hanging in there

[ARW]

A rant - sorry in advance.
I have fucked up my life to such an intense degree, it's hard to even begin. For the last almost eiught years I've lived a kind of double life. The domestic one; most myself, at home with my wife and now kid. The escape route; in another country doing my work - but really, until very recently, sitting alone at night and drinking myself into a stupor. I realized a year or so ago, or fessed up to the fact that I only drifted over to this job to escape the pain of my reality; past present and a future that terrifies me. I was escaping the blocked but panging memories of my abuses, having to have sex with my wife, having to be an adult, having to be myself. I hit the wall, of course, and am trying to dig my way out of the literal hole in the ground that has been my home for almost my whole life. But the result of escaping is total financial ruin, and I have to keep coming back to this place for work. I'm working on getting set up at home, and that's actually going well. But now I'm back "here" again. Broke, desperate, sober for the first time and, well, not doing so great. My muscles are in spasm, my breath is short. I'm trying like hell to be civil and nice and easy wityh everyone, but I can feel my anger and self-contempt oozing through my pores. Support systems here=0. And what do I do, call and complain to my wife again as I have been for seven years? Kill myself? Take deep breaths? Smoke like a chimney? I just feel like I blew it. I got out of the hole too late. Now I have nothing left in my bottle to handle the false life, skin and bullshit existence I'm stuck in. I've got no reserves. I just want to go home, where I was just starting to feel normal, just starting to have real sex with my wife again and be a good dad and face myself. I can't do it here. It's like I'm drowning. What do I want? to buck up and not get freaked out by everything and everyone and the ghosts of my humiliating past here, my fuck-ups, the homebase of my pathetic attempt to escape myself and my pain. It's like this whole country is an island, like Disneyland of my fucked up life and I'm being forced onto each and every ride. Actually, the absurd irony of that kind of makes me laugh. Maybe I just need to get a hold of myself. No shit, right? I'm losing my mind. I really am. I'm losing my fucking mind.

 

[The Dean]

You are taking on all that has ever harmed you in your life and trying to deal with it all at once. No one can keep it all together under those circumstances.

I am not going to tell you what to do. But you need to get some sense of wholeness and peace for sure.

Can you take just one thing to work on at a time? Can you admit that since you were abused you have not been able to function as a non-abused person--in other words--you are not as responsible for things that you seem to beat yourself up with.

You have been harmed. Still, you have had a relationship that has led to marriage. You have fathered a child and want to be a good husband and father. GIVE YOURSELF SOME CREDIT!!!

Talk things over with your wife and see if the two of you can come up with a plan. Most all of us have to let the past go and live in the situation we have today.

You are clean and sober. That takes courage.

If you continue to beath yourself up, you will be too battered to do much at all.

Be good to yourself today.

Come talk to us regularly. You are our brother and we accept you as you are, just as we hope you will be all you wish to be--and that sooner than later.

Peace to you brother!

Bob

 

[Lloydy]

ARW
it must be so hard to leave your family and support to work, I do 8-00 till 4-00 and it's a 10 minute drive from home. But I drive there every morning feeling empty inside, scared some I suppose.
I phone my wife during the day, but maybe that's not practical so letters and emails might help, something to keep you in touch.

Bob's right, congratulate yourself for your MAJOR victories, your family that mean so much to you, being sober, and dealing with your past.
that's a huge amount of good stuff, and I'm sure there are some reserves of whatever it is that gets us through our days left within you, we have more than we believe.

And you're welcome to some of mine, be strong.

Lloydy

 

[fhorns]

Receiving "advice" can be one of the hardest things to do. We all know that. Yet may I throw you an idea? Dean spoke of a plan. How willing is your wife to consider her part in it?

There's a book called Ghosts in the Bedroom that spells out exactly and concisely where we are at. It might help, if you are the book types.