Do you love me now that I can dance?

Well, I had an epiphany today, a rather sad and perplexing one.  I know I was my mother's favorite child (not bragging; just a fact) and I know that she cared for me dearly.  I know that a lot of the ACoA issues in my life come not from the alcoholic (my father) but from her.  But what I did not know until my epiphany today is that I do not feel lovable by women because I did not feel that my mother loved me in the way that mattered.


This is a serious charge and it is because I have to say things like this that I have not told my family that I restarted this blog nor have I told them its purpose.  And I need to make sure I explain myself lest you get the wrong idea.  My mother loved me.  But her way of doing so made me feel on a key point that she did not.


While she had legitimate reasons for doing so, it was nonetheless disheartening for interactions with my mother to focus on my shortcomings.  It was just bizarre to hear her talk about me glowingly to everyone else but yet somehow in dealing with her never be good enough.


This manifests itself all over my life.  For instance, I have what I call my cleaning problem.  I hate to clean because I can never stop.  It's never good enough.  No matter how much I do, I only see what hasn't been done.  It's maddening.


But I digress.  What this all ends up boiling down to is that I felt that my mother loved me conditionally, that she did not love me if I was to do and be what I wanted to do and be.  We touched on that a little while ago when I talked about going to New York to draw comic books.


And so, since conditional love is all I appeared to ever be able to get, I have apparently on some deep lever decided that it is all that I can ever have.  Well today I actively choose differently.  I choose that someone can love me for who I am and not a chimera.  Just because I never had it doesn't mean that it is not possible.

—§—

But now I'm back to let you know I can really shake 'em down!

Both Sides Now

I've looked at life from both sides now,
From up and down and still somehow,
It's life's illusions I recall.
I really don't know life, at all.

— Joni Mitchell

I had occasion these past few days to revisit my youth by rereading a script I wrote based on my experiences in high school.  I don't know how good it is as far as a script goes, but it did an excellent job of accessing and giving voice to everything I was feeling and doing back then. I found the emotions so powerful that just listening to the music that would make up the sound track would send me into a blue funk.

I was depressed back in those days.  More than any other teenager of the time?  Maybe, maybe not.  But I was depressed.  I was different and demonstrably so.  I did not feel I fit in anywhere, and in truth I really did not.  I went to high school at a private school on a scholarship.  I was a blue collar guy in a white collar world, a black kid who did not fit in his own neighborhood surrounded by white kids he also did not fit with.

When you are not home in your own neighborhood, not home in your own family, and not home in your school, what do you do?  Well, eventually you grow up and find there is a world out there, a world of people and possibilities.  But before that, when it seems that the universe starts and ends with high school, you join the freaks, because if nothing else, you can be freaks together.

Eventually I came to the realization that unlike Groucho I would not want to be a member of any club that would not have me.  And suddenly, long before time robbed the in-crowd of their superficial advantages and proved this thought better than I could, I realized they were not better than I was, only different.

—§—

While Joni Mitchell wrote the song, it's Judy Collins's version I know the best.  Enjoy.

Smile

As I continue through ACA, I am finding little coincidences and fingerprints related to it throughout my life.  And one of them is that my favorite recording artist is Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys.

I remember hearing a snippet of Surfer Girl on the television as a child and it was as if I had heard music for the first time.  Never mind that there's no surf in Cleveland, I was hooked bad.  The Beach Boys fostered my love of vocal harmony which led me later to the Manhattan Transfer (but that's another story).

As I got to know Brian and the boys, he became a sort of personal symbol to me.  He was considered a genius.  He was misunderstood by his band, Mike Love in particular.  He was in competition with another group that people seemed to like better (a hint: they were from Liverpool).  And right when he should have blown the doors off of the world, he crumbled and did something else.

I was considered bright.  I did not feel understood by my family.  I was in a perceived competition with my cousin whom everybody liked better (or so it seemed).  And right when I was going to go to New York and draw comic books for a living, my mother "forbade" me.

To be fair, my mother never said I could not go.  She just indicated she disapproved, and back in those days I needed her to approve.  She did not think that I would be able to earn a living drawing and so, much like Brian and the album Smile, I took my dreams of drawing and put them on a shelf and became a writer.

And even though I did well as a writer, it was not what my life could have been if I had just been encouraged a little in pursuing my dream.  And Brian scrapped Smile and the Beach Boys became pretty much irrelevant from that point forward.

I later found out that Brian, my idol, suffered from a horrid family life.  Brian's father Murry Wilson was an alcoholic and abusive, even cruel, to Brian, Dennis, and Carl (the brother three-fifths of the band).  The reason Brian talks out of the side of his mouth is because he is deaf in one ear.  The reason he is deaf in one ear is Murry Wilson, who reportedly smacked him upside his head with a piece of lumber.

Brian eventually fired his father as manager of the band and saw his father go into competition with him with a band called the Sunrays, with as much as Murry could remember of his son's sound.  Given all of this plus Mike Love's manipulative nature, the wonder is not that Brian had his mental breakdown.  The wonder is why it took as long as it did.

Brian eventually fought back from psychosis and a manipulative psychiatrist to have a meager solo recording career and then complete the album Smile as solo project, the uncompleted legendary album that was supposed to be Sergeant Pepper before Sergeant Pepper was Sergeant Pepper.

I knew about Brian's troubles as an adult child of an alcoholic long before I knew of the term or that it was the basis of some of my problems, but it is kind of comforting to see one more basis for my empathy for Brian.

By the way, later this year Capitol Records is supposed to release the original Beach Boys recordings of the Smile material, much long after it would have expanded the world's understanding of the talent of Brian Wilson.  But it is welcome nonetheless.

—§—

One of Brian's songs has been one of my personal anthems: I Guess I Just Wasn't Made for These Times.  I felt I was outside of my time as he does in the song.  I do not feel this way anymore, but for the longest time I did.  Enjoy.

I've got a secret.

One of the things I have been doing since I became aware of the set of behaviors linked to being an ACoA is reflecting as to how much of that is an influence in my regular life.  One area where it seems to be a surprising factor for me is super hero comic books.


Comic book fans love super hero comic books for many different reasons.  Some like the soap opera aspect of them.  This has never been much of an attraction for me for much the same reason that soap operas themselves lost their fascination for me.  Part and parcel of soap operas is that something always has to be happening to the lead characters.  But at some point the only way to keep having dramatic things happen to characters is by changing a character's defined characterization.  In wrestling parlance this going from good to bad is called turning heel and it is also a reason that I am not fond of professional wrestling, too.


Some people like super powers.  For those people the genre is similar to fantasy.  And while I like the idea of powers and people being able to do more than a regular person, that is not the only nor even the chief attraction to me of super heroes.


What I like the most is the dual identity, that by day people think you are one kind of person, generally a meek or ineffective one.  But yet by night or when the chips are down, you actually have a reservoir of abilities and aptitude undreamt of by those around you.


The sight of Christopher Reeve unbuttoning his shirt, or Adam West sliding down the pole, or even Ryan Reynolds materializing his costume gives me a thrill.  I think I empathize because people don't have a true picture of me and underestimate me.


Now sometimes that is deliberate.  I believe in the Montgomery Scott philosophy of under-promise and over-deliver.  But sometimes it is just people looking at the surface and not at all paying attention to what they are really seeing.  Call it Lois Lane syndrome if you like.  Sadly the most recent place I experienced this was in my relationship.


As I was telling my closest friends about how the break up occurred and the charges about my behavior laid down by my ex, they pretty much all said that it sounded like she did not really know me at all, which is sad indeed, because if anyone is supposed to see me with the mask off, it is the woman I love.

—§—

Here are some Japanese kids playing This Could Be the Start of Something Big a song written by Steve Allen and used at one point as the theme for the game show I've Got A Secret, that point being when Steve Allen himself hosted the show.

Once you get started...

I believe the most effective and helpful habit I ever deliberately gave myself is the habit of "Do it now."

—§—

It is amazing that once you start doing something you dreaded doing because of time how quickly it actually gets done.

—§—

Here is Rufus featuring Chaka Khan on Soul Train back when I had hair and everyone else had a lot of it.

If only s/he would...

It is a tempting trap for us as ACoA to fall into.  I have been ensnared by this many times myself.  It is the thinking that my life and my happiness would improve if only she would whatever.

Reluctantly I have come to realize that there is some validity and merit to the power paradigm of personal relationships and conflicts therein.  We waste a lot of effort trying to control other people and control other things only to relinquish that which we actually have control over.  It is why the Serenity Prayer is an integral part of the recovery.

Why we tend to succumb to this allure is because it is very sound logically.  If this other person would actually do this other thing or actually be this other way, then undoubtedly things would be different.  But they are who they are and they will do what they will do.  If they were different they would not be who they are.

This is not to say that people cannot, will not, and do not change; they can, will, and do.  But the impetus for change is internal and all of your pleading, begging, and wanting will not make it happen.

On the show Intervention, family and friends gather in an effort convince an addict that he or she needs to go into recovery.  The way that this is accomplished is through change not of the addict but in the people that surround them.

Most substance abuse addicts would not be able to sustain themselves without their unwitting co-dependent support group.  The interventionist works with the individuals in this person's life to get them to give up their supporting behavior and change their own lives.  Often a bottom line is created and presented to the addict.

On the surface it appears as blackmail, but it is really the individuals taking control of their own lives, leaving the addict with the situation of where since things are going to be different from this point forward, he or she might as well fix things anyway.

How successful these interventions are often are dictated by how well the surrounding people stick to their bottom lines.  And where interventions fail, it is invariably because a participant lapses themselves.

Getting personal about it for a moment, there was a period as my marriage was ending where I had convinced myself that all that needed to happen to save it was for my wife to start being nice to me. That made her the bad guy and absolved me from any responsibility of repairing my own life.

But I had a choice and I was not using that power. I did not have to take the unpleasant behavior I was receiving. I could refuse to accept it and change the dynamic and ultimately that is what I did. In the short term I was worse but now with some time on it, it was what I should have done and I am much better off for it.

However, it would be highly unfair to put it on what I perceived as my wife's failings. When I look at the insane women getting married on Bridezillas, yes, I think that they need help, but I also look at the people around them and ask "How in the world did you let her get this way?"

And if nothing else, Bridezillas should give everyone who is single hope, because if these women can find someone to marry them, then there really is someone for everyone out there.

Making a list and checking it twice

Officially I am on Step Four of the ACA Twelve Steps and have been there for a while.  I have waited in part because it is the first step I have really wanted to do with a sponsor, but also because I am very much afraid of it.

The fourth step is as follows:

Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

As to why this scares me, I am just beginning to realize how much I have hurt myself and more importantly those around me.  I do not know that I want to know just how much I have screwed up and just who and how many I have hurt.

I am also afraid that because I am so hard on myself as a matter of course that I will be overly harsh and punishing on taking my moral inventory.  That is why I would like outside eyes to help me with this step. I am slowly working my way up to it.

I ended up teaching myself how to ride a bicycle without training wheels. (Trust me, this will be germane in a minute.) I was pretty old relatively when I learned how and my sister that was two years younger than I was had already learned how.  So I really looked kind of goofy not knowing how

Much like later with driving a car, my father was the absolute wrong person to teach me (not that my mother would have been much better) and I was too busy being afraid (of him and of falling) to learn. Eventually he gave up.

Once it was just down to me, I was able to relax, I went down to a smaller bike, I was able to figure out balance, and I learned how to ride. But no matter how much my father wanted it for me, I could only learn how to ride when I was ready.

Since I am reparenting now, I am going to afford myself the same luxury with the steps.  I will complete them.  I cannot afford not to.  But I will have to take my time.

She drives me crazy

During my time off from the relationship scene, I have been reading advice from various sources on how to meet, greet, and keep women.  And I read something today from David DeAngelo that stopped me in my tracks for a second:

To further confuse things, you'll often hear a woman say something to the effect of "I want a strong guy who is also sensitive" or "He needs to have his own life, his own interests, and his own friends, but also be totally focused on me."

Women often talk about wanting a combination of things in a man that just don't seem to fit.  So what's going on here?

Are women crazy? (Yes.)

But seriously, what are they talking about?

How is it that women seem to always talk about wanting men who have these qualities that don't fit together?

© 2011, David DeAngelo

It stopped me because I had heard this before.  I mean I had literally heard this before.  Back when I was last on the loose, I myself saw personal ads by women asking for these diametrically opposed things.  DeAngelo goes on to skirt the issue by saying women really do want both of these things.  But this in no way addresses that they want things that are, if not mutually exclusive, rarely found in a guy not suffering from fragmented personality disorder.


Looking at some of his and other people's dating advice, a consistent theme is for you to be different than you presently are.  To a degree this makes perfectly logical sense.  If you were O.K. from a dating perspective, you would not need advice.  However, for me it poses a problem in that one of the things I am working on in therapy and ACA is being myself, genuine.


This presents a contradictory message: it is all right to be yourself vs. it is not all right to be yourself.  The way out of this seeming contradiction is to become that which you are pretending to be in order to get women.


But other than my luck with women, I kind of like who I already am and I do not know that I want to be anything or anyone different.  However, as I have quoted in a different context "Nothing changes if nothing changes."

—§—

We're going back to the 80s with Fine Young Cannibals.

The Child is the Father of the Man

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky.
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

— William Wordsworth

One of the things we in ACA are to do as part of our recovery from our alcohol-tainted pasts is to re-parent ourselves, to retrain and repair our damaged, malfunctioning id called our inner child, creating a more stable and appropriately reactive ego or adult self.  The trick of this is that we are asking ourselves to do something that we have no real knowledge of.

We grew up in the dynamics that alcoholism creates, with drama, often rage, violent unpredictability, and a tendency for things to go wrong if at all possible.  There is an aloof parent, an overbearing parent, a perfectionist parent, a volatile parent, sometimes all in the same parent.  So we know how to chastise, stifle, disappoint, abandon, and frighten a kid.  But we don't know much about lovingly nurturing a kid.

Sometimes we make the mistake of indulging the inner child in avoiding the harshness that we know.  The inner child must be listened to, but the inner child is still a child.  And it does an adult inner child no more good to allow himself to eat chocolate cake until his stomach was about to burst than it would an actual child.

But what it is seeming to amount to as I begin to practice it on myself, is learning how to say nicely the things that have to be said regardless.  William Glasser in Choice Theory likes to say that ultimately all you can give another person is information.  In my estimation how you transmit the information can send another message other than the one intended.

I also have to admit it feels strange being nice to myself.  Almost like I am wearing shoes on the wrong feet.  But really, I have worn my shoes on the wrong feet for so long, it is taking me a while to get used to the difference.

—§—

The ACoA banked subject I have been skirting around without writing about it is Brian Wilson, the founder of the Beach Boys.  Since he recorded a song with this line in it, I present to you ahead of that post this excerpt from Smile.

A lovely day

Mondays aside, it seems that every day I've either had something ACA related to say or some other special day to talk about.  But not today.  I have no secret relapses to reveal.  Nothing particularly noteworthy happened in my ACA community.  The most interesting thing that happened at work was that I was late for a meeting.  While it might be interesting, it's not anything new.

My granddaughter and I had a nice day doing homework.  I played games at a game site.  I watched some television.  Notably, I did not visit Facebook since I got home, I have not watched the news, and I did not visit any sports or comic book sites.


I feel oddly serene about this, almost to the point that it is scary.  But it is good.  It is ultimately one of the things I want (and you can't get what you want till you know what you want) and it is nice to know that doing the step work of ACA is helping me get there.


This would have been another opportunity for me to use my banked thought, but again I was not ready to use it.  But I need to do it soon, because if I keep waiting on it, people are going to expect something amazing and I am not sure I can deliver amazing.

Feeling stronger every day

Doing ACA has been an eye opener on many fronts, but one of the most interesting is somatically.  One of the things you try to do as an ACoA is to feel the feelings that you have not allowed yourself to feel totally if at all.  And emotions carry a definite physical component to them.


As I remember old memories and deal with old programming and attitude, I experience a flood of emotions and these emotions wreak physical havoc with my body.  Muscles shake with anger.  My stomach gets queasy.  My innards grind.  It is no fun at all.

But a strange thing is happening afterwards.  Once I go through the emotion, let myself go wild with whatever it is I am feeling, afterward I feel better.  Not just relatively better compared to the experience.  I mean I am starting to feel physically better than I have in a while.


Now, yes, some of that is related to my back feeling better after its injury, but it is not just my back.  I find myself breathing deeper.  I feel the tension in my shoulders lessen and the muscles loosen.  I believe I am experiencing a real catharsis.


So, yes, as the post title states, I am feeling stronger every day, just like the title of the Chicago song.  But you guys can find the song yourself.

Tell you one thing...

You can't get what you want till you know what you want.  (I'm working on this.)

—§—

Now please watch a video of a record playing. Thank you.

Hero and Villain in One Man

Lest anyone think that back on September 5 that I was kidding about being addicted to being in a relationship, I have a confession to make: during the period I have been writing this blog, I made a profile at a dating website and have been chatting with women. Oh, I told them about my break and I did not make any plans to meet them.  But I chatted with them.  And when one of them that I was chatting with "cut me off," I had a moment of freaking out.  And that is clear, demonstrable evidence of addiction.

I watch the television show Intervention (I have for most of the last year or so) and on it you get the full spectrum of addict behavior.  And the cutting back / tapering off method is one things addicts try as a means of telling themselves that they're in control of their addiction. I am not.  I have known I am not.  But I still tried to tell myself that I was, even knowing that.

And it is okay.  I mean it is not, but what I did is what addicts do.  And I am an addict.  Being an ACoA, you have a pile of addictions, even if you are not addicted to a substance, like alcohol.  You're addicted to drama, as we discussed yesterday.  You're addicted to avoidance.  And, in my case, I might as well face it; I'm addicted to love.

Well, not really love, of course.  I am addicted to being in a relationship (whatever that means to me) and obsessing about same.  Ever since I had my first girlfriend twenty five or so years ago, I have been in one relationship or another for all but a month, maybe two.

Since the one woman who chatted me up has cut me off, I am back on my break, climbing back up on the wagon again.  But now I have a serious, difficult mystery ahead of me.  Much like I did not know my father's alcoholism and the dysfunction it caused in my FOO had scarred me, I do not have the slightest clue as to why I am so afraid of being unloved.  And trust me, the problem is not abandonment.  It is specifically with being loved.

For the longest time I have compared myself to the DC Comics character Eclipso, a man named Bruce Gordon who developed an evil second persona that committed crimes.  And while Eclipso knew everything Bruce Gordon knew, Bruce Gordon was never aware of Eclipso's plans or actions.  And yet, Bruce Gordon had to somehow find a way to stop Eclipso.  The roots of my addiction are Eclipso.  And I must find a way to stop him.

—§—

Speaking of Bruce Gordon, the musical artist presently known as Mr. Encrypto (after a quick cease and desist from DC Comics) could use your purchase of his two great pop albums Hero and Villain and Secret Identity Crisis.  Here is a sample of the goodness.

Upping the ante

To someone who is not an adult child of an alcoholic, it is a little bit of a mystery why those so afflicted so rarely stand up for themselves.  The reason for that is that unlike normal people, ACoA tend to find themselves in conflict with ACoA.

That is to say, if non ACoA person sticks up for himself or herself and speaks his or her mind, he or she is often heard, or at least the person being spoken to will disengage.  However when an ACoA responds, he or she is almost never heard by the other person in the conflict and the other person "kitchen sinks", bringing other attacks into play and escalating the situation and the tension.

This comes from the ACoA having what may be called a drama addiction.  They don't really enjoy conflict in the normal sense of the word, but they are comfortable with it having grown up with it, inclined toward it by their actions and choices, and entrapped by it because it pushes a lot of their buttons.

This is one of the hardest parts of being an ACoA to get past, because we do have to stick up for ourselves.  But we have to learn a particular toolset to deal with this situation and the wisdom to know when you are in it.

Just today on a forum someone was impatient with how quickly a question of theirs was being answered or responded to.  I felt this unfair, as it is, after all Saturday and we all have lives to lead.  And I told this person so.  Well, she went off.  At first, I fell for the trap and responded, but then I recognized that I was in a conversation with a drama addict and disengaged.

I have been tempted to respond, but I dare not, because it will just start the drama cycle over again.  The exchange was disquieting and has left me questioning my actions and second guessing myself.  My physical response is a little like withdrawal.  It is very strange.

So if you are one of those people who believe that someone is not passionate about something if they don't fight with you about it, please understand that the person you are labeling that way may be trying to save their ACA sobriety because fighting about anything is the last thing they should be doing.

An exercise

Back when I worked in radio, I read a bit of writing advice.  A famous writer said that there was no such thing as writer's block.  He said that if you somehow found yourself unable to write what you wanted to write, the way to get past it was to write about something.  The idea behind this is that writing about whatever is on your mind will eventually free your mind to write about what you are supposed to be writing about.

To assist me during this time that I am writing on a daily basis, I started the Hot Shots on Monday and I save one or two draft ideas that I can on most nights just sit down and finish if I don't have something with more urgency.

But for whatever reason I just don't feel like finishing my reserve idea, and so I thought I would for this edition indulge in a little free association writing, either to fill the space up or to get me an idea for tonight.  (However looking at how much real estate I have already chewed up just getting to here, even if I do come up with an idea, it will probably wait for tomorrow.)

—§—

As frustrated as I sometimes get with my granddaughter, it is marvelous to walk with her and watch her struggle to make sense with the world.  I am concerned that if at age nine she already thinks she knows everything that she will be absolutely unbearable as a teen.  And it is scary how quickly that is coming up.

I really wish I could put my finger on why I do not want to write my reserve idea.  It is a good subject and worth discussion, but I guess I just want to be in a better mood when I face it.

I think I am in a bad mood because I am removing some of the last traces of the ex from my home and thinking about her is not a good thing at the moment.  One day it will be.  I remember my other exes with fondness so I imagine that she will be no exception.

Well, Carlos Santana the baseball player just hit a game winning home run in the ninth inning for my Cleveland Indians, so that has definitely improved my mood.  And a game winning home run is as good a place to stop as any.

My brother

Today was the thirty first anniversary of my brother's death.  My brother was my half-brother.  We shared the same mother.  He was much older than I was.  If I remember correctly he was sixteen or seventeen when I was born and left for the Army not long after.

He was the one who took my parents's admonitions about being tough to heart.  (My father was his step-father during his late teens and he admired my dad).  He became a fighter and the family protector.  He rescued my cousins that were closer to his age more than once from the perils of growing up in my home town.

This protective streak unfortunately landed him a stint in prison.  But for the young men in prison, it was a blessing.  There were plenty of young men who were spared the horrible prison "initiation" (at least for a while) because my brother was not afraid to fight or spend time in solitary protecting someone.

But I learned of all this after the fact and second hand.  We did not have any of the sort of traditional brother relationships that I have seen with my friends and their brothers.  I did not grow up idolizing him.  I did not grow up being pranked by him.  I did not grow up in conflict with him.

Our relationship was strained by the age difference and by the fact that he was a very physical active person and I was (and am) a very cerebral inactive person.  However he was responsible for two very positive things in my life.  It was he who took me bowling for the very first time, a sport I enjoy to this day.  And when he went into the Army, he left all his comic books at my house.

It was his comic books and Mad magazines I first read those many years ago, the ones which introduced me to Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and friends.  I have had an almost life long love affair with superhero comics in general and DC Comics in particular.  And it would not have happened if he had not left those books behind.

I never told him about that, about what he did for me just by that.  It actually took many years for me to even figure out that was what happened as I started reading very very early. By the time I did he was long gone.  But his spirit touched everyone in the family indelibly and if there is a hereafter, I know he knows now what he did for me.

Rest in peace, big brother.

But I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

Well, I was up late again last night.  I have been this way for a while now.  I take a walk right before (purportedly) bed, and then I am up half the night.  It's like a part of me is searching for something on the internet, but Lord only knows what.

I would love to put this on my seeking a relationship at all costs, but this was happening while I was still in my previous relationship, so it is not that.  And I've always been a bit of a night owl, but it's not that.

I remember I laughed the first time I saw a skit where someone comes into a room and the doesn't remember why they went into the room.  I don't laugh at it now because it has become my reality on occasion.


It is so, so frustrating to feel like you want or need something but to not be able to put any sort of a handle to it.  Right now a lot of personal mysteries are being revealed in my life and hopefully this one will be added to the list.

I Would Do Anything For Love But I Won't Do That

Today was a double whammy for me, containing my monthly visit to my therapist and a day for an ACA meeting.  Both experiences were ultimately positive, however there is one aspect of them that is less than joyful, and that is the revisiting of feelings from my past.

The theory is that the pain from trauma long ago tends to urge you toward the maladaptive patterns from which you need to break.  But emotions and pains suppressed were so done for a reason.  They hurt.

During today's therapy session, quite unexpectedly, we talked about my first relationship in context of the unraveling of my most recent two relationships.  And without getting into the specifics of what I did, there were some things I did to hang onto the relationship that I am saddened and mortified that I did.

This issue came full circle in the ACoA meeting, where I described the circumstances under which my most recent relationship ended, which basically appears to have started when I didn't let my ex-girlfriend have her way on something that by all rights should have been mine to decide.

In this case, the counselor and I suspect that my refusal to allow my former girlfriend to have her way on an issue stunned her, that she had gotten so used to getting her way that she did not know what to do with me when that was not going to happen.

In the meeting another person mentioned a similar situation.  The conclusion we have come to is that while we did not ask to be overrun by our partners, we made it easy and inviting for them to do so.  So now we are trying something different, trying to live up to the words from the song (and the title of the post), which we will do anything for love, but we won't do that (betray ourselves to be in a relationship).

Hot Shot for Monday, September 19, 2011

[Author's note: I have decided that since Monday is almost always a busy night for me, that I would write only very short entries on Monday, which I am going to call Hot Shots (which is better than Hot Messes I suppose).  Enjoy.]

One of my favorite superheroes is the Martian Manhunter.  The fact that he's a loner with weird abilities who feels isolated from his own teammates and rarely shows his true face to anyone is just a coincidence.



Picture courtesy of The Idol-Head of Diabolu, the world's best (and probably only) complete resource to the Martian Manhunter.

Did you ever have to make up your mind?

Did you ever have to finally decide,
Say yes to one and let the other one ride?
There's so many changes and tears you must hide.
Did you ever have to finally decide?

— John Sebastian (as performed by The Lovin' Spoonful)

There are a large number of difficulties associated with being an adult child of an alcoholic. In fact, the collection of traits is sometimes called "The Laundry List."  A secondary problem from these traits is that they don't work together and sometimes conflict.  One area where this happens is in decision making.

Because we try to please people we often try to guess what decision others would like us to make, rather than evaluating the situation ourselves and deciding what we want. However we dislike conflict, so we often try to arrange things to take the decision our of our hands and put them in the hands of the other party in the situation, leaving us to be free of culpability for the decision.

It is not a bad strategy and for our purposes can be rather clever, but it then sets up a problem when there are two people who play it that way.  What happens is no one makes a decision and each blames the other.  This then creates the conflict that was hoped to be avoided and increases the feeling of powerlessness of our own lives, even though we give away our power in the strategy itself, because our lives are not being at all actively directed.

How we get lured into a situation like that is our over developed sense of responsibility has us try to take on the decision even though we don't want to make it.

The resolution, of course, is to just choose what you want without fear, including choosing not to choose when someone tries to put their choice on you.  But like just about everything with being an adult child, it's a lot harder than it sounds.

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Just in case you have never heard of the song in question, here is a YouTube video of it.