Missing him triggers my childhood pain

This morning has been interesting for me, from a SLAA perspective. I mentioned before that my boyfriend is away for a few days, and although I was quite happy at first, I am now starting to become agitated as that all-too-familiar anguish over separation returns. 

I can see how it could be hard to understand why I am struggling - it must seem ridiculous.  He's only gone for a short period, and he has written to say he misses me. We are happy and will spend Christmas together. 

 

And yet, something as trivial as his absence for a few days is really painful for me. I have had some tough times in the last two years, so I find it astonishing that something like this can threaten to derail me in such a way. 

But I realise that this sits squarely at the centre of what SLAA has illuminated for me: this pain I am feeling comes from pre-existing wounds and goes very deep, back to my childhood and adolescence. I feel alone, helpless, abandoned, in danger and desperate. My unconscious quest to get rid of these feelings were what led me to my self-destructive and dysfunctional behaviour in the past. Often my actions created even more pain and chaos. 

I can feel the itch to act out, anything to make the discomfort go. I am nervous, obsessing. I keep checking my phone.

And I am still ashamed of myself and frustrated. Why am I so needy, so clingy, so insecure? I worry that if I don't keep myself in check he will no longer want to be in this relationship. And I don't really feel like this is me --- it's happening against my will, against my own values and aspirations of how I want to live and love. 

However, I have learnt some ways to cope. 

The old, pre-SLAA me would have kept contacting him, trying to extract some expression of his love or affection to prop me up and keep me going. I would have gone deeper and deeper into agonising and exaggerated emotional states and confuse these with being in love.

I would also be living a double life - one in the real world and one in my head, which would be consumed by my obsession with him. I would only be half-present in my own life. 

At worst, I would get so sad or distraught that I would become suicidal. 

The post-SLAA me tries to stay connected to myself and the present, to the people around me and whatever it is I am doing. I am more accepting of myself and compassionate. 

I also keep my goals in sight, and I accept that I have to work for them: 

- I want to be independent.

- I want to live my life and not get sucked into fantasy or into a parallel world of obsession.

- I don't want this relationship to dominate my life. I need to keep an identity. 

- Lastly, I want this relationship to thrive because it makes me really happy. 

I try to "sit" with the feelings, just let them flow freely rather than trying to block them. Sometimes they lose their intensity after a few seconds. 

Finally I have been telling myself that missing the man in my life is not exclusively a bad thing, and that it's normal. I suppose it's when I get desperate, sad, angry and suspicious that things are getting out of hand and that I need to pay attention to it. 

Have a nice day! 

Battling trust issues with light and flow

I have heard people in the rooms talk about how they struggle when their partners are away. They are tempted to act out on their addictive behaviour because they have the freedom to or because they need a fix to make up for the absence of emotional fixes. Intense longing, obsession, restlessness and pain can take over, accompanied by shame for having these feelings and not being more self-sufficient.

My boyfriend is away and out of touch for a few days, and I am thinking about him a lot. Before I went into recovery, I would have been paralysed, incapacitated during this time, desperately trying to get hold of him for some word of reassurance. Now, I am not even tempted to contact him. I don't want to upset myself by getting into a waiting-for-reply pattern, and more importantly, I dont want to infringe on his space.  This is certainly a result of recovery: I would not previously been able to be truly considerate towards someone. My needs were too overwhelming, too pressing.

But my trust in him is plummeting as the hours go by, for no other reason than him being out of sight, out of contact. I manage to put the brakes on my imagination, but the paranoid images and fantasies are bubbling away below the surface somewhere. Rather than indulge them, I want to know what is really troubling me so much. I have no reason not to trust him but I am afraid to do so. I can feel something in my body holding me back,  I tense up. To let go and embrace the flow and warmth would mean opening myself up to danger. I think it is the right thing to do and I want to try, but it feels like such a risk. What if he hurts me, betrays me? I am afraid.

If you strip everything away, including my boyfriend, then it comes down to this: I am face to face with my own vulnerability. It is not about me trusting him as much as trusting the universe, trusting a higher power. I want to control something I cannot control, and this brings me pain. My boyfriend can always let me down and vice versa, but the light and the flow that I feel when I think about the higher power will always be there. The "I" that has a boyfriend, a son, a job and so on, is just one part of me. The other part is my soul, my inner life. I think this must be my core and from there I witness everything on the outside, the events in my life, my thoughts and actions.

While he is away and the negative feelings arise, I will say to myself: "Of course you find it hard to trust after everything that has happened, and that's ok. Try to let go, to open yourself up. Yes, it is a risk, but you can handle it if things go wrong. You are strong, and you always have the light and flow at your core to back you up."

Self-care on negative thoughts

Self-care is a concept I picked up in SLAA. Before that, it was really not on my radar. Sure, I treated myself to stuff, but mostly these were mostly of the "guilty pleasure" variety -- literally. I felt guilty, as if I was doing something wrong. Often it involved  spending money I didn't have. Somewhere along the way I acquired the belief that I should be living austerely, with only the bare necessities. Anything that was purely for pleasure - even fun with friends - was somehow bad. I felt my parents disapproved, that they believed I didn't deserve it.

Now self-care is my main method of soothing myself. It is not always about physical needs but also spiritual. I see self-care as connecting to my higher power. It's a moment in which I value myself, my body and my soul, regardless of the circumstances I am in. I am affirming that I am worth it.

I have learnt to say 'no thanks' to certain thoughts that bring me sadness or anxiety, like turning down another cup of coffee when I have already had too many. Embarking on these fantasies or indulging my fears could lead to me feeling unwell for the rest of the day, and I don't want that. I am surprised I learnt how to do this because before my thoughts were not something I could control. They ruled me, attacking and torturing me at random. I was entirely defenceless.

But now I can choose not to go down that route, and the more I practise, the better I get at it. When a bad though hits me, I think: "I really don't feel like feeling this bad today. I can always revisit this thought later." I don't slap the thought down or dismiss it -- it has a good reason for being there. I deserve compassion and understanding for having such thoughts and whatever led to them. But right now is not the time to let them dominate. And then I think or do something else.

Of course I had to reach a decent level of stability before doing this regularly, but I believe it has helped me not to slip back. Entertaining those thoughts makes me more unwell, and I have little to gain from turning them over again. Sometimes I have to think about difficult and distressing topics of course.

Strange feelings: A new relationship

I have been in a new relationship for just over four months now, the first since I left my husband two years ago. For most of those two years, dating anyone was unthinkable. There were times when a random male face or voice on public transport could make me panic, like a switch being flicked. The thought of sex repulsed me and I couldn't imagine ever meeting anyone who I would want to touch or be touched by, let alone whom I could trust. 

They were dark days but in a way they also served me well. I was able to turn inward, to become a freely floating entity, not attached to anyone. 

I entered SLAA and began to evaluate my past relationships, including my marriage, realistically, without blaming myself. SLAA's concept of bottom lines - i.e. identifying your addictive behaviours and abstaining from them - is a very powerful tool. It allowed me to see my life had been determined by my pursuit of "fixes" - mainly in the form of validation and support from men and relationships. 

So when I started feeling better earlier this year, I was hesitant to start dating again. I feared I would use people to prop myself up and enter the addictive patterns again. And yet, I wanted and needed the contact, physical and emotional, so I decided to go ahead. 

My worst fears did come true: I became hopelessly hooked on people I hardly knew, I had risky sex, I was hurt. But I had awareness, and with that handful of guys and my various experiences with them, I learnt a huge amount about myself. I started to practice making choices: I practised saying 'no' or indeed 'fuck off!" when I felt a lack of respect or something didn't conform to my values. I was delighted when I saw that I could handle the consequences. I saw how at the heart of my addictive behaviour was the belief that I couldn't handle my painful emotions by myself. 

I still felt like i needed a man to make it all better, to make life bearable. You could argue that because of this my time in SLAA was a waste, but I think the contrary: I had to go out into the real world and test it all out, put it into practice. And so I saw that I could face life on my own.

Luckily I bounced back from each bad experience quickly because I knew I was experimenting and could treat myself with compassion. 

When I met my boyfriend, I trusted him instantly (although this is not unusual for me!) and he was attractive, very available and there was a very lovely chemistry. 

At the same time, the pain was overwhelming. I couldn't understand it - it was like I was being dunked in acid, mental torture and I debated ending it. Everything triggered me: him being late, talking about his exes, sex, minor disagreements, the uncertainty of a new relationship, and so on. 

I was already emotionally volatile and being with someone new - who was not abusive! - confronted me with the past and made me constantly process memories. It was not easy. I was also not as far along in my therapy as now (I have had some EMDR since) so things in general were choppier. 

Discussions around my health, therapy and medication dominated everything, and I could see it was beginning to affect him, and me too. We broke up briefly, but when we got back together everything changed for the better. I think it was a combination of my therapy really taking root and some of the things I had learnt on my own and through SLAA sinking in.

My health is still an important topic, but it no longer dictates so much of our lives. My pain is better - less strong, less constant. I am more able to live in the moment with him, and less likely to try to pump him for validation when I am feeling low or needy. 

In those moments, I try to sit with the feeling, the emptiness, the discomfort. I try to open my heart, to stream outwards, rather than seeking a fix from another person or substance. It is just a feeling, it will not kill me. It doesn't always work because sometimes I am just completely overwhelmed. 

I have developed jealousy towards his past and his exes, with whom he is still on good terms. In theory I think that's great, a testament to what a mature and nice person he is. But I struggle with it, I struggle with the fact that he is grown man with a past of his own that is much less dysfunctional than mine. I feel threatened by this, like it will eclipse me. I start imagining I am not attractive enough for him, that all his exes were skinnier, prettier and so on - the usual crap I think, but so eroding nonetheless. 

And when I don't see him for a while, my trust in him starts declining. I become angry with him, for no reason at all. I feel as though he has left me, betrayed me, hurt me, when he has done none of those things. It even goes as far as me feeling that I hate him. 

I find this bizarre because actually I feel immense joy at having him in my life, and have growing feelings for him. And yet there are these shadows of dark and negative feelings snaking around in my body and mind. They put me in a black mood and I feel like I smoked a pack of Marlboro and gargled on whiskey. 

I have not quite figured this out yet. I try to combat the negativity with the same techniques of mindfulness and so on, but I think these feelings must be deeply engrained insecurities and image-problems that are hard to dislodge.

I will keep working on it. 

Motherhood and mental health

When I became pregnant with my son in 2010, I was worried. I thought I was the perfect candidate for post-natal depression. In my early twenties I had struggled with depression and severe anxiety that derailed me for quite some time. It was messy. I dropped out of university for a year, cut off contact with my parents, had an abortion, drank too much alcohol and smoked too much pot and way too much tobacco, was suicidal much of the time, decided to run away to Spain but luckily was talked out of it by friends, and at some stages could barely leave the house to buy a loaf of bread. I was never properly treated, but I managed to turn a corner and regain some ability to function which improved greatly in the years that followed. In the absence of medical help, my saving grace had been the stability provided by my relationship with my now ex-husband. The fact he was controlling and jealous seemed secondary to the benefits of having someone there who I felt loved and cared for me.

The drawback from this set-up was that even after many years had passed from that episode, I had not really recovered, I had merely plugged the leaks, put band aids across the wounds instead of letting them heal. What I had done, as is so clearly described in SLAA, was that I used another human bring to help me cope with my "inadequacies", instead of addressing them head on. I don't blame myself for this - I was so unwell and desperate that I feared I would end up on the street. I did not know what was wrong with me, and the support I received from doctors and counsellors was woefully inadequate. My ex sat with me through panic attacks, he fed me when I was so worn out I could not lift my head to eat, he helped me keep my flat clean and go to my classes. He was there when I felt I had been completely forsaken by my parents and important friends.
It took a few years for the worst symptoms to lessen and sometimes they still flared up, mostly in the form of hopelessness, feelings of emptiness and suicidal thoughts. So as I said, when I becamepregnant, I thought this would be the big trigger, and I would have to be prepared. I did some reading,  and also spoke at length to a good friend who had had a severe case of postnatal depression.

Strangely, even though I was pretty glum and anxious during the pregnancy, I was elated after the birth. I found my baby utterly gorgeous and although I found the slog of looking after a newborn bloody awful (lack of sleep and the monotony is a killer), I had never felt better. Somehow I sidestepped the whole postnatal quagmire, which I can only imagine is an absolute nightmare to contend with, doubly cruel because society drills into us that this is supposed to be the happiest time of our lives and the bond to the child the most wonderful thing ever, the very meaning and purpose of life! How to cope with such an edifice if your feelings and hormones just don't play along?

Anyway, for me the issues with my mental health and motherhood came later, around the time I left my husband and in the time since. Part of his abuse was to make me feel like an incompetent, unreliable mother. At one point he wanted to force me to write a definition of "reliable mother" which he would vet and we would both sign. If I met the criteria by a certain deadline, he would allow me to move out and share care for my son, who was then 18 months old. In the meantime, I was free to leave but I would only be allowed to see my son at his father's house. This was his grand plan anyway. I escaped with my son before he was able to impose this.

Even though I knew my husband was losing the plot, he made me doubt myself, and in part he had a point that I was not giving what a mother should. I had been so heavily triggered by another man (who helped me to realise that I had to leave my husband but who was dishonest and I felt had used me) that I felt I was losing my mind in several fronts. I spent hours each day crying, trying to understand what had occurred. I started therapy with an excellent therapist, who told me that when people have emotional trouble, often the first thing to go is the ability to care for kids. For a few weeks I was totally incapacitated around my son. I made sure he was cared for, I hugged and kissed him but I could barely engage, so obsessed was I with what had happened to me.

That must have been extremely difficult for my ex to deal with, and I understand the impulse of wanting to protect his son. At first he was actually understanding but everything became much worse when he began to use it against me, saying that I was inadequate as a mother. For some reason this is a really sensitive spot in me. I suppose it touches on one of my greatest fears: not being good enough a mother, and that my mental health issues could impact my son. Most of all though, I was afraid my husband would use it against me to take my son away from me.

Anyway, his constant hints or overt threats around this made me instantly crumble. I would become a shivering, shaking wreck, sweating, terrified. And to some extent this fear never left me. I look at other mums and think: surely they play more with their children? Do they get as bored/anxious/impatient as I do? My love for my son is so huge and honestly, most of the time now I know I am a good mother, in my own way. Of course I have my shortcomings, like everyone, and I can laugh about them. But then at other times, I think: Jesus, you are mental. Look at your past, all the things you have done. How are you going to raise a kid? I question how responsible I am, if I am same enough,  disciplined enough to keep is healthy, happy and safe. I know how fast things can spin out of control. So far I have been lucky, I feel. And I mourn for all the mums out there who are separated from their kids because of their mental health problems.

Compassion, not comparing

I want to write about the double-edged sword that is comparing yourself to others, both when applied to mental health issues but also to human suffering in general. I think it can be useful at times, but also a huge obstacle to embarking on recovery.

When my father died after a long illness a few years ago, my mother was devastated. They had been married nearly 45 years, and had loved each other to the end. And yet she constantly repeated to all who tried to console her: "We are so lucky." I found her attitude disturbing because I could see how underneath she was being torn apart by grief and the contrast was a little spooky, but I have to say that I agreed with her at the time, and I still do.

My father lived to 71. He survived more than 12 years after being diagnosed with cancer, having received some of the best treatment out there. His death, in the end, was mercifully quick compared to that of other cancer patients, and from what we know he was unconscious at the time and not in any pain.

At the time of his death, the conflict in Syria was turning darker day by day. The news was filled with images of senseless deaths and destruction, and reports of women and children hiding in cellars in terrible conditions.

Yes, I had lost my father, and my mother had lost her husband, but our lot seemed like a generous gift in comparison to that of so many other human beings. I have no doubt that we are incredibly "lucky" in the grand scheme of things. The question is really what to do with that good fortune, but I will keep that for another post.

However, it was clear from observing my mother and myself in the months after my father's death that this view on things became an obstacle to our grieving process. I felt numb for ages, and to some extent I still do. And I could hear in my mother's voice that she was using this idea of luck as a way to smother her sorrow, to stop it in its tracks. I understand that she was only doing what she could to keep afloat, to survive. She used reason to discount her own emotions, minimised them and ultimately suppressed them. Because of this I don't know whether she has really grieved him properly. She rarely mentions him, even though I am certain he is a huge part of her everyday life and thoughts.

I wish she could have just let herself grieve, without thinking about anyone else, just for a while. Just to let that emotion flow freely inside her without any attempts to block or weaken it. If we learnt to be more accepting of our emotions, if we were not so afraid and more able and willing to bear them, would we be happier overall? We often hear that suppressing our feelings is not good for us, but I don't think this is always true. Sometimes it is a necessity for survival but this does not apply to most of us and our lives, at least not very often.

In retrospect I can see very clearly how this way of coping shaped my upbringing and formation as an adult, and how it led to trouble. I was taught to deny my feelings, that they were ultimately worthless and should be ignored, instead of key to my wellbeing. A huge gulf developed between my reason and my emotions, between my heart and mind. This led to many bad decisions, to self-destructive behaviour and to an inability to do what was in my own best interest. I didn't know what my best interest was, I was divorced from my inner self. I think had I been more accepting and in touch with myself, many things that hurt me would not have  happened.

It was a real turning point for me when early on in my recovery -- and this is thanks to SLAA -- I became able to look at my past and myself as it was, without explicitly comparing or judging myself. The programme and the experience of attending meetings allowed me to develop respect for myself, my experiences and feelings for the first time ever, because I could see that I was no different than anyone else in the fellowship. Of course some people have more traumatic lives behind them than others, but in those rooms I feel an equality and kinship that I have not felt anywhere else. I am not a churchgoer, so this may play a role. Being so humbled by this feeling of togetherness and mutual understanding and empathy, I had a real breakthrough: If I could be so compassionate to others, then I could be compassionate towards myself too.

I no longer had to make myself feel better by dwelling on how much worse things could have been. The numbing effect of that only last a short while, and I don't think it did me much good other than making me seem brave and stoical to other people, while I was drowning and screaming for help on the inside. SLAA allowed me to look at my life and my emotions, own them, take responsibility and be kind to myself while doing so.

Thoughts and comments welcome!

Have a nice day,
R

My love illusion

I have had a challenging week on several fronts. There's trouble with my ex, who has found out I am dating someone (two years after we broke up!), some stress at work, minor but nonetheless hugely triggering issues with my boyfriend, and some other stuff. The first few days were alright - I was still very positive overall and just kept  problem solving and working to stay grounded,  connected to myself, grateful and compassionate. I managed to maintain my mood for a while this way but then, as new challenges kept emerging.  a kind of swing occurred and I began to feel uneasy and troubled all of the time. The  familiar feelings returned: Everythjng became an effort, like wading through treacle, and I began once more to shy away from any films, books, music, social media (Facebook!) that might trigger me.

I was worried that some of the progress I had made had been lost, and that this would negatively affect my relationship, which has really flourished during my recent progress. But this week I had that burning, hollow feeling again, which comes out as a need for affection, kindness from my partner, but which I think in my case is more of a desire to soothe my pain with someone else's touch, to blot out whatever is troubling me. This is the problem which is also addressed in SLAA: We end up using people for this, thinking it is "love" but in fact it is not a genuine exchange of emotion or intimacy, but just one person trying to self-medicate through another human.

I was quite disturbed by myself in recent days, because I really saw this illusion of live brought on by neediness in action, clearly laid out. Whenever I was tempted to pour out affection (impulsive "I love you's" and the like) I could see how this desire actually arose from the need to be soothed and rescued. The wish to say it (and hear something back) wells up from a painful, raw, self-pitying part of me, deep in my chest. It says: "I love you!" But then it is also saying "Please help me, hold me, get me out of this hell, make it stop, come back, don't leave me."

How did I end up this way and why is it important?

I think I was never shown, as a child, pure love for who I was. I was praised for achievements in school or the like, but I was made to believe that I was not really likeable as a person. I had few rights because everything was diminished or dismissed: my emotions, need for privacy, my opinions, my relationships to the outside world. There was seemingly no capacity to accommodate me as a complete human being, only certain bits of me that obeyed and did well.

So to start with, I don't have a model for love and intimacy, respect and boundaries. I guess  I filled that void with all the skewed and misleading information from the media and Hollywood, and I experimented. But the experiments were dangerous and often ended in difficulties. This had repercussions on my mental health and the problems began to grow way over what I was able to comprehend.

Anyway, you could ask why such a seemingly minute detail from my life as me noticing the exact moment where my love illusion can manifest itself is significant. The answer is simple: moments like that used to dictate my life events! I got together with my ex because of it and was with him for years and years. We had a wonderful child but the relationship also ended with me being severely emotionally abused.

I am glad that I have mostly avoided the same trap in my current relationship, that I took the space available to find this out for myself. I have not said "I love you" and I am ok with waiting until it feels right.