GingerM

I'm finally almost there. Where I'm pretty well disengaged from my father and he no longer has control over my emotions. Sure, I listen to him, but always with a bit of "quacking" going through my head. Sometimes he does have good advice, but normally....

So on father's day my parents were out of town and out of cell phone range. I called and left a message. The next day I get a drunken call from him and he's nearly in tears because he was so touched by my message. In the past, this would have moved me. Now I just hear quacking.

It's sad that because of the need to disengage emotionally, not only do I remove myself from the negatives, but by necessity, I have to miss out on the positives as well.

As an aside: for those who followed my story, I think the reason he was so moved is because he had confirmation that I had not rejected him wholely. That his daughter still cared about him, even if she wasn't going to put up with the cow droppings anymore.

I just find it sad that I have to reject the good and the bad, because when he's drunk like that, none of it has any meaning.

DesertEyes

Hey there Ginger

Congrats on working so well on the "detachment". I know how difficult it is to do that. I'm sorry that you are feeling sad about it.

I work my detachment a little different than you. When my biological family "quacks" at me I consider _all_ the quaking bad. Even if the words my appear good at first. My Father did a lot of the emotional crying when he was drunk. I rejected those emotions as well but never considered them to be "good". The just appeared to be good on the surface, kinda like the old slogan of Judging a book by it's cover.

I remember the good things of my childhood and cherish those. There were a few. Not many. I focus on those good things to help me separate the real person from the effects of the disease. At some point I did have real human beings for parents, and underneath their unwillingness to face their own issues and addictions there was somebody decent and caring. It is that separation that allows me to live without resenting them.

It is sad that they have chosen to remain in their disease. It is good that you are making progress in preventing any further harm to you, and in healing. Me thinks you are going to be just fine.

Mike

dollydo

I sure understand where you are coming from. My Mom is the "A" in my life, too had to detach.

She will die with a drink in her hand, I will die always loving her, wishing it had not been this way.

Dolly

GettingFree

Hi Ginger,

I tend to agree with Mike -- anything coming at you under the addiction umbrella is part of it. Seduction/betrayal. It's so hurtful.

When the moving words come from your dad totally sober, you'll know the difference.

Is the progress you parents were making a couple of months ago still there? Are have you had to detach more completely as you were first wrestling with?

gf

GingerM

The progress seems to have maintained so far. I haven't heard any sniping about people I love or been told "don't tell anyone else" (the two things that I simply couldn't deal with anymore).

Their drinking is as it always has been. I envy you Mike, I never had parents who didn't drink. I'm sure sometime before they were teenagers, they didn't, but once they hit college, both of them started and just never stopped.

I'm continuing to read the book I've mentioned (The Trauma Spectrum) although I find it difficult reading as my brain just shuts off at certain points reading about some things. I literally can't make the words make sense anymore, although I see the print, it might as well be in Sanskrit. So it's slow going, but it is absolutely amazing. I see myself in it, I see my parents in it, I see my sister in it, I see my grandparents in it, I see how it's handed down from one generation to another.

I know that behind every bit of quacking I hear is a kernel of truth, and I suppose I'd like to hear the truth, but in a way that isn't so extreme (on either end of the spectrum). It's just a pity I have to throw it all out.

DesertEyes

Hey there Ginger,

I was just thinking that I envy you because you have a chance to work thru this while your parents are still alive

That happens to me too with some subjects. To me that means that I don't have the right "pieces" of information to make that passage make sense. I just skip it, go on to the next paragraph and keep going. I have some books that I've been re-reading over the years. Each time thru I read the same pages, but more of it makes sense. My "12 and 12" started with just a few underlines here and there. Now it's almost solid underline from start to finish *lol*

Do you see how _you_ have broken the chain? How _you_ have finally stopped the madness?

ok. Let's run with that. Suppose that you _did_ hear the truth, exactly the way you want to hear it. What _exactly_ would that truth be? (No, you don't have to share that, just write it down for yourself) If you were to get that truth from them, what would you then do with it?

That "truth" that I was so intent on getting was an apology from my parents, some kind of acknowledgement that they were aware how horribly they had injured me, and the other children in the family. Some acceptance of their responsibility.

I never got my "truth" from them. But I got something better. I got my "truth" from myself. I know that if by some miracle my biological parents had ever said those words to me it would make no difference at all because immediately after the miracle they would return to being the same sick, sorry people they always were.

_My truth_ is that those people are just the biological accident of my existence. If any other child on the planet had been born in that household he would have been treated exactly the same. My truth is that I am now able to walk away from that legacy and live my own life free and independent from them because they are _not_ family. They are just random DNA. I owe them nothing, they owe me nothing, my biological father was just a random sperm donor. His connection to me is no different than a test tube.

When I realized that I was looking for answers from a test tube full of random sperm I understood that I was looking in very much the wrong place. My answers were my own to create, not theirs to provide.

((((((((((( hugs ))))))))))))))

Mike

GingerM

Unfortunately, it isn't that kind of 'not making sense'. It's that the bit of text is describing stuff a little too close to home, pushing old buttons, irritating old wounds, and causing me to slip into the freeze response where language centers don't work. At the very beginning of the book, the author actual mentions that something like that might occur for some people. Literally, I lose the ability to read.

I don't believe that I've broken the chain yet. I have weakened it to the point of no longer being able to bear weight, but it's not broken until I"m fixed, and I'm a ways off from 'fixed' yet. At least I don't have children, so won't be passing it into the next generation.

One of the hazards of the job of being a scientist is that you want to know the "real" answer, even if it's not what you want to see. I would really like to know if my mother loved me when I was a child. I theorize that she loves me now (only because I have the power to hurt her...we generally aren't hurt by those we don't care about), but honestly I don't know.

Would it make much difference in my day to day life or my existance with them? No. I know this. Would it make a difference to the three year old inside me who wants to know that mommy loves her? All the difference in the world. My mother is an extremely damaged human being, even without the booze. But I could lay some things to rest if I knew she loved me.

My dad operates in two modes: when he's sober, he has a filter on his thoughts so thick that only idle chit chat comes through...the weather, sports news, latest books etc. when he's drunk, the filter dissolves entirely, and most of the emotional things he says come out magnified and distorted so badly they're irrelevant. I would like to know what's behind the filter, without the distortion. Why? Because it would give me a better idea of my footing. Much the same as a mountain climber uses topo maps to decide which route they'll use to ascend and descend. I would like to know the lay of the land.

Unlike my mom where I can only guess and theorize, I know for certain that my father loves me. He has difficulty showing it when he's sober due to that nearly impentrable filter, and when he's drunk it all comes out skewed and out of proportion. At least I know he loves me. I would like to know if he respects me. I can only theorize that he does based on a few dropped clues here and there.

Would it change my life? Actually, I suppose it would. It would put me on a more solid footing. Even in debates, the two sides study each other, size up their opponent and try to get as much information as they can about the other's strengths and weaknesses prior to the debate.

Emotionally will it make much difference to me? Hrm, probably not. It might give some comfort to my inner 3 and 12 year olds. It might not.

Early morning babblings of one without enough coffee in her system yet

GettingFree

The belief system shoved down my throat was that I was broken and needed fixing. Sometimes I still think that, but more and more, I'm throwing that aside. I am not broken. I do not need fixing. But if I had a goal of being 'fixed' what would that look like? Would I be setting up standard of perfection? What is fixed?

What I believe now is that I need healing, not fixing. I used to think that becoming healed would mean one day I'd stop feeling painful things or would cease to be impacted by othersand their behavior. Now I see that I may continue to feel things till I die, but I can still heal -- the healing is about changing my ability to be aware which in turn, changes my ability to respond, and changes my ability to take care of me, which in turn changes, the original feeling, and often, its intensity.

One of the hardest sessions I remember in therapy was trying to incorporate the idea that my father loved me as a child, in whatever imperfect way he could. It would have been easier to hate him and to deal with if I believed he didn't love me. Because then, I was left with the internal war-zone question of "how could you love me AND do this to me?". The tears I cried then!

But I now know that love has different expressions. There is active love -- where one is committed to the hard work of actively caring for, supporting and nurturing another. And there is passive love -- an undefined sense of attachment to someone that you can have without ever lifting a finger to nurture it. Sometimes I question if the second is love at all. Perhaps it's simply this innate need we have to be attached to other sentient things.

'Course I don't know if your mom loves you or not. But I think if we feel loved we know it. I don't think we have to extrapolate or theorize to come up with the answer. If A exists, then B must be true. Should feeling loved take that kind of puzzle to figure out? My hunch is not. And that's the interesting thing about being an adult child -- I haven't had good models to KNOW what love is, feels like, smells like, etc. so I, like you, in the past I have gone searching to figure it out in all kinds of co-related ways, but now I think it's not that complicated.

I also think the ability to hurt someone isn't an indicator of love. My former boss could hurt me a lot -- I didn't love him at all. I think when we're copdendent we can be hurt by a whole lot of external figures in our lives.

For me this hasn't helped but as I referred to above, in some ways made it harder to reconcile the damage done to me. Letting in the feeling that my dad did love me, and allowing myself to experience some of the fond memories I have him when I was young, made it harder in some ways. Things that are grey and muti-coloured are far more complex than the black-and-white answers I thought could be easier.

I can understand how difficult this is. I think I'd end up wondering what is real and what isn't. What can I trust.

I've been going more down the road that Mike is -- seeing the randomness of biological connectedness.

DesertEyes

Hey there Ginger,

If that's the case what you are experiencing is called "shock". Your mind is telling you that what you are reading is beyond it's present ability to process. You can go ahead and force your way thru it, or you can be kind and gentle with yourself and skip over those parts and come back to them later. For me, it was faster and easier to skip over stuff and deal with it when I was ready.

I guess I use a different definition for "fixed". I was fixed when I stopped hiding from my own fears and started moving forward in my recovery. That's when my chain was broken because I was doing something that had never been done in the history of my family. I was willing to improve.

hmmm... I'm sure you could. I had my own "stuff" too in that same area. The way I see it is that if the _only_ way I can have "closure" is to wait for my biological parents to demonstrate, in whatever way, that they loved me then I am putting my personal growth, my happiness, and my ability to have a healthy, happy life in _their_ hands. To me that kind of dependence on another person is the definition of "co-dependence".

In my case I found that I had negative self-esteem. It was so low it went beyond zero and into the negative. My self-image was built on the opinion of others. I discovered that the reason for that was because I never felt that I was worthy of being loved, never thought I was lovable. As an adult I was carrying around my childhood needs for love and approval from my parents, which they never gave me.

There was abundant evidence all around me that I _was_ lovable. My fundamental belief that I was unlovable caused me to be "blind" to that evidence, much like what you experience in reading that book. I had to first accept the evidence that I am lovable, that I am a decent, honest and loving person. Once I started accepting that evidence I began to "love myself" and allow others to show their appreciation and love for me. I slowly began to believe that other people truly cared for me without automatically assuming that there was some ulterior motive behind their kindness.

Now I don't need my parents' love. Maybe they did love me and simply couldn't express it as GF says. I don't know. Today it doesn't matter. I am able to assess my own behavior and motives clearly, without depending on others to validate my feelings.

Goodness yes I'm sure it would. I know it would have made a huge difference in my life. What I have learned that for _me_ to place that kind of power in the hands of another person is the fastest way for me to become dependent on them. I chose to make my own huge difference in life by finding a healthier source of emotional validation.

*lol* Durn good babblings, coffee or not

Mike

kennethhoff

Hi Ginger -

Hope today you are doing well. This week was my birthday. Yep, six month ago I started Alanon and I feel so much different. Hard to believe I was as insane as I was. Still always things to work on, but with a lot of work and reflection, it's amazing how much clarity one can get.

I think you have done a wonderful thing. You have actively chosen to remain open. And that is one of the hardest things to do with an addict of any kind. The love will always be there. But being able to detach with love takes alot of real inner strength. To create and keep those healthy boundaries comes from love and strength, not weakness.
One of the hardest things to do is to always have compassion, true compassion and love for those we say have hurt us, who continue to hurt us, and who may always continue to hurt us. Not because they don't love us, but because they are weak to a disease.

But we keep trying, keeping the focus on ourselves, which you seem to be doing just fine, and simply keep trying to be open. As the proverbial Buddhist, I have learned to stay as much as I can in "The Middle way". A state of never concretizing between opposites. Attachement and aversion, pleasure and pain, etc.. Only the strongest of people can stay in this open state, having true love and compassion yet still keeping healthy boundaries. So please remember this, and continue to have loving kindness for your father, AND yourself.

My "salvation" comes in the form of my higher power (the Buddhas). I find that when I can let go, surrender, and trust, AND also completely accept myself unconditionally for who I am, who I was, who I will choose to be, without dependence on another for my serenity, only then do I ever find real peace.

I cotinue to look forward to my upcoming fourth step (and more), and the gifts I have been given. I started a gratitude journal several months ago on advice of a friend. I wrote down all the things in my life from when I was a kid that I can be grateful for. And I was amazed at all I found. From simply having a home to stay (where others in the world do not), to running water, a warm bed, food, an area to grow up in where I wasn't afraid to walk out the door, a decent school where I was taught to read, write, and think in a constructive manner, friends I could play with, and an opportunity in life to find a job, and make whatever choices I chose, even though many times I felt I was hurt by an alcoholic father.

Like the slogan says, 'Life is choices". I am simply grateful that I DO have choices. So much of this world lives in poverty, disease, death, that I have to remind myself that though my problems seem so great at times, I still need to count my blessings that I am not being tortured and/or starved. That doesn't mean that what we all share and go through is not important, because it is, it is just a perspective one can gain that everything is relative, and if having an alcoholic father is the worst problem I will ever face in my life, that maybe it isn't as bad as I thought.
I do have choices now. We all do. Your making your choice and it is a good strong one. Let yourself be proud of that choice, and simply be grateful that you can make that choice.

Be well,
Ken

GingerM

GF and Mike, it's interesting how each of you think of the word "fixed". I have a different view on it. I don't consider myself actively 'broken', more like...hrm...marred. Not destroyed, not non-functional, just a few dings here and there. Maybe I'm 'distressed' like the furniture rage a few years back

But I do see things in myself that I don't like. Not that I don't like myself, but I see myself perpetuating behaviors which are at best annoying and at worst unhealthy. When I extinguish those behaviors (to use a Pavlovian reference) and replace them with healthier ones, then I will consider myself 'fixed' and the chain fully broken. When *I* fully control how I'm behaving, and not allowing other people to control my behavior, either intentionally or unintentionally on their part (as you said Mike, not putting that power in someone else's hands).

I don't believe I will ever be 'fixed' in the sense of not having painful memories, those are there to stay. I think of 'fixed' more as 'emotionally healthy' in the sense that while I may experience those painful memories, they no longer drive my behaviors. When I am master of my own inner universe. And I know I'm really close now, I can taste it and smell the fresh air!

And yes Mike, when I'm reading that book, I"m slipping into what some call 'shock' (although this particular book draws a pretty clear line between 'shock' and the freeze response, being often used as synonyms but quite different in terms of what the brain is actually doing). And when I hit those spots, I put the book down. I pick it up when I feel I'm ready to try again. That's why it's been such slow going (I'm a very fast reader and usually plow through a book like this in under a day...been working on this one for almost a month now, one paragraph at a time if need be).

GF, it's also very interesting to me that you struggled with "how could you love me AND do this to me?". I struggled with how could you do this to me AND love me? My assumption was that my mother didn't love me. Now I believe that in her very skewed way, she does and did, but she is so terribly damaged that she had no way to express it (and still doesn't, except in some bizarre behaviors which I'm sure is her struggling to express what she's terrified to express). But since none of us can 'see' inside another person's feelings, I can still only theorize (there I go being a scientist again!) In the long run, it doesn't matter to me now whether she did/didn't and/or does/doesn't love me.

What matters to me is what I do with my behavior irrespective of her behaviors. Am I being the person *I* want to be so that I can look myself in the face and honestly say "I'm the best me I know how to be" or "I'm proud of myself and my actions"? When I can answer those questions with an honest "yes", then I will feel complete.

I suppose the original intent of this thread was sort of a lament that, in the situations we were/are in, not only must we disregard the bad stuff in order to move forward, but also disregard the good (at least in my case) because the good stuff has no more truth to it than the bad. The cryings of "I love you, you're a wonderful daughter" carry no more meaning than the bullyings of "Act like that again and I'll never speak to you again!"

It just seems such a waste to lose the good energy along with the bad. Not that I feel any of it is my fault, nor do I feel I can change it in any way. I guess I just feel that the world has little enough goodness, and it's such a waste to have to throw it out.

I dunno if that makes any sense at all or not.

DesertEyes

Yo Ginger,

Isn't that cool? I think that's one of the most powerful aspects of recovery, how we each learn from everybody else.

* lmao * I like that!

You go! girl. We're right her cheering you on!!

Yup, yup, and thanx for starting this thread, we wandered a bit as usual. That's the way I learn and grow, from all of us tossing in our wanderings into the recovery pot.

Goodness yes, as different as our lives are, we all have the same hurts on the inside. Most of the time you guys make more sense to me than I make to myself

Mike

GingerM

I realized after rereading this that it sounds like I think that once I'm 'fixed', I won't have to put any more effort into it. Like once you 'fix' your clutch, it's fixed.

I know it's not like that. I know that once I have new skills, new behavior patterns, new tools to use in life, I will still have to practice practice practice, just as with anything else in life that one wishes to be good at.