SnoozyQ

Hiya everyone , hope you are all doing well . I haven't posted much sorry . Been busy busy busy moving house and cleaning cleaning cleaning xxc catch up soon , much love to you all each and everyone of you Julyers xxxx

Leshar

Nice to hear from you, Snoozy.

My psych said to abandon ketamine and I'm going to the city next week for transcranial magnetic stimulation. I'm very afraid. I'm still reeling from my sisters decision to cut off contact. I feel very alone and am tormented with obsessive ruminations.
I can't go back to drinking, but I need a break. Two plus months of crippling depression and anxiety. I look 10 years older now than I did in the summer. Something has to give. I go out every day, walk, go to the library. What more can I do? At what point do I just shut up and stop saying the same thing? I know it's tiresome. I'm a good person. I'm fighting and fighting and fighting, I'm so tired.
Thanks.

NorCaliGal

Hi Leshar -

Glad you posted. I was wondering how you were doing.

Of course you are a good person. You are worth the fight. I'm glad to hear you are getting out. Have you considered volunteering for a few hours a week somewhere? Some organization associated with something that is personally important to you? Just to get you outside your head for a few hours and focused on something else....

I know it's tough. If you're strong enough not to drink then I know you are strong enough to get through this. Hang in there.

NCG

Dee74

I'm sorry Leshar, I don't know what the answer is either.

I think it's good that you're getting outside tho. That always helps me. Volunteering would be great too if you think you could manage it?

D

NorCaliGal

Hi Julyers -

Went back into the city today to have brunch with a different good friend. Had a good time. Coffees and water for both of us This friend is someone who is truly beautiful on the inside and out - she's quite a bit younger than me, but is an old soul. And her ex-husband was (and still is) addicted to Oxycontin (spelling?) So she has a great understanding of the codie portion of my life. It was good to catch up with her. Her current boyfriend is completely different from her husband, and she's really doing well.

"Ricardo" was supposed to go but he flaked out last night, the reason he gave was to get his hair cut (seriously, that was the reason.) Didn't miss him at all during brunch honestly. But he also managed to meet up with a close female friend of his today who happened to be in town and who I have not yet had a chance to meet. He knew and told me last week she was going to be in town - I've had brunch scheduled since the beginning of the month, but invited him to come along a few days ago at the suggestion of my friend who wanted to meet him, and he agreed to come to along. When I found out he met his friend I said "I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to meet her." He said his friend said the same about me. Then I asked if HE was sorry I didn't get a chance to meet her. Well that hit a nerve with him and he answered "yes, I don't understand why you're asking, what the problem is" and then he get's irritated with me. So I asked if he suggested maybe getting together for dinner so I could have met her, rather than meeting up with her when I was unavailable....he had some excuse about her being in town with her daughter and her daughter's friends blah blah blah....but under all the blah blah was that no, he didn't suggest a time to meet when I could be there. Now I don't think he's cheating on me or anything like that. But it still really pissed me off, because I really don't think he wanted me to meet her at all, and now I'm hearing about how my feelings are wrong.

Sorry for the rant. I just get really tired of being criticized for not expressing my feelings, and than being told my feelings are wrong when I try to. So I had to get this off of my chest.

Riduculous rant over. Back to our regularly scheduled sober programming.

NCG

resolute50

In 8 minutes it will be 15 months.

resolute50

Yeah,I stay up way too late.

Dee74

Congrats Bob...on the milestone, not staying up late

D

NorCaliGal

Congratulatiions Bob!!

NorCaliGal

Oh. Em. Gee.

So, I was still extremely frustrated by Ricardo today. And I said out loud - not where he could hear - "my entire life I've been told how I should or shouldn't feel." And I said to myself hmmmm maybe I should look at that a little closer. So I Googled the statement that had come out of my mouth. And what do you think good old Google came up with? Adult Child of an Alcoholic or other dysfunctional environment as my first choice of search return options.

I scoffed slightly. I had great parents whose love for me I have never once doubted.

But hey now wait a minute..the question of whether my Dad (my step-dad actually, who raised me) was an alcoholic has been the subject of mild debate in my family. I have always been on the side of he was not - although looking back and having more knowledge on the topic now I can see that he definitely was a more-than-your average drinker and could have quite possibly been a very high functioning alcoholic. But it was the dysfunctional environment that really caught my eye. Because there were boatloads of dysfunctional behavior in my family. Dysfunction that I'd say goes back a couple of generations at least.

So I took I little peek at the ACA "big book." WOW!! I identified with pretty much everything I read. Strongly. Wow. Mind blowing wow. Tears flowed. Tears are still flowing. And relief. Others feeling exactly the way I do? The way I've felt my entire life? Wow.

So, I'll be playing in the ACOA sandbox here on SR, in addition to here. I have never even wandered in to that area.

Wow.

NCG

Dee74

wow thats a real epiphany NCG.

D

Leshar

Thinking of you, NCG.

NorCaliGal

Thanks Dee and Leshar.

There was never any physical abuse - just a pretty strict household with lots of rules (many times applied inconsistently, and some just plain odd.) Really high expectations where whatever you did was rarely good enough. Not a lot of praise - my parents didn't want to raise self centered spoiled kids. Punishment for honest mistakes. I could go on and on....

One odd rule I will share as an example. My sister and I call it the "Wheel of Fortune" rule. Literally, it was a rule about how to behave when the family watched the game show on television. We were not allowed to say the answer to the puzzle out loud if we had solved it, because it would "spoil it for everyone else." What we were allowed to say is "I know what the answer is." When everyone else had said "I know what the answer is" only then could the first person who said they knew the answer say what it was. Seriously, to this day if I'm somewhere and Wheel of Fortune is on tv and people are shouting out answers I'm taken aback.

Sheesh, I have A LOT of work to do. But I can't tell you what a huge sense of relief it is to find the ACoA stuff.

NCG

NorCaliGal

Additional thought....

Obviously the "Wheel of Fortune" rule is ridiculous. As an adult out in the world would never actually expect people to follow it! But where I struggle is determining other household rules growing up are just as ridiculous. For example, all food in the fridge was supposed to be wrapped or sealed in a closeable plastic bag. I go into the kitchen this morning and Ricardo has placed the butter dish in the fridge but didn't cover it with plastic wrap. Is it reasonable to ask him to do so? Or is this just another ridiculous rule I've absorbed from my childhood. My mom believed, and I agree, that covering the food makes sense, because food can give off or absorb odors from other things. But my mom also thought the Wheel of Fortune rule made sense - is covering food a valid thing to ask someone else to do too? So I stay silent, and cover the butter dish myself. And honestly I resent Ricardo a little bit over it, when really he hasn't done anything wrong but not be aware I like the butter covered and for some reason I can't speak up about it.

Ack!

NCG

Soberwolf

Hi Guys

well done Leshar,Resolute & NCG

NorCaliGal

Why thank you soberwolf!

(curtsies)

NCG

Croissant

Alcoholic parent or not, cover the butter dish. 8)

Ok, my "Ricardo" has stuck lol.

I'm a bit on alert about that friend, you've had "issues" with his interactions with her before?

That being said...is it you jumping on one thing and then him just acting odd about it because your relationship with him does sound a bit co-dependent?

Random thoughts on my lunch break. Will post more later.

NorCaliGal

Hi Crois -

Different female friend this time. This one lives about four hours away, in a different state. This is the first opportunity I would have had to meet her, and also the first time he's spent time with her in two years. This one actually wanted to meet and get to know me I believe - imho it's Ricardo who doesn't want this for some reason.

The other one - who he's had dinner with a few times - is local. She wants nothing to do with me. Ricardo, in his own words, said he wouldn't want to have us do things together, that it would be uncomfortable.

So yes clearly I have some insecurities in this area....

NCG

Croissant

Yeah, that's kind of all weird. Like he somehow adds to making the situation more odd than it needs to be.

For example...that old friend from out of town, that to me would be a pre-planned thing to make sure they could meet my partner in some way. That being said, I know my ex didn't meet my best friend for ages because we just loved our chatty catch up time. But we are the same sex.

I hope you understand what I mean (and I hope I've interpreted correctly!), but why go on about a haircut, if he really just wanted to catch up with his friend?

Don't get me wrong, I don't even think he's playing up with any of them, he just seems to add a layer of awkwardness to those relationships and catch ups where there doesn't need to be one? You know what I mean? Then he wonders why you think it's odd?

Hell, even I think it's odd and I don't have a vested interest!

NorCaliGal

Exactly! Thing is, when he flaked the night before giving the haircut reason, I asked him DIRECTLY if he was still going to try to meet up with his friend (me thinking that there may be some way to coordinate everything so I could meet up with them somehow), and he gave me some nonsense about how he wasn't sure, the weather may be bad, blah blah blah. Then I get home from brunch and he's managed to meet up with her for lunch and go to a local amusement park with her, her twenty year old daughter and her friends, and ride a couple of rollercoasters? And I find this out only after I ask him how his day is. The lack of openess just adds this layer of shadiness to the whole thing.

I have two really close male friends. One who I have been friends with since we were 15, lives here in town with his wife who I have also become close with (she's the one who I've started to walk with.) The other is a 70+ year old, who is gay. Even though there is absolutely no romantic/sexual overtones in either relationship, Ricardo knows both of them and I am always upfront and volunteer info if I talk to them, text them, make plans to hang out with them, etc. I actually do this with my female friends too. I have nothing to hide.

I have all sorts of dime store theories about why he behaves this way. But what I'm realizing is that getting so worked up about it is highly co-dependent behavior, with a good dose of my own esteem issues thrown in as well. And when I focus more on his stuff than on my stuff it gets ME off track. It's hard to remember this when he acts shady like this, my emotions take over and....ugh!

But, I do have to acknowledge that if this thing with his friend didn't happen I wouldn't have discovered the ACoA material. I'm not going to go down the "everything happens for a reason" road here, just trying to find the positive learning opportunity in this.

NCG