i need some support...i am losing my mind.
Co-dependant Control Freak
Join Date: Apr 2013
Location: Dallas TX
Posts: 85
Cambell - You have to remember, he is an alcoholic! He has been sober for 10 days - he is just beginning recovery, he is not recovered, healthy, etc. What he is doing is manipulating you. It is what he has always done, its what works, you are still there.
If he were truly working the steps, if he knew the first thing about them and were emotionally and mentally healthy, he would look at you with love and tell you he was sorry for the hurt he had caused and he understood if you needed to walk away for your own sanity.
It is entirely too soon to expect him to be anything but the alcoholic you have always known.
If he were truly working the steps, if he knew the first thing about them and were emotionally and mentally healthy, he would look at you with love and tell you he was sorry for the hurt he had caused and he understood if you needed to walk away for your own sanity.
It is entirely too soon to expect him to be anything but the alcoholic you have always known.
Member
Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: New York
Posts: 877
I think gaslighting is when a crazy A tries to make YOU feel like the crazy one. I could be wrong though. I'm hoping someone who knows exactly what it is will come along. Regardless, your bf is making you feel crazy and that is NOT good!
Member
Join Date: Apr 2013
Location: Texas
Posts: 267
Originally Posted by MrsDarcy 
Hi, cambell. I'm a new poster here myself, but I'd like to offer you my opinion on this part of your comments. It's pure BS--I've known people who, as they lay on their death-beds, did the best they could to do right by themselves and their loved-ones. Everyone has choices, and no one but them--not their disease (whatever it may be) and not other people, just them--is to blame if they make bad ones. He's not to blame for the disease, but he has no business using it as an excuse for his bad choices. You are not crazy and, yes, he is manipulating you. He clearly has a long way to go.
I know AA works for a lot of people, but it also enables a lot of people to whine and cry and not get better because they have a "disease" and diseases are forgivable and let you off the hook. I know AA encourages personal responsibility, but too many people conveniently ignore that part of the program.
Ok, getting off my soapbox now.
Member
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 5,103
Gaslighting according to Wikipedia, “is a form of intimidation or psychological abuse in which false information is presented to the victim, making them doubt their own memory and perception.”
Basically they get you to question what you know to be is reality and begin believing what they what to program you to beleive.
Basically they get you to question what you know to be is reality and begin believing what they what to program you to beleive.
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: vancouver b.c
Posts: 31
You asked me if he has quit drinking?....Im pretty sure he has....im just not positive that this is a turning point for him. I need to learn how to take care of myself once again. I just don't know where to start, because I was so immeshed in his drinking for a year I forgot about me. I don't like it.
Member
Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: NE Wisconsin USA
Posts: 6,223
I disagree that alcoholism is self-inflicted unlike cancer (smoking?) but each is a disease and we show sympathy.
The actions of a practicing alcoholic does cause, un-needed death, other illnesses, murder, car crashes, fights, physical and mental abuse...but it is treatable.
The actions of a person who has cancer most commonly doesn't cause such harm.
What is frustrating is that recovery is obtainable for all alcoholics who want to live sober and lead a whole new wonderful and different way of live, but most people who are alcoholics refuse and continue on in misery, isolation, denial, and self-pity.
My best to you --- more importantly may be for you to take care of yourself. Seek out Alanon...they will you...you will help them.
The actions of a practicing alcoholic does cause, un-needed death, other illnesses, murder, car crashes, fights, physical and mental abuse...but it is treatable.
The actions of a person who has cancer most commonly doesn't cause such harm.
What is frustrating is that recovery is obtainable for all alcoholics who want to live sober and lead a whole new wonderful and different way of live, but most people who are alcoholics refuse and continue on in misery, isolation, denial, and self-pity.
My best to you --- more importantly may be for you to take care of yourself. Seek out Alanon...they will you...you will help them.
Member
Join Date: Apr 2013
Posts: 55
From a 1944 movie and wikipedia: Gaslighting is a form of mental abuse in which false information is presented with the intent of making a victim doubt his or her own memory, perception and sanity.[1] Instances may range simply from the denial by an abuser that previous abusive incidents ever occurred, up to the staging of bizarre events by the abuser with the intention of disorienting the victim.
Member
Join Date: Jun 2012
Posts: 1,452
Cambell, you might want to read the thread at the top of the Friends and Families of Alcoholics main page about abuse. English Garden eloquently defines what abuse is, and I posted about my life married for 20 years to a narcissistic abusive alcoholic who, among other things, gaslighted me.
I think that you are bouncing between being in touch with your own real feelings about how awful and destructive his behavior is, and his manipulative framing of you as the bad person who won't take care of poor him with his terrible disease.
Your feelings are right. Aside from being an alcoholic who does not choose to sustain long term recovery (so far), he is an emotional abuser and that can be terribly damaging to you, yet subtle enough that you let it persist. Someone who hits you, which is an overt violation of your personhood, is more easily recognized and rebuffed than someone who tinkers with your soul to gain their own needs with no concern about how much it hurts you.
You might look into emotional abuse, gaslighting and also narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). There are lots of past thread here on SR that you can search for. People here were incredibly wise, helpful, and sometimes just plain blunt when I came here last July having run away from my AH. I think they saved my life.
Now, 10 months later, I have just signed divorce papers, and my life is happier, quieter, more contented than I ever imagined it could be. It's not been easy, and I have been on a rollercoaster of feeling abandoned, freed, ungrateful, angry, sad, disconsolate, happy - all of it. But each day on my own the quiet happiness grew a little bit and gradually the dependence and subjugation let go and I became freer to be who I am meant to be, not who he defined me to be.
I'd say take back your feelings, take back your life. Don't let him put you through this just to keep you captive; it took my soul and almost destroyed me.
ShootingStar1
I think that you are bouncing between being in touch with your own real feelings about how awful and destructive his behavior is, and his manipulative framing of you as the bad person who won't take care of poor him with his terrible disease.
Your feelings are right. Aside from being an alcoholic who does not choose to sustain long term recovery (so far), he is an emotional abuser and that can be terribly damaging to you, yet subtle enough that you let it persist. Someone who hits you, which is an overt violation of your personhood, is more easily recognized and rebuffed than someone who tinkers with your soul to gain their own needs with no concern about how much it hurts you.
You might look into emotional abuse, gaslighting and also narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). There are lots of past thread here on SR that you can search for. People here were incredibly wise, helpful, and sometimes just plain blunt when I came here last July having run away from my AH. I think they saved my life.
Now, 10 months later, I have just signed divorce papers, and my life is happier, quieter, more contented than I ever imagined it could be. It's not been easy, and I have been on a rollercoaster of feeling abandoned, freed, ungrateful, angry, sad, disconsolate, happy - all of it. But each day on my own the quiet happiness grew a little bit and gradually the dependence and subjugation let go and I became freer to be who I am meant to be, not who he defined me to be.
I'd say take back your feelings, take back your life. Don't let him put you through this just to keep you captive; it took my soul and almost destroyed me.
ShootingStar1
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