Mood Swings
work in progress
Thread Starter
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: the sunshine state
Posts: 623
Mood Swings Well I am on day 19 of being independent from my AH. Yay, Me!
But my moods have been all over the place. One day I am singing "I'm Every Woman" in my head...running around, getting things done, being happy and free. Yesterday I actually said out loud "I am free." and had the biggest grin on my face and my heart was healthy. Good day. I continued my studies on Codependency, cooked myself dinner, watched the GG. Just overall good day.
Then today I wake up and I'm in a very Meh* mood. Not bad or good, just slippery. Hard to concentrate and focus on any one thing. Have a "don't know where to start" kind of feeling. Then started thinking I should call "D" just to see how he is doing. Ha! I know I have an agenda by calling....and expectations...so I will refrain from the "slip". But it does creep up on me.
And then some days I feel like crying (not many anymore) but it does happen occasionally. I find I have very little patience and find myself forcing smiles. I am a business owner, so I have to maintain a steady mood while at work...it's tough.
Oh, funny....I am working on Codependency and controlling issues, but I have to "Govern" a staff of very young people....LOL! I am making progress there...not getting "too involved" all while being involved...ironic, right?
So my moods are bouncing....
one day UP....
one day DOWN....
one day BLAH.
Maybe these are effects from withdrawing from chaos. Did anyone else go through these mood swings after leaving your A's?
I would like to think this is relatively normal considering all I have been putting myself through.
But my moods have been all over the place. One day I am singing "I'm Every Woman" in my head...running around, getting things done, being happy and free. Yesterday I actually said out loud "I am free." and had the biggest grin on my face and my heart was healthy. Good day. I continued my studies on Codependency, cooked myself dinner, watched the GG. Just overall good day.
Then today I wake up and I'm in a very Meh* mood. Not bad or good, just slippery. Hard to concentrate and focus on any one thing. Have a "don't know where to start" kind of feeling. Then started thinking I should call "D" just to see how he is doing. Ha! I know I have an agenda by calling....and expectations...so I will refrain from the "slip". But it does creep up on me.
And then some days I feel like crying (not many anymore) but it does happen occasionally. I find I have very little patience and find myself forcing smiles. I am a business owner, so I have to maintain a steady mood while at work...it's tough.
Oh, funny....I am working on Codependency and controlling issues, but I have to "Govern" a staff of very young people....LOL! I am making progress there...not getting "too involved" all while being involved...ironic, right?
So my moods are bouncing....
one day UP....
one day DOWN....
one day BLAH.
Maybe these are effects from withdrawing from chaos. Did anyone else go through these mood swings after leaving your A's?
I would like to think this is relatively normal considering all I have been putting myself through.
Member
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Dallas, TX
Posts: 136
YES!
I thought I was the only one. Thanks for posting this. My moods have been awful. I was doing so well a week ago and then this past week WHAM..it has hit me like a ton of bricks that we will not ever be together again and my anger about the drugs. Maybe it just hit me like that because I really did not grieve or acknowledge his being gone those 1st couple of weeks and I'm doing it now. Probably.
Somedays I walk around with a smile and feel good about myself and then the very next day I feel like crying all day or just have all this anger inside me towards him. All I want is to finally get to ONE day of not even thinking about this evil man! I cannot wait for that day in my life.
So, today seems like it is going to be a GOOD day. I'm off work for a holiday and I'm going to get out of this house and go shopping!
I thought I was the only one. Thanks for posting this. My moods have been awful. I was doing so well a week ago and then this past week WHAM..it has hit me like a ton of bricks that we will not ever be together again and my anger about the drugs. Maybe it just hit me like that because I really did not grieve or acknowledge his being gone those 1st couple of weeks and I'm doing it now. Probably.
Somedays I walk around with a smile and feel good about myself and then the very next day I feel like crying all day or just have all this anger inside me towards him. All I want is to finally get to ONE day of not even thinking about this evil man! I cannot wait for that day in my life.
So, today seems like it is going to be a GOOD day. I'm off work for a holiday and I'm going to get out of this house and go shopping!
Member
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Texas
Posts: 341
I know how you feel, and I beleive these feelings are normal.
Humans are naturally resistant to change, we tend to want to stay with whats familiar to us.
Unfortunatley for us, what was familier to us was an unhealthy life with an addict. But if your like me, it was all that I knew for the last 11 years.
We are now trying to break that cycle. To go againest whats familiar and head into uncertain, unchartered territory. And that is stressfull to us although we know it is necessary for our future wellbeing. And it can hurt bad as we process through it.
So we have periods of wanting to slip back into old behaviours, to whats familiar, but we can see that happening and can stop it and change our direction of thinking.
I recently set down and wrote a journal about what happened in every year that AH & I was together. From the beginning until now. Listing all that I can remember happening. Some of this was painful because I had to acknowledge not only the bad, but the good. After I got through I slept on it and then the next am I read it and made a point to notice what was really there. How the drug use was beginning, even then, but at the time I didn't see it or know what it is. How patterns were emerging. Those really bad times that I somehow turned a blind eye to. How during the "good" times, those memories that my codie brain told me were good, the ones that was a basis so long for trying to work the relationship out weren't really all that good once I dwelled on it and saw it how it really was.
The signs were there, and in the end I saw a relationship that has been built on drug addiction, alcohol addiction, codependancy, lies and depression.
I am beginning to see a relationship not worth saving at this point. A relationship that is damaging to me and my kids.
I didn't do this to focus on the AH, I spent too much time in the past focusing on him, I did it to reinforce to myself I am doing the right thing. And when those codie feelings well up I can recognize them for what they are and use the tools I have learned in my recovery..
I hope this makes sense, I'm not really a rambling doofus.....
Hugs,
Teggie
Humans are naturally resistant to change, we tend to want to stay with whats familiar to us.
Unfortunatley for us, what was familier to us was an unhealthy life with an addict. But if your like me, it was all that I knew for the last 11 years.
We are now trying to break that cycle. To go againest whats familiar and head into uncertain, unchartered territory. And that is stressfull to us although we know it is necessary for our future wellbeing. And it can hurt bad as we process through it.
So we have periods of wanting to slip back into old behaviours, to whats familiar, but we can see that happening and can stop it and change our direction of thinking.
I recently set down and wrote a journal about what happened in every year that AH & I was together. From the beginning until now. Listing all that I can remember happening. Some of this was painful because I had to acknowledge not only the bad, but the good. After I got through I slept on it and then the next am I read it and made a point to notice what was really there. How the drug use was beginning, even then, but at the time I didn't see it or know what it is. How patterns were emerging. Those really bad times that I somehow turned a blind eye to. How during the "good" times, those memories that my codie brain told me were good, the ones that was a basis so long for trying to work the relationship out weren't really all that good once I dwelled on it and saw it how it really was.
The signs were there, and in the end I saw a relationship that has been built on drug addiction, alcohol addiction, codependancy, lies and depression.
I am beginning to see a relationship not worth saving at this point. A relationship that is damaging to me and my kids.
I didn't do this to focus on the AH, I spent too much time in the past focusing on him, I did it to reinforce to myself I am doing the right thing. And when those codie feelings well up I can recognize them for what they are and use the tools I have learned in my recovery..
I hope this makes sense, I'm not really a rambling doofus.....
Hugs,
Teggie
work in progress
Thread Starter
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: the sunshine state
Posts: 623
I'm not really a rambling doofus.....
I don't see you as a rambling doofus...I see you as a friend who is helping along another friend in need.
Thank you...and I get it.
I don't see you as a rambling doofus...I see you as a friend who is helping along another friend in need.
Thank you...and I get it.
Member
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Ohio
Posts: 267
Originally Posted by anvilhead 
....when we have the unstable dynamic of an active addict in our lives, they can take up so much "space" that we tend to live THEIR experience instead of our own. in a sense we abdicate our own sense of self and become immersed in THEM instead. we hop on their rollercoaster......... (count your blessings!).
Member
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Hollywood, CA
Posts: 58
I understand...I'm right with you. For me, i think its a lot more with I have not had any closure. He pretty much admitted to everything and ran off. I have not seen or heard from him since.
I feel relief, free (as you put it) and sometimes happy. But then I also feel sad, and I want to cry...and I have to fight not to walk out the door and go looking for him. It's a roller coaster of emotions and I never know what will trigger the sad/angry/codie ones. So far, you seem to have a better grasp on it then I do, so congrats for that. Stay strong!
I feel relief, free (as you put it) and sometimes happy. But then I also feel sad, and I want to cry...and I have to fight not to walk out the door and go looking for him. It's a roller coaster of emotions and I never know what will trigger the sad/angry/codie ones. So far, you seem to have a better grasp on it then I do, so congrats for that. Stay strong!
Nature Girl
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: By The Lake
Posts: 60,328
For a long time, I dealt with crisis, one after the other and I didn't take any time to sort out my feelings or work through them. I lived in fear 24 hours a day, and my life was one big "reaction" to my son's life, which is why his disease almost took me down too.
After I went through the grief of him going missing (over 5 years now), I would still get triggered sometimes and feel my heart racing and the adrenaline pumping when there was no need for me to panic. It still happens sometimes, no matter how much I work my recovery and take care of myself. It's a type of PTSD that I am learning to deal with. I may not have been through a war, like many with PTSD, but I lived every moment of every day in danger and in fear of my son's life and stuffed all my feelings at the time in order to keep fighting.
Sooner or later those feelings come out. Yours will come out too, the anger and the sadness will surface, but you have a place to share it now, here and at live meetings if you go. Don't bury those feelings, they come back to bite you in the butt later. Work through them and let them go. It's painful now but in the end it leaves us free once more.
Hugs
After I went through the grief of him going missing (over 5 years now), I would still get triggered sometimes and feel my heart racing and the adrenaline pumping when there was no need for me to panic. It still happens sometimes, no matter how much I work my recovery and take care of myself. It's a type of PTSD that I am learning to deal with. I may not have been through a war, like many with PTSD, but I lived every moment of every day in danger and in fear of my son's life and stuffed all my feelings at the time in order to keep fighting.
Sooner or later those feelings come out. Yours will come out too, the anger and the sadness will surface, but you have a place to share it now, here and at live meetings if you go. Don't bury those feelings, they come back to bite you in the butt later. Work through them and let them go. It's painful now but in the end it leaves us free once more.
Hugs
Member
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: NY
Posts: 1,054
I've known the feelings all to often, Sofa. All normal withdrawls mixed with mourning/grieving the loss of him. And yes, as you noticed, the temptation to "contact" can creep up on you so fast during these times. You did well to restrain yourself. You are very in-tune with you feelings, motives, etc...
You're doing as expected at day 19
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You're doing as expected at day 19
.
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