Monday: 5 – 14 – 2018

Tags

being used, craziness, friendship, letters, manipulation, money, resentment, San Diego, saying No, step 4, street people, trips

Last Saturday, my friend gave me the business. She said she wanted us to go to San Diego on a trip. I said “Save your money”. But after hearing this she got very indignant with me. She was she was expecting me to pay for the whole trip myself because she is on disability and has hardly any money. I could hardly believe what she was saying to me but the thing is, I can’t come out and say; “No”. I’ve never been able to say that in my life (because of living with my father who was a malignant narcissist). But this was too much. I got very tongue tied and tried to wangle my way out of it by saying that, though she wasn’t trying to use me, I had a hard time even smelling the idea of being used. What a crock! I thought; “If I go for this, I’m going to get a resentment as big as a house”. I was determined not to do it. She tried to manipulate me through humiliation saying that street people would give the shirts off their backs to help someone else out. She said that she expected me to be ‘better’ after 38 years sober. I squeaked out a response saying; “Your expectations of me are too high”.

I was so extremely freaked out by the whole business that I completely lost my bearings. I lost my Costco card at the gas station; something I’ve never done before with any of my credit cards. My driving was scary and when I went to drop her off, I ran over the curb. She chocked it up to the bipolar disorder (I’m actually schizo-effective) and I didn’t disagree with her. I just couldn’t let the same conversation come up again.

So, when I got home, I wrote her this letter. Here it is:

Tuesday – 4-3-2018

Tags

AA, abuse, Alano club, friendship, journal, money, relationships, users

Today was an ‘interesting’ day. I just got blown over by an AA ‘friend’, a lively girl named Terrena. I had only been befriending her for a month or so when something came up. She was living in a motel situation and was trying to get a studio apartment. But – low and behold – she was short $275. You can guess the rest I think.

Well I forked up the money for her to get it.

Stupid me. I fell for the oldest trick in the book. She came off as a friend but all she turned out to be was a user. Today we were supposed to get together. She had just gotten paid and told me that when we hooked up, she’d pay me $100 of the $275. Then a funny thing happened. Right in the middle of our phone conversation we got disconnected. But the truth is I think she hung up on me. I tried to call her back about 5 – 6 times but no answer. She didn’t call me back either. She just disappeared of the face of the earth. I was supposed to pick her up for an AA meeting that we always went to. I went to her apartment but she wasn’t there or she didn’t answer the door . It’s all so frustrating!

Did she die? Have a heart attack right in he middle of our phone conversation? That’s a possibility – but I seriously doubt it. She’s only in her mid 50’s.

So there. She’s gone. A stupid AA user. As a general rule, AA people – especially those that frequent Alano clubs – are pathetic and abusive. I don’t have any AA friends. The only reason we were ‘friends’ was because my husband foisted her on me because she was new to the AA scene (she had however 10 years sober). She told him she was bipolar (I’m schizo-effective) so he threw her my way. I swear, if he tries to hook me up with anyone else in AA, I’ll sock him one.

           

I went to my usual Al Anon meeting after the AA meeting. The topic was Step 4 (made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves). I got to sit next to my sponsor Cheryl which was nice after the episode with Terrena. One of the women shared about the slogan; “You didn’t cause it. You can’t control it. And you can’t cure it.” This is about the alcoholic. But it hit me in the heart about my senior that I have been visiting for the past year. We hit a snag and she went on a starvation kick – I think to get back at me. I have been feeling so guilty about that and I hadn’t been able to shake the feeling until the woman shared this slogan. Something broke inside. I fully and finally accepted this slogan as if it applied to her crazy behavior even though she doesn’t have alcoholism. Her reaction to me was HER CHOICE! and not because of what I had done. All I did was tell her I couldn’t come see her that week. Now she’s in the hospital dying from starvation. The last time I saw her, she looked like a skeleton with skin on. They put her on palliative care. I stopped dropping by because I couldn’t bear to see her die like that. She’s 97 and in perfect health, and I wondered what she was going to die of. Now I know. Death by Stubbornness!!

What a Virgo.

A Letter to My AA Friend Stewart

Tags

AA, Alcoholics Anonymous, class, friendship, God, god's gifts, marathons, presents, school, sober, sobriety

To my dear sober AA friend,
(excerpts from a letter I wrote to my friend Stewart)

While I was on vacation I had the opportunity to spend a lot of time sitting on the sand dunes where I read and did some writing. The writing started to pick up faster and faster until I was going at it at a furious pace. I was thoroughly enjoying myself. I gathered together in words some of the things I’ve come across in my sober journey. In 30 years a lot of stuff’s come across my desk but most of it just whirls around in my head – there’s been no solidity. So I decided to try to create a holding place for some of this stuff. To get it more clear in my own mind and to share via paper with others if they care to know. This way I won’t be cornering them but at the same time get a small sense that I’m contributing.

We had a Big Fight

Tags

C-PTSD, child abuse, complex ptsd, fawning, fighting, freezing, friendship, Love, post traumatic stress disorder, PTSD, relationship, relationships

So my friend and I had a big fight and my head is reeling from it. I don’t do ‘friends’ with people and, to tell you the truth, in 60 years this is the first real friend who I’m starting to try to be real with in my life. That’s how much abuse I’ve had to deal with. I’ve been real with my husband but then we’re like two ships passing in the night with each other. There’s very little of anything between us and, to tell the truth, it’s been that way since we got married. Almost right away, he changed after we got married, but that’s another tale to tell for another time.

Finding It Hard to Love

Tags

book, C-PTSD, C-PTSD from surviving to thriving, child abuse, Family, friendship, God, Love, peter walker, PTSD, relationship

I’m reading a very good book by Peter Walker called “C-PTSD From Surviving to Thriving“. (C-PTSD – Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from childhood abuse). A couple of friends from Al-Anon told me about it and I finally picked it up and am reading it. Fascinating and horrifying at the same time. To put it mildly, it’s hot. He uses words like ‘miserable’, ‘tormenting’, ‘having little use for (a child)’, ‘routinely ridiculed’, ‘minimal nurturing’, ‘dangerous’, ‘bitter’, ‘sarcastic’, ‘parental betrayal’, etc. This man knows about C-PTSD from personal experience and 30 years of working with victims of this condition. The book also contains a lot of ‘solution’, not just description of the ‘problem’ like so many self-help books do.

Feeling Life Naked; With No Addictive Substances or Obsessive Behaviors

Tags

Addictions, child abuse, crisis, Family, friendship

(the first post in this series is here: On Being A Social Outcast )

As I’m wading through this crisis (my good friend telling me to take a hike), I’m now utterly determined not to resort to any addictions or obsessions while experiencing the pain. I seem to be going through a lot of emotional metamorphoses. I’m both deep inside them and, at the same time, (as a scientific behaviorist) observing them from without. I know that the book on this journey though crisis without the use of addictive substances or obsessive behaviors, has just gotten started. Right now I’m roller-coasting at break neck speed.  Here is what I’ve been feeling so far.

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