Grief Journey - Powerless 2 Powerful

I have felt absolutely bereft the past couple of days.

I have been and am grieving the loss of birth family.

With acceptance that a birth parent is a narcissist, comes the decision to distance, and the realization that everyone in that family now appears lost to me due to the poisonous toxic waste put out by the abuser.

I have been put in the role of the golden child, the mascot, the lost child and now the scapegoat.

It's funny how all these roles are run through in a toxic family.

That is their dysfunction. Now that I do not fit in or accept a role - the shunning aka scapegoat.

I went to a meeting tonight, filled with longing for answers and full of problems.

I received insight into what I needed to be doing instead. Reminders. We read from the ODAAT book, and the topic was problem solving. By the end of the meeting I had what I needed. My problems are still there, but they can wait.

Right now I need extreme self care and a strong connection to my Higher Power. I'm not even able to pray in the traditional sense that I am usually able to. There are no words, there is only pain. Pain is all I have to connect with to my Higher Power.

So I gave my Higher Power my pain. My grief. My longing. For 40 minutes.

I need something to show me my progress, so I'm doing my meditation with an app now. I can see what I have done, and also see that others are meditating as well. I don't feel alone.

I need people, but I need to feel that security as well that comes with no people. Social media's "with but not with" has become a huge source of self care right now.

I am completely powerless. Now I can become powerful.

Just for today.....just for today...I will be here, in my pain.

Just for today I will be powerless and become powerful.

Angry. Angry. Angry...

It's a low grade, what I used to call sick.

Because anger wasn't allowed, but sad was allowed. But then sad wasn't allowed, so all that was left was sick.

And so I feel sick, then sad and then finally after a meeting I realized it is anger, my old friend.

Yes.

Something is wrong.

I was abused. And I am angry.

I am angry at the people who abused me. They are jerks and worse.

I am angry at the people who were silent. I was the innocent sacrifice which allowed them to remain in denial.

I am angry, right now, at people in my life who remind me of those people.

I hope they rot in hell. And I will pray for you, so I won't be poisoned with resentment and live a hell on earth. So I can move from hoping they rot in hell, to hoping they find recovery.

I am angry I can't go to church without feeling anxious, terrified and wanting to leave. All those feelings I couldn't feel as a child, having to survive in an abusive religious environment, I am angry.

I am angry that there are bullies, jerks and evil in the world that delight and enjoy destroying beauty and innocence, simply because they can.

No, you don't get a pass if you were abused. So was I, and I didn't abuse others. I became a protector. What did you become? A monster.

I hate all of you and I no longer have to be around you. But I will still pray for you, so my hatred will not consume me and make me a monster as well.

Unfortunately, there will always be people like you. People who delight in destruction. People who take it out on those who are enjoying themselves and life. People who decide to destroy what is beautiful, just because they get a kick out of it.

Would you prefer security to love? Would you sacrifice your own child to save yourself? To protect your viewpoint of the world? What does it say about you if you do that?

What the fuck is wrong with us?

Just for today I will feel all my feelings, and allow them to pass.

Just for today I will observe myself with compassion, and let myself grow at my own pace.

Just for today I will be angry, and I will let it pass.

Fly away to detachment

It never fails that when my spouse travels, there is drama.

Since being in recovery, I now expect drama, of some sort, to come up.

The two days before the travel everything went very well. He drove off, everything was fine, he got to the airport, and all hell broke loose.

The dog had gnawed on his passport about a year and a half ago, and he has traveled with it several times, domestically and internationally.

This time, the clerk wouldn't let him through.

His phone butt dialed me multiple times, each time I picked it up, or rang him back before I got wise to the fact the phone was calling, not him, I heard key snips of the conversation.

He sent me a text message, then as I was driving to a meeting, I got the phone call. The fix me, heal me, make everything better call. He was hysterical, in a manly way, which means he was dictatorial.

I told him I was driving, but as soon as I got to the meeting I would try to find someone to take over (maybe), and then help him.

I made it there and gave him a call. He wanted me to check his email, email his travel person etc. etc. I looked up the person's phone number and sent it to him.

He rushed to the local passport office to try and get a new passport. He got a temporary passport, called his travel agent, who told him it would be a $2000 fee to change the flight, then headed back to the airport.

At the counter, the man checking him in told him that everything happens for a reason.

His original plane still hadn't taken off.

Through all of this I stayed calm. My default was calm. It passed through my head to blame him for not getting a non-chewed passport, but why?

I didn't feed into his anxiety at all. It was amazing.

I felt like oil on water, completely unruffled.

Today I will celebrate the recovery victory, and I will congratulate myself for being able to stay calm.

Today I will be grateful to my Higher Power for recovery, and for being able to carry out His will by keeping the focus on me during a stressful situation.

Today I will be glad I let myself be loved by detaching from someone else's emotions.

Monthly Meeting

This month's meeting offered me some new insight.

I realized why I was having such a hard time within the larger group social and business meeting.

I was trained to meet other people's emotional needs and ignore my own from a very young age. I also had to learn to monitor other people's emotions in order to survive.

I already worked through the emotions of how the building itself (design, layout, smell) reminds me of places from my youth.

However I didn't understand until to day that with being in large group the constant barrage of other people's emotions is overwhelming to me.

I've only recently begun to be able to "stay inside myself" during one on one interaction and let other people take care of their own emotional needs. I've only recently been able to identify people pleasing behavior (words) as it is happening as well.

Having that many people around me means I will need to go apart and sink myself inside before interacting in a significant way. The large group business meeting immediately follows the social, so that is 2 hours. I can handle one, but two gets trying. During the social, I can leave as needed.

Today I took time after mass to say my usual post-mass prayers in the quiet chapel instead of running off immediately to my duties as treasurer gathering up people's money.

This action made a world of difference. I was able to listen to myself, and really monitor what I was feeling and whether or not I actually needed to comment. Many times my desire to comment was simply a desire to control or fix. I remained still and continued to listen, externally and internally

I am still having difficulty in the social, but hopefully that will come with time and practice. Mostly I feel awkward and not sure what to ask or say. This usually only happens around people I actually care about. With others I can just fake it since I don't care anyway.

Now that I'm used to not wearing the mask, when I start to put it on, I feel uncomfortable.

I think I'll stick with awkward and unsure of myself, but still trying.

Just for today I will take my time with what I say. I will stop to see what I think, listen to myself and remember that easy does it.

Just for today I will celebrate how far I've come, trusting that with the help of my Higher Power, I will be able to continue in growth.

Just for today I realize that I am here for a purpose - to be myself fully and completely. With the help of my Higher Power, I can live authentically.