I'm grateful for: time alone and to think; blessing uncountable; eating meat.

A sponsee wrote to me:

On 11/16/07, *** wrote:
>
>> We can start from these dreams if you like. Step one: Do you admit
>> you are powerless over them? Is your life unmanageable (by you, by
>> meds, or by any other means)? Do you have faith (are you willing to
>> have faith) that a higher power can restore you to sanity? Are you
>> willing to let Him do it?
>
>
> I'm not sure exactly how to answer those questions. I guess:
> 1) Yes I know I am powerless over them. I can't control my dreams, even
> though there are people that claim that we can by controling our thoughts &
> working through the dreams when they are happening. I've never found a way
> to control my dreams myself, so I agree that I am powerless over them.
> 2) Is my life unmanageable? If you mean is it getting in my way. Yes. It
> controls my thoughts sometimes so much that I can't function around the
> house. The functioning issue is a major issue for me right now. V***
> described it to the shrink like this, "She seems to be always going over the
> events in her head. No matter how hard she tries they are there haunting
> her. And it makes her so sad." I guess yea that's unmanageable.
> 3) Step 2 & 3 still mess me up. I feel like I'm so damn ready to let HP
> take them away from me. I know I can't fix them but He doesn't seem to take
> them away. I beg Him to get me past this. I beg Him to take the thoughts
> away. I beg Him to take me back to where I don't remember, but He doesn't.
> For some reason, right now I'm supposed to be holding on to these things cuz
> I'd let them go if I could find out how.
>
> I believe He can. I believe He has the power. I believe that He chooses
> not to right now & it pisses me off to no end. I feel like I've given it
> over to Him but it's still here haunting me.
>
> I don't know how to live Step 2 & 3. Any thoughts.
>
> ***

Dear ***,

It sounds to me like you want your higher power to just magically make
them vanish without your having to do any of the work. Maybe I'm
mis-reading what you write, I am willing to believe that. Your higher
power cannot take your past away from you. It happened, it is part of
your life, it is part of who you are. Asking Him to take your past
away from you is like asking Him to be your drugs, your alcohol. Your
higher power can and will help you get through this. But you have to
go THROUGH. No going around (or over or under), no short-cuts.

In my opinion and experience, you won't be able to function as long as
you are trying to ignore, neglect, pretend away the feelings and
events of the past that are haunting you right now. Ask your higher
power for strength to face these events and feelings. Ask His help in
showing you how to face your past, how to accept it (NOT accept is as
in 'it's okay'; accept it as in knowing that it happened, it's real,
it is a part of you, but not something that 'stains' you). Ask Him to
give you the people and situations which will allow you to relive (if
necessary) what happened; ask for support and love that will get you
through the horrible feelings; ask Him for the faith that you are not
being given more than you can handle.

I know better than you do how scary it is, and how hard it is, and how
painful it is, because I have made the choice to turn and face my
memories rather than trying to make them go away or run away from
them. I know how hard and painful, and ultimately (but this is over
the long term) satisfying to actually permit myself to feel the pain
and the grief, to mourn, to recognize and acknowledge how unfair it
all is -- other people did horrible things to me and *I'm* the one who
has to go through this shit. Right now you are standing on the edge
of a cliff. I'm saying 'Jump!' Your higher power won't let you be
harmed. You want Him to just take the cliff away. Do you want to go
back to the way it was before? You can't. If you turn your back on
recovery, things will only become worse than they were before.
Perhaps not immediately, but amazingly quickly.

Denial is a killer. Denial is what kills people. The drugs and
alcohol are only a means, like a gun or jumping off a cliff. People
choose to believe they can't face something, and they die. Sometimes
quickly, sometimes slowly.

I don't know, can't tell you what is the best method for you to do
this. Perhaps you need to be in a safe, separate location (like a
shrink's office) so that you can have some automatic limits to how
long it can take, and a guarantee of a person with you who (hopefully)
will be helpful in going through this. Perhaps you need to take to
your bed and let it come as the dreams, then on waking, allow yourself
the tears and and rage and the energy and the fear. Maybe you need to
be able to say it out loud - with me perhaps, or on an anonymous hot
line. There are as many different methods and combinations of methods
for embracing our memories and feelings and lives as there are
individuals going through this. I can tell you that if you do this
you will get better. The past will loose it's hold on your present.
You will be freer and happier and healthier and better able to face
the challenges of the present by being more of who you are, rather
than a shadow of yourself, with bits of your soul hacked off and
hidden from you.

I needed to say it out loud. I wore out many friends and a few
sponsors as I spent hours, days, weeks and months on the phone
whenever I could get hold of someone, telling my story as it kept
coming back to me. At first I claimed no one was at fault and that it
wasn't fair that my children and husband should suffer from my past -
my excuse for not facing it, for not making changes. Then I though if
I just told people what had happened to me, then it would go away. I
spent whole weeks basically lying in bed or on the couch, trying to
function. I couldn't. I couldn't make myself or my body work while
all that stuff was pushing forward in my mind, needing to be
recognized, acknowledged, after decades of pretending it wasn't real,
wasn't true, wasn't that bad.

I'm not painting you a pretty picture. It is not a pretty picture.
The bottom line is, fundamentally, you can do this or you can die.
You can blame your higher power for not making it go away, or you can
face the fact that your future is entirely in your hands. How do you
live steps 2 & 3? You decide to face this. You commit. You give
your higher power permission to give you the help HE thinks you need,
not the solution you think you want.

For what it's worth, when I made the decision to face something I'd
been fighting, kicking and screaming, for months sometimes, it almost
invariably turned out to be so much easier than I'd been envisioning.
I'd imagine the worst case scenario (I would go completely nuts, end
up hurting my children, become catatonic, the truth would drive me mad
and they (the people who hurt me) would win...), and then I'd go do
the thing and afterwards actually feel let down that it wasn't the big
hairy, scary fight. Doesn't mean it was easy or fun, just no where
near as huge as I had prepared myself for.

I don't know what is in the memories you are currently dealing with -
childhood abuse, issues with your sister in the recent or far past,
your various mental health crashes, some combination of all or some or
other things I don't know about. It doesn't matter. What matters is
that there is something you need to look at, something you don't want
to look at, something that hurt at the time so badly that you couldn't
allow yourself to feel it in it's entirety at the time. Something you
weren't strong enough to face fully when you were a child, or using,
or alone without loving support.

Part of recovery is learning to honour yourself of the past, that you
did what you needed to do to survive whatever it was. Part of
recovery is admitting/acknowledging that you DO have the strength, and
the loving support to finish it off now. The fact that it is
surfacing, that your higher power is giving it to you now, is proof
that He will give you whatever you need to do this. You CAN do this.
The last bit of recovery is making the decision (see how it keeps
coming back to those first three steps) to do it. The decision is
easy, no fanfare. The doing is hard, but also with no fanfare. The
rewards are seemingly few and inadequate for the pain and suffering
and bleeding(inside) that we have to do. Except. That turning around
and facing the truth is never easy or painless, but is the only way to
live that life 'second to none' that some people have found in using
the 12steps to change their lives.

I've been there, I've done that, and my life today (despite surgery
and the jerk husband...) is so very beautiful that I lack the words to
even tell you about it. And the amazing, most amazing thing -- that
it keeps on getting better! When I started on this path I didn't have
anyone to tell me that it really did get this much better, there
simply weren't people who had done this kind of work. This is a new
thing, sometimes I feel like we were Bill W. and Dr. Bob all over
again - perhaps a bit of hubris, but it is also the absolute truth.

I started facing my past because I simply didn't have any other
options. Since I wasn't willing to abuse or abandon my children that
left me with recovery. All I had was blind hope - people told me this
would work and I tried it. I also did it in the teeth of the AA
'establishment' that told me I was crazy and wrong and dangerous and
that I scared newcomers off and was evil and, well, I could go on for
a while the things I was called and the things that people said about
me. Perhaps all the antagonism firmed up my determination, I can't
tell.

I also did it without loving support. All the people I leaned on
abused me in some way. That is simply because I wasn't capable of
even connecting on the shallowest level with people who weren't
abusers. Also, hurt people hurt people. If the people I was talking
to had been abused enough to understand where I was coming from, then
they were hurt people. You know?

For whatever reason, my higher power knew I needed to do it this way
and no other. He did give me help and support and love and strength.
He gave me tears, and an axe (and I really wish I'd taken a photo of
the playroom when I was done with it), and glass bottle to break and
pillows to pound and my children to hug and hold. He gave me what I
needed to get through all that big, ugly, nasty past - and a chunk of
big, ugly, nasty present as well. If He did that for me, he can
surely do it for you. You will need it differently than I did, but
none of the support and strength and help and so forth can come until
you make the decision and just do it. It will be ugly and messy,
worse and better than you can imagine. And at the end, that shining
hope of a better life. It worked for me.

I wish there was way to tell or to show another person how to open
themselves up and let all the possibilities in. We are guarded and
closed without even knowing it. I doubt I ever opened myself up to my
higher power without first having pounded my head against the same
blasted stone wall repeatedly, sometimes for decades. I still have to
do that sometimes. *Sigh* The only consolation I get is what my
first sort-of sponsor told me. She said that the harder you fight
against it, the better you get it in the long run. I only hope she
was right. ;-)

I love you, I wish I could make this easier for you or even take it
away from you. All I can do is stand by and tell you what it's been
like for me, and cheer you on, hoping you will find the wonderful
results from deciding to go for it that I have. With all my heart...

{{{{{{{{{{{HUGS}}}}}}}}}}}

Mel

***

I'm listening to Tim Janis: The Time Between

:: Yesterdays : Tomorrows ::

~~~Last Five Entries~~~
Hi and goodbye - 2010-10-15
I'll be moving on - 2010-10-10
Gold membership and stuff - 2010-10-10
Decisions, decisions - 2010-10-07
Days to go - 2010-10-06