Who wins this two faced barricade? My alcoholism hides behind a Jeckyll and Hyde. It will sneak up on ya to show it's ugly head. Be aware!
When I don't drink I'm generally a pretty nice person. I'm in contol of my thoughts, feelings and behavior. I react differently sober. It doesn't mean I don't get mad. I just have alot more control. Maybe I'm confused about the title of the thread Lineman. Care to enlighten me a bit more?
Today I told a friend, "the big book was written for a gal like me. Dr. Jekyl/Mr Hyde all the way for this alcoholic. I am so grateful for the inspiration Bill and Bob received years ago...they wrote a book that brings me hope and shows me continually that I can't drink like a lady. I love the daily reprieve from this monkey on my back, in my head, and keeps me away from the authentic being I am.
Yep, Jekyll and Hyde is me all over. Always has been. Two personalities - at least!! It's not easy. Have you read the big book? It talks about the Jekyll and Hyde scenario in there.
Lineman I have.two personalities for sure . One sober one and one drunk one. The sober one is a lot better one though. I hope my sober one wins the battle.
I'm still Jeckyll and Hyde even though I am sober!
Only two people in there? lol......Here's my list:
Abandoned, previously silently dying, now howling child
The Warrior who protects him
Magnificent Winged Creature
Black panther/Beast/Rage
Optimistic, bouncy little boy.....in denial about/unaware of everything some of the others feel and get up to
Wise father figure....finally appearing....
Drummer boy, full of energy and music and passion and clashing symbols!
Eleanor....my dancing, dark haired anima
My Self
I have only ever felt whole and fully alive when doing one of three things: making love, dancing and playing football (soccer to you lot).....what do these activities have in common? Absence of ego.....I guess it gave the appropriate others a chance to come out and play....I know now that when I'm dancing The Warrior dances with Eleanor and my drummer boy goes crazy.....and I know it was The Warrior who drove me drunk and 90 miles an hour across the city that night and didn't flinch when "I" thought the car had gone out of control at a roundabout or feel relieved when he righted it....it was like "I" was watching a movie...he doesn't feel a thing....I can never let him hook up with my rage and I know alcohol lowers that barrier and boy did that Rage want to take control of me when I was drinking....... less so now I am not drinking and am acknowledging my rage..feeling it....welcoming it, validating it and just not acting on it...it's only a feeling...... instead of trying to deby it/control it/lock it up deep down....
Does any of that make me an advanced Schizo....lol....I was feeling some of these entities making themselves known in therapy a few months ago (Rage was first) .....and even before that my therapist had suggested I read Jung....I didn't.....then a month or two later God gave me a work-related reason to pick up a book about Jungian typology, so I did without consciously thinking about what my therapist had said....and it's all in there...my life is in there.....that took me to various websites and a topic called "Multiplicity", which is mainstream psychiatry that conceptualises personality as a grouping/clustering of sub-personalities, with most people having between 3 and 7 reasonably distinct ways of being int he world.....I guess you could think of it as being the parts of who we are who emerge when we are quite young to handle different aspects of our life experiences.......which Jung says come together to form the unique person at a pace and in a way of our own timing (never more than we can handle), often accelerating in mid-life as our egos become more secure and our repressed parts more demanding of attention - hence the conflict and mental trauma as it is all worked out....
Someone (I can't recall who) writes that children have to overcome two major psychological challenges to grow healthily....the first is to separate from the mother/parents (I mean at a very young age - recognising that "I" am me and "she" is someone/something else entirely) and the second is to overcome "splitting", which is where we hive off certain aspects of ourselves to specialise/cope with life events....
With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight and a year in counselling I think I failed both....no wonder I never felt good enough - flunked my very first tests! lol
Only Jekyll and Hyde? I've got a football team in here!
Point of the post - it's normal but no-one knows about it.
People who sense it about themselves is likely to try to deny it/repress it and flee....often ending up a quivering wreck. And drinking maybe?
Integration is health....the process of integration is recovery....the Self is a HP, a greater intelligence marshalling the resources of the Unconscious.....and in contact with whatever is sacred within it, throughout it and beyond it......which some call God.
I don't imagine I would have believed any of this if I had read it first.....it would just be words.....which is why I guess God made me ignore my therapist's advice for a month or two about reading Jung until I'd actually experienced it what he wrote about. Before I read him I just thought I was going mad, my mind disintegrating.....but then to read about it and have it all explained by Jung and modern psychiatry as normal...and I was simply becoming aware of what had haunted me all my life.....Another little miracle made just for me, which I share with you just in case.....
Did you know that Jung was instrumental in shaping AA? Below is a link to Bill Wilson's letter of thanks to Carl Jung.
http://www.barefootsworld.net/wilsonletter.html
Thanks for letting me share.
Abandoned, previously silently dying, now howling child
The Warrior who protects him
Magnificent Winged Creature
Black panther/Beast/Rage
Optimistic, bouncy little boy.....in denial about/unaware of everything some of the others feel and get up to
Wise father figure....finally appearing....
Drummer boy, full of energy and music and passion and clashing symbols!
Eleanor....my dancing, dark haired anima
My Self
I have only ever felt whole and fully alive when doing one of three things: making love, dancing and playing football (soccer to you lot).....what do these activities have in common? Absence of ego.....I guess it gave the appropriate others a chance to come out and play....I know now that when I'm dancing The Warrior dances with Eleanor and my drummer boy goes crazy.....and I know it was The Warrior who drove me drunk and 90 miles an hour across the city that night and didn't flinch when "I" thought the car had gone out of control at a roundabout or feel relieved when he righted it....it was like "I" was watching a movie...he doesn't feel a thing....I can never let him hook up with my rage and I know alcohol lowers that barrier and boy did that Rage want to take control of me when I was drinking....... less so now I am not drinking and am acknowledging my rage..feeling it....welcoming it, validating it and just not acting on it...it's only a feeling...... instead of trying to deby it/control it/lock it up deep down....
Does any of that make me an advanced Schizo....lol....I was feeling some of these entities making themselves known in therapy a few months ago (Rage was first) .....and even before that my therapist had suggested I read Jung....I didn't.....then a month or two later God gave me a work-related reason to pick up a book about Jungian typology, so I did without consciously thinking about what my therapist had said....and it's all in there...my life is in there.....that took me to various websites and a topic called "Multiplicity", which is mainstream psychiatry that conceptualises personality as a grouping/clustering of sub-personalities, with most people having between 3 and 7 reasonably distinct ways of being int he world.....I guess you could think of it as being the parts of who we are who emerge when we are quite young to handle different aspects of our life experiences.......which Jung says come together to form the unique person at a pace and in a way of our own timing (never more than we can handle), often accelerating in mid-life as our egos become more secure and our repressed parts more demanding of attention - hence the conflict and mental trauma as it is all worked out....
Someone (I can't recall who) writes that children have to overcome two major psychological challenges to grow healthily....the first is to separate from the mother/parents (I mean at a very young age - recognising that "I" am me and "she" is someone/something else entirely) and the second is to overcome "splitting", which is where we hive off certain aspects of ourselves to specialise/cope with life events....
With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight and a year in counselling I think I failed both....no wonder I never felt good enough - flunked my very first tests! lol
Only Jekyll and Hyde? I've got a football team in here!
Point of the post - it's normal but no-one knows about it.
People who sense it about themselves is likely to try to deny it/repress it and flee....often ending up a quivering wreck. And drinking maybe?
Integration is health....the process of integration is recovery....the Self is a HP, a greater intelligence marshalling the resources of the Unconscious.....and in contact with whatever is sacred within it, throughout it and beyond it......which some call God.
I don't imagine I would have believed any of this if I had read it first.....it would just be words.....which is why I guess God made me ignore my therapist's advice for a month or two about reading Jung until I'd actually experienced it what he wrote about. Before I read him I just thought I was going mad, my mind disintegrating.....but then to read about it and have it all explained by Jung and modern psychiatry as normal...and I was simply becoming aware of what had haunted me all my life.....Another little miracle made just for me, which I share with you just in case.....
Did you know that Jung was instrumental in shaping AA? Below is a link to Bill Wilson's letter of thanks to Carl Jung.
http://www.barefootsworld.net/wilsonletter.html
Thanks for letting me share.
So, When I turned 40 five years ago thats what happened to me. All those repressed truama's were emerging. I was trying to get sober. I would be sober for a month and I hated my memories so I'd drink again. I didn't want to remember them.
I couldn't bear them alone.
This went on for another 5 yrs. Until I found the safety net of a well qualified therapist to work with. Someone I could feel safe with, someone I made a connection with. Martin I will check out the link later. Thank You, for sharing your ESH again. Multiplicity makes more sense today.
I couldn't bear them alone.
This went on for another 5 yrs. Until I found the safety net of a well qualified therapist to work with. Someone I could feel safe with, someone I made a connection with. Martin I will check out the link later. Thank You, for sharing your ESH again. Multiplicity makes more sense today.
Chris,
That link is just a letter from Bill W to Jung. I find it fascinating that Jungian analysis and therapy covers the same ground as the 12 steps...independently developed but coming towards similar conclusions and solutions about alcoholism....although obviously Jung covered a wider territory and lots of other types of human suffering. there's tons of stuff about Jung on the web and I'll look some up later this week if your interested (away for a couple of days working tonight)....but here's a very interesting site on Multiplicity. It's a site set up to help step families understand and cope with the impact of "low-nurturance families" that so many of us seem to come from. It's a complex site and a bit confusing but I found the stuff fascinating if you're interested in understanding what's going on - which personally I found necesary to preserve my sanity and my life....I've linked the page on addiction but the issue of Multiplicity is far wider than that....covering other mental health issues like Bipolar and Borderline disorders etc....
I hope you find it interesting. Take care. Meeting my inner family has been essential for me to heal....I suspect the 12 steps would have done the same things for me but from a different perspective. Have fun!
http://sfhelp.org/01/addiction1.htm
That link is just a letter from Bill W to Jung. I find it fascinating that Jungian analysis and therapy covers the same ground as the 12 steps...independently developed but coming towards similar conclusions and solutions about alcoholism....although obviously Jung covered a wider territory and lots of other types of human suffering. there's tons of stuff about Jung on the web and I'll look some up later this week if your interested (away for a couple of days working tonight)....but here's a very interesting site on Multiplicity. It's a site set up to help step families understand and cope with the impact of "low-nurturance families" that so many of us seem to come from. It's a complex site and a bit confusing but I found the stuff fascinating if you're interested in understanding what's going on - which personally I found necesary to preserve my sanity and my life....I've linked the page on addiction but the issue of Multiplicity is far wider than that....covering other mental health issues like Bipolar and Borderline disorders etc....
I hope you find it interesting. Take care. Meeting my inner family has been essential for me to heal....I suspect the 12 steps would have done the same things for me but from a different perspective. Have fun!
http://sfhelp.org/01/addiction1.htm
Schizophrenic basic needs Fools me into complacency But now I see through your facade Behind the mask a monster snarls.
My alcoholism is its own identity, an entity. It is a master deceiver that tells me a subterfuge that is very believable. It resides in the good part of my Jekyll and Hyde, but faces a barricade. I also face a barricade with the constant white knuckling of it's sickening reappearance in my life. I pray to God for it not to rear it's ugly head. The alcoholism has crossed the line of the barricade and now resides in my good side. So now I have a two faced barricade to deal with. I can only go so far on both sides of the barricade.
It sucks crossing the line.
My alcoholism is its own identity, an entity. It is a master deceiver that tells me a subterfuge that is very believable. It resides in the good part of my Jekyll and Hyde, but faces a barricade. I also face a barricade with the constant white knuckling of it's sickening reappearance in my life. I pray to God for it not to rear it's ugly head. The alcoholism has crossed the line of the barricade and now resides in my good side. So now I have a two faced barricade to deal with. I can only go so far on both sides of the barricade.
It sucks crossing the line.
the BB is spot on "...resembles his usual self but little"
Boy did Bill W and the others get inspiration from a super intelligence when that book was written - no human hand alone could have written such a powerful and enduring message.
One lesson I've learned in the last 2 years is that I must stay away from the temptation to over complicate and over think the program, alcoholism and my own sobriety. Its a simple program and its easy to complicate it.
Boy did Bill W and the others get inspiration from a super intelligence when that book was written - no human hand alone could have written such a powerful and enduring message.
One lesson I've learned in the last 2 years is that I must stay away from the temptation to over complicate and over think the program, alcoholism and my own sobriety. Its a simple program and its easy to complicate it.
Gidday All
I know when im Jekyll and i know when im Hyde, now i have options to counter the personna that wants to drink and both do at times...all i do to counter it is dont drink, read the bigbook( not as much as i should), goe to meetings and post here when i can one day at a time
light and love zac
I know when im Jekyll and i know when im Hyde, now i have options to counter the personna that wants to drink and both do at times...all i do to counter it is dont drink, read the bigbook( not as much as i should), goe to meetings and post here when i can one day at a time
light and love zac
idgie, thanks for reminding me to Keep It Simple. I do tend to over complicate things.
