lillamy

Nine months after splitting from AH (now RAXH), I found myself thinking last night that it's really like I've left one culture (if you can call it that) and moved back to my own culture. But I still understand the one I left. The codie, stinking thinking one.

And I can step back into it (I try to avoid it) -- I do it mostly by accident, but I can do it by choice. I can step back into seeing the world through the glasses I wore then, where the world was out to get us and it was us against the world and I was the only one who understood him...

that's about as far as I can go before my face gets all hot and my heart starts speeding up and I run right back to my home culture where I get to view reality without those funhouse lenses alcoholism hands you.

It's a weird feeling, this, being able to understand exactly how he can view me as the perpetrator and the violator and the evil one. I can totally see myself through his eyes and understand, rationally, why he feels he has the right to hate me. It's a completely screwed up and irrational way of thinking, but I can understand it.

Anyone know what I'm talking about?

Buffalo66

Absolutely.
It might take a minute for your eyes to readjust without those glasses on, but you will keep seeing clearer and clearer.

Go YOU!!!

DMC

Yep. I totally know the feeling. It's like falling through the proverbial rabbit hole. And now I'm back, but I remember how truly surreal that experience was.

LS2

yes yes yes! I feel I am doing that alot this week with all this crap going down!

keepinon

Its understanding addiction and our roles in it..opens your eyes and changes you.It's almost like you can get in their heads after a while..

wicked

I am recovering from alcoholism, it has been a long time.
(14 plus years).
But, this post has me thinking that I have never been in the world that others seem to get.
I grew up with alcoholism, it is generational.
My world (down the rabbit hole) is all I know and I feel like a stranger in this world.
Trying to get comfortable and be who I am, finally at age hmmm 52 on April 10th.
I will keep working on it.

Beth

Thank you for this lillamy.

Tuffgirl

Some days I can understand it. Other days I still find it baffling...

I try to reframe it based on his own shame and hatred of himself. How could he possibly accept all that until he's ready to deal with it? Until (and if) then, I am a convenient scapegoat and it must make him feel good to be able to point that finger toward me and claim I am the bad guy.

Hhhmmm...whatever. Now back to reality...

lillamy

See, I don't explain it to myself as in "because of his experiences of X, Y and Z, he would probably see it this way" -- it's like I shift perception. Like when you speak both English and French and shift from one to the other without really realizing you're speaking a different language... you don't translate in your head, you can just seamlessly slip back into speaking Alcoholism...

MissGuided

Yes I do! we have been split from our AH's about the same amount of time, not really that long in the grand scheme of things.
I think my rebuilding of strength is still in its infancy stage.
But then I think, to hell with this - I am not being a victim any more. And Im not. And when I realize I'm really not actually anymore, VOILA! I feel good again!
works for me!