12 Step Issues

[gratitude28]

Not sure how many of you, if any, have done or are doing a 12 step deal... If there is anyone, I need help...

I have done my 5th and feel it is well taken care of. Where I have been stuck is with the 8th and dealing with "my side of the street" where my family is concerned. I apologized to my sister this summer and we both talked about how nice it was to have gotten past that. But she still sees me as a large part of the problem with my mother (I just don't like her, she thinks... I had never said or felt that when I was younger, but apparently that is the decision she and my mother made about me). And now she goes back and forth "siding" with her or me when there isn't even supposed to be any division. It's hard to explaina nd makes me crazy just trying to understand it.

Before I found out about NPD, I was apologizing to my mother for having been a difficult child and teenager (what I thought she would want to hear). At that time, I thought that was what was needed to get back to an equilibrium. Then I realized she was soaking it up like a sponge and enjoying it...

The truth is I don't care to apologize to either one of them. They have been cruel to me all of my life and I am the odd man out and always have been. I am amazed as I realize more and more that they have spent all these years talking about me behind my back.

I haven't done anything as far as my dad is concerned because I can't get through my mother to him anyways. I also know he loves me and I know he knows I love him.  I remember as a kid praying they would divorce so I could just live with him. I knew I would have to follow normal parent rules and all but it seemed like it would be soooo nice. What kind of an 8 year old thinks this way?????

So what do I do???? I am still angry, more sometimes than others. ANyone in the program knows we can't harbor anger.

Any suggestions are so very welcome.

Love, Beth

[Hopalong]

Hi Beth,
Hope it's okay for a non-12-stepper (I think I'd need 47) to pipe in...

What about saying to your sister, here's the truth. I love our mother but I do not like her. You read me right.

None of her (sister's) business that you may mean "love" in an independent, compassion-for-humanity kind of way, not a personal way.

You are entitled to like or not like your parent, and pressure from your sibling to change the way you feel is b******t. YOU own your feelings and you are not under any obligation to distort them to please her.

Although you may choose to put a good face on things to some degree if you want a continued minimal relationship, imo you certainly don't owe your sister an explanation for how you honestly feel about your mother.

It's YOUR relationship w.your mother and it does not belong to anyone else.

hugs,
Hops

[gratitude28]

Hi Hopsy,
I wish I could do that. In fact, we talked about it some this summer. When she is having difficulty with my parents, she will tell me. But if I initiate a discussion, I am met with stoniness. Also, I was just stunned to learn that she and my mother have been discussing my "traits" forever... The latest was this deal with my husband. I told my mother to give my husband a bit of time to get used to being home before she had him decide what he wanted for Christmas gifts. I told her he might need to get used to everything first and then could let them know. A few days later, she was asking if we were having problems. I talked to my sister and said, "You will never guess what Mom asked me." Her answer, "Oh, I know, about you having problems with your husband. Not sure why she thought that." BUt it was said as if... end of discussion. I don't think I am being paranoid... I more think my eyes are opening, but they have been doing this for decades, apparently. I just never thought of it because I don't do it. I guess it is the triangulation that storm brought up.
They have already made it clear that they think I am "high maintenance". There is NOONE in my life that has given me any indication that I act this way. I am not at all beyond recognizing bad habits/traits in myself, but this is not one of mine, I don't believe.
Ahhhh, hops, I just don't know. I just wish I could remove my focus, shrug it off and just say, F'em...
Love, Beth

[Stormchild]

Hi beth

I think the 8th step is incredibly important and it's sooooooo easy to be 'hooked' by abusive people when we are doing 8th step work [as an ACOA I work 'em too].

I also think your mom and sister are triangulating you, and using you as the 'enemy' to bolster their own bonding. Still, today, after all these years. What a sad waste of a family relationship!

Radical suggestion. Try turning your 8th step work around, a bit. What amends do you think you might make to yourself, based on the stuff you are discovering about how your mother and sister tag-teamed you and used you as a kind of scapegoat all your life? Perhaps one reason there's a 'stuck' feeling here is that you are actually the one in need of some amends and restoration; sometimes, giving more goodness away to people who hurt you is not going to make either them or you any better.

Just a thought. It's tricky, because that way, without balance, resentments lie, I know so well. But what I'm seeing in your post is that your mom and sis did gang up on you, behind your back, more than you knew or ever suspected, and you're discovering it now, and they're STILL AT IT now, and you're totally confused about how it can possibly work for **you** to apologize to **them** about it...

Beth, you didn't cause it, you didn't control it, you couldn't cure it. And you've done so incredibly much for your own recovery! Be good to yourself. Does Melanie Beattie talk about this kind of situation at all? I think Patricia Evans does but she doesn't address the Steps...

here are a couple of links. I couldn't find a good site that addressed emotional abuse in the context of the Steps, but I'm gonna keep looking.

http://www.webheights.net/GrowingbeyondEmotionalAbuse/

http://www.kalimunro.com/newsletter5.html

[gratitude28]

(((((((((((((((storm))))))))))))

So nice to hear from you and such a helpful post. I will check out those links now.

I am also fortunate to have found someone here who has just a bit more time in than me and who has already helped me see where my thinking my have been a bit wayward in the steps. We are going to try to work together. I really like her, and being in such a small place, it is hard to find others in recovery who are a lot like you.


Well, let me go check out the links and see what will help me there. I really appreciate your help.

Love, Beth

[Stormchild]

I am also fortunate to have found someone here who has just a bit more time in than me and who has already helped me see where my thinking my have been a bit wayward in the steps. We are going to try to work together. I really like her, and being in such a small place, it is hard to find others in recovery who are a lot like you.

That's worth more than gold. I'm really glad to 'hear' it!!!!!

((((((((((beth))))))))))

[axa]

Hi Gratitude,

Dont know a lot about 12 step programmes but I hear something here around how you want them to respond to you.  Not sure I am on the right track but can you let me know.  Its just that it reminds me of something in myself.  It is as if you have grown and are taking responsibility for your behaviour etc but you have an EXPECTATION that this will change their behaviour towards you.   It sounds to me like they are so hooked up in pointing the finger that they cannot see you and the steps you are taking to bring peace into your life.

This has been a big learning for me.  I have some kind of child like thinking that if I do the work, grow, somehow the people who have been cruel and mean to me will have this flash of insight and see me for who I really am and not who they perceive me as.  I have learned that it does not work that way.  I think in some ways it is tied up with my codependant behaviour, wanting everything to turn out right in the end.  I think I said before that my middle name should be Pollyanna.

What I am learning in this difficult process is that it is not about the other people, it is about me.  If I make changes in the hope of influencing an outcome with others, outside of myself, I am back in controlling mode. 

I guess they talk about detachment in the 12 step programme.  This is one of the hardest things for me.  To change myself, say what I need to say respectfully and then detach.  For me it will be a life times work.

I may have gotten it all wrong and maybe I am projecting something into your post which was not there but it brought up this for me.  Hope it is of some help to you.

Thank you for this post which has rattled my cage AGAIN

xxx
axa

[Stormchild]

An important part of 8th step work is that one needs to seriously consider making amends to all those one has harmed, unless to do so would seriously injure that person or someone else associated with them... for instance, apologizing to someone with whom you had an affair, without considering the impact on their spouse, who may never even have suspected that there was an affair.

Just as important is to be sure that the process of making amends does not harm you as well. The presence of ongoing abuse creates a situation in which part of the problem is the abuser trying to keep you 'one down' to them. They are so unhealthy that an amend or apology offered from a position of health will simply be co-opted and used as ammunition or leverage... another way to keep you 'one down'. In this situation, it may be entirely sufficient, in terms of amends, for you to be striving merely to be able to accept the situation. Not to approve of it or welcome it, but to be able to say: he or she is abusive. This is how they are. They do not want to change, they are not going to change. It is not and never was about me. The sickness is in them.

To be able to see them as they are, and emotionally detach from it, is to break the pattern that causes the harm. And in that way, it does serve as an amend - to yourself by removing yourself from the pattern, and to them by removing their ability to hurt you, just like you would take matches or a razor blade away from a severely disturbed, destructive child - and consider it protective of that child as well as those around them.

It's like the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation. Even forgiveness is hard when someone is still abusing you; reconciliation is impossible then. They are two different things. In this case, there are amends that can be built on, and amends that are for closure only. Sometimes closure is as good as it gets.

[gratitude28]

As usual, you guys all came through for me and really helped me make a leap forward!!! I always feel that if I have a problem I can bring it here and you will help me solve it.

Axa,
When I first read your answer, I thought you just weren't on the same page. And then I thought about it for a minute, and you are 100% right. I am looking for a sign or recognition, or a chnage and THAT's NOT THE point.

CB,
For the most part I did my amends as I went along too (living amends are a big part of what I believe... being as helpful and caring as I can be now and in the future).

Storm, you are right, I need only to forgive... myslef and her. And then I need to pick up and go on. That's it. End of the journey. I have cleaned my side of the street by apologizing.

I had the great fortune of receiving a call from the AA member I told you about (things really do get sent your way when you need them). Went to a meeting and talked to her for a while after. I am going to work through steps with her... some again. She wants to do it as well... to help her. So it benefits us both. I also met another very nice woman there and a girl who definitely needs to see some happily sober people at meetings as she is struggling. Makes me feel even more that I need to get my butt out to the meetings much more.

Again, thank you so much.
Love, Beth

[retread]

hi gratitude 28

have had a look at the topic on this forum
called FORGIVENESS...
right now the most recent post there is jan 21st

it has to do with luke 17:3 scripture
where jesus says
if your brother sins against you,
rebuke him
AND WHEN HE REPENTS FORGIVE HIM...

it goes on saying forgive even 7 times in the same say , the sinner
if he repents sometimes...
mentioned in the topic on that part
should one forgive is if the repentence is not sincere
and how does one know if it is not sincere...
well of course for those who have the inside track with the holy spirit:)
it does teach all things

[ANewSheriff]

Hey there, Beth...

Look, Sport.  Give yourself some time.  Going through the motions without any sincerity won't do anyone any good.  What would you think about just giving yourself permission to ride this step out for awhile?  Kind of - see where the wind blows you on this? 

I admire you for wanting to "do right" and take care of your wrongs, but at what price if you are being re-victimized?  There is no timetable in making amends.  Sit tight for a bit and keep doing the work you have been doing that has got you this far. 

ANewSheriff

[Stormchild]

ANS!!!!! ... it is wonderful to see you here.

[ANewSheriff]

Thanks Storm,

Just been buried in schoolwork, kids, and life.  Didn't mean to abandon the board.  Great to "see" you, too.

ANS