ItsmeAlice

See I thought I had this recovery thing down.
I thought I had worked my program and was doing so well, now this.
I don't feel I've prepared myself at all for this bottom I've hit.
All the steps.
All the struggle.
The fear of making it on my own.
The long climb back to my own life, which has finally just burst from the starting gate with the purchase of my very own home again.

I

am

so

BORED!




At first I thought it was quiet contentment, but I'm not the happy little nesting bird I thought I would be. It's like calm waters that take you nowhere. Nothing to drive me. Nothing that moves me. I put my focus on my pets and even they seem a little smothered by me. I'm cautiously making new friends and taking those new relationships slowly, and yet it all seems forced.

I guess I'm just left with dealing with my day to day life instead of juggling it all around some crisis involving some dysfunctional boil on my butt and now that I don't have one anymore, I'm looking at my life and seeing it's pretty flat and dull. I should be grateful there's no current crisis. I should be basking in the lull and soaking up every minute because there's always something around the corner, right? or is that just what I'm used to? Life happens, but I have learned to stay grounded and take it as it comes, maybe that's the lack of high intensity I'm noticing.

It made me think of the times when my X would stop drinking and I'd wonder why everything wasn't fixed. Am I really just thinking the trouble with me is still outside of myself and now that it's just me, I don't like my own company?? I don't feel blue really, just a feeling of longing, but what could I be lacking now? Lord knows I've no interest in dating even if that were it.

Now that I read this over, I realize I have just posted a thread to b**ch about not having anything to b**ch about. Recovery really is forever, isn't it?

I gotta get back to reading my Beatty, I think. Thanks for reading.

Maybe someone who's been where I am can give me some feedback here.
Anybody been through this at this point in their journey??

Alice

LaPinturaBella

Perhaps your life isn't really flat and dull. Perhaps, just perhaps, you've spent so much time, energy worry, angst and emotion on your ex and dealing with one crises after another that you're not sure what to do with yourself. You've gone from major stress to basically none. Now would be a great time to start exploring things you've always wanted to do, or maybe used to love but stopped doing. I think it's probably nothing more drastic at this point than decompression and getting used to "normal" instead of constant "high alert."

lillamy

I was getting toward that point when, well, the alcoholic X-drama caught up with me again (sort of grabbed me like a cat by the tail and swung me around)... but before all of that, I was starting to delve into Melody Beattie's "Codependent No More" and found quite a bit of breakthrough through that... Not telling you it's a magic pill but it's something that helped me...

littlefish

I show up here on Friends and Family now and then because I am codie too, in addition to being a recovered alcoholic.
I went through all and nothing trying to get sober. I couldn't figure it out. I was miserable drunk and miserable sober.
But, then, after another long period of ups and downs with staying sober and then relapsing....I realized it wasn't the consequences that motivated me to stay sober. They never did. No matter how bad a binge was, it didn't stop me from drinking the next time.
But then something else started happening. I started to see how good life was.
I know it sounds all mushy but instead of staying sober to avoid the consequences of drinking (always bad), I stayed sober to catch the possibilities of sobriety (always good). I didn't know a life with hope and energy, possibilities. I was a miserable child of two alcoholic parents. I didn't know how to be happy.
I never saw it, life, before.
I guess what I am trying to say is that life is what our perceptions of it is: my reality is based completely on how I see reality. These days, thanks to the steps, I know that I have to push aside the cobwebs of my perception and try to see what is really there.
What is really there is light and goodness and happiness, and before all I saw was darkness, badness and misery.
Oh, gosh, I have gone too far with this and I guess I am just babbling. sowwy.

TakingCharge999

thanks littlefish, your post helped me tonight. And thanks lillamy for motivating me to read Beatty.

ItsmeAlice, life will take you. You are in a new garden as my signature says. Of course you will feel "out of place'! if you felt fine you would still be in a place you know!!

My humble recommendations are: reading Zen books. I need to share what I have read. Its wonderful, this Zen philosophy.

And throw yourself into arts. Theater, music, movies, short films, festivals of all kinds, concerts, dancing, painting, literature, singing...

I feed my need of drama that way....... although right now I still got some going on in my life.

I am excited about the possibilities!! so you are already settled in your new home??

dollydo

I like Takings ideas. When I was done with exabf, I was bored too, no drama, no fires to put out...what would I do with my time?

I joined a gourmet cooking club. Was right up my alley, fun and lots of drama, messed up food and laughs...turned me around.

Perhaps you can look to your creative side and find a hobby that will fill the void!

Tuffgirl

Alice,
I, too, have been feeling strangely bored with my new quiet. It's been rushing and more rushing to reorganize my universe. Now I am reorganized...what do I do next? I wonder if it is some kind of emotional drain after doing the new house thing. I even feel unmotivated to finish some of the projects I've started around here. Just feel blah.

I think its a phase - an ebb in the flow. So instead of fighting it, I am going along with it and letting myself feel this way this week. I don't think its because I have nothing to b**ch about, but that line did make me laugh! I just think I am coming off the high of so much drama that my brain has no idea what to do with the lull that is my life today.

This too shall pass...hang in there...enjoy the boredom. I always miss it when life kicks up again.

BarelyHere

Alice...

I can only imagine it is from being in constant survival mode. Now your energy is trying to figure out what to do. Like being an adrenalin junkie. You got to come down.
But looks like you are still looking inside to get the answers.

Take it easy. Enjoy the peace. It is foreign right now. But like a new food, we start to like it, love it.

Just don't panic & jump into something that is not fulfilling. Or jump into someone else's crisis.

Kind of jealous, but sure I would be feeling the same way!

blueblooms14

It's interesting isn't it? When I was reading your post, what popped into my head was when kids are in a car and keep saying, "Are we ~there~ yet!?" The others nailed it I think, decompression, zen. The zen idea that we are "there", or that "there" has always been here, but we haven't been conscious of it, attuned to that frequency. We get distracted by fire alarms going off all the time. It's like the anxious kids pouring out of the car because they're "there" and- now what? Maybe it feels dull because we aren't trained to see the intensity and awe in quiet, peace, freedom to create, rather than feel we have to react. Maybe it's like walking outside into bright sunshine after having been in a dark room for a loooong time and we have to blink and blink to adjust our sight.

stella27

Alice, I kind of feel the same way. I do have 3 young children who keep me busy, but it's hard not being in the middle of things. My crisis (abandoned by AXH) is over as far as my friends can tell and they don't see rescuing me from my life as a priority anymore (completely appropriate) and I see other friends caught in the spin cycle of drama that they can't seem to shake, and I feel badly for them but know there's nothing I can do.

I feel simultaneously lonely for adult conversation and wanting nothing more than to hide out in my room and read. Shouldn't there be MORE?

I really think that peaceful times are a gift and it's not just codies or f&f of A's who need to realize this. In fact, I think I am "getting it" earlier than many of my normally-functioning friends. Our whole society is into racing around and doing things and it would be helpful if we could slow our "idle" speed and just observe for a while.

This weekend my children are with their dad and I have dogs to walk and flowers to plant. I am starting to see 10 hours of sleep as a treat. A busy weekend (without children!) involves a movie or dinner with a friend. I am trying to appreciate the quiet times and just "be", but I do still get antsy for activity and I will start thinking that everyone in the world is getting together and I wasn't invited.

ItsmeAlice

Thank you all for really getting where I'm coming from with this!!!

The more I began to feel this way, the more I kept telling myself to just get over it and not seek support on it because if I did, I thought it would just sound like sour grapes saying that all I wanted was peace, quiet, and my own life back and now I have it and I'm still not happy.

It is still a comfort to know others have been through this. I've been through many phases in my recovery and you've been my rock to lean on through them all.

Thank you!!

I am still slowly unpacking things in my new home. With all the moves with X it was always a priority that everything be unpacked and put away and arranged so he wouldn't grumble because he had to step over boxes or couldn't find this or that. Everything took a back seat to getting the house organized. These days, I'm just letting things find their home in their own time. Slowly books are getting put on the shelves, dishes getting washed and put away as I use them. Needed to find the ice trays and magically another box got unpacked. It'll happen as it should, I figure. Maybe it's a lack of urgency that has me feeling lost.

Other than the pets, no one needs me for anything except me and I'm trying to stop and figure out what I need. For the few years I've gotten in the habit of putting my own things off because there was a crisis taking priority.

I'm learning to let others handle themselves. Letting go and letting God leaves a lot of extra time to spare it seems.

lillamy

That made me smile. I think that means you really are letting go and letting God -- not just delegating the most impossible stuff to your HP... Good stuff.

MyBetterWorld

I would imagine that you are feeling bored because there is nothing to fix, no chaos that the A brings. I was like a crazed chicken running around with my head cut off when I was with XAH. Now, things are pretty peaceful. I am still busy, single with 2 young children, but it seems so much calmer and yes, almost boring, when I don't have some mess to clean up or drama to try to resolve. Take up something you enjoy to fill the time.......I started exercising and in 1 month lost 3 inches around my waist (slight loss in other places)

So do something for YOU for once! You won't be bored!
M