I called 9-1-1 tonight
Supply Manager
Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: Cleaverville
Posts: 2,898
Digits,
Your analogy of the life raft was very graphic and I know very helpful to alot of us. They do try to pull us back in with them and we have to hang on with everything we have to stay in that raft. I am glad you are....
Stay in touch...we love and care about you,
JT
Your analogy of the life raft was very graphic and I know very helpful to alot of us. They do try to pull us back in with them and we have to hang on with everything we have to stay in that raft. I am glad you are....
Stay in touch...we love and care about you,
JT
Member
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: California
Posts: 329
Digits,
First of all a HUGE HUG for you{****{Digits}}}}!!!!!!
I am so proud of everything you have accomplished! You just keep taking care of yourself and coming to visit all of us. And I am sending Lots amd Lots of Prayers your way for both of you!!!! HAPPY EASTER to YOU ALL!!
Hugs and Prayers,
matters
First of all a HUGE HUG for you{****{Digits}}}}!!!!!!
I am so proud of everything you have accomplished! You just keep taking care of yourself and coming to visit all of us. And I am sending Lots amd Lots of Prayers your way for both of you!!!! HAPPY EASTER to YOU ALL!!
Hugs and Prayers,
matters
Bird on the rise
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Walking with my Higher Power
Posts: 220
Wow!
Digits,
How deeply inspiring you are. Thank you. Sending lots of love, light and prayers. May you continue to walk with Spirit in the days to come.
Blessings
Novemberphoenix
How deeply inspiring you are. Thank you. Sending lots of love, light and prayers. May you continue to walk with Spirit in the days to come.
Blessings
Novemberphoenix
Digitally Remastered
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Samsara
Posts: 102
You guys have warmed my heart today!! ** ** H u g s t o y o u a l l ! } }
Your prayers and your light beams and your warm kind words of encouragement have made my day. I felt the light and the prayers and they were active in me and [I saw] in him yesterday.
A peace was over me yesterday as it is now. I feel so much love and warmth and I have so much gratitude for where I am today. I appreciate, Ann, the Melodie Beattie passage. [That, truly, was a Spirit thing as the VERY first time I was glancing through a friends - before I possessed one via my sponsor - it was last month or so, THAT passage was the one I remember reading FIRST ever. You posting that reminded me of when I first read it and told my self to remember that for when things got tough. I am looking at when you posted that and a couple hours earlier I'd found the September 11 reading in the same book.]
I am going to type it our here and it's gonna take a long time but I am going to do it because it really made so much sense to me and it put things in perspective for me and helped me to realize this path has been trudged before....that I am not alone. I hope it can help anyone else who may read it...for now or for future...and can serve as a reminder for me for when I need to read it again. It's funny how I found it...I was just glancing through looking for something to speak to me.
I wonder if I have detached so much I just don't care? No...But he's not the man I thought he was. Do you know there was a time in my life I thought he was the most well-adjusted human being I'd ever known? That's how sick I was....still judging the outsides/the words as the truth; ignoring the history and actions and free clues I'd gotten in the beginning that only today I have recognized as clues.
The veil to mine eyes has been lifted and until I gain my footing I am sure I will still be wrestling to some degree. My sponsor said last night, "What are you going to do?' I told her I didn't know and that it wasn't important. Before I would have gotten drunk and stayed there until I felt "okay" enough to *do something* but the time never came because I couldn't get sober long enough to actuate anything. THIS time I will not concentrate on *what I am going to do* because I am doing it. On a day by day basis I am present, in the hear and now. I will not jeapordize my sobriety or my serenity in freaking out and trying to control the minutiae in trying to decide what it is I need to do. I am doing what I need to do right now, as my heart beats.
In half an hour I'll be getting ready to go to the doctor. I haven't been feeling well, a lymph node is swollen, I was in bed with fever yesterday - all day mostly and Thursday night I managed to get punctured by the spiny column of a shellacked [sp?] fish in my arm and want to make sure I don't need a tetanus or whatever. It was dusty -means dust mites - ewwWW!- and the puncturing to my bone is not in compliance with my fear of germs. I have a vision of the mites gnawing on my arm bone.
Thank you all for your encouragement and support. It means the world.
Love, Digits
Your prayers and your light beams and your warm kind words of encouragement have made my day. I felt the light and the prayers and they were active in me and [I saw] in him yesterday.
A peace was over me yesterday as it is now. I feel so much love and warmth and I have so much gratitude for where I am today. I appreciate, Ann, the Melodie Beattie passage. [That, truly, was a Spirit thing as the VERY first time I was glancing through a friends - before I possessed one via my sponsor - it was last month or so, THAT passage was the one I remember reading FIRST ever. You posting that reminded me of when I first read it and told my self to remember that for when things got tough. I am looking at when you posted that and a couple hours earlier I'd found the September 11 reading in the same book.]
I am going to type it our here and it's gonna take a long time but I am going to do it because it really made so much sense to me and it put things in perspective for me and helped me to realize this path has been trudged before....that I am not alone. I hope it can help anyone else who may read it...for now or for future...and can serve as a reminder for me for when I need to read it again. It's funny how I found it...I was just glancing through looking for something to speak to me.
Conflict and Detachment
In a relationship, there are those wonderful times when things go smoothly for both people, and neither person needs to focus too heavily on the concept of detachment. But there are those challenging times when one person is in crisis or changing - and we need to detach.
Then there are stressful cycles when both people in a relationship are in the midst of dealing with intense issues. Both are needy and neither has anything to give.
These are the times when detachment and taking care of ourselves are difficult.
It is helpful, in these moments, to identify the problem. Both people are in the midst of dealing and healing. Neither has much to give, at least at the moment. And both are feeling particularly needy.
That is the problem.
What is the solution?
There may not be a perfect solution. Detachment is still the key, but that can be difficult when we need support ourselves. In fact, the other person may be asking for support rather than offering it.
We can still work toward detachment. We can still work through our feelings. We can accept this as a temporary cycle in the relationship, and stop looking to the other person for something he or she cannot give at the moment
We can stop expecting ourselves to give at the moment as well.
Communication helps. Identifying the problem and talking about it without blame or shame is a start. Figuring out alternative support systems, or ways to get our needs met, helps.
We are still responsible for taking care of ourselves - even when we are in the best of relationships. We can reasonably expect conflicts of need and the clashing of issues to occur in the most loving, healthy relationships.
It is one of the cycles of love, friendship, and family.
If it is a healthy relationship, the crisis will not go on endlessly. We will regain our balance. The other person will too. We can stop making ourselves so crazy by looking for the other person to be balanced when he or she isn't.
Talk things out. Work things out. Keep our expectations of ourselves, other people, and our relationships healthy and reasonable.
A good relationship will be able to sustain and survive low points. Sometimes we need them, so we can both grow and learn separately.
Sometimes, people who are usually there for us cannot be there for us. We can find another way to take care of ourselves.
Today, I will remember that my best relationships have low points. If the low point is the norm, I may want to consider the desirability of the relationship. If the low point is a temporary cycle, I will practice understanding for myself and the other person. God, help me remember that the help and support I want and need does not come in the form of only one person. Help me be open to healthy options for taking care of myself, if my normal support system is not avaliable.
We're speaking with each other again but I'd just as soon blink my eyes like Jeannie and be moved out. He deserves the victimized drinking sick girl he got when he first met me....he deserves her in all of his glory but I am not her. I am currently seeing that I do not desire this relationship. I know that something has changed because normally I would be a WRECK when we fight or go days without speaking. Last week we went days and I enjoyed it. [I feel less lonely when we don't speak if that makes sense.] This past fight, I was about as emotionally unperturbed as I could be. I did raise my voice expressing the very importance of him getting away from me. I remember that I didn't enjoy looking at him.In a relationship, there are those wonderful times when things go smoothly for both people, and neither person needs to focus too heavily on the concept of detachment. But there are those challenging times when one person is in crisis or changing - and we need to detach.
Then there are stressful cycles when both people in a relationship are in the midst of dealing with intense issues. Both are needy and neither has anything to give.
These are the times when detachment and taking care of ourselves are difficult.
It is helpful, in these moments, to identify the problem. Both people are in the midst of dealing and healing. Neither has much to give, at least at the moment. And both are feeling particularly needy.
That is the problem.
What is the solution?
There may not be a perfect solution. Detachment is still the key, but that can be difficult when we need support ourselves. In fact, the other person may be asking for support rather than offering it.
We can still work toward detachment. We can still work through our feelings. We can accept this as a temporary cycle in the relationship, and stop looking to the other person for something he or she cannot give at the moment
We can stop expecting ourselves to give at the moment as well.
Communication helps. Identifying the problem and talking about it without blame or shame is a start. Figuring out alternative support systems, or ways to get our needs met, helps.
We are still responsible for taking care of ourselves - even when we are in the best of relationships. We can reasonably expect conflicts of need and the clashing of issues to occur in the most loving, healthy relationships.
It is one of the cycles of love, friendship, and family.
If it is a healthy relationship, the crisis will not go on endlessly. We will regain our balance. The other person will too. We can stop making ourselves so crazy by looking for the other person to be balanced when he or she isn't.
Talk things out. Work things out. Keep our expectations of ourselves, other people, and our relationships healthy and reasonable.
A good relationship will be able to sustain and survive low points. Sometimes we need them, so we can both grow and learn separately.
Sometimes, people who are usually there for us cannot be there for us. We can find another way to take care of ourselves.
Today, I will remember that my best relationships have low points. If the low point is the norm, I may want to consider the desirability of the relationship. If the low point is a temporary cycle, I will practice understanding for myself and the other person. God, help me remember that the help and support I want and need does not come in the form of only one person. Help me be open to healthy options for taking care of myself, if my normal support system is not avaliable.
I wonder if I have detached so much I just don't care? No...But he's not the man I thought he was. Do you know there was a time in my life I thought he was the most well-adjusted human being I'd ever known? That's how sick I was....still judging the outsides/the words as the truth; ignoring the history and actions and free clues I'd gotten in the beginning that only today I have recognized as clues.
The veil to mine eyes has been lifted and until I gain my footing I am sure I will still be wrestling to some degree. My sponsor said last night, "What are you going to do?' I told her I didn't know and that it wasn't important. Before I would have gotten drunk and stayed there until I felt "okay" enough to *do something* but the time never came because I couldn't get sober long enough to actuate anything. THIS time I will not concentrate on *what I am going to do* because I am doing it. On a day by day basis I am present, in the hear and now. I will not jeapordize my sobriety or my serenity in freaking out and trying to control the minutiae in trying to decide what it is I need to do. I am doing what I need to do right now, as my heart beats.
In half an hour I'll be getting ready to go to the doctor. I haven't been feeling well, a lymph node is swollen, I was in bed with fever yesterday - all day mostly and Thursday night I managed to get punctured by the spiny column of a shellacked [sp?] fish in my arm and want to make sure I don't need a tetanus or whatever. It was dusty -means dust mites - ewwWW!- and the puncturing to my bone is not in compliance with my fear of germs. I have a vision of the mites gnawing on my arm bone.
Thank you all for your encouragement and support. It means the world.
Love, Digits
Survivor
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Proud Upstate New Yorker
Posts: 869
Digitz :throb
your post is so beautiful and so are you...you are doing so good. I am so happy for you.
((((((((((((Digitz)))))))))))))))
you deserve infinite hugz and kisses, you deserve all the love in the world!!! You have mine!!!! (and i define love...
)
~Def
your post is so beautiful and so are you...you are doing so good. I am so happy for you.
((((((((((((Digitz)))))))))))))))
you deserve infinite hugz and kisses, you deserve all the love in the world!!! You have mine!!!! (and i define love...
)~Def
Dancing To My Own Beat
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: I don't know what kind of state I'm in
Posts: 1,326
((Digits))
You have been there for me on so many occasions. This is a tough time for you. Know that you are in my thoughts and prayers, and so is he. Growing and changing is hard. It is good that we have each other to help make it through the hard times, and also celebrate the good. Hugs, Magic
You have been there for me on so many occasions. This is a tough time for you. Know that you are in my thoughts and prayers, and so is he. Growing and changing is hard. It is good that we have each other to help make it through the hard times, and also celebrate the good. Hugs, Magic
Member
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Anywhere but here
Posts: 44
Re: I called 9-1-1 tonight
(((((Digits)))))) I hope you are doing well and life is somewhat peaceful. Your story is so inspirational! I hope someday I too can have the strength that you have. Keep yourself safe! You are a very special person. My prayers are with you and with him. Take care of you.
Digitally Remastered
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Samsara
Posts: 102
**Update**
I was going to post an update but I have to go somewhere and it's going to be a little more lengthy than the few seconds I have right now...But I'll post when I get back. For now, I want you ALL to know that your prayers and thoughts and your love and your light has enabled me to get to a point in my life I am very happy with.
More soon..."Revelations and Discoveries"...
Love, Digits
More soon..."Revelations and Discoveries"...
Love, Digits
Digitally Remastered
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Samsara
Posts: 102
Revelations & Discoveries
A week ago today...last Tuesday, is when it all hit me.
This was after *the incident* and after the posting and all of your thoughts and lights and prayers...and after some quit spot-check inventory of myself. I'd been drawing close to God the week before all this escalation and I guess it's because we'd had a thing a couple weekends ago and it never went resolved. It was hiding like a dust bunny under the bed and everytime I'd try to bring it up to talk about it, he'd either be tired or hungry or too *something.* Then I saw how I reverted to the timid and scared woman I used to be... I better not bring it up, now, or he is going to be mad. So it laid dormant.
I realized, in me, during the prior week, it had grown to a resentment of epidemic proportions and it was genuinely eating me up. I needed resolution to this. I needed him to know I had a boundary I needed to set and some feelings I needed to express. I needed to finally do this. The PRIOR Tuesday we'd be on day #3 I think of our 5 day vow of silence. So you see how this thing just got mammoth. [And in the hugest kind of way it really was NO big deal! The Brady Bunch would have had this worked out in 2 minutes flat.]
So the day of the lead up to the 9-1-1...well you don't need the details but I'd had it and I was going to set it and I was going to say some things and if he got mad so be it. You know all this. So fast forward to Tuesday of last week...
I went to a Women's General Recovery Meeting and on this day it just so happened we'd be "Al-Anoning". Already making up my mind I had nothing to say, 3 minutes before we'd usually adjourn I spoke and hadn't heaved and cried that much since early sobriety. I couldn't breathe I was gasping and sobbing so much - Felt JUST like how I felt when I was so early in sobriety and had lost my only friend...I felt the hole.
How I got to be on Step #1 in Al Anon
-------------------------------------
What I said [between gasps and heaves of the ugly kind of cry you NEVER see on TV] to the ladies, "I am on step #1 today. I am powerless and my life is unmanageable. It is not because I am working a good program and am so smart in discovering this from God. It is because I have tried everything in the world to change him and it's all failed. The only thing that is different is time and my nerves. I am back to square 1 and have nothing to show for it but pain." The amazing thing....after that meeting when I finally breathed, I realized that I was right where I was supposed to be.
I told the ladies that I'd always *known* I was powerless over him...but there's the knowing and then there's the *knowing* and the *feeling* and the *acceptance* that accompanies the *heart knowing* if that makes sense. I discovered that it's not because he is so *sick* that I am so *sick* by this...I have discovered that my trying to micromanage every outcome for the sake of peace or whatever...that keeps me as crazy too! Last night in another meeting I was reminded that "Sometimes things *are* supposed to fall apart." My attempt at trying to micromanage every outcome of our *tiffs* makes me crazy when I feel like a failure when they do fall apart.
So today I am a new woman. We haven't had a problem since that night and even Thursday night he said something and I told him it was hurtful and he apologized without even asking, "Do you forgive me?" afterward. It still took me 10 minutes to go to him in the spirit and tell him I forgive him...but I did because I did.
It did make me mad when I told my closest friend in recovery that I told him Sunday night our relationship was the best I thought it had been in a long time....she told me it was extreme that I'd say that when just the night before I'd called 9-1-1. So? What that's telling me in a subtle way is that I should NOT call 9-1-1 when one or both of our emotions are both out of control? I did something new to help myself... realized I had strength I didn't know I had and because of that need to think our relationship "is sucks"? It's not extreme sounding to me... To me it sounds like I am taking care of myself, being as open and as honest as I can be even if the moment does change radically once in a while.
Here's to future revelations and discoveries.
Here's also finally getting to the acceptance part of the 1st step.
:heart
Love, Digits
This was after *the incident* and after the posting and all of your thoughts and lights and prayers...and after some quit spot-check inventory of myself. I'd been drawing close to God the week before all this escalation and I guess it's because we'd had a thing a couple weekends ago and it never went resolved. It was hiding like a dust bunny under the bed and everytime I'd try to bring it up to talk about it, he'd either be tired or hungry or too *something.* Then I saw how I reverted to the timid and scared woman I used to be... I better not bring it up, now, or he is going to be mad. So it laid dormant.
I realized, in me, during the prior week, it had grown to a resentment of epidemic proportions and it was genuinely eating me up. I needed resolution to this. I needed him to know I had a boundary I needed to set and some feelings I needed to express. I needed to finally do this. The PRIOR Tuesday we'd be on day #3 I think of our 5 day vow of silence. So you see how this thing just got mammoth. [And in the hugest kind of way it really was NO big deal! The Brady Bunch would have had this worked out in 2 minutes flat.]
So the day of the lead up to the 9-1-1...well you don't need the details but I'd had it and I was going to set it and I was going to say some things and if he got mad so be it. You know all this. So fast forward to Tuesday of last week...
I went to a Women's General Recovery Meeting and on this day it just so happened we'd be "Al-Anoning". Already making up my mind I had nothing to say, 3 minutes before we'd usually adjourn I spoke and hadn't heaved and cried that much since early sobriety. I couldn't breathe I was gasping and sobbing so much - Felt JUST like how I felt when I was so early in sobriety and had lost my only friend...I felt the hole.
How I got to be on Step #1 in Al Anon
-------------------------------------
What I said [between gasps and heaves of the ugly kind of cry you NEVER see on TV] to the ladies, "I am on step #1 today. I am powerless and my life is unmanageable. It is not because I am working a good program and am so smart in discovering this from God. It is because I have tried everything in the world to change him and it's all failed. The only thing that is different is time and my nerves. I am back to square 1 and have nothing to show for it but pain." The amazing thing....after that meeting when I finally breathed, I realized that I was right where I was supposed to be.
I told the ladies that I'd always *known* I was powerless over him...but there's the knowing and then there's the *knowing* and the *feeling* and the *acceptance* that accompanies the *heart knowing* if that makes sense. I discovered that it's not because he is so *sick* that I am so *sick* by this...I have discovered that my trying to micromanage every outcome for the sake of peace or whatever...that keeps me as crazy too! Last night in another meeting I was reminded that "Sometimes things *are* supposed to fall apart." My attempt at trying to micromanage every outcome of our *tiffs* makes me crazy when I feel like a failure when they do fall apart.
So today I am a new woman. We haven't had a problem since that night and even Thursday night he said something and I told him it was hurtful and he apologized without even asking, "Do you forgive me?" afterward. It still took me 10 minutes to go to him in the spirit and tell him I forgive him...but I did because I did.
It did make me mad when I told my closest friend in recovery that I told him Sunday night our relationship was the best I thought it had been in a long time....she told me it was extreme that I'd say that when just the night before I'd called 9-1-1. So? What that's telling me in a subtle way is that I should NOT call 9-1-1 when one or both of our emotions are both out of control? I did something new to help myself... realized I had strength I didn't know I had and because of that need to think our relationship "is sucks"? It's not extreme sounding to me... To me it sounds like I am taking care of myself, being as open and as honest as I can be even if the moment does change radically once in a while.
Here's to future revelations and discoveries.
Here's also finally getting to the acceptance part of the 1st step.
:heart
Love, Digits
In Memory Of
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Connecticut.
Posts: 3,736
Re: I called 9-1-1 tonight
Wow! It really sounds like a huge time of growth for you! I am also learning that hardships are the pathway to peace,thing happen for a reason and with each I learn a little bit more about myself and what I am made of and how much I need the program of recovery.Thanks for sharing that...awesome...Trish.
Queen of one liners
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: walking beside you! Not in front of you.
Posts: 658
Re: I called 9-1-1 tonight
Good Morning Digits;
How wonderful you recognized that your on the road of discovery. It's only when I get the awareness that I can get to the acceptance and then I get to take the action.
Trust the process!
Love, Daffodil
How wonderful you recognized that your on the road of discovery. It's only when I get the awareness that I can get to the acceptance and then I get to take the action.
Trust the process!
Love, Daffodil
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