My Bonds are Making Me FREE

I started reading The Bonds That Make Us Free by Terry Warner.  I am only into the book about 60 pages but I can tell this is going to be a life changing experience.  I have been taking notes like crazy as I read and wanted to share a few things tonight.

I feel like I used codependency to make me into the person I wasn't.  I want to believe that I was confident and could be heard for who I was and who I wanted to be.  Living with an addict made me unsure of myself and my decisions.  I saw myself turning to behaviors that felt unnatural to me but necessary at the same time. I tried to control whatever or whoever would let me because my husband and I were so out of control.

I don't feel like that any more.  We joked the other night that we couldn't even get into the drama after a dinner disaster.  It feels so foreign to us now.  How healthy is that??

I know I still have a long way to go, but I'm on the right path and still crazy in love with my husband!  I can't wait to spend eternity with him:)

Love you babe:)

Another thing that jumped off the page at me was about feeling stuck.  When we feel stuck we feel like others have more power over our situation and choices than we do.  We believe that they have the ability to cause trauma and feelings in us that we can not do anything about.  When this happens we develop strategies for relieving our unwanted feelings without retracing the path that got us there in the first place.

Finding the truth about the source of the problem points to the cure.  The truth is the cure!!

Struggles

I have been struggling lately.  Trying to get my bearings and such.. trying to figure out why every time something happens to me it knocks me down further and makes me a little crazier.   I am usually a capable person who can accomplish anything thrown at me, but since my husband's sexual addiction and same sex attraction feelings came "out" I feel a little out of sorts.

I find some daily tasks to be too much sometimes.  Lucky for me his job is the laundry ( he chose it himself), and I have children old enough to give substantial chores to. But plenty still falls to mom, and whoever thinks all moms do is watch soaps and eat bon bons - come over any day!  You probably won't find me here.. I'm always going.  That is one of my coping mechanisms - busyness.

I recognize when I am slipping and can usually find a way to correct myself before it is too late and I slip into hysteria.  Lots of things trigger me to crazy mama

• crazy Sunday mornings
• feeling out of control
• feeling emotions ( that is a post for another day)
• when I don't take care of myself...

That is where my problem lies lately.  I can't tell you how many times I have yelled at friends for going off their anti depressants because they felt good - but that is what I did about two weeks ago.  Now I'm not on anything ( except my natural high) but I consider my "dailies" to be my drug of choice.  I should be reading my scriptures and praying, exercising, eating right, reaching out to others.  I realized this week that I felt so good lately that I gave up on doing my things daily.

President Heber J. Grant said, "That which we persist in doing becomes easier for us to do; not that the nature of the thing is changed, but that our power to do is increased".  I have heard it a million times from my mother, but heard it again the other night with new ears.   Sometimes the Lord gives us weaknesses so we will work hard and overcome them.  If I don't pay attention to my life, and just live it with blinders on it will surely pass me by.

I don't love the crazy brain feeling, so I am vowing to remember yet again how to take care of myself... cause when mama's not happy, ain't no body happy!
  
One thing I am struck by as I read other blogs and talk to people faced with any challenge but especially SSA and addiction is that  we can't rely on others to do our "work" for us.  Our husbands have enough to work on and work through that they are not responsible for our "work".  I can't let him be the only one in our marriage trying to better himself.  If I want to be the person he wants to be with forever, I have to improve myself too!  There is help of ALL kinds out there.  

• LDS Addiction Recovery Program
  
• LifeSTAR 
• North Star 
• People Can Change 

These are only a few ideas, ones we have personally used!  I'm sure there are many more out there that we don't know about, but we have found immeasurable help and healing by using these programs and healing by using these programs and working on our own "stuff".

So for now, I vow to go back to my daily routine and not think I'm strong enough to do the things I know will chase away the crazy mama!!!       

Dear Codependent Me,

     There was a time in my life when you were a very necessary companion.  I want to thank you for giving me a sense of control in my life.  I used you as a refuge from having to have emotions and feel them too.  I was able to please others which at the time I thought was more important than being there for my family, spouse or myself.  I was able to get lots of things done everyday by relying on you to help me tune out everything I didn't want to see or focus on.  My perfect facade was able to shield my husband and I as well as our whole family from the judgement of others (or so I thought).

     We were good together.  I worked myself to death and you made me think it was working.  Everyone wanted to be me, have my fairy tale life.  Big home, good children, big callings at church, a successful husband who adored me.  I think sometimes back to those days and I was fooled by you too.  I didn't see what was happening right in my marriage because I was too busy and numb. 

     I was afraid of feeling anything, but especially afraid of not feeling worthy of love and connection, and even though I felt empty, and even dead inside - I felt like everyone needed me and that they couldn't do it without me.  I was busy and that was enough to make me feel needed.

     I used my nice "pillow wall" to limit the real human connections I had each day -  and  I was sure if people knew the real me - they wouldn't want a connection.

     I realize what a fake and false life you enabled me to have.  You robbed me of the ability to listen to my inner voice.  I couldn't  hear it for all the projects lurking in my day.  I recognize that you hid my feelings and emotions from not only me, but everyone around me.  I was mean and not nurturing at all to my children in order to not turn that energy onto my spouse.  I knew that nagging and turning on him would not make things better.

     I have been tired to the point of exhaustion from trying to have the "fake house" just in case someone would come over.  I spent many a hurried moment cleaning and shoving things in drawers and out of sight because someone was on their way over .But I never let uninvited people in because my house wasn't perfect.  Like a showplace, I mean really, doesn't a family live here?  I was tired because I was busy ALL of the time.  No rest for the busy- that is what I named my blog - more like no rest for the unworthy!

     I also ate my way to a protective excuse to not connect with friends or my husband.  I ate to mask the pain - emotion - connection.  

  

     I don't feel like I have needed you for a while now.  I have grown up and figured out where you came from and why you were so needed in my life.  I'm not that girl, twirling around in the yard, asking for love and approval.  I know who I am and that my Heavenly Father knows and loves me, and more importantly some days, I know and love myself too.  

      I have even found myself not getting triggered - to eat - to be sad - to check his phone or email 0 to yell at the kids.  I know I'm not perfect yet, I can't be that in this life.  I  have found a way to recognize emotions, their triggers, and really have them.  What an experience!!  

     I don't need you in my life anymore.  My goal is to be an authentic, whole, happy, loved, worthy woman who can give and receive love and connection.  I want to be a person with hopes, dreams, ideas, feelings, failures, disappointments and triumphs. I don't need your help to get what I want.  Your help only brings heartache.  

• I have the right to have my own opinions even if they differ from somebody else 
• I have the right to be happy and feel emotions.  
• I have the right to say no to demands or requests that I can't meet for whatever reason.  
• I have the right to make myself a priority and take care of myself.
• I have the right to have and express feelings

     I am still nervous but also excited to learn new patterns when old ones (you) are so easy to fall back on.  Like second nature you have become.  I know that you really hold me back and so I am going to say goodbye to you.  I don't need you anymore.  I am ready to stand on my own two feet and learn how to live a better life without you and your tactics.  My outlook has changed and we are clearly on two different paths.  

GOODBYE FOREVER!  I really don't want you around anymore and so for the sake of my family and my sanity .... GET LOST!!!!