Post by Lin on Jan 24, 2004 6:59:52 GMT -5
I was thinking of the topic for the week...how abtu GETTING THRU THE PAIN?
I had so much pain. It was not the physical kind.
I dont deal with physical pain either...even have to ask for nitrous oxide to have my teeth cleaned...lol When i have things like kidney stones, and surgeries, broken bones...I am TERRIBLE about the pain. I scream and cry. I think passing a kidney stone in the hospital ER was my worst. I vaguely remember screaming for them to make it stop hurting. They kept giving me shots until I finally passed out.
I am talking about pain of the memories of my childhood. Much of that pain I stuffed. I buried it deeply inside. And when I started working the steps, this pain started to surface. I decided it was best to deal with it and get it out so I could get past it. I am sure if I had certain kinds of pain...like shame and guilt from sexual abuse...I would have had to reach further than a sponsor to a counselor perhaps.
But for me the pain was in how I viewed my upbringing with two alcoholic parents. I was resentful at the way they never allowed me to feel. They put me down repeatedly. They always seemed to find fault in my choices and actions. The punishments I got woudl have them in jail if it happened today. (a bruise on my bare bottom the shape of a handprint that stayed over a week? hairbrush marks from whacks across the face because i said my hair looked like CRAP, a chair broken over my back when i was 16 because I said i'd weed the garden tomorrow but had a date about to arrive in 10 min.) There was pain of the anger i felt toward my dad for what i saw as IGNORING The doctors who told him to stop drinkimg and live or keep on and die and he chose the latter. Ther was painful memories of favoritism of my siblings...drunken epsiodes when they embarrassed me in front of dates or freinds. There was pain over the way my mother shut me out for 7 years because i married somebody she felt was beneath my social status. We lived in the same town and never had a meal in her home for 7 years. My pain was in buried memories.
I decided these buried memories were like a splinter. As long as that splinter stayed buried, I could not heal. It might even fester and get infected and make me sicker. And I also knew that digging that deep splinter out, would be painful, but it had to come out in order to heal the wound. Once the splinter was out, I coudl heal.
So i worked on each of these painful memories. I recognized they had a disease. Both of them. They might have been doing the best they could. Both were also ACOA and what you live with you practice. What you practice you learn. This way of relating to your children was what I could see their parents doing to them even as adults. Eventually I began to see them as parents who were incapable of parenting and what little they did do was the best they had to offer. You can't shop for bread in a hardware store. Expecting to receive approval from a person who had no background in giving it...was like shopping in that store.
I also looked for some gratitude. I tried to find things about my childhood that were positive in my life. (this was tough...the yucky memories were ever-present in my mind and overshadowed any things to be grateful for.) I came up with a handful and tried to keep these in the front of my mind when I wanted to flash back to the tough times. They sent me to college. That helped me alot in my later life with my career. They let me have parties. (they were usually drunk and embarrassed me, but i DID have a few parties) When i was 16 they bought me an old car. It wasn't much but for a 16 year old to have a car, was great. My dad taught me to dance. That was sometimes a good memory and sometimes not...because of making me dance with him with his whisky breath while my mom was already passsed out. But my love for dancing came from that.
So i had a few GOOD things I could build on. Remembering the GOOD times helped me get thru the pain of the sad times.
When I was workingt the steps and making amends, I wrote long letters to my parents. I went to the cemetery and read them to the graves and cried. I burned the letters and left the ashes there. That was very cleansing. I wish I'd found alateen as a kid soe I could have done some of my amends before they died.
ON the 25th anniversary of my dad's death, my brother had a cookout. Three of the 4 siblings met and had supper. (the other lived in Florida at the time) We spent the evening trying to remember GOOD times we had with our dad...his jokes, his stories, some of the tales we had about life with him. We told of the embarrassing things or funny things we remembered he did and laughed. None of us told about the beatings or the whisky breath. None of us told about the put-downs. We jsut focused on things we could laugh about. Tha amazing thing...each of us had several memories that the other siblings had never even heard about. We each had funny memories that were not funny at the time and we shared and laughed until we almost cried. That was great. It was a fitting way to celebrate the memory of him. He was only 56 when he died.
(my embarrassing story was...I was 16...had my driving permit and he was the driver in the car with me. We were on the nicest street in town...big old mansions with huge trees...lots of squirrels. The car in front of me hit a squirrel. The squirrel lay in the streel jerking as it was dying. he yelled for me to stop the car. He got out..grabbed that squirrel by the tail and flung it at the car banging it on the bumper until it finally died. Then he took it home and cooked it. I was mortified that one of my friends might have witnessed my dad killing that wounded squirrel.I coudl not bear to watch him cook and eat that poor little animal. At the time the memory was terrible...but looking back, it was kind of funny to picture it. ) None of my siblings had ever heard that story.
I also did something I call TRACE IT>>>FACE IT>>>AND ERASE IT. I knew I had an aversion to buttermilk. It was so severe I'd gag and almsot vomit if I smelled strong ranch dressing at a table near me in a restaurant. I coudl not eat a biscuit at Hardees if i thougth of the fact they used buttermilk to make them. There wa NO WAY i could smell real buttermilk or I'd be sick. I traced it to the times my dad was drunk and made me wake up to dance with him..or stay up to dance with him..and he had whisky breath and mixed it with buttermilk. I guess he thougth that buttermilk woudl coat his stomach and the hangover woudl not be so great. Who knows. But that buttermilk/whisky breath was nausiating. I erased it by realizing where the aversion comes from. I never had connected it. Today i can sit near a person with ranch dressing....can't EAT it...but can at least sit near them. I can eat a hardees biscuit too but I won't drink buttermilk . My sister is the same way abotu water because of an episode when she was forced to drink water with a meal and she wanted coke. She cried and choked until she got it down. As an adult she can't drink water for more than a tiny, tiny sip from a fountain. She can't drink enough water to get an aspirin to go down.
How do YOU get thru the pain?
LIN
I had so much pain. It was not the physical kind.
I dont deal with physical pain either...even have to ask for nitrous oxide to have my teeth cleaned...lol When i have things like kidney stones, and surgeries, broken bones...I am TERRIBLE about the pain. I scream and cry. I think passing a kidney stone in the hospital ER was my worst. I vaguely remember screaming for them to make it stop hurting. They kept giving me shots until I finally passed out.
I am talking about pain of the memories of my childhood. Much of that pain I stuffed. I buried it deeply inside. And when I started working the steps, this pain started to surface. I decided it was best to deal with it and get it out so I could get past it. I am sure if I had certain kinds of pain...like shame and guilt from sexual abuse...I would have had to reach further than a sponsor to a counselor perhaps.
But for me the pain was in how I viewed my upbringing with two alcoholic parents. I was resentful at the way they never allowed me to feel. They put me down repeatedly. They always seemed to find fault in my choices and actions. The punishments I got woudl have them in jail if it happened today. (a bruise on my bare bottom the shape of a handprint that stayed over a week? hairbrush marks from whacks across the face because i said my hair looked like CRAP, a chair broken over my back when i was 16 because I said i'd weed the garden tomorrow but had a date about to arrive in 10 min.) There was pain of the anger i felt toward my dad for what i saw as IGNORING The doctors who told him to stop drinkimg and live or keep on and die and he chose the latter. Ther was painful memories of favoritism of my siblings...drunken epsiodes when they embarrassed me in front of dates or freinds. There was pain over the way my mother shut me out for 7 years because i married somebody she felt was beneath my social status. We lived in the same town and never had a meal in her home for 7 years. My pain was in buried memories.
I decided these buried memories were like a splinter. As long as that splinter stayed buried, I could not heal. It might even fester and get infected and make me sicker. And I also knew that digging that deep splinter out, would be painful, but it had to come out in order to heal the wound. Once the splinter was out, I coudl heal.
So i worked on each of these painful memories. I recognized they had a disease. Both of them. They might have been doing the best they could. Both were also ACOA and what you live with you practice. What you practice you learn. This way of relating to your children was what I could see their parents doing to them even as adults. Eventually I began to see them as parents who were incapable of parenting and what little they did do was the best they had to offer. You can't shop for bread in a hardware store. Expecting to receive approval from a person who had no background in giving it...was like shopping in that store.
I also looked for some gratitude. I tried to find things about my childhood that were positive in my life. (this was tough...the yucky memories were ever-present in my mind and overshadowed any things to be grateful for.) I came up with a handful and tried to keep these in the front of my mind when I wanted to flash back to the tough times. They sent me to college. That helped me alot in my later life with my career. They let me have parties. (they were usually drunk and embarrassed me, but i DID have a few parties) When i was 16 they bought me an old car. It wasn't much but for a 16 year old to have a car, was great. My dad taught me to dance. That was sometimes a good memory and sometimes not...because of making me dance with him with his whisky breath while my mom was already passsed out. But my love for dancing came from that.
So i had a few GOOD things I could build on. Remembering the GOOD times helped me get thru the pain of the sad times.
When I was workingt the steps and making amends, I wrote long letters to my parents. I went to the cemetery and read them to the graves and cried. I burned the letters and left the ashes there. That was very cleansing. I wish I'd found alateen as a kid soe I could have done some of my amends before they died.
ON the 25th anniversary of my dad's death, my brother had a cookout. Three of the 4 siblings met and had supper. (the other lived in Florida at the time) We spent the evening trying to remember GOOD times we had with our dad...his jokes, his stories, some of the tales we had about life with him. We told of the embarrassing things or funny things we remembered he did and laughed. None of us told about the beatings or the whisky breath. None of us told about the put-downs. We jsut focused on things we could laugh about. Tha amazing thing...each of us had several memories that the other siblings had never even heard about. We each had funny memories that were not funny at the time and we shared and laughed until we almost cried. That was great. It was a fitting way to celebrate the memory of him. He was only 56 when he died.
(my embarrassing story was...I was 16...had my driving permit and he was the driver in the car with me. We were on the nicest street in town...big old mansions with huge trees...lots of squirrels. The car in front of me hit a squirrel. The squirrel lay in the streel jerking as it was dying. he yelled for me to stop the car. He got out..grabbed that squirrel by the tail and flung it at the car banging it on the bumper until it finally died. Then he took it home and cooked it. I was mortified that one of my friends might have witnessed my dad killing that wounded squirrel.I coudl not bear to watch him cook and eat that poor little animal. At the time the memory was terrible...but looking back, it was kind of funny to picture it. ) None of my siblings had ever heard that story.
I also did something I call TRACE IT>>>FACE IT>>>AND ERASE IT. I knew I had an aversion to buttermilk. It was so severe I'd gag and almsot vomit if I smelled strong ranch dressing at a table near me in a restaurant. I coudl not eat a biscuit at Hardees if i thougth of the fact they used buttermilk to make them. There wa NO WAY i could smell real buttermilk or I'd be sick. I traced it to the times my dad was drunk and made me wake up to dance with him..or stay up to dance with him..and he had whisky breath and mixed it with buttermilk. I guess he thougth that buttermilk woudl coat his stomach and the hangover woudl not be so great. Who knows. But that buttermilk/whisky breath was nausiating. I erased it by realizing where the aversion comes from. I never had connected it. Today i can sit near a person with ranch dressing....can't EAT it...but can at least sit near them. I can eat a hardees biscuit too but I won't drink buttermilk . My sister is the same way abotu water because of an episode when she was forced to drink water with a meal and she wanted coke. She cried and choked until she got it down. As an adult she can't drink water for more than a tiny, tiny sip from a fountain. She can't drink enough water to get an aspirin to go down.
How do YOU get thru the pain?
LIN
or write poems, something I only have been able to do once recently after many years of not doing that.
~With Peace & Love, dg~ 8*)[/b][/size]
. I will be back looking for Lin and others.