When normal ends......

Old 04-19-2006, 03:06 PM
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When normal ends......

As I go through this journey I look back and wonder........ When did normal end and how do we get it back?
Most of us started out in our relationships caring, loving people. We reacted to unacceptable behavior, we hurt, we begged, we cried. All normal reactions when someone you love is destroying themselves and your life. Then all of a sudden you are not considered normal..........you are codependant, controlling,an enabler,a martyr and so on because you are married to an alcohlic. You are expected to do all of these abnormal things like detach from the one you love (not saying that is a bad thing), not react when they do horrendous things, pretend nothing is wrong when something is very wrong. Our normal is taken away.
Now we fast forward....we have moved on. We attempt to bring normal back from very abnormal. We ask how much do we love? Do we remain detached? If I ask "where have you been?" Is that being controlling? This is not only in dealing with a partner, but it effects dealing with parents, children and friends. I don't think people realize what damage has been done to very normal people. Yes there is now peace in our lives, but putting ourselves back together is a very complex matter. I hear people say I don't want to be that person again. Well you know what... I want to be that compasionate loving person again. I want to love freely and have an opinion. What happened when your normal was taken away?
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Old 04-19-2006, 03:14 PM
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Very good question...

I dont have alot of answers because I dont know what normal is... it has never been normal for me.

I want to love freely and I want an opinion.... I want a healthy relationship. But like they say if your looking for bread in the hardware store, you might have re-define what you think bread is.
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Old 04-19-2006, 03:46 PM
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Originally Posted by long at this
you are codependant, controlling,an enabler,a martyr and so on because you are married to an alcohlic.
I was all of these things already. They just came right out in the open under those particular circumstances.

Originally Posted by long at this
I want to love freely and have an opinion.
And so you can. What's stopping you?

I was shattered to the core by my experience. Nothing will ever be the same again and trying to find my place in the world when I see it though different eyes is tough. However, it is slowly coming together and my life is altogether more enriching, even if it does feel like wading through treacle on a regular basis.
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Old 04-19-2006, 04:09 PM
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Like Cynay, I've never known what "normal" is. I was born into dysfunction. I asked my counselor the same thing. How can I know what normal is when I've never lived it? I know what I think normal is but sometimes my thinking doesn't jive with the rest of the world. I'm having a bad week.
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Old 04-19-2006, 04:17 PM
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ahh - the old "normal" question. i think most of here would agree that what we really want is to be "healthy" not normal. i too have grown up and am still dealing with my dysfunctional life. and as minnie said,

even if it does feel like wading through treacle on a regular basis.
*love it minnie!*

it's tough work, REALLY tough work, i am finding out, to dig deep into the dysfunction and sort it out. most of us have never had anything else to compare it to. guess i'll have to put my hip boots on!
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Old 04-19-2006, 04:47 PM
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I guess normal and healthy have different meanings for all of us. I have read many posts on this forum in the last 2 years. I have seen the responses people have had to there situations they seem very normal/healthy.
The alcoholic gets drunk and cheats on you.......response hurt and mad.
The alcoholic gets a drunk driving................response mad, afraid, devastated.
The alcoholic ruins a christmas,birthday party, etc.....response furious
It goes on and on and on
It seems overtime we are taught to detach, don't trust, be self aborbed.
Change who we are even though are feelings are contrary.
Maybe the key to getting healthy is allowing ourselves to feel again.
Even though the teachings of alanon were life savers in that dysfunctional time in our lives. I don't know if they work in a healthy lifestyle.
Minnie- I think why it is so hard to love freely and have an opinion is because like you I was shattered by the experience.
It would be hard not to know what normal/healthy is, not growing up that way.
I grew up where things that my alcoholic did to me were not acceptable or normal. Maybe that makes a big difference.
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Old 04-19-2006, 06:08 PM
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I understand where you're coming from long at this. I still retain that I did not come from a dysfunctional household. It is important to me as well to never detach myself from my own soul. I don't want the core of who I am to be silenced. Those reactions to the behaviors you described are completely "normal" IMO. The thing is that in order to live with an alcoholic, you have to learn these other ways of coping in order to have a "peaceful" relationship with the A and keep yourself sane.

I feel that I should be able to share and discuss whatever I want with my SO. I should be allowed to be myself and openly share in life's experiences with him. I should not have to "pretend" or distance myself to keep "peace." That is why I have to leave. I refuse to continue to tiptoe around in my own life.
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Old 04-19-2006, 06:14 PM
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That is what I was trying to say with the ... if you go to the hardware store for bread... you might have to redefine what bread is to you.

If you know what you want, then its your responsibility to make it happen.... but when you are dealing with an Alcoholic the rules are not the same as what you think "normal" is...

Its all about choices... either you have to redefine normal (what is normal for you) or you have to make the choice to leave the person that can not give you that and find someone that can.
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Old 04-19-2006, 06:16 PM
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Originally Posted by long at this
Even though the teachings of alanon were life savers in that dysfunctional time in our lives. I don't know if they work in a healthy lifestyle
well..i certainly didn't grow up in a normal or healthy household so I was attracted to men that weren't normal and healthy..

I did lots of therapy and life coaching and self-help books before I even got to Alanon and guess what..the messages I got from the other types of recovery were consistant to what I get in Alanon today.

See..I learned that MY attitude was the problem..I never had a positive attitude growning up...I was a victim or a martyr..as a child..it really wasn't my choice.

As an adult I had to relearn new ways of thinking..like learning to walk again..

I've never "detached from my soul" but instead I have learned to identify what is my "stuff" and what belongs to other people..I have learned not to take someone else's stuff personally..

There are still lots of dysfunctional people in my life..you can't escape that - but today I have many more tools to deal with them..and to keep myself at peace and happy..even if they arent.

Today, I'm not with an alcoholic..I'm actually dating a very wonderful kind thoughtful man..yet sometimes my thinking can still be distorted..which is ok..it's a learning process..

but I can check in with my sponsor or another friend of Alanon and get "right sized" again.
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Old 04-19-2006, 06:27 PM
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I never stopped loving my alcoholic boyfriend and I never stopped having compassion. Detaching doesn't mean we must stop loving someone or stop being compassionate.

Detaching doesn't mean we have to end the relationship or accept unacceptable behavior. Detaching means we learn how to stop focusing on what our alcoholic loved ones are doing with their lives and start focusing on the things that bring us joy.

Perhaps in addition to looking for bread in a hardware store, you misunderstood the meaning of detachment.

I believe that initially when we're confronted with unacceptable behavior on the part of our alcoholic loved ones it is normal to express anger, displeasure, and ask our partners to change.

I think normal ends when we fail to realize that the methods we've come to rely on again and again to force our alcoholic loved ones to change aren't working, but still we keep on trying the same thing again, and again, and again.

In my opinion, that's when normal ends and insanity begins.
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Old 04-19-2006, 08:03 PM
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I don't think normal ever ended for me because there was no normal to start with. I was raised by an alcoholic/compulsive gambler for a father and a world class codependent/enabler for a mother. I was trained way in advance for the life I would eventually lead as an adult. I did what I did because that's all I knew. Normal for me was sick, sick, sick.

About six months ago, something in me changed. I learned how my behaviors were making me miserable. I learned that I cannot find happiness in someone else. I finally realized that this is MY life, and it's the only one I get. Too bad it took me 43 years to figure it out, but at least I figured it out.

At this point, I don't really care what "normal" is or isn't because that sounds to me like some kind of opinion someone else has. I care about what makes me peaceful, happy and fulfilled. And I don't care if that's "normal" or not.

JMHO,
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Old 04-19-2006, 08:34 PM
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I Now have the time spent with myself and that keeps me content, happy, peaceful. If I'm ever to get what I was looking for??? well I think it might be where Brad Paisley sings of ~

When I get where I'm going
On the far side of the sky.....

when I get where I'm going
There'll be only happy tears
I will shed the sins and struggles
I have carried all these years
And I'll leave my heart wide open
I will love and have no fear
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Old 04-19-2006, 08:55 PM
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[I]"There are still lots of dysfunctional people in my life..you can't escape that - but today I have many more tools to deal with them..and to keep myself at peace and happy..even if they arent."[/I]
I like what you had to say there,minx1969, I have lots of dysfunctional people also, family, and you just need to find the tools to learn to deal with them when you have to. (TO: longatthi ..... what is normal to one person may be abnormal to another. And you can never go back and have things exactly as they were but you can put it behind you and keep making things better.
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Old 04-19-2006, 09:09 PM
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Detachment is the highest form of love. It asks nothing in return.

"For even as love crowns you so shall he
crucify you. Even as he is for your growth
so is he for your pruning....

But if in your fear you would seek only
love's peace and love's pleasure
Then it is better for you that you cover
your nakedness and pass out of love's
threshing floor,
Into the seasonless world where you
shall laugh, but not all of your laughter,
and weep, but not all of your tears...

Love gives naught but itself and takes
naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be
possessed.
For love is sufficient unto love..."
from "The Prophet" by Kahlil Gibran
Jim
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Old 04-19-2006, 09:45 PM
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Welcome, longatthis

I, too, want healthy and if that's normal, all the better. I can see where someone would think Al-Anon or any other 12 step program is only for the "dysfunctional time." But that seems to apply attendance was only in relation to the alcoholic. The 12-steps have taught me a new way to look at life. Applying that new way to every aspect of my life has helped me lead a healthier and happier life.

Long wrote:
It seems overtime we are taught to detach, don't trust, be self aborbed.

I have not been taught not to trust or be self absorbed. I have been taught to trust only those who show by their actions they can be trusted. I have not been taught to be self absorbed. I have been taught to take care of myself first. Life would be pretty barren if I thought the lesson was to not care about other people.

Change who we are even though are feelings are contrary.

For me it was learning to understand what I was truly feeling and at times, when appropriate, apply contrary ACTIONS. Over time, my thinking had become that I needed to react in certain ways to my AH's behavior. I've learned those reactions may not have been appropriate and my thinking needed to change. Nothing wrong with that.

Maybe the key to getting healthy is allowing ourselves to feel again.

Minnie- I think why it is so hard to love freely and have an opinion is because like you I was shattered by the experience.


I am also a member of the shattered club. My support system has helped me see that I can and will love freely again. I'm a little confused on what is meant by "love freely and have an opinion."
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Old 04-20-2006, 06:20 AM
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Originally Posted by long at this
When did normal end and how do we get it back? I don't think people realize what damage has been done to very normal people.
Hi long at this,
As I read your post, I felt a lot of pain and exhaustion. Exhaustion at the struggle of life and the problems you've lived with for a long time. Pain at living through it all. I can sympathize and relate.

But I also heard something else. As you ask when normal ends, and about the damage done to normal people and undoing that damage, you write as if this -- your life, your marriage to an alcoholic, your struggles -- was something that was done to you. As if you were on the receiving end of all this without choice.

There are times too that I have felt like a victim. God knows, it's so easy to fall into that trap. But through my recovery I've come to understand the critical role I played, and the choices I made, in living 'unnormal'.

No one else is to blame, at least not in my adult life. Yes, I lived through terrible abuse. Yet I always had choices. And the reason I made some choices, and not others, stems back to my own issues, my own childhood, my own wounding and pain that I brought into every adult relationship.

Understanding all that and processing it in my own recovery and therapy, and taking full responsibility for my own happiness, is the only way I have become my version of normal.
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Old 04-20-2006, 09:54 AM
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I think the events that happen in living with an alcoholic vary, which makes our interpation of recovery so very different.
I was married for 24 years. The first 10 years were "normal" The "american dream" 3 beautiful children, big house in the country, friends, family and happiness. Social drinking was a part of the picture. The drinking progressed, the dashed hopes, the failed attempts at treatment, the cheating, the job losses, legal problems. As I look back at what part did I play in this....I stayed to long, I detached, acting as if what he did didn't really effect me. It was really hard not to feel like the victim or blame someone when you lose everything you have worked for because he choses to drink and drive. I don't feel like a victim anymore, I am a survivior. To have the dream smashed of growing old together, enjoying the grand children and all the things that I had committed to in this marriage is GONE. To feel blame, anger, or being a victim is just spinning your wheels because their is no one at the other end to give a response or provide closure. Some things in life are cut and dry, living with an alcoholic isn't. That's the insanity.
I will have to deal with this person for the rest of my life in one way shape or form. He continues to drink so the joy of college graduations, weddings, birth of grandchildren and family get togthers will be affected. I would just be fooling myself to think different.
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Old 04-20-2006, 10:25 AM
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I don't think detaching means accepting unacceptable behavior. By ignoring it or acting as if it didn't happen, that is accepting it. Cheating? That isn't ignorable. It also isn't something you can detach from. Lies, that is not acceptable either.

I believe the only thing *I* could detach from is the drinking.

Cheating? Nope, can't detach from that. Lies regarding cheating? Nope, can't detach from that.
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Old 04-20-2006, 10:37 AM
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Good points, Sunshine. What you are talking about is boundaries. There are certain things that are unacceptable, no matter how detached you are. You decide what your boundaries are, and what you need to do to enforce those, then you detach from the rest. Sort of like "picking your battles."

My two cents.

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Old 04-20-2006, 11:01 AM
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yes lateeda, you're right. Lots of us here do not have solid boundarys. Things we think we have, we bend when the situation comes....denial?

I can detach from my ah drinking and acting mean or saying creul things. I KNOW it's his alcohol talking and well, why buy into something like that? I can walk away and be at peace knowing who I am. I could detach if he got into trouble with drinking and not get caught up in the drama.

But detaching isn't a tool you use when your husband is running around cheating or any number of other things. I think some (myself included at times) get confused and think we'd suggest anyone needs to detach from that behavior.

Now, once you decide a boundary was crossed and are leaving for such a thing, then yes, you have to detach and heal.
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