TimTim

but I seem to be sliding backwards. I've been thinking of a frined I met in Alateen years back. Same gilr I have mentioned before. IDK whats with me. I'm hanign out with a new group of friends, they are awesome and we get along very well. But for some reason I keep catching myself thinking of her. I don't know If I can use her name, but it would make it easier to explain.

I was for awhile, like the past two weeks, trying to talk to some friends about it but they always change the convo. or just say soemthing like forget her she always hurts you and they leave it at that. IDK what to do or how to take it. Its really bothering me and it seems that none of my friends care. I can honestly say that I am always there to listen for them but flip the situation and they arent there for me. Like I understand that everyone has their own problems but sometimes its just to much, you know.

I miss her so much, I havent cried in over two mnths, and these memories or thoughts of her or w.e. you wanna call them, hit me and IDK I loose it.

Whats wrong with me? I don't want to think of her anymore!!!

tollbooth

Sometimes our friends are telling us what we dont want, or need, to hear. Its these types of situations that you need to re-affirm why they are your friends in the first place, and understand that they are probably talking to you with your best interests in mind!

keepingmyjoy

timTim, so sorry for your pain. I have friends like that...it is always more about their problems than mine! It does not mean they do not care at all though. But, I have wondered if I need to branch out for more friends that understand where I am at, and it is one of the reasons I am here. It's a start. Maybe you need to do that too, I don't know.

There is nothing wrong with you. You loved, maybe in an unhealthy way, but you loved. And losing love hurts. I wish I had words of wisdom, but just know that I care.

Janitw

Hey there kiddo......I am sorry to hear that you are hurting hunny.....don't listen to everything that these people are saying to you......take what you want and leave the rest....and if you contact this girl just be cautious and remember what you have learned in Alateen and on here okay.....give her a call if you have to and just check up on her and see how she is as a friend......no harm in that sweetie.

appleblaster

It seems there are two separate issues you're dealing with here; your friends and your thoughts of the girl you knew.

In reference to the friends part, it was my experience that my group of friends didn't quite understand what I was going through. There weren't any of them who have dealt with these types of problems so they constantly wondered why I tolerated such behavior in the first place. This is why there is Al Anon (and Alateen), because its a unique group of people who share the same issues. This is where you should talk about your thoughts and feelings.....because they understand like no one else what you're going through. More than likely, your friends do mean well, they just don't get it. They are probably frustrated at seeing you in such turmoil. Perhaps you can make a rule to have fun when you are with your friends instead of allowing things to bother you. I know, easier said than done but its an option.

A side note on the friends thing......as someone's friend, you are not obligated to listen to each and every little problem and come up with the solution. You are completely within your rights to decline to listen. It all depends on what you have to give. Sometimes you're in a state where you cannot be of help to a friend because you simply don't have that energy to give to them. All you have to do is say so with love and respect. When you can be there you certainly want to be but when you cannot, its okay to say so. The same is true for your friends with you. As codependent types, one of our flaws is that we do not know how to get our needs met and we give, give, give to others so we will be liked and accepted. I see that in your description. They already like you. Exercise your rights as a friend.

About this girl you miss so much. You say "I was doing so well" but. In my opinion, you are still doing well. Not every segment of your journey will be a good one but the important thing is that you are still moving. The very fact that you came here to post is progress. I still backslide and allow memories and feelings to creep back in. Hell, I allowed my exabf to let me down yet again just this past weekend. A year ago I would have beat myself up for that, thinking that I just went backwards. But you know what......that happens. Its part of your learning process.

A baby doesn't learn to walk just by getting up and doing it perfectly. He falls, stumbles, crawls, cries and he's scared yet excited about the possibilities. We are the same in our journey.

How do you handle this? What do you do? Go to meetings, write down how you feel, turn it over to your HP, pray for knowledge of His will b/c it may not even be in His will for you to be with this girl. Keep posting, keep reading and learning. But most of all, hang in there because the transformation is slow and doesn't happen all at once. I know it may sound cliche' but One Day At A Time really gets me through when i'm having bad times. Just to know....all I have to do is get through today and i'm fine.....that's a lifesaver for me.

Tim, as you learn and walk your path you will find that you really didn't know yourself at all and you will be faced with getting to know yourself. During that process you will discover why you pick the relationships you have in the past. Those are the character defects that you will correct through your recovery. Then you will understand why you think of her and want to talk about her so much. Also, you may find that she really wasn't so great after all and you will see her in her true light, not the light you originally cast upon her.

But that's okay. Progress, no matter how slowly it comes is all that matters.

Much love.

TimTim

I never dated this girl. We were just really really close and great friends. I just don't know why these thought come out of no where. I could be doing anything and wham. Its like getting punched in the stomache or something like that.

I see what you mean when you say maybe I should listen to what my friends say but they don't know and problaly never will know that stuff that myslef and this girl went through together.

IDK, I'm just all over the place today.

hopeangel

hey tim, just wanted to tell you i know how you feel. in 1997 i met a guy i saw for two years. he was it for me, but had commitment issues and we were young also. some growing needed to be done. i have never stopped thinking about him. he is always on my mind. a song, or anything will take me right there. anyway, he married someone else, and i married ah. we both made our mistakes. he has now gotten a divorce and i am in the process. this is ten years later and his place in my soul and heart has never been replaced for forgotten.

i don't know right now what will happen- if only i had a crystal ball, but only HP has that. i am going to try and call and talk to him though and trust my growth and what i have learned and insticts to decide whether there is something there that is healthy for me, be it friendship, or whatever else. i feel like there has to be something to the fact that my feelings for him have not changed and i can't forget him. i feel i owe it to myself to find it out.

it is a risk, but much of living is a risk.

and your right - only him and i know what we went through-it was and is special to me- and he is a person that always challenged me and made me a better person in many ways. i recognize this now.

i think we have to experience the things we do in life to grow and become the person we are- to be the right for the relationship when it is time. destiny and fate have no timeline as someone told me. what is meant to be will be in it's own time.

appleblaster

Its perfectly alright that you are all over the place today.
We've all been there before.
: )

lostnfound1961

do you think that maybe your friends are just trying to help you move on and not think of her so much. It sounds like her memory hurts you. I had a man I used to think about all the time. Could hardly keep my self from calling him even though I knew he no longer wanted me to. I knew he was bad for me and he treated me like dirt, but I was drawn to him for some ungodly reason. It took me a long time to get past that and stop feeling hurt.

So what is the background on this girl? why did you stop talking?

TimTim

We met at an Alateen meeting my Junior yr of HS. She was a freshman at the time. We just clicked and we became the best of friends. Inseperable you can say. I would do anything for her. One time I was a good 3 hours away upstate NY and she called me the one split second I had service on my cellphone and she needed me to come get her. I drove the 3 hours to come get her. Her pops and mother were in ahuge fight and she wanted to leave. So I picked her up took her for dinner and talked to her for hours.

We used to call eachother everyday for years. Just to tell eachother about our day. Dinner once or twice or even three times a week. If you saw me you would see her. Basicly I would drop everything I was doing if she needed me. I can honestly say she was the closest and bestest frined I have ever had. When we would go home for the night it wasn't just good byes. It was "I LOVE YOU" and hugs and kisses. It never came to going out. She would get a new BF and I was the person she would ask if he was any good for her or not. I guess you can say I was the approver.

I never used to mix friends at all. But she said one day "If I always do what I always did, I'll always get what I always got." So with that I mixed friends together. So then It became ME n her, and my buddies Kevin Marc and Dan. All was good. She mixed in her friend Kelly. Thats when all the problems started. Marc decided he likes Kelly. So we hook the two of them up and it has never been the same. All of her lying started then. She got into a college in R.I. and she goes there now. She would coem home on random weekends and tell MArc and Kelly she was coming home but tell them not to tell me. Lets just sday that I know everything that goes around in the towns I hang out in. So I would know shes coming home and just see how bad my "friends" would lie to me. It got to the point where my buddy Marc got so high of himself since he had a gf and I did not and he not only thought he was better than me he "knew" he was better than me. He loved the fact that he goes to a very good engineering school and I go to a community college. He would push it in my face all the time. Then when I confonted him about all the lying he denied it right to my face while, I'm just gunna start using her name now, Jacqui amitted to it in a facefull of tears and we worked it out kinda. Still to this day Marc denies it.

I took the civil service test for NJ and di alright but not good enough for a police job. When I signed to take it JAcqui said she wanted to open my results since she was always good luck for me. So I took a night and drove up to her school so she could open it. I get there and she just shook it of and in a way made fun of me driving all the way up there to open the results of a "stupid test" to all of her new friends. It made me feel liek a moron. Anyhow she opens it and take a good half hour of tourchering me telling me I did horrible and all that. Not funny. After all that the rest of the night was basicly a party with like5 or 6 people and it was a bust on Tim night by her. Real bad. I ended up leaveing her dorm to cool off and walked around her campus at like 3am. She didnt even notice I was gone for 3 hours.

What did it in for me was when I told her I enlisted. She slapped me and said "Good job, nice knowing you and your just going to die in Iraq." What a nice thing to say to me. I have been there for this girl so many times and to say something like that is just so hurtful. She IS the only person I want to be behind me 100% and she isnt. Iw as so scared to tell her and she made it worse. The two of us always talked about desicions together not matter what it was.

The one last thing I'll mention that hurt our friendship was when my friend Alex killed herself. Its going to be a year this coming Dec. 1st. Alex called me and was very different in how she was talking. Needless to say she hung up on me and never answered the phone again. That night, very late I got the phone call from her mother. Instantly I called Jacqui and she talked to me for a good 5 mins. I was in hysterics. She then says that her phine is dying and shell call me right back when she plugs it in. I could her people in the back ground talking and laughing. She never called me back. It was the longest night I have ever had alone. I text and call her then next day and get no answers. No replies. Since then shes been extremely distant from me. IDK what to do.

I wish I could just erase her memory. Again I'm crying and in hysterics tonight.

duet_4-8

Hi Tim,
I have two sons who are grown; their dad is a drug addict. Your post reminds me SO much of the younger one. He is 20 now. He is the sweetest, most sensitive man. He wants SO badly to find his soulmate. He wants to get married and have a family and be a good dad, not like his is. He used to be forever going to the rescue of his friends. He would fall for some girl very deeply and end up getting hurt just as deeply.

This is all from a mom's perspective, so please take what you can use and leave the rest, as they say. It sounds to me like you bonded so deeply with this girl because of your common ground in dealing with addiction. NO ONE that hasn't dealt with it will ever understand it. It is too powerful and destructive.

You didn't say much about your family, but you mention that she called you to come get her after her parents had a huge fight. And since you met in Alateen, I am assuming you are both Adult Children of Alcoholics. I am, too. When we grow up in a family that has no boundaries and that functions in the vacuum of addiction, we never learn how to have a healthy relationship, because we have never seen a healthy relationship. We don't learn to love ourselves. We learn to keep secrets and feel shame about who we are. We never feel like we are 'enough'. We learn to either be the abusive one or the enabling one in relationship. Seeing these things in ourselves is the beginning of recovery and of learning that we ARE enough and the we are worthy of love and of being in a healthy relationship.

I think that finding an ACoA group and thinking about working the 12 steps would be a good first step for you in finding yourself. It is difficult stuff, but ignoring it will not make it go away and will set you up for more pain. My sons will tell you that. They both have had to learn to relate to others in a healthy way and to set boundaries and to love themselves. They are both doing really well, now, and I am too. I recently filed for divorce after 25 years of madness, and I have been focusing on me for the first time in my life. It was uncomfortable at first, but it is worth it.

YOU are worth it. Please believe that. Don't base your self-worth on the way a girl treats you, or the way your friends treat you. You can learn a better way. You sound like a very smart, intuitive man. Don't be afraid to reach out for help. You have had some really tough blows dealt to you by life.

Your sig line says that you have learned not to trust anyone, and can that change. It can. You can learn to trust yourself. I promise you can.

TimTim

Yea, My pops is my quailifier. I never really could tak about my family out in the open. It always took this girl Jacqui to get me to talk. She could tell just by my voice over the phone or even how I pulled up to her house whether I was ok or not.

I would just end up breaking down and she would hold me for hours saying it would be ok. Shes the only person I would let see me crying. At one point Iw as doing very bad and I was sleeping maybe 2 hrs a night for a good week or so. She had me come to her house and she gave me this hug. I can't describe it but it was jsut amazing. She had me sit on the couch with her and I talked with her. She didn;t say much just listened and kept hugging me. I think it was like 3pm or so and next thing I knew it was the next day at 11am. I fell alseep on the couch with her. That was def. the best sleep I have ever had.


I miss her so much. IDK how or what to do to talk to her. IDK if I'm scared or just being dumb. I want what we had. Can it ever be liek that again?