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<blockquote data-quote="recoveringenabler" data-source="post: 505911" data-attributes="member: 13542"><p>Thanks for the support, I need it to get through this. Yes, funny it is, and you're both right, it helps so much to laugh at it all. I just managed to get myself through a sticky moment. As I progress through what my therapist calls, <em>codependent recovery</em>, many old feelings that I perhaps did not allow myself to feel when I was simply accommodating the needs of others, are surfacing. I just had the yuckiest couple of hours of these intense feelings of anger and feeling trapped come up. Fortunately for me, I know enough not to flip out, much as I wanted to start screaming and really, leave the house and hop on a plane to ANYWHERE! I told my fiancee that I was leaving the house for awhile to get some fresh air and get out, I asked him if he wanted to come and drive around with me. He agreed and we left. I vented to the poor guy for an hour. Then I dropped him off and went out again and drove around by myself. I just kept thinking of all the times I have put the needs of others ahead of my own. My daughter is having a hard time because tomorrow is the 12th anniversary of her husbands death (suicide) and my granddaughter was giving me excuses for some bad grades that she got, and I just felt as if there was no air to breathe in the room. I left. I was really churning inside, I felt very angry, but also as if there is no where to go, a bad place for me to be, I don't like feeling as if I am in a box and can't get out. I came back home and it occurred to me that the box I am in is one I put myself in by trying to make everyone around me happy, trying to meet everyone's needs, keeping my fiancee breathing freely (the darn cats) keeping my granddaughter from being embarrassed by her mothers tent-living and odd behavior, trying to heal this mess with my daughter so we can find some middle ground to stand on, it's exhausting!!! So, I didn't know what to do, so I just showed up in front of my daughter and told her exactly how I was feeling. I said, "I've worked really hard to have a calm, peaceful and happy life and the choices you've made for the last 20years have continually interrupted that." When she began explaining her choices and justifying her behavior, I just cut her off and said, "right now, this is about me, I am talking about how I feel." I said, "your life is so full of drama, intensity and bad choices that there has never been any room for how I feel, and I am a person and I have feelings and you need to hear them." I wouldn't allow her to speak. I said my peace. Then I went to my granddaughters room and said a minor version of the same thing, saying, "I understand how you feel, you explained yourself, now this is how I feel." Whew. I have usually been very quiet and allowed myself to be overrun with my daughter's dramatic life and of course, teenagers my nature are self absorbed to some degree and live in their own orbit not really noticing the adults around them. Well, everyone noticed me tonight! I was calm and communicated clearly and with compassion, but I was direct and firm. If I am going to survive this adventure with my daughter staying here and my granddaughter living here, I am going to have to show up in a completely different way. I see that now. No more leaning in the direction of everyone else's needs, I have to lean into my own and verbalize them, clearly. This recovery stuff is grueling. I can see progress, I really can, but breaking these patterns is tough. It's like stopping a runaway train while trying to build new tracks which are made out of twigs!! I am tired a lot from having to really think each situation through because I am really not reacting in the way I used to, but the new behavior is not right there automatically showing up, so in that lag time I am grasping in the air for new ways of reacting and sometimes there's nothing there but empty space!! And, I am also having old angers and feelings bubble up at times, which are not really appropriate to the present moment, old stuff surfacing and then dissipating. I think this is all ultimately <u>REALLY </u>TERRIFIC, it's healing these patterns and behaviors that don't work anymore, for any of us. but it's<u> really c</u>hallenging to go through too. Sigh. I feel very tired. This is hard work. I believe in my heart that there is a reason for this, that all that I am doing now will lead somewhere different for all of us. I did see two very different people in front of me as I was asserting myself, they were really listening and both were quiet. <em><strong>There was no drama. </strong></em>Maybe for the moment, that's as good as it gets. Well, if anyone has any thoughts, insights, stories or their own experience with their own changes, I'm all ears. Thanks for listening...........</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="recoveringenabler, post: 505911, member: 13542"] Thanks for the support, I need it to get through this. Yes, funny it is, and you're both right, it helps so much to laugh at it all. I just managed to get myself through a sticky moment. As I progress through what my therapist calls, [I]codependent recovery[/I], many old feelings that I perhaps did not allow myself to feel when I was simply accommodating the needs of others, are surfacing. I just had the yuckiest couple of hours of these intense feelings of anger and feeling trapped come up. Fortunately for me, I know enough not to flip out, much as I wanted to start screaming and really, leave the house and hop on a plane to ANYWHERE! I told my fiancee that I was leaving the house for awhile to get some fresh air and get out, I asked him if he wanted to come and drive around with me. He agreed and we left. I vented to the poor guy for an hour. Then I dropped him off and went out again and drove around by myself. I just kept thinking of all the times I have put the needs of others ahead of my own. My daughter is having a hard time because tomorrow is the 12th anniversary of her husbands death (suicide) and my granddaughter was giving me excuses for some bad grades that she got, and I just felt as if there was no air to breathe in the room. I left. I was really churning inside, I felt very angry, but also as if there is no where to go, a bad place for me to be, I don't like feeling as if I am in a box and can't get out. I came back home and it occurred to me that the box I am in is one I put myself in by trying to make everyone around me happy, trying to meet everyone's needs, keeping my fiancee breathing freely (the darn cats) keeping my granddaughter from being embarrassed by her mothers tent-living and odd behavior, trying to heal this mess with my daughter so we can find some middle ground to stand on, it's exhausting!!! So, I didn't know what to do, so I just showed up in front of my daughter and told her exactly how I was feeling. I said, "I've worked really hard to have a calm, peaceful and happy life and the choices you've made for the last 20years have continually interrupted that." When she began explaining her choices and justifying her behavior, I just cut her off and said, "right now, this is about me, I am talking about how I feel." I said, "your life is so full of drama, intensity and bad choices that there has never been any room for how I feel, and I am a person and I have feelings and you need to hear them." I wouldn't allow her to speak. I said my peace. Then I went to my granddaughters room and said a minor version of the same thing, saying, "I understand how you feel, you explained yourself, now this is how I feel." Whew. I have usually been very quiet and allowed myself to be overrun with my daughter's dramatic life and of course, teenagers my nature are self absorbed to some degree and live in their own orbit not really noticing the adults around them. Well, everyone noticed me tonight! I was calm and communicated clearly and with compassion, but I was direct and firm. If I am going to survive this adventure with my daughter staying here and my granddaughter living here, I am going to have to show up in a completely different way. I see that now. No more leaning in the direction of everyone else's needs, I have to lean into my own and verbalize them, clearly. This recovery stuff is grueling. I can see progress, I really can, but breaking these patterns is tough. It's like stopping a runaway train while trying to build new tracks which are made out of twigs!! I am tired a lot from having to really think each situation through because I am really not reacting in the way I used to, but the new behavior is not right there automatically showing up, so in that lag time I am grasping in the air for new ways of reacting and sometimes there's nothing there but empty space!! And, I am also having old angers and feelings bubble up at times, which are not really appropriate to the present moment, old stuff surfacing and then dissipating. I think this is all ultimately [U]REALLY [/U]TERRIFIC, it's healing these patterns and behaviors that don't work anymore, for any of us. but it's[U] really c[/U]hallenging to go through too. Sigh. I feel very tired. This is hard work. I believe in my heart that there is a reason for this, that all that I am doing now will lead somewhere different for all of us. I did see two very different people in front of me as I was asserting myself, they were really listening and both were quiet. [I][B]There was no drama. [/B][/I]Maybe for the moment, that's as good as it gets. Well, if anyone has any thoughts, insights, stories or their own experience with their own changes, I'm all ears. Thanks for listening........... [/QUOTE]
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