Emotional battering

[P]

(((((October))))) not wicked, no.

My dad thinks I am telling C too much.

Your Dad loves his denial though and he wants you in on the act. And C too. It's not what you tell, it's the intention.

Children like truth a whole lot more than adults do. I disagree with your Dad. So do you - good

Hope it stays dry for your shopping, take care, Portia

[Brigid]

Bless you October for not hiding your xh's alcoholism from C.  I think an even worse legacy for children of alcoholics is the denial of the addiction.  I think it causes a serious distortion of their reality and they cannot release the feelings of anger, instability, insecurity and fear that the behavior creates if the people living with it are not willing to acknowledge it.

I believe this is why my H is so messed up.  His very high-functioning alcoholic father was allowed to hide the addiction from everyone outside the family, the children were never allowed to deal with their fear of it and he never took responsibility for it.  Every child in that family has some sort of dysfunction that can be directly linked to the alcoholism.  My MIL just enabled it and never put her children first.

My father was also an alcoholic, in addition to other members of my family.  I think another important aspect of acknowledging the existence of this addiction to our children, is the potential of the inherited propensity to develop the addiction.  I have made it clear to my son (my daughter is adopted so not the same issue) that he has this addiction on both sides of the family and he must always be very aware that it is in his genetic make-up.  His broken family will just up the ante.

Don't ever question how you are handling this situation or question your goodness.  You are taking care of the two people who matter most and the only ones over whom you have any control.

(((((((October & C))))))))

Brigid

[Anonymous]

Hi all:

Not much time this morning October but I just wanted to say re:

His family think I abandoned him

By being too afraid to admit he has a problem, by denying, it is they who are truly abandoning him.  They might think it's love to ignor bad behaviour and make excuses but it is selfish.....easier than being honest, makes them look good in his eyes (they think), gets them out of dealing with it, or trying to help and they don't have to protect anyone, because there isn't anything to protect anyone from.

Ofcourse your decision has protected you and your child from much more pain and your courage in acknowledging, facing, and explaining the truth to your child shows your goodness and bravery, October.  I agree with the others....(as Portia put it..I think)......never wicked October.

Now sorting out information on local Alateen meetings - never bothered before, but it may help C now. Also, have printed out bereavement leaflet, written for young people. Helps to know what to expect, and to find phone numbers.

Good job October.  Practical steps to help.  How about Alanon for you?  It might help.  Think how it helps to be understood here.  Imagine a room full of people doing that...who know your pain and caring and confusion.  I hope you will consider going.  It's support for you.  Look after you too, October.

But I had to validate her reality. I would not have known the words then, but I had to tell her that what she said matters, and that I believed her.

You have such beautiful, natural and keen mothering instincts, October.  She is so lucky.  I mean it.

D has never learned the difference between truth and fiction. If he wants it to be true, it becomes true. And his whole family is playing the same game, at present. My family has a version of this game all their own. No wonder I am so mixed up.

It's so frustrating, isn't it.   It's like seeing a ghost that every one else refuses to see or something.  The denial is part of the disease.  There are definately choices being made by all but those choices are being ruled by the disease.   It's easier/less frightening than facing/admitting/dealing with the truth...that there is a disease and that choices can be made to deal with it.

It is confusing to look at people and wonder how the heck they can stare alcoholism in the face and just pretend it isn't there.  I do think Alanon will help to uncomplicate some of this confusion for you October, if you want to go, that is.  Take care of you either way.

((((((((October and C))))))))

GFN

[October]

 I do think Alanon will help to uncomplicate some of this confusion for you October, if you want to go, that is.  Take care of you either way.

Thanks, GFN.  I am rather wary of any kind of alcohol support group for myself, because of past events.  When ex was still living in this town he was in alcohol rehab for 18 months here, and after that had close links with an alcohol centre in town.  To start with the people there were friendly to both of us - well, all three if you include C.  We used to go there to meet ex's friends and such, and he spent a lot of time there.  He can be very charming.  Can't they all?  But then the person in charge left and someone else took over, who was a good friend to ex at the time.  Sadly she bought the lies from him; the ones that said that I was a real bitch, and that he drank to get over that, and that if it were not for me, everything would be fine and dandy for him.  He turned her into his mother figure, and she bought into it.

I rang one day, not realising that this agenda was in place, to ask whether they could provide supervised access for his visits to C, and was met with hostility, suspicion and hesitancy.  I was in desperation because there was no buffer; he was coming to my house, and sometimes turning up drunk, and there was only me to close the door on him.     The woman in charge refused to help, and not very politely.  I know I can be oversensitive, but there was no mistake this time; she was suspicious of me, and protective of ex.  She didn't believe that he was dangerous or a threat to either myself or C.  

I learned to be very wary of anyone who had heard the 'poor me' story from ex.  Which could be pretty well anyone involved with alcohol rehab in this town, including AA people.

I know this is daft, and that it is one of the first things you learn, that the drinker is responsible, and that he or she will try to shift this responsibility onto anyone else they can find, rather than deal with it themselves.  But this woman, in charge of the project in town, somehow forgot, or didn't realise, or whatever, and I got hurt in the process.  So I think I learned to have nothing to do with any of them; there is a poison in alcohol, far more than in the drink itself.

Better to be alone on your own than alone in a crowd.  

[October]

I think another important aspect of acknowledging the existence of this addiction to our children, is the potential of the inherited propensity to develop the addiction.  
Brigid

Thanks Brigid.  I really value your comments; alcoholism is a terrible  thing for any family to have to deal with.  I would be no good counselling the wives and husbands, I am afraid.  I would say, get out of there straight away.  Stop hoping for recovery.  Get out.  Then if recovery happens, maybe you can go back.  But don't hold your breath.

However, on the other comment, about the children, I am concerned for this too.  For many years I drank no alcohol at all.  Nothing.  But now I drink wine with meals maybe four or five times a year, and I usually add water to the wine, so that in two glasses I only drink one.  And I let C have a glass the same; half wine, half water.  Like the continental people do with their children.  I hope that she learns from this that drinking is something you do with other people, socially, and as part of sharing good times and meals.  I think she has seen enough of the effect on her dad not to want to go anywhere near the same path.  

Ex used to decline a drink with me, if I offered say a glass of wine in the evening after work.  He would wait until I had gone to bed, and then drink on his own.  Very different pattern.

[Anonymous]

Hi October:

the drinker is responsible, and that he or she will try to shift this responsibility onto anyone else they can find, rather than deal with it themselves. But this woman, in charge of the project in town, somehow forgot, or didn't realise, or whatever, and I got hurt in the process. So I think I learned to have nothing to do with any of them;

Is she that powerful?  I wonder if she is thaaaaat capable?  Or could she just be another N on a power trip/trying to look like she is an n-god?

Alanon is a support group for the friends and family members of alcoholics.  It's for those who live with or care about their alcoholic friend/family member.  The focus is on helping themselves stop enabling the behaviour and supporting eachother during the process.  Also helping eachother cope with the effects of alcoholism/the alcoholic has had on their lives (I don't know if it is written that way anywhere but that's basically what I remember it being about).

It might be worth risking one meeting to see if it feels right?  I don't know October.  Even if you get some of their literature to read, it might help a little.  They helped me change my life so I'm a big fan.  I know it's hard to take that first step, especially if you're afraid this woman has poisoned everyone against you.  Is there another town, not too far away, that you might consider going to for a meeting?

GFN

[Stormchild]

Hmm... I probably should just keep my mouth shut, but part of the reason I'm on this board so much is that I've had soooo many really bad experiences with 12-Step groups.

I've had some good ones, too, but it seems to me to be so dependent on luck. There are Al-Anon and ACOA groups where I live now, and it turns out that there is one - just one! - extreme nar who goes to ALL of these meetings and yaps and yaps and yaps. Self, self, me, me, me, self, self. Group does nothing about it, so the nar sucks all the oxygen out of the air, and all the time out of the meeting. I went three times, confirmed the pattern, and haven't been back.

Another group I tried just about tore some poor man to shreds because he mentioned a book by John Bradshaw, and egad! it wasn't 'Conference Approved Literature'. Good lord. people were all over this poor b**tard, who had come there for healing and was trying to share something that helped him. I ran over to him as soon as the meeting ended - he lasted through it, somehow - and told him how sorry I was and that he should take this as evidence of an extremely unhealthy group, not evidence that he'd done or said anything the least bit wrong. I never went back to that one either. [This was a few years back. today, I would have stood up and gone over to him immediately and asked him to step out for coffee right then, and spared us both the idiocy of sitting through a meeting that had just shown itself to be useless for either of us. We live and learn.]

Finally, I just posted to write today about an alcoholic I nearly married who was sober - dry, rather - when courting me and dived off the wagon the minute we became engaged (I said soemthing to wiish awhile ago about fouling their own nest; this is what I was thinking of). He agreed to go to joint counseling, where he proceeded to lie to and flatter and suck up to the (male) therapist, who feel for it like a rock. Un-expletiving-believable, and nothing but sexist blind idiocy, as far as I could tell. Finally my by then ex fiance had a major alcoholic hissy fit in the office during a counseling session because I insisted on confronting him about something and having it admitted to and responsibility taken for it. Hard to cover that one up.

Plenty of people do plenty of damage in these places. October is wise to be wary. Healthy groups are out there for sure, I've known them, but you really have to watch and wait before you wade in.

[October]

October is wise to be wary. Healthy groups are out there for sure, I've known them, but you really have to watch and wait before you wade in.

Thanks, Storm. ((((hugs))))

I am not against sharing with others, but as you say, I would be very wary.  I don't go out much, and I don't have many friends in contact at present, but the ones I do have are those people who are not embroiled in dysfunctional lives, or if they are, their dysfunction is not the same as mine.  

I am not sure it would be healthy for me to spend too much time with others in my own kind of position, whether ptsd or anything else.  I would start to think the whole world lives as I do, and that is not true.

If I go to see a friend, I prefer to talk about their family, or about theology, or world politics, or poverty, or gardening.  Anything 'normal'.  

When I used to go to church, one of the lay people there was convinced that if only I met a 'friend' of hers, who had an abusive, alcoholic husband, it would help both her and me.  I declined several times, because I did not feel strong enough to carry this friend, (I tend to listen and support, and I did not have any listening left.   )  So I kept saying no, then one time I was at church and the lay reader rushed over to say this friend was present, and would I say hello.  That time I had to be rather more assertive in saying no.     But I did it.  Then I ran.  

It may be different for C, and for her sake I will try the alateen meetings with her.  But I think the rest might not be for me.  Or not yet, perhaps.  If the leader of the major alcohol rehab project in this town, a very respected project, can blame me in this way, anyone can.  And I am not going to let them get the chance.  (This is a normal response of a ptsd sufferer; withdrawal/avoidance following traumatisation, to prevent further damage, possibly constituting retraumatisation.  Enough of this is how you develop social phobia/agoraphobia.)  

[October]

Is she that powerful?  I wonder if she is thaaaaat capable?  Or could she just be another N on a power trip/trying to look like she is an n-god?

I know it's hard to take that first step, especially if you're afraid this woman has poisoned everyone against you.  Is there another town, not too far away, that you might consider going to for a meeting?

GFN

I don't think this woman has poisoned anyone, she is not actively malicious towards me, as far as I know.  But clearly there is a legacy from ex being here for so long.  I might talk to people who know him, without realising it, and even hear about this man who had a b**ch of a wife, and how terribly she treated him.  No point even beginning to go there, imo.

If I were strong enough on hearing this to laugh and say, well, I am sure she was a really nice person when those around her were sober, that would be fine.  But part of me is very suggestible, and the first thing I do when I hear that someone thinks badly of me, is to think, maybe it is true.  There is plenty of evidence that way, and how can I be so arrogant as to discount all of it?  People in positions of power are not powerful per se, but they have power in that we listen to them, and consider their viewpoint, because we think, surely they cannot be so petty as to be biased, or so stupid to forget the rules, and fall for these stories.  It takes me a long time to sort out that, actually, they are wrong.  Just plain wrong.  And it takes a lot of emotional energy on the way, which I do not have to spare.  So I keep away.  

Perhaps another town, yes.  If I moved house I would probably try Alanon, just to see, I think.  Or maybe at that point I would want to move on, and forget all of this.  I would want to find my own life, rather than being haunted by my marriage, which ended several years ago.

[dogbit]

My brief experience with 12-step groups is that they tend to focus on "gee, it was awful but I survived without drinking, smoking, ingesting....whatever.  They seem not to take the next logical step.  Where do we go from here.  Sort of narcissistic.  They can always dwell on the superiority of having stopped drinking, smoking, ingesting whatever without taking the extra 13th step of how do we give back to those in need or those we have wronged.  And I understand what you mean by people in power, a.k.a. people with a "title".  We do tend to place more importance on their opinions.  Not a safe road to travel.  Ask Bill Clinton...(he was one of our more less-distinguished Presidents) who could contort the English (or US language   ) to say anything he wanted.  It does not disguise the fact that he was a jerk.  OOOOOHHHHNOOOO...my soapbox is going too fast.....I'll quit for now except to say I think you have the situation described quite accurately.  Anything you might hear of this person and whatever characterization he has dumped on his new friends of his history is only further support of why you are doing the right thing for you.  He is supporting his program...you are supporting yourself.....no contest....sorry....this is seeming to be a ranting/raving on my part for which I will I will take responsibility

[October]

Just a quick update to say that I am spending a lot of time gardening at present, due to wonderfully clement weather.  Pulling weeds out of the lawn is very therapeutic at present, except that there are so many weeds I have to use grass seed afterwards!! - I seem to have remembered why I always used to do so much gardening before, when ex was still around.  Finding or bringing order into the chaos, I think it is.  But the advantage is that the garden is looking better every day.  Just a bit at a time.

And the washing and ironing is up to date like never before.  Stress does weird things to people!!!!        

Otherwise, everything is quiet at present.  I have bought some more winegums for C to send to her dad if she feels like writing to him, but otherwise I am keeping away from even thinking about him and his situation.  No doubt there will be further difficult times ahead, but at least we are not living in them every day.  

We seem to have got most of our balance back again now.  Cs tummy is still painful - I think I forgot to say that it started hurting a lot last week, round about Wednesday, and she had to miss two days tutoring.  But we are on course again for this week, starting tomorrow.

[Anonymous]

I'm glad you're doing better October.
I'm sorry to hear about C's tummy, though. Does stress make it worse for her or was that just coincedence?
Good luck with the weeds. I can't even look at my lawn without a grimace. It would be easier to turn it under and start over.  

(((((O&C)))))

[October]

I'm glad you're doing better October.
I'm sorry to hear about C's tummy, though. Does stress make it worse for her or was that just coincedence?
Good luck with the weeds. I can't even look at my lawn without a grimace. It would be easier to turn it under and start over.  

(((((O&C)))))

Yes, stress makes her tummy hurt a lot more.  That is mostly why we had to give up on school for a while.  I have since found out about something called Leaky Gut syndrome, which links intestinal disorders with anxiety, due to something or other leaking through the intestinal wall and affecting the mind.  She should eventually get more resilient, as she recovers.  

The lawn is bad, as you say.  Most years I just let it get on with being whatever it is.   Dandelions and daisies.  But this week I have turned into a weird gardening obsessive.         Could be worse.  Pathological gardening.      

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone:

Hiya October:

Perhaps another town, yes. If I moved house I would probably try Alanon, just to see, I think. Or maybe at that point I would want to move on, and forget all of this. I would want to find my own life, rather than being haunted by my marriage, which ended several years ago.

Wouldn't that be great!!!  Maybe that will happen soon?  Maybe you'll be joining art classes and ladies coffee groups and stuff..just for you!!  

That's what I hope for you October, some special you-time, just for you, to help you have a little fun and enjoy/build a life of your own.  Some day your daughter may leave and I hope by then you will have a whole lot of stuff you do for you, because it will make everything a little easier.

Pathological gardening.      

Too funny!!    

Hope you like gardening.  I do.   Last year I built 9 gardens and grew a lot of stuff from seed.  Many perenials.   This year I am glad to say, I see many of them coming back up!!  (Except the massive hail today may injure some....I don't know ).  I find gardening very therapeautic.  

Glad your daughter is doing better and recovering.

GFN

[Brigid]

October,
I'm glad to hear that things are improving for you and C.  Sorry about her tummy troubles, but hopefully that is looking up also.

I know what you mean about the yard and garden.  I finally got the front yard mowed last week (I think the neighbors are glad too) and will get the back yard done this week when the temps warm up.

Gardening is very therapeudic and seeing the new growth in the spring does give you feelings of hope.

Blessings,

Brigid