Have You Ever Had Your Feelings Minimized By An Alcoholic?
 

Have you ever been ridiculed for being upset at what would upset a normal person?

Have you ever been mocked for "caring too much?"

Have you ever been told that YOUR feelings don't matter? That only the feelings of the alcoholic are important?

Have you ever been ganged up on by a gang of alcoholics who don't want a non-alcoholic spoiling their fun?

1) yes

2) yes

3) Haven't been told that directly but it was inferred

4) No. I don't hang out with gangs of alcoholics I don't hang out with a singular alcoholic. Got no use or tolerance for it.

Yes and yes and yes. I've never been ganged up on by a gang of As, but yes to the other three. Over. And over. And over.

I was told I was too sensitive when I didn't like him yelling at me until I was in a fetal position on the floor. I was told I shouldn't be upset about X because HIS life was SO much worse and the world and God and everyone was out to get him and HOW DARE I act as if ANYTHING that happened to me could even compare on the SAME DAY to the HELL he lived in every single second of his life.

Yeah. Been there. Done that. Never doing that again. I don't care how old you are, I don't care what your relationship is to those people -- there's no reason for you to put up with people treating you like that. You have no obligation to people who spit on your love.

Yes, yes, yes and no.


How's this.....my AH mocked me AT my fathers funeral.....for crying during the service.....

A friend turned around and said "and do you think it funny or strange that someone cries at their fathers funeral? I find that very odd". And he continued to imitate my shoulders shaking as I had cried, and sniffing loudly.

He wasn't even drunk.

Hs excuse was that he never recovered after his own mother died 18 years ago from cancer, and that funerals trigger horror in him and make him need a drink. My family don't drink so the 'life celebration' after the funeral was dry....

Separated AH would always minimize every emotion I had from happy to angry to sad. Nothing I ever felt was justified.

I really just have experienced #1. I am always too upset, too angry, hold a grudge, don't let things go, go on & on....even tho I really do have reasons -- they don't matter. I need to learn to control my emotions and not blame others for how I react.

I was actually called a robot. Because I had shut off showing my emotions for self-preservation purposes.

My AH stays in anger/furious mode. (Though strangely calm since I filed for dv). If he heard the kids and I laughing from another room he would storm in and glare at all of us. The more detached I became, the easier I find it to sort through my feelings. Now, if I was upset and crying, AH walks around with a smile on his face.

Yes, yes, yes, and sort of. Never ganged up on by A's, but being ganged up on by an A and her enablers isn't a whole lot different, I don't think. Black sheep of the family, told nobody likes me, nobody cares, I'm nothing but a waste of time and money. No one could ever have it worse than AM. Even when I nearly died from Crohns Disease (we didn't know what was wrong until I was barely alive), she still had it worse because she had to care for me, blah blah blah. Oh, and I made myself sick to get attention while she was always horribly ill with some unknown condition the doctors just couldn't figure out (it's called drinking yourself to death, you moron). But I digress. Yes, yes. Nearly 28 years of that sh*t, but the past two have been blissfully quiet thanks to the godsend called No Contact.

1.Yes that's why he's stbexah
2. ditto
3. ditto
4. He causes arguments so my older adult children gang up on me. They aren't alcoholics but they bullied me for 3 hours at his instigation last week and have been running a campaign of hatred against me for months. His alcoholic family blame me for us splitting up and think I need to loosen up and they think his behaviour is normal.

Yes, and in a great many cases, not just by the alcoholics who've been in my life, but by my very codependent mother.


Not said, but definitely implied--by my non-alcoholic, codependent mother.

I was told, sometimes explicitly, to shut up when I was talking about my feelings in my FOO.

I've been ganged up on by a gang of codependents when I was breaking the no-talk rule. Oh, and other times too.

YES! YES! YES and no


After all isn't that what they spend most of their time doing....running away from, stuffing and boozing away feelings. They don't respect their own feelings we shouldn't be surprised they don't respect ours.

Definitely all of the above.

At one point in the end of our relationship I had been made to feel crazy so many times, that I began to wonder if it was true. Luckily I sought out a psychiatrist who specializes in addiction who helped me see these are ways an addict manipulates and it is actually a form of abuse.

Remember that, it's abuse.

Yes, to all of them; some by my AH back when he was dry but had serious emotional issues and some from my dad and his drunk friends.

Lillamy's experience was something I could relate to. If I would try to express any feeling or emotion that didnt't reflect happiness or a positive emotion, AH would fly off the handle and tell me about how awful his life was and how my feelings were too sensitive and that I needed to 'just get over it'. Didn't I know how awful it was to be a man in America today? And, then I'd get the privilege of hearing all about his awful hellish life for the next 3 hours.

He doesn't do that stuff anymore because I now have my own boundaries when it comes to communicating with him; I try no to.

My A father always made fun of me for having emotions or for crying. He was. It emotionally capable of handling other people's emotions. He always looked exasperated with me and would mimic me or taunt me. I now know why I picked the man I am with today.

Yes, no, YES!!, no/maybe.

A few years ago, I had a cancer scare, and cried because I was so terrified. My husband was drunk and mocked and mimicked me "oh boo hoo. I'm scared because I might die. boo hoo" until he passed out. It shouldn't have surprized me, but I am still so shocked and hurt to think he would do something like that, particularly considering his own illness. I should have remembered there are two different sets of rules: one for the alcoholic, and one that s/he holds everyone else to.

I used to think Himself's insensitivity was solely because of the alcohol use, but now he's sober, he's not that much better. I don't know if all the drinking broke something in him, but he still says he doesn't care what I think or feel, in exactly those words. I'm sure part of it is because if he acknowledges my hurt and anger, he has to accept responsibility for causing them, and I doubt he will ever be able or willing to do that.

And as for the ganging up, for me it is more like those around us are putting a higher priority on his needs. I really struggle with that, because I fear I look like the bratty, self-absorbed drama queen "But what about MEEEEEE?" Even my parents tell me, "you need to be more supportive. You're better than that, so you need to be the bigger person and just let it go. You need to realize how he must feel......."

Very frustrating, and continues to be an obstacle to reconciliation even though my husband is no longer drinking.

How awful. I am so sorry you had to deal with such a lack of support from someone who should love you. I get it. I thought when my XAH went to rehab he would come back a spanking new and great person. Eh...no so much. Even sober he is an a$$ hat. My therapist helped me realize I was blaming everything on the addiction, but they had become one in the same person, a@@ hat addict. He did eventually get back to drinking a year later, and is back to the same. I am very very glad he is my X.

Of course, these are all classic manipulation tricks.

I was referred to as collateral damage by my partners sponsor!

Yes, yes, inferred only, and yes.

In the case of #4, it was tag-team gaslighting by xabf and his best friend (also an alcoholic/addict). The best buddy came to town to visit and they simultaneously accused me of accusing them of drinking. One of them made up some bogus sh** about me saying something, and the other fed off it. They kept going like two leaches on fresh meat. It was bizarre. I just sat there and looked blankly at both of them, internally shaking my head. We were in public, sitting in tightly packed rows at a hometown baseball game and I wasn't about to engage. Had we been alone, I would have said "you two are full of crap" and left it at that. I still wouldn't have engaged beyond that, however. It is NOT WORTH engaging with the alcoholic frame of mind. It's a total lost cause because they're not genuinely interested in anything you have to say, only interested in protecting the addiction.

The correct answer is, every single one of us who posts here. That is a big part of the definition of life with an alcoholic. :(

Lillamy, thanks for this.
I have finally started my divorce and I need to keep this in mind when she keeps asking for more. :)