Listening to people share in meetings never gets old for me. Experiencing the power and beauty of people sharing their truth - or sharing about being in touch with their truth - has been one of the biggest gifts of recovery for me, and continues to be so. It is humbling to listen to someone of a different age, gender, profession and so on, and to identify and empathise with them on the deepest of levels. It has also been interesting and often revelatory to listen to the men. It has made me realise that I have deep prejudice towards men, as unfeeling, cruel and exploitative.
It is true that this is largely because of what I have experienced, but that is not really an excuse. I have to look deep inside me and figure out what it is exactly I "hate" in men, and which past experiences and fears are behind it. It feels like something I need to clear, like a big sack of potatoes I am carrying around.
I was very frightened at first about going into SLAA - I thought it would be full of sleazy, threatening men who are not in control of their sexuality. But actually, most of the time the meetings are well and truly mixed and I have never, ever felt threatened. Yesterday was the first time that I saw the meeting I was attending was predominantly male and I panicked slightly. But this was because I was already feeling fragile due to a clash between me and my boyfriend. I knew there was zero threat to my safety at the meeting, but the atmosphere felt so masculine and stifling to me, I just wanted to run away.
But then I reached out to someone I know a little and respect in the fellowship, and he told me to wait a few minutes as surely some of the latecomers would be more women. He was right. I was fine for the rest of the meeting and participated. The fact that it was mostly made up of men barely mattered.
What is extraordinary is that the meetings shines a light on our common humanity. In front of our struggles, and the root deep in ourselves where we are still the innocent children of long ago, we are all the same. SLAA has taught me that I am a spiritual being, that I need to keep building my connection with myself, with others and with life, and that through this healing and serenity can come.
The reason I began to think about my feelings towards men as a whole was because I listened to a fantastic chair by a man who said he had discovered a deep-seated misogyny in himself, partly inculcated in him because of his culture but also his mother. This is the first time I have ever heard a man admit this, and I was so moved. It allowed me to see the similar feelings towards men in me, going right back to my earliest memories.
My parents had a decent marriage I think, but my father definitely had more clout in the relationship. She could have her way much of the time but he ultimately called the shots. I remember him criticising her often for being "irrational", or "too emotional", for overreacting, for being too easily panicked, for being upset, angry, "poisonous". He would say to her "don't pull that face", "don't pull at your hair like that".
The result was that us kids saw her as weak, childish, backward, but also as someone we had to protect, not burden with anything. And I think that while I adored my father, i also saw him in some ways a merciless and iron-fisted, prohibiting her (and my) emotions.
I find something similar has happened to me in my life many times - my emotions being considered as too big, a burden, a disturbance, by the man I am with. It is true I am intense and expressive and I never learnt (I was not taught) how to express and regulate my emotions, and that in addition to crazy, roller coaster-like fluctuations it makes for a pretty intolerable picture sometimes, primarily for myself. It is better now that I am on a full whack of mood stabilisers and anti-depressants, but my way of expressing myself has not changed, nor the essence of how I live I suppose.
Seeing my father reject that part of my mother but embrace her as a kind of defective has made me see this everywhere. I feel (I have no idea if this is justified) that in relationships I have always made myself smaller, partly at my own behest and partly at the urging of the man. Do I ask similar things if them? To be less of themselves?
It is true that this is largely because of what I have experienced, but that is not really an excuse. I have to look deep inside me and figure out what it is exactly I "hate" in men, and which past experiences and fears are behind it. It feels like something I need to clear, like a big sack of potatoes I am carrying around.
I was very frightened at first about going into SLAA - I thought it would be full of sleazy, threatening men who are not in control of their sexuality. But actually, most of the time the meetings are well and truly mixed and I have never, ever felt threatened. Yesterday was the first time that I saw the meeting I was attending was predominantly male and I panicked slightly. But this was because I was already feeling fragile due to a clash between me and my boyfriend. I knew there was zero threat to my safety at the meeting, but the atmosphere felt so masculine and stifling to me, I just wanted to run away.
But then I reached out to someone I know a little and respect in the fellowship, and he told me to wait a few minutes as surely some of the latecomers would be more women. He was right. I was fine for the rest of the meeting and participated. The fact that it was mostly made up of men barely mattered.
What is extraordinary is that the meetings shines a light on our common humanity. In front of our struggles, and the root deep in ourselves where we are still the innocent children of long ago, we are all the same. SLAA has taught me that I am a spiritual being, that I need to keep building my connection with myself, with others and with life, and that through this healing and serenity can come.
The reason I began to think about my feelings towards men as a whole was because I listened to a fantastic chair by a man who said he had discovered a deep-seated misogyny in himself, partly inculcated in him because of his culture but also his mother. This is the first time I have ever heard a man admit this, and I was so moved. It allowed me to see the similar feelings towards men in me, going right back to my earliest memories.
My parents had a decent marriage I think, but my father definitely had more clout in the relationship. She could have her way much of the time but he ultimately called the shots. I remember him criticising her often for being "irrational", or "too emotional", for overreacting, for being too easily panicked, for being upset, angry, "poisonous". He would say to her "don't pull that face", "don't pull at your hair like that".
The result was that us kids saw her as weak, childish, backward, but also as someone we had to protect, not burden with anything. And I think that while I adored my father, i also saw him in some ways a merciless and iron-fisted, prohibiting her (and my) emotions.
I find something similar has happened to me in my life many times - my emotions being considered as too big, a burden, a disturbance, by the man I am with. It is true I am intense and expressive and I never learnt (I was not taught) how to express and regulate my emotions, and that in addition to crazy, roller coaster-like fluctuations it makes for a pretty intolerable picture sometimes, primarily for myself. It is better now that I am on a full whack of mood stabilisers and anti-depressants, but my way of expressing myself has not changed, nor the essence of how I live I suppose.
Seeing my father reject that part of my mother but embrace her as a kind of defective has made me see this everywhere. I feel (I have no idea if this is justified) that in relationships I have always made myself smaller, partly at my own behest and partly at the urging of the man. Do I ask similar things if them? To be less of themselves?
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