Feelings

Wow, I haven't been on for over a month. I have been working on the steps for myself, though just not making the time to write about it. The past month or so I have been working on the workbook, "He Did Deliver Me from Bondage, " by Colleen C. Harrison. She was addicted to food and perfectionism and wrote it to go along with the twelve step program. It has a scripture study that go along with each section. Some thought provoking questions that go along with various scriptures. It has given me new things to think about. It is work though. I'm filling up a notebook. My husband agreed to read and do the work in it. We will see.

We go another draft of the twelve steps last week. This one is much smaller 39 pages. I will have to compare it. I have saved all of the rough drafts so far. There are things I like from each of them. No more Serenity Prayer. I really liked saying that each week it gave me peace. That I know I will miss. They titled Step 1 as Honesty instead of Awareness.

I like the start of Step 1 where it talks about how we sometimes feel controlled by some of our feelings, such as:

• Fear that our addicted loved one would never get better and fear of the real possibility that he or she may even die physically as well as spiritually.
• Helpless to  prevent the harm our addicted loved one might do to others around them, especially children.
• Bitterness, resentment, and alarm over financial challenges as we dealt with excessive spending, treatment programs, legal expenses, fines, and destruction of property.
• Physical weariness as sleeplessness, stress, and anxiety took a toll on our health.
• Confusion as to why our loved ones were behaving so irrationally and why nothing we said or did seemed to make any difference.
• Shame, isolation, and hopelessness as we took responsibility for our loved ones' choices and tried to protect others from knowing what was happening. 
• Sorrow that baptism and temple covenants may be irreparable broken and eternal family ties severed.
• Anxiety that our loved ones' continued addiction somehow reflected our inability to access God's help in their behalf.
• Exhaustion at constantly reacting to the emotional upheaval in our family.

This new twelve step guide is written for all addictions so some of it doesn't fully apply to me, but I could relate with pretty much all of these feelings. When someone new comes to support group, I am reminded of when I first went several years ago. You feel so many feelings that you haven't even identified and and scared to be there, and angry that you are. We feel that we shouldn't have to be there. It isn't our addiction. We don't need to be fixed. If they keep coming back they realize that everyone has need to be "fixed" in someway. They eventually will find peace. I love the twelve steps! They have really saved my sanity. I am at peace even though things in my life are not stable. I'm sleeping better than I have for over ten years. True-fully these steps could benefit everybody.

Have a great weekend!

Ramblings From a Tired Mind

The past couple of days I have become the constant companion to our washer and dryer. We are on a first name basis. The washer is Cinderella because it works so hard without complaining and the dryer is Gaston, full of hot air. Then I got to thinking, that Belle really needed to thank Gaston. Without his obnoxious self she wouldn't have realized how much she cared for the Beast. Good can come from our trials. We just need to be patient and look for it. Sometimes I think we only notice it in hindsight. As you can see, I was doing laundry way too much. At least I'm almost done. However, because of all the time doing mindless but necessary work, my mind has been running wild.

Today I wonder why I don't really enjoy starting to do Step 4.  Getting to know myself better, what is so bad about that? I decided that I didn't like it because then I would start really feeling again. And for the past 25 years the majority of the feelings hurt, especially the past six years. It is easier for me to get to a place where I can be sort of numb. It feels safer for me there. The only problem is I don't let my self feel real joy because I try to block the pain. I wonder if that state was kind of like the Garden of Eden. They didn't know joy because the didn't know pain. They could have been just in this nice comfortable blissful numb. What a leap of courage it must have taken to take that first bite of fruit, knowing that their world as they knew it would never be the same again. They would know pain, lots of it. I can't even imagine what it would feel like having one son kill another son. I guess I will keep my fun problems. But I am ever more appreciative of Eve and what it  took to eat that fruit. She was welcoming problems into her life so she could grow and so could we. So I guess I will have to start again doing Step 4--tomorrow. I think I will review the vulnerability video I posted a while ago.

I really liked General Conference this past weekend. Some really great talks. I liked President Packer's talk, "John let it go." I was really looking forward to Elder Scott's talk, but all I did was cry during it. Thinking how lucky his wife was to have someone love her so much. Pathetic I know, but I just couldn't stop. Well enough rambling for now. I need to go switch the wash.