Hey, how you doing? Haven't seen you round here for a bit. Hope you're ok?
Izzy
Hey Izzy, how good of you to ask. I'm pretty good today ta. I am committed to honesty, no more secret emotions.....forbidden emotions.....bad emotions....so here's how I am...
I'm a bit up and down this week with lots of stuff still flowing around. Called the Samaritans a few times yesterday.....Still very early days for me I think. I spent the past year worrying about my ex, the last few months facing up to my own issues with alcohol and just the past few weeks looking with a bit more clarity at my childhood and perhaps three weeks(?) wondering about certain events and blanks and absolutely overwhelming feelings about some of the gaps. It is, as they say, a journey....it's certainly interesting what trauma of one kind or another can do....and how current events can trigger stuff decades old. I really had no idea, but everything makes some sort of sense now IF I fill in the blanks a certain way....which my body and unconscious are telling me is true.....my clever little conscious mind, into which I fled, isn't quite up to speed yet and I don't know if it ever will be or needs to be....one gift all this brings with it is that I think I've got a lot more empathy for people with Borderline issues....Up until now I didn't have real emotions, I had a mental sense of what an emotion was....I dammed that river up decades ago....well the dam burst and...I had no idea...THESE are FEELINGS???....this grief, terror, dread...it's a tidal wave....how on earth can anyone cope? At times, of course, I don't....I'm a four year old wailing in terror.....Well, so long as I can stay afloat a little longer in the floodwaters then with help from everyone and anyone...I will learn to swim.
I will never be the same again. But then I was never really who I thought I was.
Thank you for caring Izzy. You see, you really are one of the good guys. I hope you have some sense of what it means to me to have a complete stranger care about me when at crucial points in my life I felt no-one in the World cared and that all this was happening to me because I was a bad person who deserved to die.
God bless you....you're saving my life. You're in my four-year-old life and he can sense good people in the World and your spirit was there for him Izzy and for every hurt little child in the World....somehow things that cannot be borne are borne because people like you make life worthwhile Izzy, this whole f***ing thing. You are a weight on the right side of the scales and you make yourself FELT.....you look after yourself child, because the world needs Izzies.
I hope you are well...my spirit goes out to you and if you want it to, it holds you just how you want it to when you need a hug.
I'm a bit up and down this week with lots of stuff still flowing around. Called the Samaritans a few times yesterday.....Still very early days for me I think. I spent the past year worrying about my ex, the last few months facing up to my own issues with alcohol and just the past few weeks looking with a bit more clarity at my childhood and perhaps three weeks(?) wondering about certain events and blanks and absolutely overwhelming feelings about some of the gaps. It is, as they say, a journey....it's certainly interesting what trauma of one kind or another can do....and how current events can trigger stuff decades old. I really had no idea, but everything makes some sort of sense now IF I fill in the blanks a certain way....which my body and unconscious are telling me is true.....my clever little conscious mind, into which I fled, isn't quite up to speed yet and I don't know if it ever will be or needs to be....one gift all this brings with it is that I think I've got a lot more empathy for people with Borderline issues....Up until now I didn't have real emotions, I had a mental sense of what an emotion was....I dammed that river up decades ago....well the dam burst and...I had no idea...THESE are FEELINGS???....this grief, terror, dread...it's a tidal wave....how on earth can anyone cope? At times, of course, I don't....I'm a four year old wailing in terror.....Well, so long as I can stay afloat a little longer in the floodwaters then with help from everyone and anyone...I will learn to swim.
I will never be the same again. But then I was never really who I thought I was.
Thank you for caring Izzy. You see, you really are one of the good guys. I hope you have some sense of what it means to me to have a complete stranger care about me when at crucial points in my life I felt no-one in the World cared and that all this was happening to me because I was a bad person who deserved to die.
God bless you....you're saving my life. You're in my four-year-old life and he can sense good people in the World and your spirit was there for him Izzy and for every hurt little child in the World....somehow things that cannot be borne are borne because people like you make life worthwhile Izzy, this whole f***ing thing. You are a weight on the right side of the scales and you make yourself FELT.....you look after yourself child, because the world needs Izzies.
I hope you are well...my spirit goes out to you and if you want it to, it holds you just how you want it to when you need a hug.
Martin,
Every post I read of yours tugs at my heart, my soul. Your words always leave me with a bit more clarity about myself. Your honesty and downright humility tells me, "if he can do it, so can I". You give me hope. Thank you.
Every post I read of yours tugs at my heart, my soul. Your words always leave me with a bit more clarity about myself. Your honesty and downright humility tells me, "if he can do it, so can I". You give me hope. Thank you.
Hey Martin, I agree whole heartedly with Zipper, and the way you're discovering who you really are is admirable too. Dealing with your emotions is draining, and myself as a Borderline finds it doubly so... I get the feeling you think you may have some of the same thought and behaviour patterns as a Borderline?
All in all, in any case, I'm glad you're ok. You're gonna find the light one day, coz you're strong.
All the best,
Izzy
All in all, in any case, I'm glad you're ok. You're gonna find the light one day, coz you're strong.
All the best,
Izzy
Hey Martin. It is a journey for all of us I guess. We are all trying to find who we are and I am glad that there is someone like you on the Board who can help me and others find our way. All your posts Martin seem sincere, straightforward and honest. That is what I like about you and the fact that you really seem to understand the pain of another. I wish you all the best in your recovery and I hope that someday you will be free and be able to enjoy the life you were meant to live. You derserve it .. God bless and take care
Thank you zipper, thank you Izzy. All I know is I've spent months and months listening to recovering alcoholics and the relatives and friends of alcoholics talking honestly about their feelings in rooms that felt full of love and acceptance and when my time came to speak I couldn't do anything but say what I was feeling. I have found that to be very important to whatever is gong on for me and so I continue to try to do it. I write what I feel. Sometimes I've written so fast I've had NO idea what's coming next and once or twice I felt moved to say that they weren't my words but were those of my/some Higher Power. I'm about to set up my own cult over there in the corner lol....
Borderline? I haven't a clue what's going on, Izzy. Sometimes I think God is sending me messages in music or the environment around me, words on trucks, billboards, animals....coincidences....Jung calls it synchronicity....others tell me coincidences are God's way of staying anonymous....I know you're not a fan of the G word Izzy, and I've written before that I turned my back on Him 35 years ago....what can I say? I feel He was there for me when I wasn't there for myself....Borderline?...
I've always known I was different...there has always been a facade about six inches in front of me...I created a persona who interacted with the world while some other part of me passed (usually negative) comments on "his" performance....emotions...I've had a few, but then again...too few to mention lol...I've described it before as knowing I had a river of emotions flowing somewhere while I walked along the riverbank, a human machine with a "look-up" table...."ah! this is a situation I should be happy, go get the emotion labelled happy"....I got faster and faster at looking them up and so I function pretty well...until I lived with an alcoholic whose emotoinal state had bugger all to do with any obvious cues in the situation so I went mad trying to scan the world and read her mind for clues as to what I should be feeling....I guess I started to recognise the anger....building and building....
Borderline? I am as reluctant to claim that label as I am the one of alcoholic. I know a little, in theory, of what that means and I'm not sure I should claim to be in that much pain....I can look at my childhood and guess.....what I do know is that after 100s of hours in counselling and at AL-anon and AA and reflecting and thinking and dreaming again and all that, for the first time I can ever recall I FELT a feeling in my body instead of just having the idea of a feeling in my head....and then there's the subpersonalities....who turned up in dreams and in moments of pain and in moments of clarity....eight or nine compnent parts of me who I visualise in different ways. There are three male children and one female, a father figure, a warrior, a female, a black panther and a magnificent winged creature...and a 6" tall policeman who one of the boys made....sounds pretty weird to me.....but Borderline? I don't have the history of relationship issues but I think my first girlfriend, who became my wife of 18 years, loved me back to health (I'll be fired from AL-anon for saying that's possible but she did it...up to a point..)
I don't know what all that means although I've been to a website where they seemed to think it pretty unexceptional and a sign of great progress lol. My counsellor isn't telling....
I'm 50 and so immature emotionally. I'm great where it doesn't really count, in my work and everyday life....people like me, and I like people...I've had a rule book about it since I was very young....but when the chips are down...where it really counts...with the woman I love....I find myself stamping my feet like a five year old and raging, raging raging....which is why I no longer drink....
I don't know Izzy, maybe my problem is I'm just looking for a reason, an excuse, to absolve myself of responsibility.....hey, I'm an alcoholic, you gotta love me for trying! Or, hey, I've got issues, don't blame me for not being the man I thought I ought to be!...everything is in a holding pattern, everything is a maybe...nothing is ruled out....bit by bit I'm learning....I hope..
Do you know, I always thought that everyone in the world had the secret and they knew that I didn't, that they could tell....felt sorry for me but couldn't do anything because I was broken somehow....I grew out of that feeling, or rather forgot about it....because sometimes that's what it's like now. I don't know anything Izzy, except I'm grateful for people like you and zipper and others here for giving me the chance to explore things no man in their right mind would talk about....ain't that the truth.
Hey, and if I seem to have strength please KNOW that it's borrowed from you and zipper and everyone here and wherever I can get it, cos when I'm done howling down the phone to the Samaritans for an hour or so its only the knowledge that I can come here later that's been getting me through the next few hours.
Today has been a good day. I hope it has for you both and for everyone else as well.
Take good care.
Borderline? I haven't a clue what's going on, Izzy. Sometimes I think God is sending me messages in music or the environment around me, words on trucks, billboards, animals....coincidences....Jung calls it synchronicity....others tell me coincidences are God's way of staying anonymous....I know you're not a fan of the G word Izzy, and I've written before that I turned my back on Him 35 years ago....what can I say? I feel He was there for me when I wasn't there for myself....Borderline?...
I've always known I was different...there has always been a facade about six inches in front of me...I created a persona who interacted with the world while some other part of me passed (usually negative) comments on "his" performance....emotions...I've had a few, but then again...too few to mention lol...I've described it before as knowing I had a river of emotions flowing somewhere while I walked along the riverbank, a human machine with a "look-up" table...."ah! this is a situation I should be happy, go get the emotion labelled happy"....I got faster and faster at looking them up and so I function pretty well...until I lived with an alcoholic whose emotoinal state had bugger all to do with any obvious cues in the situation so I went mad trying to scan the world and read her mind for clues as to what I should be feeling....I guess I started to recognise the anger....building and building....
Borderline? I am as reluctant to claim that label as I am the one of alcoholic. I know a little, in theory, of what that means and I'm not sure I should claim to be in that much pain....I can look at my childhood and guess.....what I do know is that after 100s of hours in counselling and at AL-anon and AA and reflecting and thinking and dreaming again and all that, for the first time I can ever recall I FELT a feeling in my body instead of just having the idea of a feeling in my head....and then there's the subpersonalities....who turned up in dreams and in moments of pain and in moments of clarity....eight or nine compnent parts of me who I visualise in different ways. There are three male children and one female, a father figure, a warrior, a female, a black panther and a magnificent winged creature...and a 6" tall policeman who one of the boys made....sounds pretty weird to me.....but Borderline? I don't have the history of relationship issues but I think my first girlfriend, who became my wife of 18 years, loved me back to health (I'll be fired from AL-anon for saying that's possible but she did it...up to a point..)
I don't know what all that means although I've been to a website where they seemed to think it pretty unexceptional and a sign of great progress lol. My counsellor isn't telling....
I'm 50 and so immature emotionally. I'm great where it doesn't really count, in my work and everyday life....people like me, and I like people...I've had a rule book about it since I was very young....but when the chips are down...where it really counts...with the woman I love....I find myself stamping my feet like a five year old and raging, raging raging....which is why I no longer drink....
I don't know Izzy, maybe my problem is I'm just looking for a reason, an excuse, to absolve myself of responsibility.....hey, I'm an alcoholic, you gotta love me for trying! Or, hey, I've got issues, don't blame me for not being the man I thought I ought to be!...everything is in a holding pattern, everything is a maybe...nothing is ruled out....bit by bit I'm learning....I hope..
Do you know, I always thought that everyone in the world had the secret and they knew that I didn't, that they could tell....felt sorry for me but couldn't do anything because I was broken somehow....I grew out of that feeling, or rather forgot about it....because sometimes that's what it's like now. I don't know anything Izzy, except I'm grateful for people like you and zipper and others here for giving me the chance to explore things no man in their right mind would talk about....ain't that the truth.
Hey, and if I seem to have strength please KNOW that it's borrowed from you and zipper and everyone here and wherever I can get it, cos when I'm done howling down the phone to the Samaritans for an hour or so its only the knowledge that I can come here later that's been getting me through the next few hours.
Today has been a good day. I hope it has for you both and for everyone else as well.
Take good care.
Hey pirate, just seen your post! Thank you so much. I wouldn't have started posting here, or continued, if the people hadn't seemed warm and accepting and have things to say that help me make sense of my own journey. We help each other all the time. I think it's just that I learned from AA and Al-anon and others to try to be honest and open, and the more I do that the better I feel. I spent 45 years bottling stuff up and in denial about who I am and what I feel....my recovery requires I let it out. No-one has to read it but if you do and it helps you, that's brilliant. I can tell you that your responses do help me. That's just where I'm at. I remember when I first posted over on the families board I said I sometimes use message boards to intellectualise and bask in the glow of responses. Here I'm not trying to be clever. This is my E as it unfolds. Real time. That's all. And loving acceptance is helping me heal very old wounds. That's my S and my H and I thank you for it.
Martin,
I took a look on the family board and got better clarity about what you are talking about. I, too, believe I've been physically (remember this) but also believe sexually. As you said, there are certain triggers, atmospheres, smells that hit you and you know intuitively that something is coming to surface or at least telling you that somewhere early in life was amidst. To this day I can't smell burnt toast or look at a man's bare foot and toe-nails. I have a viseral reaction and I know this is my spirit re-membering SOMETHING. I haven't had much therapy regarding this. I worked with a few therapist who only said, yes, there could have been abuse, but lets work on current problems. It always flabbergasted me. I've been bulimic, cutter (thankfully both are in the past), alcoholic, depression, then manic spells and yet my therapist said only, "yes, you exhibit sexually abused person" and still no therapy into this. That always has bothered me and hence, I haven't gone back to a therapist. I thought getting my psychology degree would help me remember. Nope, just made me realize that I was sicker than I thought and conversely, not as sick as I could be.
Anyway, the borderline line personality could be a possibility, but I don't believe that anyone can make that diagnosis except for a professional. I do have one question. You say you have different people that are part of you. Do you recognize these embodiments as being seperate from you? Do you have lapse of time that you don't remember what happened? This "splitting" or "compartmentalizing" could actually be another diagnoses different from borderline. Anyway, as I've said, only a professional could properly diagnose you. Whatever the diagnosis is, it does seem apparent that these different aspects of yourself are there or originated as a self-protective" coping skill. I can't tell you if you've been abused or not but any research you do on such topics usually state that these created entities are/were a way to cope from abuse. Again, I am not here to diagnose you. Just wanted to share some insight that I gleaned from my psych eduction.
I hope I haven't offened you by offering this information.
The good news: you are FEELING...something that you've said is only a recent development and that, my friend, is growth and healing.
In spirit,
Lisa
I took a look on the family board and got better clarity about what you are talking about. I, too, believe I've been physically (remember this) but also believe sexually. As you said, there are certain triggers, atmospheres, smells that hit you and you know intuitively that something is coming to surface or at least telling you that somewhere early in life was amidst. To this day I can't smell burnt toast or look at a man's bare foot and toe-nails. I have a viseral reaction and I know this is my spirit re-membering SOMETHING. I haven't had much therapy regarding this. I worked with a few therapist who only said, yes, there could have been abuse, but lets work on current problems. It always flabbergasted me. I've been bulimic, cutter (thankfully both are in the past), alcoholic, depression, then manic spells and yet my therapist said only, "yes, you exhibit sexually abused person" and still no therapy into this. That always has bothered me and hence, I haven't gone back to a therapist. I thought getting my psychology degree would help me remember. Nope, just made me realize that I was sicker than I thought and conversely, not as sick as I could be.
Anyway, the borderline line personality could be a possibility, but I don't believe that anyone can make that diagnosis except for a professional. I do have one question. You say you have different people that are part of you. Do you recognize these embodiments as being seperate from you? Do you have lapse of time that you don't remember what happened? This "splitting" or "compartmentalizing" could actually be another diagnoses different from borderline. Anyway, as I've said, only a professional could properly diagnose you. Whatever the diagnosis is, it does seem apparent that these different aspects of yourself are there or originated as a self-protective" coping skill. I can't tell you if you've been abused or not but any research you do on such topics usually state that these created entities are/were a way to cope from abuse. Again, I am not here to diagnose you. Just wanted to share some insight that I gleaned from my psych eduction.
I hope I haven't offened you by offering this information.
The good news: you are FEELING...something that you've said is only a recent development and that, my friend, is growth and healing.
In spirit,
Lisa
Hi Lisa,
Thank you very much for sharing your experience and knowledge. I really appreciate it. My own answer to a lot of the questions in my life at the moment is "don't know". I'm not ruling anything out and I'm trying not to force anything. The way things have unfolded are similar to what happened with my relationship with alcohol. In most of my life I take the lead. From the start with my ex I followed...taking my cues from her, and that included drinking whenever the opportunity arose....part of me clearly relished the opportunity and found her attractive precisely because she made it not just permissable but compulsory!
If I wanted to be with her "having fun" in that way was part of the deal....of course that was my mask...but I didn't know any of it just as I didn't know what denial was....it's not denial at all it is a profound not knowing what any sane person would know....so subtle and certain....anyway, the point is I mirrored her...then I became afraid FOR HER, not me...I didn't have a problem, did I....so I went to Al-anon and then FOR HER I went to open AA meetings to understand HER and after months of going "that's her" I started to realise "that's me...but surely everyone blacks out whenever they drink. That's the point."...."surely everyone drinks on their own, that's normal"....but everyone who shared at AA said they FELT like I've always "felt"...different, broken, unable to fit in, shy, awkward.... and of course drinking always made that easier, ok...so what's wrong with that?...of course I drank for that effect...what's the problem with that? yes, I changed brands...I was just being sensible, Stella was making me a bit aggressive nowadays for some reason...I'm just being sensible...and maybe we rowed a fair bit when I'd been drinking...and we'd always had money problems...and we really ought to do something about them....if only she'd stop...and I wasn't even shure SHE was an alcoholic...how can I tell?....I know, I'll take some tests on the web for her....yep, she passes with flying colours...I wonder....should I compare my drinking...no, no need...well why not...ok....what? surely not....must be wrong..try another test...and another...that's nonsense...I don't have a problem...BUT there is an over developed part of me...an intellect divorced from emotions, and THIS time that part of me saved me (one day at a time)....although I FELT/knew I didn't have a problem....the feeling was much weaker than my intellect going LOOK AT THE EVIDENCE......
Sorry, rambling, clarifying, confessing, owning stuff I need to own and accept and remember because my ex gave me the gift of despair and alcohol still tastes nice and I KNOW I haven't got a problem and as I get back in touch with my fearsome emotions it is possible I will mis-step....
The Borderline issue was the same....I googled HER symptoms....and wondered...months ago...but alcohol and drug abuse have similar profiles....but the relationships she's had....interesting...and the rage! My God! If she was aman she'd have killed or been killed....simply could not have got away with it...so I was looking at HER....trying to fix HER....my drug of choice....I can't help wondering if co-dependency doesn't have some of the same types of root "causes" as other addictions....it's just how the cards fall...she preserves herself, flees her demons by using whatever will change her chemical balance, I flee mine by trying to save her hurting inner child....any hurting child....hence co-dependency....just thinking out loud....
So each time it starts with her, my love, my soulmate, my mirror...my mirror self...I always told her that if I were a woman she is the woman I want to be...so some part of me, clearly, wants to be an alcoholic drug abuser.....and I went for it big time last year.....rock bottom came quickly because another part of me, the part that saved my soul when I was young and kept me safe all theses years would not have it, took control and drove me right across our city at 90 miles an hour...this part doesn't have emotions...fearless....absolutely cold and ruthless and efficient and he does what one of the little boys wants and HE wants to live...he really does...so I drove dead drunk and the drunk part of me watched this movie unfold as the warrior lost control at a roundabout at 90 miles an hour without flinching and regained control without relief...felt nothing...and when I came to myself I KNEW I wasn't going to do that again, wasn't going to put myself in a place where I might kill someone else....my warrior showed me and he told my counsellor that once was enough and he knows he is right.
That's one of the few times I've felt so dissasociated. Another involved violence, an act of self-defence....but I didn't know then what it was....and then the raging voice let itself be heard....and then the little drummer boy....
And then I stumbled across something about false selves in borderline...and that led me to Inner Family Therapy and Multiplicity....and it all SEEMS to fit....but you're right, only a professional can diagnose such things....it might be the stress and depression and my mind leading me to create a way of understanding what's happening....maybe, maybe not....trying to keep an open mind....
I've been in counselling for about ten months. There were a few things that cropped up a while go that didn't make mush sense, but I feel my counsellor is very skilled and everything I have read since says that its important not to push issues of abuse and that therapists need to be careful they don't collude in the creation of memories that might be contaminated by the unconscious mind creating metaphors or images to try to "explain" why we're feeling real feelings the conscious mind cannot explain.....I really respect her caution and am trying to emulate it.....
So I don't know....I fit the criteria for alcoholism...and I get an incredible amount of identification at AA, I feel I belong there....I recognise that a lot of the experiences I hear about aren't in my past...but as someone else said there once I feel they might be in my future.....I think I fit the criteria for Borderline....to some degree and nowhere near the pain some people struggle with on a daily basis....I guess I'm somewhere on a spectrum from people called "normal" to people diagnosed with DID....I'm not sure how many people have ever felt their mind might be splitting apart and then realised that they have several distinct aspects of themselves rather than one coherent personality...maybe everyone has that insight and that's simply what I've lacked? I don't know....and I don't know how many people reach a point in life where they realise there emotions don't flow but are somewhere else where they have to go to get them....like looking at the world through windows six foot thick...turning on a tap in a 100 foot tall dam to feel happy/sad....I built the dam....did it save me from alcoholism? Has it saved me from suicide? Did it keep me sane? Has it given me symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder? If I was FEELING what's behind it would I have become Borderline, DID or whatever?
I guess the dam was/is a defense mechanism that became unhelpful once the danger has passed and as I've approached mid-life and my parents weaken and the past recedes...and as I prove to myself over and over again that I am a protector, not an abuser, a lover not a fighter, a good man not a killer....perhaps I feel the dam can be broken down....or perhaps it was simply that so much built up behind it because of my need to stay with someone who hurt me over and over and over again and because alcohol was weakening its foundations it simply had to give way....and I had/have to learn to swim....
I believe that we are good. I believe that whatever we do to ourselves or others is an attempt to do the next best thing. An attempt to do the next best thing to keep us safe, healthy and happy. Sadly, sometimes there are parts of us in the driving seat whose "next best thing" is based on onld beliefs....gotss love 'em, but gotta let the wise, loving Adults take care of those children, love ourselves back to health, let us know that there IS someone there for us who cares and accepts and loves us....and that person is ourself.....
BUT....it seems that some of us - me - can't believe that until other people have SHOWN me it....and you do and other people here do....speaking for me, I doubt I could ever have accepted myself if others hadn't done so first....so old and deep was the hurt.....that child needs a parent...and it couldn't believe I could do the job because I kept putting other hrt children before it.....her beautiful, fatherless twins, her devestated inner Child....always someone else before me, one of the less healthy rules in my little rulebook heart....the Warrior me, the Desperately Optimistic little boy with his fingers in his ears and eyes closed always KNEw they were strong enough to bear any pain to protect those children....but the other little boys knew the truth, the real me knew the truth and died.....even steel breaks...and no man is really steel.....I needed to hear someone, anyone, say that MY child counts too....always did....and hadn't really yet quite died.
Thank you for saving me. A work in progress.
Thank you very much for sharing your experience and knowledge. I really appreciate it. My own answer to a lot of the questions in my life at the moment is "don't know". I'm not ruling anything out and I'm trying not to force anything. The way things have unfolded are similar to what happened with my relationship with alcohol. In most of my life I take the lead. From the start with my ex I followed...taking my cues from her, and that included drinking whenever the opportunity arose....part of me clearly relished the opportunity and found her attractive precisely because she made it not just permissable but compulsory!
If I wanted to be with her "having fun" in that way was part of the deal....of course that was my mask...but I didn't know any of it just as I didn't know what denial was....it's not denial at all it is a profound not knowing what any sane person would know....so subtle and certain....anyway, the point is I mirrored her...then I became afraid FOR HER, not me...I didn't have a problem, did I....so I went to Al-anon and then FOR HER I went to open AA meetings to understand HER and after months of going "that's her" I started to realise "that's me...but surely everyone blacks out whenever they drink. That's the point."...."surely everyone drinks on their own, that's normal"....but everyone who shared at AA said they FELT like I've always "felt"...different, broken, unable to fit in, shy, awkward.... and of course drinking always made that easier, ok...so what's wrong with that?...of course I drank for that effect...what's the problem with that? yes, I changed brands...I was just being sensible, Stella was making me a bit aggressive nowadays for some reason...I'm just being sensible...and maybe we rowed a fair bit when I'd been drinking...and we'd always had money problems...and we really ought to do something about them....if only she'd stop...and I wasn't even shure SHE was an alcoholic...how can I tell?....I know, I'll take some tests on the web for her....yep, she passes with flying colours...I wonder....should I compare my drinking...no, no need...well why not...ok....what? surely not....must be wrong..try another test...and another...that's nonsense...I don't have a problem...BUT there is an over developed part of me...an intellect divorced from emotions, and THIS time that part of me saved me (one day at a time)....although I FELT/knew I didn't have a problem....the feeling was much weaker than my intellect going LOOK AT THE EVIDENCE......
Sorry, rambling, clarifying, confessing, owning stuff I need to own and accept and remember because my ex gave me the gift of despair and alcohol still tastes nice and I KNOW I haven't got a problem and as I get back in touch with my fearsome emotions it is possible I will mis-step....
The Borderline issue was the same....I googled HER symptoms....and wondered...months ago...but alcohol and drug abuse have similar profiles....but the relationships she's had....interesting...and the rage! My God! If she was aman she'd have killed or been killed....simply could not have got away with it...so I was looking at HER....trying to fix HER....my drug of choice....I can't help wondering if co-dependency doesn't have some of the same types of root "causes" as other addictions....it's just how the cards fall...she preserves herself, flees her demons by using whatever will change her chemical balance, I flee mine by trying to save her hurting inner child....any hurting child....hence co-dependency....just thinking out loud....
So each time it starts with her, my love, my soulmate, my mirror...my mirror self...I always told her that if I were a woman she is the woman I want to be...so some part of me, clearly, wants to be an alcoholic drug abuser.....and I went for it big time last year.....rock bottom came quickly because another part of me, the part that saved my soul when I was young and kept me safe all theses years would not have it, took control and drove me right across our city at 90 miles an hour...this part doesn't have emotions...fearless....absolutely cold and ruthless and efficient and he does what one of the little boys wants and HE wants to live...he really does...so I drove dead drunk and the drunk part of me watched this movie unfold as the warrior lost control at a roundabout at 90 miles an hour without flinching and regained control without relief...felt nothing...and when I came to myself I KNEW I wasn't going to do that again, wasn't going to put myself in a place where I might kill someone else....my warrior showed me and he told my counsellor that once was enough and he knows he is right.
That's one of the few times I've felt so dissasociated. Another involved violence, an act of self-defence....but I didn't know then what it was....and then the raging voice let itself be heard....and then the little drummer boy....
And then I stumbled across something about false selves in borderline...and that led me to Inner Family Therapy and Multiplicity....and it all SEEMS to fit....but you're right, only a professional can diagnose such things....it might be the stress and depression and my mind leading me to create a way of understanding what's happening....maybe, maybe not....trying to keep an open mind....
I've been in counselling for about ten months. There were a few things that cropped up a while go that didn't make mush sense, but I feel my counsellor is very skilled and everything I have read since says that its important not to push issues of abuse and that therapists need to be careful they don't collude in the creation of memories that might be contaminated by the unconscious mind creating metaphors or images to try to "explain" why we're feeling real feelings the conscious mind cannot explain.....I really respect her caution and am trying to emulate it.....
So I don't know....I fit the criteria for alcoholism...and I get an incredible amount of identification at AA, I feel I belong there....I recognise that a lot of the experiences I hear about aren't in my past...but as someone else said there once I feel they might be in my future.....I think I fit the criteria for Borderline....to some degree and nowhere near the pain some people struggle with on a daily basis....I guess I'm somewhere on a spectrum from people called "normal" to people diagnosed with DID....I'm not sure how many people have ever felt their mind might be splitting apart and then realised that they have several distinct aspects of themselves rather than one coherent personality...maybe everyone has that insight and that's simply what I've lacked? I don't know....and I don't know how many people reach a point in life where they realise there emotions don't flow but are somewhere else where they have to go to get them....like looking at the world through windows six foot thick...turning on a tap in a 100 foot tall dam to feel happy/sad....I built the dam....did it save me from alcoholism? Has it saved me from suicide? Did it keep me sane? Has it given me symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder? If I was FEELING what's behind it would I have become Borderline, DID or whatever?
I guess the dam was/is a defense mechanism that became unhelpful once the danger has passed and as I've approached mid-life and my parents weaken and the past recedes...and as I prove to myself over and over again that I am a protector, not an abuser, a lover not a fighter, a good man not a killer....perhaps I feel the dam can be broken down....or perhaps it was simply that so much built up behind it because of my need to stay with someone who hurt me over and over and over again and because alcohol was weakening its foundations it simply had to give way....and I had/have to learn to swim....
I believe that we are good. I believe that whatever we do to ourselves or others is an attempt to do the next best thing. An attempt to do the next best thing to keep us safe, healthy and happy. Sadly, sometimes there are parts of us in the driving seat whose "next best thing" is based on onld beliefs....gotss love 'em, but gotta let the wise, loving Adults take care of those children, love ourselves back to health, let us know that there IS someone there for us who cares and accepts and loves us....and that person is ourself.....
BUT....it seems that some of us - me - can't believe that until other people have SHOWN me it....and you do and other people here do....speaking for me, I doubt I could ever have accepted myself if others hadn't done so first....so old and deep was the hurt.....that child needs a parent...and it couldn't believe I could do the job because I kept putting other hrt children before it.....her beautiful, fatherless twins, her devestated inner Child....always someone else before me, one of the less healthy rules in my little rulebook heart....the Warrior me, the Desperately Optimistic little boy with his fingers in his ears and eyes closed always KNEw they were strong enough to bear any pain to protect those children....but the other little boys knew the truth, the real me knew the truth and died.....even steel breaks...and no man is really steel.....I needed to hear someone, anyone, say that MY child counts too....always did....and hadn't really yet quite died.
Thank you for saving me. A work in progress.
Hi again Lisa,
When I start writing about me I'm afraid it just keeps pouring out.....but how about you? It sounds as if you were pretty motivated to understand more about your past at one time. Is it something you feel plays a part in your life today? Do you still feel you'd like to understand?
I can look back on my life and see how my experience in childhood, whatever it was, has shaped how I am and so much of my life and relationships. It has taken great pain to force me to look at it, to break through the denial.....looking at MY part in how my relationships failed....at how I've lived and failed to live fully...it's not an easy ride....my feeling is, my HP is telling me....these things unfold as they should....if my experience speaks to you, if your HP speaks to you of these things....what can I say?
Listen to your HP Lisa.....if I am making progress it is because I have taken that from Al-anon and AA and for the first time in a long time been open to a wisdom that originates somewhere "else".....not my intellect, not my conscious mind, not my Will....perhaps that white and gold magnificent winged creature within me, perhaps from God beyond and beyond....so please don't listen to anything this person might seem to imply, advise or suggest Lisa......listen to your HP. Our culture presses us to know and know and know....but there is only one source of wisdom for if and what and when and how and it I have absolutely no idea what might be right for you. My only advice for anyone about this is to ask your HP and listen, listen, listen to make sure that it is your HP whose answer you hear.
I could not have survived this without an immense amount of support. And with that support, your support, I am doing it.
God bless.
Take good care.
When I start writing about me I'm afraid it just keeps pouring out.....but how about you? It sounds as if you were pretty motivated to understand more about your past at one time. Is it something you feel plays a part in your life today? Do you still feel you'd like to understand?
I can look back on my life and see how my experience in childhood, whatever it was, has shaped how I am and so much of my life and relationships. It has taken great pain to force me to look at it, to break through the denial.....looking at MY part in how my relationships failed....at how I've lived and failed to live fully...it's not an easy ride....my feeling is, my HP is telling me....these things unfold as they should....if my experience speaks to you, if your HP speaks to you of these things....what can I say?
Listen to your HP Lisa.....if I am making progress it is because I have taken that from Al-anon and AA and for the first time in a long time been open to a wisdom that originates somewhere "else".....not my intellect, not my conscious mind, not my Will....perhaps that white and gold magnificent winged creature within me, perhaps from God beyond and beyond....so please don't listen to anything this person might seem to imply, advise or suggest Lisa......listen to your HP. Our culture presses us to know and know and know....but there is only one source of wisdom for if and what and when and how and it I have absolutely no idea what might be right for you. My only advice for anyone about this is to ask your HP and listen, listen, listen to make sure that it is your HP whose answer you hear.
I could not have survived this without an immense amount of support. And with that support, your support, I am doing it.
God bless.
Take good care.
Gidday All
It says that in the big book i should never shut the door on the past and with hindsight i can learn so much from it as long as i dont relive it or allow it to start holding hands with my addiction again
Your right Martin as long as i can see the parts i have played in my past i can go a long way to building a more friendly future, especially as i grow and take a hold of all my emotional, physical, mental and spiritual frameworks that can complicate me at times.
As long as i have faith, hope and the courage to change the future is there for me 1 day at a time...small steps for a long journey:)
light and love zac
It says that in the big book i should never shut the door on the past and with hindsight i can learn so much from it as long as i dont relive it or allow it to start holding hands with my addiction again
Your right Martin as long as i can see the parts i have played in my past i can go a long way to building a more friendly future, especially as i grow and take a hold of all my emotional, physical, mental and spiritual frameworks that can complicate me at times.
As long as i have faith, hope and the courage to change the future is there for me 1 day at a time...small steps for a long journey:)
light and love zac
Zac you are such a blessing. I think we lost a lot when we stopped being tribes, when a boy could pick and chose amongst the elders, who to learn from, who to listen to, whose heart to follow until he grew his own....thank you for being here. You are building a city...post by post, thought by thought...a stronger foundation for so many to stand on. And I need it zac, I need it....something wells up inside me and my gratitude to you...I don't know why I'm like this, I don't, but zac, it feels like you are here for me and I FEEL myself heal....good God, what is this? I feel everyone knows but I don't....how can I BE like this? One moment an adult the next a crying child? I KNOW your acceptance heals. I KNOW it. With each tear of gratitude I feel safer, loved, wanted, held, accepted...and each time I feel accepted some part of me feels its ok to be me, to grow as me....to become me whoever that is because its ok, its all right, its acceptable....adult words plastered over what a desperate, bewildered little boy is thinking and feeling and hoping.....hoping....my God, hope for that little boy. After 45 years. My God.
What I was gong to write was that the little optimisitc boy wants the pain to stop RIGHT NOW! Wave his magic wand and stop it or look away quick. Look somewhere happy.
Amidst howls one day I told one of the wonderful people at the Samaritans I just wanted to be well....he asked me what getting well looked like for me. One word flashed up at the same time as I saw the father figure in my mind (me the way I should have been aged about 35) put his arm around the little optimist boy whose endless optimism is really driven by dread...and tell him that it REALLY IS going to be all right....
The word was "safe"....
Being well is being safe.
Zac, I don't know if you know this, but every time you reach out to others you touch that little boy and help him feel safe. I am so grateful you are around.
What I was gong to write was that the little optimisitc boy wants the pain to stop RIGHT NOW! Wave his magic wand and stop it or look away quick. Look somewhere happy.
Amidst howls one day I told one of the wonderful people at the Samaritans I just wanted to be well....he asked me what getting well looked like for me. One word flashed up at the same time as I saw the father figure in my mind (me the way I should have been aged about 35) put his arm around the little optimist boy whose endless optimism is really driven by dread...and tell him that it REALLY IS going to be all right....
The word was "safe"....
Being well is being safe.
Zac, I don't know if you know this, but every time you reach out to others you touch that little boy and help him feel safe. I am so grateful you are around.
Martin
I don't remember if you posted this before but have you stopped drinking?
I don't remember if you posted this before but have you stopped drinking?
Hi 12stepper.
Yes, I stopped the night before New Year's eve after my obscene, criminal and reckless drive across our city. I've had alcohol 3 times since then, all in situations I was sure I wouldn't drink to excess....but in truth I know how stupid that is....
My take on it is that I have the disease but by the Grace of God didn't become physically dependent. I had some whisperings early on but not for a while. My guess is being with my ex enabled me to project MY desires onto her, which gave me licence to drink.
I think I've only begun to be able to focus on me and to start to - start to - heal since I stopped drinking. And the process I've gone through is undoubtedly the same process the 12 steps takes people through and in roughly the same order although I think I'm going round and round, deeper and deeper.....I THOUGHT my life WAS unmanageable because SHE drank to excess and it was screwing Me and our finances up...(Al-anon)......ok, so hand it over......then I THOUGHT it was unmanageable because I was so distraught at her prospects/our kids.....ok, so hand it over.......Now I think it's unmanageable because actually, I'm pretty ill, probably have been for some time, and fell in love with a wonderfulwoman who happens to be an alcoholic so I could mask my pain by fixing her AND getting drunk at the same time......ok.......so hand it over......so THIS step 4 I'm now entering is about recognising how my psychological wounds played out in our relationship and hurt her, the wounded woman I love.
Yes, I stopped the night before New Year's eve after my obscene, criminal and reckless drive across our city. I've had alcohol 3 times since then, all in situations I was sure I wouldn't drink to excess....but in truth I know how stupid that is....
My take on it is that I have the disease but by the Grace of God didn't become physically dependent. I had some whisperings early on but not for a while. My guess is being with my ex enabled me to project MY desires onto her, which gave me licence to drink.
I think I've only begun to be able to focus on me and to start to - start to - heal since I stopped drinking. And the process I've gone through is undoubtedly the same process the 12 steps takes people through and in roughly the same order although I think I'm going round and round, deeper and deeper.....I THOUGHT my life WAS unmanageable because SHE drank to excess and it was screwing Me and our finances up...(Al-anon)......ok, so hand it over......then I THOUGHT it was unmanageable because I was so distraught at her prospects/our kids.....ok, so hand it over.......Now I think it's unmanageable because actually, I'm pretty ill, probably have been for some time, and fell in love with a wonderfulwoman who happens to be an alcoholic so I could mask my pain by fixing her AND getting drunk at the same time......ok.......so hand it over......so THIS step 4 I'm now entering is about recognising how my psychological wounds played out in our relationship and hurt her, the wounded woman I love.
I never became physically dependant on alcohol either. I was a binge drinker. When I did drink I did things I never want to do again. I still consider myself an alcoholic. If you read the Doctor's Opinion it pretty much explains what an alcoholic is but of course no one can decide that but you. All I know is once I have a drink I have to continue until I pass out or run out but more often than not it was until I passed out. A good alkie never runs out <G>
I never ran out. Unthinkable.
Martin,
Thanks for the new posts, clarification, and vulnerablility it required to share more.
As for me, I completely agree with trusting my HP and this is why I've never pushed for hypnosis or the like with therapy. My only frustration is that the messge I received was, "oh well, sounds like it happened, now lets talk about why you're irritated with your boyfriend today". I guess my intention for therapy was different than theirs. In retrospect, I've come to trust my HP and truly believe that right now (and maybe never) I am not supposed to know for certain. More will be revealed and if not...I am okay with that. It is definitiely not something I think about often. Actually, haven't thought about if for a long while until I read your post on the family board and I recalled how burnt toes and a bare man's foot can send me into almost into a panic attack and I get physically nauseous.
You impress me so very much. Your raw honesty and vulnerablilty is remarkable.
I did want to add one thing. Just because of my psych education...I've always diverted from using generic, societal labels. They are just that...labels...they stick to the clothes but not to the soul. We are each children of a beautiful life force....nothing, no label can change that. I even have a hard time saying I am a recovering bulimic, cutter, alcoholic, depressive, mania at times (called hypo-mania)....these are just manmade words and do not describe me entirely. Anyway..just wanted to let you know that whether you are borderline, multiple, bi-polar, uni-polar, etc, etc...it doesn't change a thing about who you are or how I feel about you. Your story has always impressed me and I find it quite beautiful that you come and provide grace, ESH, and love to all, no matter how each of us identify ourselves (alcoholic, addict, al-anon). You are a gift to my recovery.
Thanks for the new posts, clarification, and vulnerablility it required to share more.
As for me, I completely agree with trusting my HP and this is why I've never pushed for hypnosis or the like with therapy. My only frustration is that the messge I received was, "oh well, sounds like it happened, now lets talk about why you're irritated with your boyfriend today". I guess my intention for therapy was different than theirs. In retrospect, I've come to trust my HP and truly believe that right now (and maybe never) I am not supposed to know for certain. More will be revealed and if not...I am okay with that. It is definitiely not something I think about often. Actually, haven't thought about if for a long while until I read your post on the family board and I recalled how burnt toes and a bare man's foot can send me into almost into a panic attack and I get physically nauseous.
You impress me so very much. Your raw honesty and vulnerablilty is remarkable.
I did want to add one thing. Just because of my psych education...I've always diverted from using generic, societal labels. They are just that...labels...they stick to the clothes but not to the soul. We are each children of a beautiful life force....nothing, no label can change that. I even have a hard time saying I am a recovering bulimic, cutter, alcoholic, depressive, mania at times (called hypo-mania)....these are just manmade words and do not describe me entirely. Anyway..just wanted to let you know that whether you are borderline, multiple, bi-polar, uni-polar, etc, etc...it doesn't change a thing about who you are or how I feel about you. Your story has always impressed me and I find it quite beautiful that you come and provide grace, ESH, and love to all, no matter how each of us identify ourselves (alcoholic, addict, al-anon). You are a gift to my recovery.
LOL...meant "burnt TOAST" not "burnt toes".
Lisa,
I'm glad if what I write has something for you. I don't claim credit. I think my HP is offering me an opportunity to be honest with myself and I sense my life depends on it. At the very least, my enjoying a good life depends on it. And I've been to enough meetings to know that what other people have to say sometimes touches me in profound ways that I feel serve my HP's purpose....Al-anon and AA are beautiful things.....that simple phrase "take what you like and leave the rest", an invitation to our hearts to open, our unconscious to highlight, our HP to gently nudge us.....wonderful.
I can't tell you the number of time just writing here or speaking on the phone to the Samaritans has clarified, distilled, awoken something inside of me, clearing the way for light to illuminate deeper levels of understanding....I'm the lucky recipient, all I have to do is be WILLING...willing to listen, to learn....and to share....there have been times when I've just listened or read and gained so much....right now this stuff is simply pouring out of me....there will come a time when it will stop, when the wound is emptied of its poison and can truly heal....tonight I realised, faced up to, how my stuff destroyed my first marriage as well as contributing to my break up with my ex.....for a year I simply blamed her alcoholism....now I see there were aspects of me that were entirely unconscious and that destroyed us.....and beyond that, I realise that if we had not reached our ending I would have continued as I was, unaware and self-satisfied, sleepwalking through life. When I went into that relatoinship I thought I was happy.....I believe now I was never free of my past and was in denial about the chains that bound me, the fear that ate me, kept me imprisoned within mental walls I didn't even know existed.....how strange this is....I am the same, yet different, something flesh and blood is growing from the blueprint, from the sketch....Pinnochio stares in wonder at his wound.....he bleeds!
At 50 years old this is the blessing I have been given: never, ever again will I delude myself that I understand life; it can never become ordinary for me again. What a wonderful gift!
I'm glad if what I write has something for you. I don't claim credit. I think my HP is offering me an opportunity to be honest with myself and I sense my life depends on it. At the very least, my enjoying a good life depends on it. And I've been to enough meetings to know that what other people have to say sometimes touches me in profound ways that I feel serve my HP's purpose....Al-anon and AA are beautiful things.....that simple phrase "take what you like and leave the rest", an invitation to our hearts to open, our unconscious to highlight, our HP to gently nudge us.....wonderful.
I can't tell you the number of time just writing here or speaking on the phone to the Samaritans has clarified, distilled, awoken something inside of me, clearing the way for light to illuminate deeper levels of understanding....I'm the lucky recipient, all I have to do is be WILLING...willing to listen, to learn....and to share....there have been times when I've just listened or read and gained so much....right now this stuff is simply pouring out of me....there will come a time when it will stop, when the wound is emptied of its poison and can truly heal....tonight I realised, faced up to, how my stuff destroyed my first marriage as well as contributing to my break up with my ex.....for a year I simply blamed her alcoholism....now I see there were aspects of me that were entirely unconscious and that destroyed us.....and beyond that, I realise that if we had not reached our ending I would have continued as I was, unaware and self-satisfied, sleepwalking through life. When I went into that relatoinship I thought I was happy.....I believe now I was never free of my past and was in denial about the chains that bound me, the fear that ate me, kept me imprisoned within mental walls I didn't even know existed.....how strange this is....I am the same, yet different, something flesh and blood is growing from the blueprint, from the sketch....Pinnochio stares in wonder at his wound.....he bleeds!
At 50 years old this is the blessing I have been given: never, ever again will I delude myself that I understand life; it can never become ordinary for me again. What a wonderful gift!
Martin, again, your vulnerablity and complete honesty leaves me with gratitude in this board, the process of recovery, and your part in my recovery. Thank you.
