Al-Anon Lifer

Anonymous sharings from a long-time member of Al-Anon, which is a safe place to recover from the effects of alcoholism in a friend or relative...

Friday, November 15, 2013

Out of the Tornado

I haven't been here in a long time, writing elsewhere for a while. But I'm experiencing anxiety today, something that hasn't happened to me for a while. The cause isn't really what has been happening around me but that I let myself get caught up in the whirlwind again - someone else's drama and problems - trying to fix what is not mine to fix, to help when helping only hinders.

So I woke up this morning feeling used and abused, actually more like I have PTSD. I am suffering more than the person who took me on their little journey of freaking out and dumping it on me. They got on with their life today while I drug myself out of bed, barely able to function. My skin is on edge, crawling with pins and needles. Not even a hot bath helped.

I ate more at breakfast than I usually do and I still wasn't satisfied. I tried not to eat too much lunch, but I ate the wrong things. It might be tomorrow before I take good care of myself physically so I can feel better mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. That's still better than how long it used to take before recovery. One day is nothing when I think about the weeks, months, even years I suffered from someone else's drama.

At least it isn't my drama anymore. At least I kept the conversations with the sick person short today. I didn't go out of my way to do for them, didn't offer to do more, didn't offer to give them money, didn't offer to put my life on hold so they could live their life instead of me living mine. Instead, I decided to write here as an exercise to let this go, to maybe help someone else know they will survive the tornado, but they have to get out of its way.

Thanks for listening!

4 Comments:

At Wednesday, December 25, 2013 2:09:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

thanks, needed to hear that!

 
At Tuesday, May 06, 2014 9:06:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Taking care of myself is important when I get lost in others problems the spin begins. The storm of resentments, expectations, and for me depression builds up until a hurricane goes over the land.
One day at at time

 
At Saturday, May 10, 2014 3:24:00 PM, Blogger Jaed said...

I just found this blog and it's the first post I've read AND IT was the one I needed! Sitting here with my son the day before Mother's Day, I was about to go into my his self-made hole of (horrid-but-not-mine) problems. Having recently joined Al Anon, I've learned I cannot solve these problems, but realize after reading this specific post that I was sitting around my place just to "share" his pain with him; empathize; and going downhill fast!
THANK YOU for writing this and helping me regroup my thinking! Going out for a walk. It's a sunny day out and I was missing out on it.

 
At Saturday, May 10, 2014 3:59:00 PM, Blogger Jaed said...

Thank you for this post! After reading it, I realize I was getting back down in the deep hole of my son's problems he is facing and in doing this I was not even living my own life.
I'm new to this blog and fairly new to AlAnon.
This was the first thing I've read in here and I plan to read more. But right now I'm going to get out of my dark apartment and into the sun which helps ME. Thanks for reminding me that I have a life too and that I need to nurture myself.

 

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