It's Okay to Not Visit One's Family

I know that recent readings in Al-Anon's daily readers have spoken about treating one's parents the way we wished they had treated us, but I was reminded by my sponsor today that I've already done that, over and over again. The problem is the reaction I get from them is just more of the same - judgment, criticism, and blame.

I've made my amends for my part and shown them compassion, but now it's time to show myself some compassion, to not continue to put myself in harm's way. When I was raising children, when I realized they were being treated poorly by my parents, I took them out of harm's way.

Now that I have grandchildren, I would never let my parents be alone with them. So why do I continue to put myself in the same room with them?  Is this what forgiveness really is?  No, forgiveness is letting go of the resentments, not feeding the resentments. So just for today, just for now, I am not going to visit my parents.

Some Compassion

Now that my blood father's visit is less than two weeks out, I have finally found some compassion for him with an exercise I came up with while reading Survival to Recovery.

I pictured my father as a 7 or 8-year-old boy whose father died from dust pneumonia during the dust bowl of the Depression. I was the same age when my father left the family not to return.

Then I pictured him as a 14-year-old boy whose alcoholic step-father kicked him out of the house for good. When I was 14, my mother told me I could go live with my father right before she pushed me out onto the front porch on a below zero night in January in the country in Montana. Soon after that, I was adopted by my step-father.

Then I pictured my blood father as a young man in a loveless marriage feeling trapped with children. I have a picture of him next to my mother who is happy holding me as a baby, but he looks detached and is standing several inches from my mother.

After that is where our lives differ. Although I felt trapped as a young wife and mother, I stayed and got help for my attitude. I've worked on that attitude ever since and I think, finally, am making a major breakthrough - through my original anger to a place of real forgiveness.

I like compassion - it gives me the freedom to see someone else's humanity without condoning their behavior. It helps me understand what happened to someone else without letting them interfere with my serenity. It helps me keep an emotional distance to take care of me first.

This truly is detaching with love - for me and for others.

Step 9 Spiritual Awakenings, Numbers 1 and 2

Number 1: After a long spiritual drought over the summer, or so it felt, I learned something new while working Step 9 in September – that my amends to my blood father need only be that I forgive him, period. This does not require that I call him or write him, for direct contact with him usually ends with my being harmed.

This goes well with making amends to myself, that I forgive and love myself first and foremost. Forgiveness, I learned early on in the program, does not mean saying that a behavior was okay, for that is often not the case. Forgiveness instead is letting go of a resentment. We do this for our own serenity which my sponsor tells me is my ultimate goal.

Until this spiritual awakening, that all I need do is forgive (in this particular case), I was having a great deal of trouble understanding how I could feel serene while trying to have a relationship with someone who abandoned me as a child and has continued to repeat that behavior for the last 50 years. Why would I expose myself to someone's abuse if I love myself?

The answer is I wouldn't, and shouldn't.

Number 2: I also learned what loving myself really means - my second spiritual awakening this fall. I'm someone who has fought depression ever since my father first left me. I wrote poetry about death and thought about suicide long before my teen years. That or anger was where I went whenever I experienced the emotional pain of rejection, real or imagined.

I was going there again this fall so used the tools I have learned to keep myself afloat (besides taking medication). First was to have an “attitude of gratitude,” so I made a gratitude list. Okay, that helped me to stop the self-pity, to count my blessings. Second was to get some exercise and sunshine. That helped short-term, but the effects did not last long enough. So third, I thought about others and that I needed to stay alive for them. Anyone who has had a family member or friend commit suicide will tell you to think of others.

This is when I realized that I only felt good when I was either with others or had plans on a daily basis to be with someone else. Should someone cancel our plans, I would be devastated and wonder how I was going to make it through the day. It took me awhile to see this, since my old self felt better when I was alone because people often made me feel bad about myself. That's because my family of origin was non-supportive and I used to choose unhealthy relationships.

That's when it hit me, that if I was going to beat my depression, I was going to have to love myself enough to enjoy my own company. I needed to lose my dependency on others to feel good about me. In other words, staying alive for others was no longer working because it was only a temporary fix – I had to learn to stay alive for me! This is a radical change in my thinking and I have just begun to practice it.

Stay tuned for more blogging on this.

Father's Day for Adult Children of Alcoholics

As Father's Day approaches, I suddenly realize why my blood father might have called this week after almost three years of silence. I can't know for sure, of course, but he's probably feeling sorry for himself again. That's his MO. And someone in his 80's just doesn't change. He says he has something important to tell me and wants to come for a visit. My sponsor reminded me that I have choices here. And my decision right now is to wait and see, having told my blood father that now is not a good time, which is the truth.

It probably isn't coincidental that I just put him on my Step 6 list under people I haven't totally forgiven. And when I ask God to make me willing to let go of a resentment, He/She usually gives me an opportunity to face that resentment head on. So I thanked God this morning for my blood father calling. I asked for His/Her will for my life and the power to carry that out (Step 11).

I also thanked God for my step father who adopted me, loves my mother, and is taking care of her in her old age - not an easy task. He's the best parent I have, the most normal parent I have. He's the one who stays in touch consistently and sends out greeting cards. He's the one who supported me financially and emotionally and was there at my high school and college graduations. He gave me away at my wedding.

And he's the one I sent a Father's Day card to. I honestly, completely, didn't remember my blood father when shopping for cards for my dad and my husband. That is a good thing after years of trying to get him to be the parent he's never been and never will be. He's sick and the best thing I can do for myself is forgive him but at the same time take care of myself. I don't know what form that will take, but I do know that God will let me know what is best for me.

I do know that He/She loves me more than I can fathom, more than I love my children and grandchild. And with that, I know I am worthy of good things and good people in my life. I no longer search out sick people to fill the void that was left when my blood father left and my mother was no longer able to love me the way I would have preferred. She, like all my parents, did the best she could. And I, too, am doing the best I can.

Why I Hold Grudges

I’m working the Steps this year by reading and answering the questions in Paths to Recovery. The first question in the defects section in the chapter on Step 4 – made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves – asks why do I hold onto my resentments? I’m not sure I’ve ever asked myself this question; I’ve only acknowledged that I do indeed hold onto grudges, thinking it is what I learned growing up with a very sick mother, having been abandoned by my father.

Perhaps knowing why I continue to hold onto my resentments even when I know they hurt me is the key to really letting them go. Suddenly I realized that I hold onto my grudges to protect myself from getting hurt. As a child, I put on my suit of armor and became as hard as steel so no one could hurt me again like my father had and like my mother continued to do. Even then they got through, although I didn’t feel it, not really.

But as I grew, both physically and emotionally, the suit of armor became too small; it began to spread apart and the gaps left me more and more vulnerable as time wore on. I still had resentments, but my coat of grudges no longer protected me the way it used to. As I’ve grown spiritually in Al-Anon, I’ve learned that my health depends on me completely shedding this false protection that no longer serves me. Instead, I will cover myself in God’s acceptance, love, forgiveness, and approval of me, as well as my own acceptance, love, forgiveness, and approval of me.

In this way, I no longer need to hide behind steel plates; the problem with the armor was that it protected me from everything – even the good stuff in life! Now I am protected by a transparent bubble that lets hurtful opinions and actions bounce off of me while letting kindness and love through. I no longer need to fear what others can do to me, so I can let go of my old, childhood resentments and finally be free of their constraints. I can grow up and enjoy the maturity of adulthood. Just for today, I know that I did the best I could even as my parents did the best they could.

Sometimes It's Okay Not to Feel

When I heard that my mother was in the hospital with serious side effects from taking too much of her narcotic pain medicine, it crossed my mind that she could die. She is, after all, almost 80 and has been in bad health for years. When her possible death did not bother me, I was a bit bothered by my lack of emotion. I simply thought, "Should she die, I would go to her funeral." Period.

Then I read in Hope for Today (March 19th) that we have sometimes already grieved the loss of someone long before they are actually gone. We have already shed our tears and gone through the appropriate stages of grief, which I believe are denial, anger, bargaining, sadness, and acceptance. After years of trying to fix a relationship that was not to be, I realized I was already at the last stage of acceptance, thus the lack of feelings (or at least intense feelings).

I was more into thinking about Dad and how he would do as Mom's death would affect his life dramatically. This still didn't prompt in me the need to be by his side, for it would mean travel when that was the last thing I needed right now. My first obligation is always to myself, to take good care of me. Plus I have a sister right there should Dad/Mom need someone. And I have other family members close by me that I need to help in the coming month.

Fortunately, Mom recovered and is now home with a new regimen, and Dad is relieved. If I had gone into my prior mode of drama resulting in rescue, rather than calmly accepting what is and what could happen - without getting into all the what-ifs - I would have wasted energy that I do not currently have to deal with Mom/Dad, again. I've spent time on those relationships, even travelling to Europe once to rescue them. As such, I've made my amends. I've done what I can do and that is enough.

This may sound cold to some of my readers, but I assure you that it is simply the result of years of grieving over what I never had and never will have with my parents - healthy, functioning, nurturing relationships. Both my sponsor and a professional (who included my mother in my therapy for a time) told me that some people simply do not change. I had to move on to take care of myself and look to other relationships for my needs - first and foremost the one with my Greater Power.

With that comes love and forgiveness of myself as well as the same for others. Forgiveness, by the way, does not mean we forget. It means we let go of the resentments. And love isn't always a feeling, it is more a willingness to respect another's humanity - flaws and all - realizing that they, too, are children of God. I also rely on the God of my understanding to let me know when and if I should step up to the plate, and this time it was obvious that I belonged on the bench - simply watching the game and praying for those involved in the action.

Why Do A 10th Step?

So why is it so important to do a 10th step? (Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.) Can't we let some things just slide by? After all, we aren't expected to be perfect in our recovery from living with the disease of alcoholism. However, as my sponsor tells me, my goal is serenity and if I don't keep my side of the street clean, I lose my serenity. I realized yesterday that something was amiss. I was suddenly gossiping about a person in the program to several people - the very person I had harmed, and then I started telling someone else a bunch of the "bad" things my spouse had done long ago, things he had made amends for and I had supposedly forgiven him for.

I reflected on this behavior this morning and realized that because I already knew I had to do a 10th step, but hadn't yet, I was into resenting the person I had harmed, and I was remembering other resentments supposedly long gone. In other words, I was blaming others for my behavior that I had yet to make amends for. It was amazing how quickly this was happening, and how quickly I was losing not just my serenity, but my sanity. For example, my dog was sick last night and I began to panic - I was suddenly angry with my daughter because I couldn't find my towel-rags (even though I had moved them myself) and I resented the vet who had cleaned my dog's teeth the day before. Plus I was projecting having to go to the ER vet on a Sat. night and ending up with a $1000 bill, neither of which happened.

So now that I know how quickly I started to react rather than respond to a situation because I need to make a 10th Step, it is essential that I talk with my sponsor about the best way to make my amends. There is not a simple solution this time - the person I harmed is not someone I live with or whom I can just call, plus I need to know how much information is necessary in making my amends. In the meantime, I can admit my faults to my Greater Power right here and now and start anew. I can be serene knowing that I've written it down and am willing to make my amends. I don't have to wait until I make those amends to regain my sanity. I don't have to remain resentful and angry at others, and especially I don't have to be angry with myself.

If I've learned anything recently, it is that I need to forgive myself first and love myself unconditionally - I need to Let It Begin With Me before I can forgive others and love them unconditionally. So I'm 10th Stepping myself right now and will ASAP 10th Step the other person I have harmed, and if necessary the people I gossiped to - if I don't stop this thing right here and now it will get bigger and bigger and I will fall into depression and self-pity. Since I was just there a few months ago, I don't want to go there again. I am so grateful that the Al-Anon program gives me the tools to not just get well but to stay well, and the 10th Step is one of the best tools I have.

God's Will Should Be Simple

If God loves us, why would He/She make it difficult for us to discover our personal road to serenity? Why do we think that finding God's will for our lives is strenuous and sometimes impossible? I've been struggling with the question "What is God's will for my life?" for years. But guess what, I have been living God's will much of that time simply because I was seeking it. Through working my program and living my life, even in my "failures" I was doing God's will.

My problem is that I measure whether I am doing God's will or not by how good I feel about myself. And feeling good about myself means that I have achieved something worthy of other people's praises. Whereas I used to find contentment in cleaning my house because it gave me joy, now just cooking a meal has no meaning for me unless others take notice. Why do I need this approval of others?

My sponsor tells me that only God and I need to approve of me. But I don't think God is shaking His/Her head every day that I fail to write the great American novel. I think it is my ego that goes to bed every night thinking I've wasted yet another day, not doing God's will. In reality, I am moaning and groaning over not doing my own will which is to achieve some form of greatness.

I don't really get that "My Higher Power wants what's best for me. However, I need to want it, too." (Hope for Today, page 137) Instead, I think that what's best for me is to fulfill my desires. I've got it backwards. What's best for me is wanting what God wants. And what does God really want or ask of me? This is simple, I'm learning. "When I learn to love myself as my Higher Power loves me, I believe I am doing God's will." (Courage to Change, page 206)

So God's will for me first and foremost is that I love myself. To do that, I have to believe that God loves me, even when my parents didn't love me. I have to do the footwork of the Steps in order to achieve forgiveness of them and others and especially of myself. When I truly love myself in this way, I will have balance in my life and be better able to serve others - not just do things to please others.

I'm not quite there yet, but because I am seeking rather than giving up, I am doing God's will, whatever I am doing with my day. I no longer need to beat myself up about not achieving greatness in my own eyes. I need to pat myself on the back for getting on with my life, for getting up every morning and showing up for life. Just blogging today is a sign that I am on the right path. I will leave the results in God's hands, one day at a time.

What I Learned at the International

1. I can be grateful that my father abandoned me when I was eight years old. The thought simply occurred to me when someone shared they were grateful that their fiance had left them.

2. If God wants me to make a connection with someone in particular, it will happen - over and over again without having to use cell phones or make plans.

3. If I don't respond like I want when someone recognizes me, I can ask God for a second chance to give that person a hug and my prayer will be answered.

4. It's quite alright to show some emotion when sharing at the mic - you might help someone else feel the feelings they had been stuffing also since childhood.

5. If you're not enjoying a speaker, still listen because you might hear what you need to "just for today." In the meantime, look around the arena and imagine all the recovery in the building.

6. I can forget my diet for a day and make up for the calories by walking all over Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania - which is a beautiful city with stunning architecture.

7. My spouse's sobriety helps him deal with long lines and delays, even teaching some Al-Anons that getting angry is not the solution. He told one impatient lady that he can certainly stand in line to buy a bottle of water for his wife who spent many hours waiting for him when he was drinking.

8. I am able to get up early (when it's two hours earlier back home) in order to support Al-Anons from my Area who are speaking, even though I am definitely not a morning person.

9. I can actually be nice to my sober spouse 99.9% of the time, especially if I make the decision to enjoy his company for who he is now, rather than continue to live in the past when he was drinking.

10. I can make a new friend in Al-Anon while standing in line, even if English is her second language. And because I decided to go against my old nature and befriend someone else, I heard the lesson again that my Greater Power has been teaching me this year - "Imagine what it is like to be your father, to have never made amends to your daughter, to be old and estranged from her - imagine that and you will not only be compassionate, you will be able to forgive the person without forgiving the behavior."

To the Parent I Hardly Knew

Note: This poem was my first post on this blog. I'm reposting it because it is as true today as it was 18 months ago, especially since today is this parent's 80th birthday. I've changed the ending a bit due to changed circumstances.

I have a few memories
as a child—your letting go
of my bike seat, not letting me know,
letting me think you were there
holding me up, while all along
I was on my own,
like I would soon be.
And you buying me the gray
stuffed poodle for my birthday,
the one I left outside in the rain,
ruining it—I remember peering
through the window, seeing it
in the far corner of the yard,
just like I had first spied it
through the window of the drugstore,
on that first visitation weekend
we would have after the divorce.
One of the few we would have,
for it was that same year you would
say goodbye, telling me you were
moving to another state and you
wouldn’t see me much—little
did we know that would be the
last time, until I was grown.
Even then, the visits were short, just
a few days in the summer—hardly
enough to rebuild a relationship
broken by years of silence,
that have now turned into months
we don’t speak, and years
we don’t see each other, again.
So now it is time for me
to truly forgive you,
time for me, at last, to let you go—
the parent I hardly knew.

©2008 Al-Anon Lifer

Spiraling Upward...

Recovery and progress in this program have often been described as a spiral, that we deal with the same issues over and over again, only on a different level. Many times, it seems like we're sprialing downward - you know, the one step forward, two steps back feeling. As we grow, however, by really working the steps, reasoning it out with others, attending meetings, and doing service work (vital, in my opinion), our spirals tend to go upward more than downward.

I had this type of growth spurt recently. Just a few blogs ago, I mentioned my blood father again. I had actually started this blog with the last time I was in contact with him. Since then I've been working on forgiving him for not only his past behavior but his current behavior towards me. Watching the movie The Savages last month brought it all to the forefront again. I saw these adult children who had been abused as children forgiving their father by taking care of him in his last days. It was moving considering they hadn't had much contact with him for years and years.

But that didn't mean that I had to take care of my blood father in his old age. As someone said to me early on in the program during a step study, you can forgive someone but that doesn't mean you have to take them to lunch. And as my current sponsor says, you can forgive someone without forgiving their actions. Also, you don't need to put yourself in harm's way if that person continues in their destructive behavior. Which my blood father has, continuing to abandon me over and over again while at the same time blaming my mother and me for his estrangement.

So what happened recently besides seeing the movie The Savages? I went to NYC last weekend and visited Ellis Island. It occured to me that I didn't know enough about my father's family to look up if any of them had come through Ellis Island. (I knew about both sides of my mother's family, that they had hit the states and the West around 1852.) When I got home, I found the genealogy book my father had given me in the 1990's about his father's family, and in it was a family tree with his mother's maiden name and her parents' names.

With that information, I went on the Ellis Island website and found three women who could have been my great-grandmother. Then I went on websites in Minnesota to find my great-grandparents' wedding certificate or my grandmother's birth certificate, to find out more about my great-grandparents. I didn't get anywhere, although I didn't make any phone calls to find out more. Instead, I decided that I might have to contact my father to find out more. Then I was reminded from the family tree that tomorrow is his 80th birthday.

Suddenly I felt like it was time for me again to try to contact him. After all, it was his 80th birthday, and his mother would be 100 next month were she still alive. Now I have been advised by both my sponsor and therapist to emotionally divorce my father, and I've been working on that for several years. So I called my sponsor who did not give me advice but told me to pray about it, determine my motives, and think about the consequences, if I could live with the outcome. I pleaded with her to tell me what to do and she said I already knew what to do.

I didn't, but I did know - and I told her so - that I do believe I had finally forgiven him. I had finally let go of that deep resentment that was my original resentment. I didn't really realize it until I said it, but it was true. My insides match my outsides now. I no longer have to fake it till I make it. I truly am serene about the whole situation. It is what it is. I have accepted it and moved on or upward into a different level of living, no longer pulled down by the past.

So after dinner, I started to write a letter to him about Ellis Island and wanting to know more about his mother's side of the family. I fully intended to say Happy 80th Birthday and all that, but just a few paragraphs into the letter I felt very strongly that I was wasting energy and time, and this wasn't in God's will for my life. That I could be open to having a relationship with him, but he would have to initiate it this time since he was the one who broke it the last time. I learned last year that I don't need to mend a relationship that I didn't break!

Even though I used to try, over and over and over again. And where did it get me but not serene. Yet here I am now, serene, although things don't appear right with my world, they are, because they are right in my heart, with my motives, with my God, and with the universe. Each of our stories is different. Each of us follows a different path in recovery. One friend may forgive her father and take care of him in his old age. Another may have to forgive her father after his death.

As for me and my heart, although I don't see or talk to my father, I have forgiven him and wish him a Happy 80th Birthday. He is, after all, a child of God and suffering from this family disease called alcoholism. And because of that, I can be compassionate, but I can also detach with love for myself, moving ever upward in the spiral of recovery.

A MOVIE BRINGS IT TO THE FOREFRONT

I watched The Savages yesterday, a movie about grown children stepping up to the plate to take care of their father at the end of his life. The twist was that the father had abused them and, for most of their adult lives, had been estranged. I was touched by their ability to do the "right thing," even though I'm not sure I will be able to do the same when it is my turn.

I started this blog the last time I attempted to see my biological father. He chose not to see me. It is complicated and I don't want to bore you with the details. Let's just say that both my professional counselor and my sponsor told me, at the same time, to emotionally divorce my father. I'm still in that process because it still hurts.

It hurts when your "daddy" leaves you when you're still a little girl. It hurts when he doesn't come to visit you when you're an adult. It hurts when you know he'll probably die before the relationship can be mended because you need to protect yourself from being hurt again and again...

So even though I still feel sometimes like I need to make amends, I am told that I don't, because in so doing I would harm myself. In other words, I don't need to mend a relationship that I did not break. I've tried and tried and tried, and it hasn't worked. I've done my best. I've done enough. It is time to truly let go, to surrender, to leave him in God's hands.

On the other hand, I am willing to help take care of my mother-in-law who loves me despite my character flaws, as well as my aunt who still cares for my grandma at 103. I may also help out with caring for my mom and dad (the man who adopted me) when the time comes. These people have done the best that they could, and for that, I am grateful and willing.

Wouldn't It Be Nice!

I got this letter today that promises me all my wishes will come true, like winning a million dollars, my children will find love and success, I will lose weight, I will have more friends, I will be happy in my work, etc. etc. etc., and I only have to buy this special wish ring. Just $5 plus shipping and handling and following the instructions that come with it. Wow. What a promise. Unfortunately, there is no magic ring that will make my dreams come true. There is no "secret."

Instead, there is hard work, honesty, kindness, love, service, and prayer, yes, prayer, but not the kind that asks for material wealth and a perfect body. The kind that asks "only for God's will for us and the power to carry that out." This means to me that I shouldn't even be asking God for specific things for me or my children, rather simply for God's best for us and how may I be of use to God and others.

There are days God tells me to take care of myself, to be good to myself. For example, when I suffered some head trauma in a motorcycle accident, I needed extra rest. Without it, I wouldn't be good to anybody. In fact, I was acting like I used to before recovery, shooting off my mouth, blaming others for my unhappiness, making unnecessary demands on others, and being generally miserable. After a few days of rest and doing almost nothing, I felt better.

Now I am able to serve again and enjoy life again, even if there is no shortcut to losing weight and no magic spell to make sure my children find love and happiness. There is only God, love, forgiveness, and letting go. Oh, and putting one foot in front of the other, doing the next best thing, and suiting up and showing up. All the things we hear at meetings. They do work, unlike a so-called wish ring.

To the Parent I Hardly Knew

I have a few memories
as a child—your letting go
of my bike seat, not letting me know,
letting me think you were there
holding me up, while all along
I was on my own,
like I would soon be.
And you buying me the gray
stuffed poodle for my birthday,
the one I left outside in the rain,
ruining it—I remember peering
through the window, seeing it
in the far corner of the yard,
just like I had first spied it
through the window of the drugstore,
on that first visitation weekend
we would have after the divorce.
One of the few we would have,
for it was that same year you would
say goodbye, telling me you were
moving to another state and you
wouldn’t see me much—little
did we know that would be the
last time, until I was grown.
Even then, the visits were short, just
a few days in the summer—hardly
enough to rebuild a relationship
broken by years of silence,
that have now turned into months
we don’t speak, and years
we don’t see each other, again.
So now it is time, perhaps the last,
that we’ll meet face-to-face—
it’s time for me to truly forgive you,
time for me to at last, let you go—
the parent I hardly knew.

©2006 Al-Anon Lifer