Alone

     Well I've managed to finally accomplish my dream.  I did it.  I got into medical school.  It was the best feeling in my life and even two months later reminds me that I am better than I think I am, and that I am enough.
     However, I may be enough and accomplished, but I am also very alone.  Much of it is my own doing.  I didn't have the same energy and zeal when it came to investing in my friendships.  I came to find that when I stopped this investment, I received little in turn, very little.  And somehow in the time that has past I have forgotten how to be a friend, not that I didn't struggle with this before, but now I find it very difficult to be a part of the group.
     I know the holidays always give me bit of a complex, and this year is certainly no exception.  Everyone is talking about their family and friends and loves and I'm over here wondering why I bother.  As much as I would like to think that I am strong, I have been weak.  Too open about my pain.  Ain't no one have time for that.
     It's a difficult thing to take on the world by your lonesome.  But I don't think I know how to even let anyone back into my world.  Good thing no one is knocking at my door.  Haha, even if anyone tried they would have to get through ten inches of pure steel for me to even notice the efforts.
     My job had taken regular ACA meeting from me, and now I am too scared to go back.  Maybe I need to go back to the online chat rooms.  The thoughts that ravage my mind are debilitating and perhaps can only be quelled with gentle introspection and caring hands.  Just like before.
     There is always hope.  I know when I'm at my lowest there is my Higher Power, but in the chill of a winter night, sometimes it simply doesn't feel like enough.  Still...I suppose we have to keep trying.  I mean what else can we do?
     

A Difference Between ACoAs and Non-ACoAs

     A friend of mine was talking about a problem in his house.  The faucets outside his house were not hooked up to any pipes inside.  He wanted the faucets in order to use a hose to water things on his lawn.  If I was in his situation I would probably just carry buckets of water out each time I needed to water something.  But he wanted to get a plumber and actually fix the problem.        

     That’s when I discovered a key difference between ACAs and Non-ACAs.  ACoAs are maintainers, while Non-ACoAs are fixers.  I can’t tell you how many times I have shirked off the extra work it would take to fix something, to instead maintain.  I will either ignore the problem or I will find ways of keeping whatever it is working, but not put the effort in to fix the problem.  I would say to myself as long as it continues to work, then I don’t need to fix it.  This attitude applies to all aspects of my life.  The most obvious and important being how I have maintained my emotional health until I joined Al-Anon.

     I knew I was broken, that something wasn’t right in the way I thought of myself.  So I found small “patches”.  I wrapped tape around the leaking pipe that was my life, and hoped the tape would hold.  Sometimes these “patches” would be immersing myself in school, convinced if I did all the work that I would somehow feel accomplished, better.  Sometimes it meant I would never turn down a request for help, because helping people makes me feel good and again I thought I could take the gratitude and ease my inner turmoil. 

     And when these “patches” wouldn’t work, I would seek an escape.  I would focus on everything and anything if it didn’t mean I had to be in my head.  The big problem though was even if the “fixes” did work they were short-lived.  Something would happen and the tape would give way, the leak gradually increasing, my mental stability slipping away.

     I would pray desperately for enough strength to make it through.  Because that’s all I wanted.  To make it through without the dam bursting, without breaking down.  I am not proud of the ways I found to prevent the breakdowns, but they worked, and sometimes they were the only thing that did work.  I was not content to simply maintain, but I didn’t think I could be fixed.  Perpetually broken.

     Then I started Al-Anon.  For the first time I am finally trying to fix and not maintain.  I’m not using escapes as often or using unsavory “patches” to keep myself going.  I’m confronting my feelings, not pushing them down.  I’m standing up for myself more, and not letting myself get pushed around.  No longer am I adding patch after patch.  Now, piece by piece I am replacing the old pipe (my old way of thinking) with brand new solid and shiny copper pipe.

Flashes

     I walk briskly down the sidewalk, my small Al-Anon book in my right hand.  I throw the book out into the street.  Step after step, moving in time with the music pounding through my headphones.  I stop and I launch my fist against the nearest tree, feeling the rough bark scrap against my tender knuckles. Finally I reach my destination, my Al-Anon meeting.  I yell and scream out, my screams drowned out by the rush hour traffic.

     Inside I find that I am early.  “How was your week?” my Al-Anon friend asks.  “Good,” I reply.  “It’s been good.”  I see the Al-Anon table and overturn it in a rage. I head to the bathroom and wipe off some errant tears from my eyes.  I can’t stand the person looking back at me.  I smash the mirror and watch the pieces fall and sparkle.  I look down at the shards.  I return to the meeting room and grab myself a cup of soda, and settle into my favorite chair in the circle.  I clench my fist tightly around my cup, soda erupting up and down my hand, my arm.  

     The meeting starts and I find my focus goes to tracing the patterns in my jeans with my eyes.  I grab the empty chair next to me and hurl it against the far wall. I sit with my arms and legs crossed.  I find a point on my jeans and focus on it until my vision turns black.  Though my eyes remain unfocused, my ears follow each word that is said.   I rip out books out of the bookshelves and then pull the shelves down.  They crash to the ground resoundingly.  I can feel their eyes on me, pondering why I won’t look at anyone, why my face is emotionless, why I haven’t shared yet.  I stand up quickly, pushing my chair back behind me.  I run out the door, and keep running, and when I can’t run anymore I walk, and when I can’t walk anymore I sit.  I stare up into the night sky and pray for peace.  After the meeting I grab my book, stand up and leave quietly.

Moments in the life of an ACoA

     Sometimes I wish I could give people a chance to live a day in my head, just so they might understand what I struggle with everyday.  I can’t so I thought I’d write out a few different scenarios and show how ACA thinking affects everyday life moments.

     You’re out with friends.  Hanging, actually enjoying yourself, but then someone makes a joke, one single stupid joke about the joys of booze, and then all that fun you’ve been having?  It’s done.  You try hard to have a good time, but you just got reminded of all the fun with booze you had growing up.  The yelling, the anger, the fear.  In a single instant you just got consumed.  You can’t wait to leave, because you want to run to your bed, fall asleep in the hopes it resets your mood.  But these are your friends.  To run away now would raise questions.  So you sit and stay and pretend to be having a good time, and wonder how screwed up a person has to be to hate hanging out with their friends like this. 

     You’ve made the decision to go to this group meeting.  You’re eager and excited about going, because you like the people in the group.  Everything is going well, until you hear someone else share something personal in their lives.  You want to share as well.  But what do you say?  You’re struggling and hurting and close to tears, but you can’t figure out what to say about it.  So you stay silent.  Doesn’t matter anyway.  Even if you did figure out what to say, you can’t.  Despite your best efforts the words stay stuck in you.  You get so frustrated, because you know that if only you could ask for help, it would be given to you.  You know this, and still can’t force the words out.  So you become angry at yourself, and upset, and when you are alone you feel the tears well up.  You wonder whether or not you should go to that group meeting anymore.

     Things aren’t exactly going super in your life right now.  You accept this, because you know that your life is destined to suck.  When things go wrong sometimes you don’t even know if you’re allowed to be upset about it.  You look to others to gauge how you’re supposed to feel.  And because things go wrong, you blame yourself.  Even if you did your best, it doesn’t matter, because you failed.   And because you failed you get angry at yourself.  You start listening to that voice in your head that says you’re worthless, that you don’t matter.  You get struck by depression and then find yourself doing nothing for days on end, because you don’t think you can stand one more failure.  And you just know if you try and go after what you want you’ll fail.  Because that’s how your twisted mind works.

     And God.  You struggle with God a lot.  For a while it was okay.  You accepted what happened to you as a kid because it made you stronger.  But then you realize just how weak you actually are, and that you are forced to recover in Al-anon/ACA due to what happened.  So now you struggle to find another reason why God let that happen to you.  And you wonder if God’s plan is for you to be broken.  You end up concluding that you can’t understand things right now, but surely in time it will all be clear.  You hang on to this hope desperately, because Al-Anon and ACA are spiritual programs.  And you need a relationship with a Higher Power to recover, so you feel trapped by your inability to let God in. 

     Truly the mind of an ACoA can be a troubling place.  I battle self-hatred every day.  Some days I come out ahead, and others I go to sleep hoping my life will reset itself in the morning.

Pre-ACA Thinking

I wrote this last month before I had even heard of ACA.  Thought I post it here as an example of ACoA thinking.

     Tonight I went out with a few of my church friends for one of their birthdays and was struck by how they welcomed me back from my holiday with my folks.   They said they missed me.  And it felt true.  I felt it.  Typically when people say those things I sorta shrug it off.  Not this time.  I believed them when they said they missed me.  But at the same time I realized they don’t know me.  Only the part I’ve chosen to share with them. 

      I am what you call a private person.  I’ll honestly answer any question you ask me, but if you don’t ask I’m not likely to tell you.  Or I will, but it will take me a year or two of being your friend to do so.  I could tell them all about my past, the pains and heartache, but really I enjoy being this not me person.  I’m not depressed.  I’m just quiet.  In fact quite laughably, someone called me the positive one in our group.  True, I try and see the best in things and people, but only because it’s my way to deal with my head.

     Is it dishonest to be someone different?  I don’t know.  But I do know that after talking to one of ministers about my family troubles I can hardly look at her in the eye.  Because it’s hard for me to own up to what I’ve been through.  Is it shame?  Shame because in a moment of weakness I told my minister what I’ve had to deal with and still do?

     In my household, we learned pretty quickly that any emotion other than happiness was not wanted.  I learned to keep things inside, bottled them up.  It was extremely unhealthy as you might imagine.  Things got better in college once I was away from my parents, and I learned to talk about my feelings rather than keep them in.  But I also joined a sorority and learned to craft a mask of happiness. 

     Additionally, I  learned to write things out.  Sometimes it helps, sometimes it makes things worse, but it has helped me figure out just what I was feeling and has kept thoughts focused and not stumbling over each other. 

     Still I am shy.  With new folks initially I imagine I can be seen as off-putting.  Quiet and serious.  I don’t smile easily.  But I always am very polite and sorority living has thought me the "joys" of small talk and to use my low feelings of self worth to my advantage.  In a conversation low self worth can become charming self-deprecating humor and humbleness.  My feeling that very few things matter in this world?  It makes me seem like a relaxed and generally on top of things person, who is unfazed by much.  This can also be mistaken for confidence, but I should know I have none of that.

        I tend to live in a state of repression/depression/distraction.  Is it always going to be like this?