I should go with the flow. If I should grandstand, or listen,or empathize, or give him accolades, or all of the above.
I have nothing of real value to say. But right now this board is all I have and if typing about nothing for a minute could help me, I'll do it.
I feel like something happened in that empty church parking lot last night. I feel like I have evolved into another place in this mess.
I will see him Saturday for the first time. I have my Cost Letter. I'm not sure what to expect. I know this is when I hear about progress and after care. I'm not sure if I should go with the flow. If I should grandstand, or listen,or empathize, or give him accolades, or all of the above.
I have nothing of real value to say. But right now this board is all I have and if typing about nothing for a minute could help me, I'll do it.
Member
Join Date: Oct 2012
Posts: 109
Visiting my AH in rehab was a surreal experience. You are probably aware that not a lot really changes for the A in a few weeks of rehab. It takes a year+ in recovery to know if they have actually changed. So, it's OK to just go with the flow. In fact, if you don't feel like going, you don't have to go at all. It's not about you helping him anymore. It's about you helping yourself and your children.
There was a time in my life where if someone was hurting me physically, I would walk away. If they were hurting me emotionally, I might make excuses for them or give them a second chance. There was a time in my life when I might even "give that person accolades" when he stopped hurting me. We think we can cover up the emotional hurts, that no one can easily see them so we can minimize them, but they wound us just as a broken leg wounds us.
If you have to run anything through a "lens", try running it through the lens of: what is my gut telling me? How am I breathing right now? Do I feel relaxed, scared, confident, numb? Does my stomach hurt or do I have a headache? Am I holding in emotion to protect people around me? (Like you, I often had to do that because of having young children at home).
For what it's worth, I spent days writing and rewriting my cost letter. My husband said that they never even read it at rehab because it wasn't "bad" enough. I'm not sure he even read it. Life with an alcoholic is just one heartbreak after another--even when they are in rehab.
You wrote: "I've been praying, thinking, and trying not to think. I've been thinking about Saturdays visit with my husband for the first time. Trying to think "correctly" - worrying that every thought I have is codependent and then trying not to think about I'm thinking which gets me thinking all over again."
It's OK to just let yourself feel, and not think. That was the hard part for me--thawing the numbness that had developed from living with an AH. I went to a counselor for a while mainly to work on that. I read somewhere: "The opposite of joy isn't pain, it is numbness." Where we feel pain, we know we are alive. But with numbness, we are not truly alive at all. Sometimes we numb our emotions with thinking. The first part of my "recovery" was just letting the emotions flow over and through me. Of accepting how important emotional health is, and not make it a red-headed stepchild to my physical health.
Once I started connecting to my emotions, I was able to set boundaries with not just my AH, but everyone in my life, and I can sometimes even do it in the moment--I don't have to mull it over by myself and then bring it up at a later date. It is definitely a skill I am only just beginning to practice, but it has already helped a great deal.
I hope you are able to get to a meeting soon, and to also start creating a support network of friends and family. Hang in there and keep posting!
Hugs,
~ B
There was a time in my life where if someone was hurting me physically, I would walk away. If they were hurting me emotionally, I might make excuses for them or give them a second chance. There was a time in my life when I might even "give that person accolades" when he stopped hurting me. We think we can cover up the emotional hurts, that no one can easily see them so we can minimize them, but they wound us just as a broken leg wounds us.
If you have to run anything through a "lens", try running it through the lens of: what is my gut telling me? How am I breathing right now? Do I feel relaxed, scared, confident, numb? Does my stomach hurt or do I have a headache? Am I holding in emotion to protect people around me? (Like you, I often had to do that because of having young children at home).
For what it's worth, I spent days writing and rewriting my cost letter. My husband said that they never even read it at rehab because it wasn't "bad" enough. I'm not sure he even read it. Life with an alcoholic is just one heartbreak after another--even when they are in rehab.
You wrote: "I've been praying, thinking, and trying not to think. I've been thinking about Saturdays visit with my husband for the first time. Trying to think "correctly" - worrying that every thought I have is codependent and then trying not to think about I'm thinking which gets me thinking all over again."
It's OK to just let yourself feel, and not think. That was the hard part for me--thawing the numbness that had developed from living with an AH. I went to a counselor for a while mainly to work on that. I read somewhere: "The opposite of joy isn't pain, it is numbness." Where we feel pain, we know we are alive. But with numbness, we are not truly alive at all. Sometimes we numb our emotions with thinking. The first part of my "recovery" was just letting the emotions flow over and through me. Of accepting how important emotional health is, and not make it a red-headed stepchild to my physical health.
Once I started connecting to my emotions, I was able to set boundaries with not just my AH, but everyone in my life, and I can sometimes even do it in the moment--I don't have to mull it over by myself and then bring it up at a later date. It is definitely a skill I am only just beginning to practice, but it has already helped a great deal.
I hope you are able to get to a meeting soon, and to also start creating a support network of friends and family. Hang in there and keep posting!
Hugs,
~ B
Sober since 10th April 2012
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Perth, Western Australia
Posts: 6,047
Hi meggem I'm so happy your mind has calmed a little. You could say Alanon helped you but in a very strange way. Maybe what you really needed was time and space to think.
As for how to act when you see your husband again, I guess just try and take it as it comes. Maybe you could write up some of your codie research; what is support, what is enabling, how to detach? But please don't be too hard on yourself, you are learning and you're not going to get everything right straight up. FWIW you sound very together to me and you're coping well with horrible circumstances.
All the best - you're a hero!
As for how to act when you see your husband again, I guess just try and take it as it comes. Maybe you could write up some of your codie research; what is support, what is enabling, how to detach? But please don't be too hard on yourself, you are learning and you're not going to get everything right straight up. FWIW you sound very together to me and you're coping well with horrible circumstances.
All the best - you're a hero!
Member
Join Date: Jun 2012
Posts: 1,452
Bthechange, what a lovely post!
Meggem, when I first came here and was shell shocked and reeling from my now XAH's abuse and alcoholism, I felt like you did. SoberRecovery was here for me every step of the way, whenever I needed it.
We're here for you just the same way. My life now, 15 months later, is through the crisis and into the healing and re-forming process, and it is so much better than before. So I'm here, as are many, in thanks for the support I got, and to pay that support back by paying it forward for other people like you. And I still get real and substantial comfort and insight from my dear friends here, old and new. And I often still need it.
So you can come here even when you don't know what you want say, or don't have anything to say, but just need know you're not alone, that you can survive this crisis, and that you can thrive and be happy again.
I think Bthechange is very wise. His rehab is for him and about him. He has professionals looking after him and charting the course they think is best for him. What that is may or may not be best for you right now, and you get to decide that for yourself. You won't hurt him if you don't go this Saturday, or if don't write or give him a Cost Letter, or anything.
It is time for you to be free to find out what YOU need and want and act accordingly. Hope you come here as often as you want,
Hugs,
ShootingStar1
Meggem, when I first came here and was shell shocked and reeling from my now XAH's abuse and alcoholism, I felt like you did. SoberRecovery was here for me every step of the way, whenever I needed it.
We're here for you just the same way. My life now, 15 months later, is through the crisis and into the healing and re-forming process, and it is so much better than before. So I'm here, as are many, in thanks for the support I got, and to pay that support back by paying it forward for other people like you. And I still get real and substantial comfort and insight from my dear friends here, old and new. And I often still need it.
So you can come here even when you don't know what you want say, or don't have anything to say, but just need know you're not alone, that you can survive this crisis, and that you can thrive and be happy again.
I think Bthechange is very wise. His rehab is for him and about him. He has professionals looking after him and charting the course they think is best for him. What that is may or may not be best for you right now, and you get to decide that for yourself. You won't hurt him if you don't go this Saturday, or if don't write or give him a Cost Letter, or anything.
It is time for you to be free to find out what YOU need and want and act accordingly. Hope you come here as often as you want,
Hugs,
ShootingStar1
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