Recognising my part - a lesson from SLAA

The SLAA programme has taught me how to recognise my own part in my relationships and interactions with other people when things are difficult. How to define "my part"? Put simply by this I mean looking at my own actions and behaviour without any blame, and recognising their impact on myself and others.

The purpose is not to see who is at fault in any given situation, but where I am responsible. I check if I am being led by expectation, fantasy or wishful thinking. Am I being manipulative, trying to get something (usually it is emotional security or affection), am I being true to myself and what I want? 

I will give you an example. Recently I did something nice for my boyfriend, or so I thought.  Instead of being enthusiastic and happy as I expected (and wanted) him to be, he responded curtly, with little enthusiasm. Immediately I was upset - I blamed him for what I considered an inadequate reaction, berated him in my head for being so unemotional and disengaged. I didn't say this to him at the time. 

But then I decided to examine my part in this situation I now found myself in, of anger and resentment, and I realised it was mostly down to the fact that I had been disappointed in my expectation of him and how he should react. And those expectations were MY responsibility, not his, as was their lack of fulfilment. It was my job to deal with my emotions around this, the disappointment and so on, and not dump it onto him to make it okay again.  I calmed down considerably after realising this. 

Of course it is not always that simple. This little episode was trivial really, but the same pattern occurs around really important things in relationships, deal breakers I guess. I think we have to distinguish between values and expectations. I have an expectation that he shows some gratitude and recognition when I do something kind for him, but this is not really a fundamental value of mine. A value would be that we always treat each other kindly, and when we fail to do so we make proper amends. 

Seeing my part in what has happened to me in the past has been very liberating and helpful. It goes such a long way in removing the perception that one is powerless, a helpless victim. I married that man because I wanted to. I put up with his abuse because I knew no better, because I was in denial, and this was because of how I was raised. I was emotionally and neglected as a child and adolescent, and was willing to accept almost anything in exchange for security and love. I closed my eyes to stuff that according to my culture, my principles, my beliefs,  I would have condemned. I am not saying I was not a victim. I was. I was extremely vulnerable, suffering from major depression and trauma and receiving almost no medical help,  and this man was able to exert his control and subject me to his cruelty. To me he seemed better than nothing, in fact, he seemed perfect. I loved him, adored him, or so I believed. It is a very tricky thing. I have thought so many times in my life that I am in love with someone - after a day, or two, even! Such is the desire, the wish for it to be true. 

Anyway, I made a lot of wrong choices, choices that also contributed to my vulnerability at the time. I smoked cannabis to excess, I drank, I worked in a nightclub and partied until dawn way too often, and I was promiscuous. I had unprotected sex, which led to a second abortion...it was a bad time. But I did all of those things, I chose them, nobody else. It is true I was driven unconsciously by grief and pain, and I wasn't aware at all of why I was behaving that way. I was like a passenger in my own body, watching me walk into one disaster after the next. But I can't blame anyone else. I can point the finger at my parents about the shortcomings in my upbringing and their care for me,  and I do, all the time! But I can see now where the entity that was acting and interacting was nobody but me. And that feels good. I created some of this shit - it's better than having it all thrust upon me by others. It gives me some feeling of control and autonomy. Have a good weekend!

 If you do read, please leave comments. I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences. 

Recovery and the sexes

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?

SLAA and my recovery: Part 2

As promised, in this post I will continue to tell the story of how SLAA helped me deal with an addictive relationship. All in all, I grappled with my attachment to this man for almost two years. One year in, I began attending SLAA meetings.  After an initial first six months of seeing each other sporadically in the capital we both lived in, we moved to separate countries and I haven't seen him in person since. But my obsessive thinking of him continued, and contact with him was volatile, intense. Sometimes it was exhilarating, sometimes infuriating and sometimes - as I described in the last post - I was so exasperated at my inability to just cut him of that it made me suicidal. I was afraid of being labelled mad, or that he would suddenly turn on me...he never did. In fact his occasional acts of kindness, or when he showed me interest and understanding, made it even more complicated.

I could not simply write him off - as I had done at the beginning -  as a crazy narcissist/sociopath who had callously used me for his own entertainment. My experience certainly felt like I had been targeted by a predator and made a victim  - all the hallmarks were there when I read up about NPL and the like. But when I began my recovery in SLAA, I started to see that this was my perception of what had happened and that I was denying my own part. I was so unaware of how I put myself in a position where I would automatically be a victim, that the only possible explanation for the pain I was in was that it was his fault.

As this transformation in me began and I understood more and more my responsibility, the pressure on me eased. I was more compassionate with myself. I worked on my past, and with the help of the 30 questions (which you do as part of your Step 1-3) I looked at past relationships and experiences in a whole new way. I saw I had been after something very specific each time, and that I had put myself repeatedly at risk and compromised my happiness and self-realisation in trying to obtain it. I thought: yes, you were emotionally neglected as a child (a huge discovery in itself, made in therapy) and so it is only natural you would cling to someone like this. I deserve kindness and understanding, hugs - not chastisement and ridicule. The self-loathing around this issue had to stop.

Getting to know myself better has also really helped and given me strength. I think the idea is to graduate from a position where the will is still working to make sure you stick to your bottom lines, to a point where you are sober because you want to be, you feel it inside you, as a whole person. One example of this for me came about three months after I started SLAA when the man in question offered to visit me.  This was exactly what I had yearned for, even though I knew seeing him would likely mean getting even deeper into what seemed an inextricable web of addiction, attachment, pain and need already. But I felt - in my bones almost - that I didn't want to see him, and so I declined.

I saved myself, whereas before I would have thrown myself under the bus just to get that feeling of love and affection.

Today I am not in touch with him at all. I miss him sometimes but I have no real desire to be in contact with him again. The last time we spoke he was angry with me over something - I am not sure what. Perhaps because I was in a relationship. But he was always adamant he didn't love me - and why would he? He knew my insanity - a crazy little girl howling in the dark -  but little else about me.

I have so much that I want to write about and everything is interlinked, so I will be jumping between topics. I am on my way to a meeting now. I am dealing with a whole set of different relationship issues these days but I marvel at how much stronger I have become. Before, under such pressures - where the end of a relationship felt like a real possibility - I would have floundered, fallen apart. But know I feel pretty centred. I know I can not only survive on my own, but that I can thrive.

SLAA and my recovery

SLAA (Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous) has been vital in my recovery. To describe how it has helped me and transformed much of my life would take too long for just one post, but it is one of my aims for this blog to cover to the topic bit by bit.

The first person to mention SLAA to me was a therapist in hospital. He was leading a group therapy session in the rehab unit, which my own therapist had encouraged me to join temporarily, mainly because I was displaying addictive or compulsive behaviour around a man. My therapist also thought I had a possible alcohol problem. I had abused alcohol in the past,  in my 20s, and he wanted me to get more education on alcoholism and be exposed to alcoholics. I am glad I did: it not only taught me a lot about the nature of addiction and addicts, but I saw how easily my drinking to cope with stress or difficult feelings could tip into alcoholism. However, although I tend to give up alcohol when the going gets tough, I do drink now, just very little as I am on a lot of medication anyway. Doing that stint in the rehab section was good. It is in my nature to overdo stuff, whether good or bad for me, so I get addicted to substances or exercise or food. Learning about addiction, how it begins and progresses, and how to get out of one, was very useful. 

Anyway, in this group session I was describing what had been happening to me. At that point, I simply could not control the impulse to write to a former lover of mine. This man had had an incredibly destructive impact on me and I felt haunted by him.  He had humiliated and used me, and my psychiatrist urged me to sever contact. A big part of me agreed: I didn't want him in my life at all.  And yet I couldn't stop messaging him. Often he ignored me but sometimes he would answer. In some instances, he lavished me with attention, was  affectionate and helpful. When he was responsive, I was happy but felt deeply conflicted. When he ignored me I was miserable, frightened by my behaviour, desperate to stop.  I was obsessed with him so that my mind automatically turned to him and I would find myself saying his name out loud without even wanting to. It was frightening, I thought I was going mad. I was ashamed and so angry. I berated and insulted myself and I tried to everything I could think of to make it stop. Looking back I think it was mainly the medication helped with the obsessive thoughts. It was a huge relief to be rid of them, although this still didn't enable me to cut off contact with him. 

On the numerous (!) occasions that I announced to him that I was cutting off contact for good, I felt like I was cutting off a limb, that I would fall over and not be able to get up. It seemed inexplicable to me at the time. I couldn't figure out what he was providing me with - his sporadic affection and kindess gave me a huge high temporarily but it was not a balanced, mutual exchange between two adults who like each other  - I knew it was not healthy. I was basically begging for crumbs from him, for anything - just one word, a little bit of kindness, just a sign I was special to him. It was like I was freezing cold and only he had the power to warm me up. 

But how I felt towards him was utterly tainted by what had happened between us in the past, and I was still in a lot of pain over it. It had been such a nightmare.  I felt he had manipulated and violated me, and had shown no respect for me or my life. Initially I blamed him for everything, the whole miserable mess, but I see now that I had a big role to play in creating this terrible situation for myself (more on this another time) and I was beginning to see this by the time I was in hospital. Still, I didn't trust him at all and yet I felt totally entangled. I hated him but I couldn't let him go. 

I will continue this in the next post. Thank you for reading. 

Drama therapy - an account

While in hospital, we were offered drama and art therapy several times a week. I was in a few plays as a small child but never did any acting again. I played a string instrument and was heavily involved in music in and out of school, but I never did anything using my body to express myself, or indeed being playful with my appearance and personality. I lacked the self confidence to be flexible like that, and became very rigid and ashamed, even though many of my friends were the exact opposite, artists and dancers by profession. They used to tease me a little for being so stiff, which would make me deeply uncomfortable. I was yearning to break out and express myself somehow, but I felt entombed.

Now I realise I didn't know myself very well, and the shame and self-loathing I had was overwhelming.  And yet to a large extent I didn't even know it was there, I was blind to how constricted I was by hang-ups, and punitive self-talk. It was just how I had been brought up, I didn't know any different.

But by the time I was in hospital at 30 years old, I was undergoing something of a revolution. I had dynamited my marriage - which for many years had been my security blanket, my lifeline - and I was in the process of understanding fundamental truths about my childhood and upbringing that explained much of what had happened and the choices I made.

So when it came to drama therapy, I let loose. Some of it I actually found tedious, like the warm-up exercises. We would stand or sit in a circle, passing around an everyday object and briefly pretend it was something other than what it was.  So a box of tissues would turn into a massive mobile phone with one person,  or an outsized comb with the next. I gathered these were standard exercises to get us into a creative or expressive mindset and I guess it did the job.

We would then usually continue with constructing a scene. Sometimes one person would begin with a movement, repeating it silently. Anyone who thought of a movement to add to this could jump in, until the whole group was silently acting out a repeated pattern, with each person making the same movement over and over again. One scene I remember started off with people standing at a bus stop in the rain (I was the rain, and very convincing too) . The bus came splashing the waiting passengers but then the sun came out and everyone was happy again. Simple but sweet.

It felt lame, a little bit embarrassing, but I chose not to care. Another time we did a similar exercise, except we stayed still, as if putting together a painting. What emerged was a mountain, river, temple at which someone prayed. Somehow all the patients had grasped the same idea, even though it was all  done silently. We were all moved because it showed how much we were all yearning for peace of mind and tranquility. It also really formed a bond between us. It sounds odd but it did. I played a pilgrim, hiking up the mountain. When I came across the river (played by a male patient who had tried to kill himself and was self-harming) , I stopped to rest and wash my hands and face.

Afterwards he said he felt it had been a really powerful experience for him, to imagine being a river and being able to provide something for a traveller, a moment's respite. It was a good moment and we warmed to each other a lot during that session, a rapport that lasted beyond our time as co-patients.

I also saw that other exercises that left me unmoved really did something for other patients, bringing out unspoken feelings or loosening up some even stiffer than me. We also did some drawing and writing, which would often see me go a little bit off the rails. I found it hard to contain my writing and produced non-sensical letters or speeches, angry in tone. It was not badly received by the therapist but because we were in a group we couldn't explore it much. Perhaps that is just what I had to express at that moment, incoherent anger.

I stopped going after a while when I ran out of energy because of the medication I was taking. I could barely stay awake, and jumping around a room with a bunch of other patients didn't seem very appealing. But the times that I went I think were beneficial.

I lost the fear of acting, and I feel am a lot more flexible in how I conceive of myself today. Also to have been in an environment where I was able to just let go, where it didn't matter what came out of me, was liberating. But I did have to make some effort to take advantage of that. A little inner push, a little courage, and soon you realise you have nothing to lose. 

Coming to terms with an abusive marriage, thoughts on abuse

I have spent a lot of my time in recovery trying to come to terms with the abuse that occurred in my marriage. From the start, my ex was incredibly jealous. We had terrible arguments but I always gave in to his demands, however crazy they were. I became used to keeping my eyes on the ground so as not to attract attention to myself and I suppressed my sexuality and womanhood.

After a while jealousy and the negotiations around what was permissible no longer dominated our relationship. I had adapted, but inside I was terrified. What if I was attracted to someone? Did that mean I didn't love my ex anymore? He didn't even have to interrogate me  - I had the equivalent of the Spanish Inquisition going on in my head, and I would confess even the slightest pull I felt towards someone. Keeping secrets from him felt unbearable. I would bear all with the feeling of taking myself up to the gallows. Over the years, there were big crises and little ones, including me having to plead with him to forgive me for inadvertently saying something flirtatious to someone to conducting a full-on "emotional affair".

It seems ridiculous now, utterly laughable. How can I explain that I took on this absurd way of thinking, accepted this insanity? First of all I was young, 21 years old, and I was in a deep depression for which I was not receiving adequate treatment. I had just had a second abortion after getting pregnant from an unsuitable and painful liaison with a man. The abortion left me numb but full of self-loathing. My anxiety was so bad that for several months I barely left the house, finding it impossible to get on public transport. During this time, my ex was always there with me in my apartment. He talked to me and soothed me when I felt bad, giving me physical (not sexual) affection that I had been deprived of most of my life. I was deceiving myself and my friends about the relationship because the truth would have meant I would have to leave him - and that as the worst thing I could imagine happening. I had financial help from my parents but no emotional support. I thought I would sink so low that they would shun me and then I would end up drug-, alcohol-addicted, homeless.

For a long time I felt - and he still says this - that he rescued me from some terrible fate. I still struggle to disagree with this, even though plenty of people, including therapists, friends, even my current boyfriend, say he was only taking advantage of me.

It is complicated. Looking back I think he was very unwell himself, and the relationship was hopelessly codependent. He needed me as much as I needed him, but I didn't see this at the time. And yes - he did take advantage of my weakness to impose his insane rules about loyalty on the relationship, to make me behave in a way that suited his notion of honour and his insecurities. I should have walked away, but I simply did not have the strength to. The thought never even crossed my mind.

The abuse that happened towards the end of our marriage was for me much worse, but I will get into that another time.

What I wanted to say in this post is that reflecting on my own experiences has led to me think a lot about abuse in relationships in general, and I realised that I - like most of society - had a fairly limited understanding of what is a really complex phenomenon. Abuse can take so many different forms. In the public domain we are told of physical, financial and emotional abuse, but often what we are taught about domestic violence and abuse does not capture the whole picture and must leave many victims - and probably perpetrators - confused.

I certainly was confused if what was happening to me later (threatening me with taking my child away, prohibiting me from going out, repeated interrogations) was abuse because he said so often, and part of me believed him, that it was my fault, that I had brought this on myself with my behaviour. It was not until a meeting with a case worker at a domestic abuse charity that it dawned on me that this was "officially" abuse. Shaking with fear, I told her my story. She said: "I am sorry, Rosamunde, but that sounds like absolutely classic domestic abuse to me." She showed me a diagram, the "wheel of power and control" that described much of what had been happening to me.

Domestic abuse to me meant a man who batters his wife. That was it. And it seems many people still think like that. But there is overt and covert abuse, and they can be as terrible. Just because someone is mistreated in subtle ways does not mean it is not tantamount to severe abuse. Of course the severity of abuse varies but this should not solely be judged by the nature of the act (for example, hitting equals really bad, verbal insults not so bad). We need to take into account the impact on the victim. After all, what may terrify one person could theoretically leave another person cold.

But that is not where the misunderstanding of domestic abuse ends. There are so many misconceptions and prejudices. One thing I have encountered a number of times is a certain blame culture.  The other day, someone close to me said: "if you had not tolerated the abuse, had you not let it happen, then the relationship would have been over a long time ago." I also had a therapist I barely knew suggest that I must have been complicit in the abuse, and perhaps this was a bit like sex for us.

I ditched the therapist immediately but as for my friend,  I took a softer approach. I know why people in our society  think this way - it is ignorance, perhaps mixed with some misogyny, contempt for the "weak woman" and male resentment at always being portrayed as the brute.  But ultimately this is not helpful. Yes, had my mental health been better, had I not been afraid of losing my child, had I not been so isolated from my friends and so on, then I would have left sooner and avoided the whole sorry mess. But in my opinion, that is like saying to a man who was crushed by the train that if his leg had not been lame he would have escaped without injury. The logic of that is indisputable except that it implies that there was a choice in being hit by the train and staying in an abusive relationship . Even if people are objectively perfectly able, legally and socially empowered to leave a relationship, the key point is that they FEEL powerless and helpless. And that feeling is their reality. They must be helped to feel safe, offered protection and shown that there is an alternative to the hell that they are living. Staying alive and functioning in that kind of environment took so much strength that I began to accept it as my inevitable fate. This changed in my meeting with the case worker. Of course there are many other variables and circumstances too, including strong attachment to the perpetrator, in itself an extreme form of codependency and a mental health issue. Domestic abuse is not a lifestyle choice, it's not a choice at all.

I am not saying we should perpetuate victimhood. I found out myself that this can be extremely destructive and distorting, creating a cycle of yet more agony. But if abuse occurred, then there was a victim. It is for that victim to start on his or her personal journey out of the state of victimhood, to understand for themselves their part in what happened in their relationship. This is their recovery and concerns nobody but them. If they do not manage this, it is for a reason. Perhaps they are too traumatised and have not received the right kind of help. Perhaps their environment continues to be unsupportive. There will be as many paths as there are victims, and with the right kind of help most should be able to live better lives.

Obsession

A fly crawled into my head and nested. 

Its eggs spread out until the shimmering blue

Thing sat in every corner of my being,

rubbing its legs a billion times over. 

I lay down in the witch's frying pan.

She could only just make me out

With her cloudy eyes but she cooed

That I was precious, beautiful.  

I am breakfast, riddled with flies. 

I slipped into the minus, the mud and the saliva.

The sucking is so loud, I can no longer hear. 

My only hope is my blue shimmering lover.