 |
 Me again - Kim
I'm going to bother you all again. I've had a pretty
good day until around noon time and then my loss of my
relationship with "the coach" kept hitting me.
I have had chest pains for the last couple of weeks and I
do have high blood pressure, but I'm sure that it's just
stress.
I came home from work a little while ago and the kids
had messed it up, it's hot here in Virginia and I just
don't know if I can take being a single, overwhelmed mom
anymore. This summer was to be the time he and I went to
a few concerts and went away for a week in Hampton at a
football clinic. It gave me some light at the end of my
tunnel. Now that's all gone and he's doing with someone
else. Why do all the men in my life leave me. It hurts so
bad. I'm so alone.
I'm going to my CODA meeting in about an hour and I
hope that I'll feel a little relief after being there.
There's a strength that I can't describe just by being
there. But, honestly, I'm close to the breaking point.
I've been alone all of my life struggling to be loved by
someone. I thought this time it was real. God I'm stupid.
I'm not sure it's meant for me to be happy. Every time I
am, someone takes it away.
I'll check back in tonight when I get home if anyone
wants to comment on my pity party. I'm sorry, I just have
no one else to talk to that truly understands.
Thanks for listening.
 From: Bernd
& Lynda
We extend our shoulders and arms for a good soft hug
and cry, and hand you a party hat! There's nothing like a
good pity party once in a while; hell, we've all earned
it, and we deserve it! Invitations anyone?????:)
From: Diane
Hi there - Hope your meeting went OK and supplied some
fresh insights to carry you for awhile. My own personal
recipe for particularly difficult days: Fresh blossoms in
a warm bath, some scented candles, & brewed honeyed
tea. Oh, and tape of whales/dolphins completes the
sensory package for me! Now, lie there till a. the water
gets cold or b. you resemble a prune, and I SWEAR, things
will seem at least 50% better. It helps to remember the
name of this site. On day at a time. Hang in there and
sweet dreams.
From: Kim
I'm back. Meeting was good. Chest still hurts. Blood
Pressure is okay 134/91, though it should be much lower
on the medication I'm taking. I'm doing it to myself.
Tonight's initial subject was "Surrender". I'd
like to, but am afraid if I do I'll disappear. There's
not that much left of me right now anyway. It's still
hot, may turn on the A/C anyway. Diane, the bath is one
of my favorite things too. I just bought a new expensive
($2.99) bath pillow at Walmart this weekend. I think I'll
give it a try. You guys are the greatest. Thank you for
helping me feel not so alone. That's the hardest part.
I'll be reading.
From: Susan
OH NO, NO, NO......... Believe me - you are not
alone.... Most of the time I feel like the **subject** of
that song "Looking for Love in All the Wrong
Places". I have tried too many times, with too many
people, in too many places. You are doing EXACTLY the
right thing, going to your CoDA meetings. I, personally,
am now attending S-Anon meetings (even though the divorce
is in the works). Hey, co-addiction is co-addiction,
whatever form it takes. AND taking care of ourselves is
the first step.....
I am VERY hopeful that I will start looking for love
in the right place !!! MYSELF and my Higher Power. This
is the hope/dream/faith that you, too, must hang on to
when times get rough (I know rough!!). YOU CAN DO IT....
One Day at a Time. My prayers and thoughts are with you.
From: mzet
You are NOT alone. I can tell you that though our life
stories are somewhat different, the pain you feel is the
same that I felt when my circumstance invited me to face
my own inner doubt, fear and anguish. This is a very
painful process; somehow letting go of our illusions is
very very painful. I have wondered why, but have
concluded that it HAS to be painful.
Bernd and Lynda have some very good advice. I didn't
say easy, or painless, but GOOD. Read their PAST postings
over and over. Print them. Highlight them. Play with
them. It will help.
The path that they outline is the road less travelled,
but that road, like they say, ends up being the shortest
road because all of the shortcuts are dead ends. More
importantly, I have found that the path they tend to
outline, at least in my case, was impossible to embrace
without developing a spiritual attitude. As an atheist, I
had turned away from any sense of spirituality many years
ago, so it took me a while to "get it". I think
their path is almost impossible to follow without
"getting it". What I would like to do for you
and others, is to outline what I have experienced. I
don't have all the answers and I don't know if this is
for everyone either. But here it is anyway:
Thomas Merton says that a truly spiritual attitude
toward life is a penetration into the sense of
nothingness that wounds us when we are left alone with
ourselves. At times I got so scared I just wanted to run
away from that nothingness and from myself, to the point
where I had suicidal thoughts on two or three occasions,
not serious, but they were there, like a fantasy or dream
like state of total carelessness. I always thought my
problem was not about myself but about what was happening
around me. If I could only control that which was outside
of me, then I would be happy and everything could go back
to normal.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. The answers are inside of you.
Like Bernd says, they come in faint whispers, so at first
they are hard to hear. But they are there. I know I
needed to turn to my inside, but it was so hard and
painful. Finally, however, I did it and began to search
for what the pain was telling me about myself, not about
anybody else.
What I have found in a very real sense, just recently,
is that that nothingness, that darkness, which I thought
was the cause of the wounds that hurt me so badly, was
only a state of being caused by a light so bright that it
blinded me into darkness. In a sense, it is like
spiritual death, an annihilation or disintegration of the
self. If you are into scriptures, you will remember that
the whole point of the Paschal Mystery of Christ is his
death AND resurrection. There are tons of images
supporting that: the wheat that falls into the ground and
dies, but if it dies it bears fruit again; or to die is
gain; or the prodigal son, etc. This dying and rising has
nothing to do with immortality (at least for my purposes
here), but it has everything to do with acquiring a
spiritual perspective, because without facing the very
real nothingness and death that we feel inside ourselves,
as long as we keep running away from what is inside of us
by jumping into the next relationship, by having affairs,
by alcohol or drugs, by looking outside of us, by trying
to control (even in subtle ways) our loved ones, we can
NEVER be open to the gift of life.
Note that I say that it IS a gift. It is NOT something
that we will, or that we achieve through our own effort.
The only two volitional acts in this whole process is
making the decision to face ourselves and being open to
the gift. Everything else, even the suffering that comes
from it, is a gift, as paradoxical as that may sound. The
gift is from God. God challenges us through this whole
process to let go of selfish relationships with others
and with ourselves. This letting go, again, is very
painful; it is a wound that takes time to heal. But God's
love, which in a sense causes the wound, ultimately
brings joy and delight.
And what is the gift? What I have found is that that
gift is the mysterious realization that God makes us able
to find in ourselves not just ourselves but God: and then
our nothingness becomes God's all. Unfortunately, this
whole transformation is not possible without the
liberation that is caused by carrying in our own ways,
our cross: in letting go of our false self, we die to
ourselves in order that God can live in us. Once you
receive that gift, EVERYTHING falls into place and you
reach a steady and prolonged sense of internal peace,
strength and tranquillity that is very hard to explain
because it is not rational or intellectual and because it
is so paradoxical. Quite honestly, it seems insane!
Also note that I keep coming back to a Christ centered
approach, and for very good reasons. Other spiritualities
have much to offer and I would encourage you to read
about them and take what you find useful to you from the,
but in my case, I felt that Christian spirituality goes
the extra step. I found that it is not enough to just sit
there and enjoy the wonderment and awe at the insight
gained, as in many eastern spiritualities. In fact, I
felt compelled to avoid isolation, because this whole
process made me fully aware of the mature love and
compassion that brings us closer to one another. That
love is really not our human volitional love. Somehow (I
know I sound crazy again!) the transformation allows us
to become one with God and actually then, we are able to
love here and now through, with and by the love of God.
We, in a sense, become like God.
Then it is so much easier to continue to embrace that
road less travelled. Sure, there will be ups and downs,
particularly once you first achieve that sense of peace.
You'll think, where did all that go? But it is there,
still, and once you have had it, you begin to recognize
the ways in which you can connect with that inside of you
which gives you the strength to continue, one day at a
time, to grow and grow.
And every time happy and joyous things happen to me
now, exterior or interior, big or little, I enjoy them
and savor them in a much more profound way, because I can
turn to my inside and in a sense share them with that
which I could not share with before. And the enjoyment
increases manifold.
I hesitate to share this stuff because it sounds so
crazy, but I did want to do it because I want others to
know that it is possible to achieve a sense of peace
which I thought was completely impossible without
attempting to control those around us. The way is the
road less travelled that Bernd and Lynda write about.
Lets just say that my way has lightened my load a bit.
|
