Today's entry in Just For Today says "If we are to share our innermost selves with others, we must first have an idea of what those innermost selves are truly like."
Getting to know oneself is a life long journey I think. We do change sometimes when we grow older. We discover new talents. We discover new feelings. We have new reactions to our feelings. There are things we simply did not know about ourselves. There are things we discover we are capable of that we did not know we were. Our state of mind changes all the time. Some have said that the only constant is change. To some degree, too, we can decide who we are or will be. We have some choice in what kind of person we are.
It is impossible to share all of ourselves at a single meeting. We do have to decide what to share and what not to share. We usually want to stick to the topic unless there is something more urgent going on that demands our attention. I think it would take most of a lifetime to share all of me with another human being. True intimacy is people really getting to know one another. That means taking risks.... It can be scary to share what is really going on inside with others. But in truly intimate relationships we should have plenty of time to work up the courage to share all of ourselves. There is no rush to confess our innermost fears to virtual strangers..... That probably wouldn't be wise anyway. There are plenty of real predators out there, and predators see fear as weakness. They would capitalize on such feelings....
I spent a lot of time getting to know myself before I became addicted. Recovery has been, to some degree, relearning some of my old habits. I was constantly reflecting. Of course, before I became addicted, the lens I was looking through could've been considered "cloudy" because I had clinical depression for over 20 years before I became addicted. The person I knew myself to be back then felt suicidal most of the time. I didn't believe that anyone was powerless over any aspect of themselves back then. I thought that if I meditated enough, exercised enough, was tolerant enough, talked to God/dess and prayed hard enough, did enough good deeds -- some thankless, helped others out enough, was green enough, etc. I would feel better. Looking back I can see quite clearly that I was powerless over my depression.
My self esteem improved before my depression was treated. That had a lot to do with me just deciding to escape from those predatory types as quickly as possible. I used to try to educate them and help them with their self esteem. I know now I was much too tolerant of their shenanigans. I really did not know any better. Nobody taught me about how to deal with those kinds of men, much less effective means of dealing with them. I know it isn't a woman's fault when she gets hit by a man -- but I know I don't want to give those kinds of men any excuses to hit me either. I know I never want to get facial reconstructive surgery or anything like that.... So I just started to leave those kinds of men behind me as quickly as possible and trusting my gut.
Unfortunately this way of coping cost me a couple of friendships with women who were also too tolerant of abuse. They defended those kinds of men, and decided that I was doing something wrong by refusing to put up with verbal and sexual abuse. Those "friends" denied my experiences.
Oh well, such is life, some people will never accept who we really are. I have learned through experience that it isn't worth it to force my real personality on others. I've never been one of those people who wished I were someone else. I've always thought that I was fine just being me. Maybe it's my own "sour grapes" story, but what other people have and do never seemed worth the price they paid to get it. I've always had some faith that things would improve for me. I've always been introspective enough to know that I could change what I didn't like about myself eventually. I'm a little bit stubborn, too, and I'm not the kind of person who would just lay down and die or pull the covers over my head and hide for long. Other people simply don't have what I want. I can get my own, thank you very much....
I've found too, through experience that people who have a problem with the "real me" as they perceive me, are often projecting their own repressed personality traits onto me. It's been said "you spot it, you got it." I try not to do this. I try to remain non judgmental of others. It takes time to get to know real people and what is really true about them. It takes time to see others clearly.... It helps if there is honest intimacy going on. I don't trust others right off the bat. I tend to project my good traits on monsters at times: things that simply aren't really there....
I put the real me out there. I'm not always talkative, in fact, I am not very talkative at all, but I'm always me. People can like it or lump it. It helps me not to get too attached to others. Detachment from others who I have feelings for can be very helpful. People have the right to do what they do as long as they aren't victimizing someone. I don't have the right to try and control them, and I expect others to give me the same right. I have the right and responsibility to be real, and I need patience to find those who like and love the real me. Those are the friendships that are worthwhile to me.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Trust
Ah, yes, trust.... Trust is a difficult one for me. There are few people I really trust. Trust with me, is earned.
It took me a long time to trust my higher power, which is love. Love was something unfamiliar coming from other people. People often said things I did NOT want to hear. I had learned from my nightmare marriage not to trust people who did say the things I wanted to hear all the time. Since people tend to do one or the other, I didn't really trust anyone.
When I was almost four years old, I lost my mom to a car accident. It took me a long time to recover from that. There was not a lot of love for me from my stepdad. He often disciplined me with corporal punishment (with my pants down) My stepdad and his wife had little patience with me, and I was often disciplined for simply crying. I did not understand why God had "taken away" my mother. I learned too, that I couldn't trust other children either. One incident that stands out in my mind is when a bunch of neighborhood kids made a ring around an injured crow and stoned it to death. I guess I couldn't understand why anyone would want something living to die. I felt guilty because I had thrown one stone at first, but I stopped and tried to get the other kids to stop too. I remember feeling bad, too, about eating meat.... But, I did not have much choice about finishing my dinner in that home.
It was probably 30 years after the death of my mother that I began to trust my higher power. I realized that my higher power had consistently, albeit slowly, gotten me out of several abusive situations. My higher power had found good adoptive parents for my two daughters. My higher power had found me places to live. My higher power helped me find safe shelter when I was travelling around hitchiking. My higher power often warned me about people that were untrustworthy -- because I'd often get a feeling about people who weren't so savory, and I was very rarely wrong.
With trusting other people, I find it very helpful to carry a minimum of expectations. If you don't expect too much from other people (who are not predatory I must say) they will rarely let you down. I also find it helpful to not compare my insides to their outsides. I can see common ground better that way. I am, basically, a nice person, and not everyone is nice! I used to deny that little warning feeling I'd get because I thought there had to be a nice, compassionate person inside the monsters I'd met, just waiting to come out. All they needed was a little "encouragement."
I've been through a lot of abuse at the hands of men. I find it much easier to trust other women then men. I know that even with all the cattiness and jealousy and other things that women do when they are being "evil" they simply cannot hurt me as much as abusive men can. I'm not saying that women can't do damage; they simply can't do as much destruction as men can. And, men can be masters of head games, cattiness, jealousy, etc. too.
I know that my mistrust of men goes a little too far at times. Other times I am too trusting of strange men. Its easy for a man to lose my trust. They say "curiousity killed the cat" and my curiousity often gets me in trouble with predatory types....
Trusting yourself is very important. It may take time, when you have done things that you really regret in addiction to learn to trust yourself. It's okay to lean on that higher power until you can trust yourself to say "no" to drugs and alcohol. It's very hard to repair one's self esteem when one does not trust oneself!
Today, I trust myself. I trust my sponsor. I trust my Higher Power. I trust several women friends I have made. I don't really have any men in my life right now that I do trust -- but I'm sure it will still take time to undo the damage that was done to me at the hands of men. I know I can walk past the bars. I know I can trust myself to walk away from drugs. I know I can trust myself to say no to cravings (which are rare nowadays). I know that trusting my higher power is also known as faith. Faith is important in recovery. Patience is good to develop with yourself if you are new to recovery. A lack of faith and trust seems to be the hallmark of many a newcomer. If you are new to recovery, give yourself time to develop these things. It takes a little while to see clearly.
Above all, don't beat yourself up for not being immediately healthy!
It took me a long time to trust my higher power, which is love. Love was something unfamiliar coming from other people. People often said things I did NOT want to hear. I had learned from my nightmare marriage not to trust people who did say the things I wanted to hear all the time. Since people tend to do one or the other, I didn't really trust anyone.
When I was almost four years old, I lost my mom to a car accident. It took me a long time to recover from that. There was not a lot of love for me from my stepdad. He often disciplined me with corporal punishment (with my pants down) My stepdad and his wife had little patience with me, and I was often disciplined for simply crying. I did not understand why God had "taken away" my mother. I learned too, that I couldn't trust other children either. One incident that stands out in my mind is when a bunch of neighborhood kids made a ring around an injured crow and stoned it to death. I guess I couldn't understand why anyone would want something living to die. I felt guilty because I had thrown one stone at first, but I stopped and tried to get the other kids to stop too. I remember feeling bad, too, about eating meat.... But, I did not have much choice about finishing my dinner in that home.
It was probably 30 years after the death of my mother that I began to trust my higher power. I realized that my higher power had consistently, albeit slowly, gotten me out of several abusive situations. My higher power had found good adoptive parents for my two daughters. My higher power had found me places to live. My higher power helped me find safe shelter when I was travelling around hitchiking. My higher power often warned me about people that were untrustworthy -- because I'd often get a feeling about people who weren't so savory, and I was very rarely wrong.
With trusting other people, I find it very helpful to carry a minimum of expectations. If you don't expect too much from other people (who are not predatory I must say) they will rarely let you down. I also find it helpful to not compare my insides to their outsides. I can see common ground better that way. I am, basically, a nice person, and not everyone is nice! I used to deny that little warning feeling I'd get because I thought there had to be a nice, compassionate person inside the monsters I'd met, just waiting to come out. All they needed was a little "encouragement."
I've been through a lot of abuse at the hands of men. I find it much easier to trust other women then men. I know that even with all the cattiness and jealousy and other things that women do when they are being "evil" they simply cannot hurt me as much as abusive men can. I'm not saying that women can't do damage; they simply can't do as much destruction as men can. And, men can be masters of head games, cattiness, jealousy, etc. too.
I know that my mistrust of men goes a little too far at times. Other times I am too trusting of strange men. Its easy for a man to lose my trust. They say "curiousity killed the cat" and my curiousity often gets me in trouble with predatory types....
Trusting yourself is very important. It may take time, when you have done things that you really regret in addiction to learn to trust yourself. It's okay to lean on that higher power until you can trust yourself to say "no" to drugs and alcohol. It's very hard to repair one's self esteem when one does not trust oneself!
Today, I trust myself. I trust my sponsor. I trust my Higher Power. I trust several women friends I have made. I don't really have any men in my life right now that I do trust -- but I'm sure it will still take time to undo the damage that was done to me at the hands of men. I know I can walk past the bars. I know I can trust myself to walk away from drugs. I know I can trust myself to say no to cravings (which are rare nowadays). I know that trusting my higher power is also known as faith. Faith is important in recovery. Patience is good to develop with yourself if you are new to recovery. A lack of faith and trust seems to be the hallmark of many a newcomer. If you are new to recovery, give yourself time to develop these things. It takes a little while to see clearly.
Above all, don't beat yourself up for not being immediately healthy!
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Acceptance
Acceptance is not only critical to recovery; it is critical to our peace of mind and to our emotional health!
When I was younger, I found a lot of things about me and others totally unacceptable. It may have something to do with the way I was raised.... Not to place blame on anyone, but it is very hard to accept oneself when one's parents and family find everything unacceptable. Acceptance is not the province of addicts and alcoholics. Most of my family is addicted to something. They found most of what I did totally unacceptable. They did not accept me for what I was at all. My stepmother, for example, had me confused with a slut -- a fat slut. She could not see that I was something of a nerd -- a bookworm. She was constantly telling me to do something constructive when I was spending time writing or reading. By constructive she meant raking the lawn usually (for free).
It took me years to accept myself for what I was. I was learning self acceptance before I became addicted. Some things about myself were unacceptable to me, and I think that contributed to my addiction. I have a serious mental illness, and that was unacceptable -- not only to me, but to my family as well. What made it really tough to deal with was that around the time my mental illness became full blown, I had just had a baby. There was a lot of "unacceptable" stuff going on at the time. The father was a convicted date rapist who had also sexually abused me. The case worker (who was assigned to me after I left town with the baby -- hitchhiking no less -- to get away from three stalkers, including the father) was very prejudiced against the mentally ill. Every time she'd turn in reports to the court, she would write 9-10 paragraphs against me, and one lonely paragraph against the father. My parents refused to accept the fact they were grandparents.... None of my family stepped forward to adopt her.....
I just could not accept my mental illness, and I could not accept that I had become addicted to marijuana within the two years prior to her birth. I thought all of the hallucinations, delusions and paranoia could be blamed on the drug use -- which, of course, I could "quit anytime." I did know in the back of my mind, that marijuana does not cause constant hallucinating, but it was not acceptable to me. If I had accepted these things about myself, maybe I would have been allowed to raise her. I guess one thing that made no sense to me was CPS demanding that I go to treatment for marijuana addiction, but not the father who was, and probably still is, a crack addict. He got unsupervised visits with her before I did. This, too, was totally unacceptable to me.... It was a deciding factor in me giving her up to the foster family for adoption....
"Acceptance leads to recovery." Basic Text, chapter 3, page 16.
The first step is all about acceptance. We have to accept both that we have a problem that we are powerless over, and that our lives are unmanageable. Step two is about acceptance too. It is about accepting that we are not gods, that there is a power higher then ourselves that will help us.
We have to accept that there is something wrong before we can change it.
Self acceptance is crucial. It makes it possible to find peace with ourselves. We have to accept our defects. We have to accept our assets. We learn to accept ourselves when we take an honest look at who we really are. What is unacceptable we can change. This includes feelings. We can change the way we feel if we really want to -- sometimes this takes a change of perception. To change the way we feel requires accepting the way we do feel now. We need to accept our full range of feelings. We often find self acceptance when we share our inventories with someone else in step five. It often begins when someone accepts us for what we are. God/dess or our higher power is very accepting of us, and it is a higher place when we learn to accept ourselves the way that God/dess does. We find true humility when we accept both our liabilities and assets. Acceptance, of course, does not include beating ourselves up!
"Freedom to change seems to come after acceptance of ourselves," Basic Text, Chapter 5, page 56
Self acceptance leads to being more accepting of others, warts and all. It becomes much harder to judge another person negatively for traits we ourselves possess. If we accept that those traits are a part of us too.
Of course, some behaviors in others are unacceptable -- things like emotional, physical and sexual abuse. We don't have to accept others using drugs around us. We can walk away from those situations. Accepting others, too, does not mean that we shouldn't put up boundaries. We can accept things about others and still accept ourselves. To do this we need our boundaries.
It can take years to learn to accept ourselves and thus, others. We must also accept that the path to wellness takes time.
In today's Keep It Simple entry, they use this quote from the Grapevine in the introduction, "Acceptance and faith are capable of producing 100 percent sobriety"
When I was younger, I found a lot of things about me and others totally unacceptable. It may have something to do with the way I was raised.... Not to place blame on anyone, but it is very hard to accept oneself when one's parents and family find everything unacceptable. Acceptance is not the province of addicts and alcoholics. Most of my family is addicted to something. They found most of what I did totally unacceptable. They did not accept me for what I was at all. My stepmother, for example, had me confused with a slut -- a fat slut. She could not see that I was something of a nerd -- a bookworm. She was constantly telling me to do something constructive when I was spending time writing or reading. By constructive she meant raking the lawn usually (for free).
It took me years to accept myself for what I was. I was learning self acceptance before I became addicted. Some things about myself were unacceptable to me, and I think that contributed to my addiction. I have a serious mental illness, and that was unacceptable -- not only to me, but to my family as well. What made it really tough to deal with was that around the time my mental illness became full blown, I had just had a baby. There was a lot of "unacceptable" stuff going on at the time. The father was a convicted date rapist who had also sexually abused me. The case worker (who was assigned to me after I left town with the baby -- hitchhiking no less -- to get away from three stalkers, including the father) was very prejudiced against the mentally ill. Every time she'd turn in reports to the court, she would write 9-10 paragraphs against me, and one lonely paragraph against the father. My parents refused to accept the fact they were grandparents.... None of my family stepped forward to adopt her.....
I just could not accept my mental illness, and I could not accept that I had become addicted to marijuana within the two years prior to her birth. I thought all of the hallucinations, delusions and paranoia could be blamed on the drug use -- which, of course, I could "quit anytime." I did know in the back of my mind, that marijuana does not cause constant hallucinating, but it was not acceptable to me. If I had accepted these things about myself, maybe I would have been allowed to raise her. I guess one thing that made no sense to me was CPS demanding that I go to treatment for marijuana addiction, but not the father who was, and probably still is, a crack addict. He got unsupervised visits with her before I did. This, too, was totally unacceptable to me.... It was a deciding factor in me giving her up to the foster family for adoption....
"Acceptance leads to recovery." Basic Text, chapter 3, page 16.
The first step is all about acceptance. We have to accept both that we have a problem that we are powerless over, and that our lives are unmanageable. Step two is about acceptance too. It is about accepting that we are not gods, that there is a power higher then ourselves that will help us.
We have to accept that there is something wrong before we can change it.
Self acceptance is crucial. It makes it possible to find peace with ourselves. We have to accept our defects. We have to accept our assets. We learn to accept ourselves when we take an honest look at who we really are. What is unacceptable we can change. This includes feelings. We can change the way we feel if we really want to -- sometimes this takes a change of perception. To change the way we feel requires accepting the way we do feel now. We need to accept our full range of feelings. We often find self acceptance when we share our inventories with someone else in step five. It often begins when someone accepts us for what we are. God/dess or our higher power is very accepting of us, and it is a higher place when we learn to accept ourselves the way that God/dess does. We find true humility when we accept both our liabilities and assets. Acceptance, of course, does not include beating ourselves up!
"Freedom to change seems to come after acceptance of ourselves," Basic Text, Chapter 5, page 56
Self acceptance leads to being more accepting of others, warts and all. It becomes much harder to judge another person negatively for traits we ourselves possess. If we accept that those traits are a part of us too.
Of course, some behaviors in others are unacceptable -- things like emotional, physical and sexual abuse. We don't have to accept others using drugs around us. We can walk away from those situations. Accepting others, too, does not mean that we shouldn't put up boundaries. We can accept things about others and still accept ourselves. To do this we need our boundaries.
It can take years to learn to accept ourselves and thus, others. We must also accept that the path to wellness takes time.
In today's Keep It Simple entry, they use this quote from the Grapevine in the introduction, "Acceptance and faith are capable of producing 100 percent sobriety"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
.jpg)