The bigger picture

Posted on March 29, 2011 by l0velyjune

Image by Michelle Brea (busy-away) via Flickr

One of the ways in which I found D to be so healthy was that he was a firm believer in the “the bigger picture.” When we obsess over the little things in our lives, he’d say, we tend to lose sight of the bigger stuff: the roof over our heads, the beauty of our children, our health, the food on our table. Of course, he never said it as preachy as that. But you get my point. For him, it was always important to remember what really counted.

I agree with him, and yet, right now, I cannot see the bigger picture. I can only feel the discomfort of sleeping down the hall, in a single bed with a bad mattress, in a room piled high with temporary crap. I can only react to the complete loss of privacy that I now have with 3-12 men running through my house all day long, building an addition. I can only hear the noise. I can only tell you how impossible it has been to relax. To go to the bathroom in private! To flop down on a sofa to watch TV. To sit at my desk in my room and write in my journal. All those favorite things of mine have been stripped away and I resent all the people who have taken them away (mind you, I agreed to an addition because the bigger picture is that after its built, D can move in.)

And then there was last night. My son came home and mentioned that he “only had to study.” What he didn’t mention was that he had to study for EVERY SINGLE CLASS HE HAS and that inevitably means I have to sit down and help him through it all. I resented it because I wanted to take the boys out to dinner last night and couldn’t do it. So, I yelled at him, and it almost came off as sounding like I was blaming him for ruining MY life. Well, the more I thought about it, I WAS.

Again, I was unable to see the bigger picture.

And there’s s myriad of other things I resent….but the biggest one is that I have been having serious issues with my stomach again–complete IBS, like the old days. And it’s all due to stress. The thing is, it’s putting a wedge between D and I. And that’s its main purpose– to isolate me. When I have stomach issues, I want to be alone. I do not want to participate in any activity. I don’t even want to have sex or be close to D. And I cannot see the bigger picture. I can only see the trouble my stomach is going through and how to run away from people and be alone.

I guess this bothers me so much because I thought those days were over. I thought I had my stomach issues under control, but I guess I don’t. More disturbing, is that I see all this inability to deal with stress as a reflection upon my success, or lack thereof, in recovery. All these stressors are having the effect upon me of wanting to BLAME outside sources for my discomfort. It’s my son’s fault for screwing up my night last night; it’s D’s fault for upsetting my stomach; it’s D’s and the workers fault for putting me out like this and inconveniencing my life. It’s everyone else fault for making me miserable because I am incapable of adapting to this stress on my own.

I’m not hiding behind a man anymore; I am hiding behind my physical, mental and emotional response to stress.

I need to find that happy, positive place back, and sadly, I feel as though I can only make it there ALONE. This in turn makes me believe I cannot last successfully in a relationship. But it’s been over TWO YEARS OF BLISS! Am I just not seeing the bigger picture? Oh wait…I’m not.

Ugg. I need to work this out. Somehow. Or, simply, I need to remember one of the most important lessons I ever learned in recovery: nothing lasts forever. This too shall pass. Maybe that will help to put things in perspective. WHatever the case may be, I need to face the stress. Here’s a good website to start. I definitely react to stress by:

Zoning out for hours in front of the TV or computer
Withdrawing from friends, family, and activities
Sleeping too much

Procrastinating
Filling up every minute of the day to avoid facing problems
Taking out your stress on others (lashing out, angry outbursts, physical violence)

Off to read and learn! Ironically, or is that coincidentally, one of their methods of adapting to stress is to “look at the bigger picture.”

Look at the big picture. Take perspective of the stressful situation. Ask yourself how important it will be in the long run. Will it matter in a month? A year? Is it really worth getting upset over? If the answer is no, focus your time and energy elsewhere.

Letter to B, explaining how I recovered without completing the 12-Steps

Posted on March 27, 2011 by l0velyjune

Dear B,

Hmm, let’s see… how did I get to my recovery? Well, don’t get me wrong, I did some of the steps—possibly the most important ones. I made it to Step 4, I think, before I felt comfortable in the knowledge that I had already, somehow, achieve the rest of the steps without even knowing. The real catalyst, I guess was that I had quit smoking in October of 2007 and found this website called quintet.com. Not too glamorous a response, I know. No ashrams, no temples, no fancy recovery center in the middle of Arizona. But they had forums just like the love addiction forums, only with hundreds of daily visitors, and when you’d post, you could watch the messages scroll up instantaneously. If you’d post a question or a comment, in a matter of minutes you could have 10 replies. It was a pretty amazing sight and I think the very nature of all those people helping each other really touched me. It made me recognize the oneness of humanity. We’re all in this together. And you’d see people fail, or slip, day after day. And that helped too. Hate to say it, but I didn’t want to be like them. I wanted to be one of the “old-timers,” someone who could do it, and eventually, I was. I quit smoking 3.5 years ago. Pretty good stats, if you ask me. And I doubt I’ll ever go back.

But the website is still around, and it does have a section for quitting another addictions along with smoking, but none that run as fast as their main forum, ” the quitstop.”

At any rate, I quickly learned that the formula applied to quitting smoking is the same for quitting a PoA; the advice is the same, the hope is the same, the encouragement is the same, the withdrawal is the same, the pain is the same, and the thrill of recovery is the same. I applied everything I learned from the quitting smoking boards to my life with a guy named G for whom I was deeply addicted at the time, and who ultimately ends up in the documentary with me. Soon enough, I broke myself of the toxic relationship right along with the cigs.

Lessons learned?

Possibly the biggest lesson I learned by quitting smoking was not to put anything toxic into my body, mind or spirit. When I heard that lesson, I knew it was time to really take action for change. And aside from that site, I had been doing a lot of reading at the time. One book in particular was Anthony Robbins’ “Awaken the Giant Within.” At the time I was really not into reading self-help books, let alone Anthony Robbins. You’re talking to a girl who reads Hemingway, Fitzgerald, H. Miller, Anais Nin, Steinbeck and Joyce. I had spent the past 12 years or so making fun of people who relied on goofy self-help books. But at this point, I was desperate and determined to read everything until I got it.

So, Robbins wrote about “change” and how we are all so loathe to do it, but that real change only takes a second. You put down the cigarette and never pick one up again. It may have taken you years of mental stress to get to that point, but change was enacted in that moment. That lesson, coupled with the quit smoking site, coupled with a myriad of other little lessons that I was learning at the time, was what did it for me.

Oh, and ultimately getting dumped once I thought I was completely cured and healed. That was the act that drove the nail in the coffin for me and gave me a spiritual awaken.

But the truth is, I never hit any “rock bottom,” or at least I didn’t know I was at the bottom until I started climbing up and out. I never had any lightbulb moments where I made a complete change around. My change was slow, but progressive, and I was willing. And I’d say it happened over a time period of four years.

Anyway, there’s a hugely long entry on my blog that never got the attention it deserved called “Lessons about love addiction from a quit smoking site.” Possibly because of its length people were overwhelmed and didn’t read it, but the truth is, this was all the stuff that helped me quit my PoA. And could possibly help you too. Not that the Twelve Steps won’t. Like I said, that was an eye-opener for me as well, so I suggest you keep going! But keep in mind that there are other ways to recover. When the student is ready, the teacher appears. So look for signs. Everything and everyone is a teacher when you’re ready to learn.

Virgin Mobile ad

Posted on March 25, 2011 by l0velyjune

This ad has been around for a few months now, and I’m still trying to figure out how I feel about it. On the one hand, it’s hugely insensitive and irresponsible. I mean, they wouldn’t dare put an alcoholic or drug addict in a commercial, have them stumble around, drive drunk, crash their car, but still be able to use their iPhone. Would they? No. Culture, for the most part, now dictates that it’s negligent to design ads that use diseased behavior as a comedic marketing tool. So why create the same kind of humor out of love addiction– something that has ruined the lives of many men and women, whether they stand on the giving or receiving end the situation.

Even films like Fatal Attraction drew unnecessary drama and Hollywood “horror” to a real life issue that made it almost impossible for anyone who truly suffered from love addiction to overcome the stigma created by that film and get help, or be taken seriously.

On the other hand, let’s face it, it’s a funny commercial. Have any of us ever been so obsessed that we’ve sat up in a tree to stalk some clueless PoA on a first date? Probably not. And even if some of us can admit to doing even wackier stuff than that, oh well. Maybe we can look back and laugh. If we lose the ability to laugh at ourselves we lose our strongest defense against the pain of reality.

What’s not funny is what another member on the LAA forums posted regarding the fact that there’s a whole new generation of young people being raised with these phone. Not only that, but these phones make it increasingly easy to lurk, stalk and prey on other people because of access of information. With the ease of these phones, love addiction will become the norm. Worse yet, I recall a couple years ago having a conversation with someone about all the instruments of technology she had to avoid just to maintain NC: her house phone, her cell phone, her work e-mail address, her home email address, the texting feature, online instant chats, Facebook, MySpace, and so on. This list doesn’t even include local hang outs that she had to avoid, and spots close to work. These were all ways in which she connected to her PoA and what she ultimately had to avoid after the break up.

I guess there’s an immediate lesson here: try to limit communication with someone new through one venue only. Give him or her an isolated email address, separate from your home or work email address. And likewise, try to avoid getting his contact info too. When D and I first started dating I didn’t know his phone number nor ask for it for a good two months. Save communication to one location: if you met on Facebook, keep it there. If you met out through friends, offer your cell phone number, but not your landline. Once you share all your information with someone it’s really hard to get it back– And by all means, LIMIT contact and personal information to only those people you know well. Either that, or you might have someone sitting in a tree stalking YOU.

There’s the opposite side of the spectrum too!

Top 11 Myths of Recovery

Posted on March 24, 2011 by l0velyjune

Image via Wikipedia

In 2008, before I had my ultimate realization that nothing is certain, and life is full of surprises and I have no control over really anything life throws at me, I believed certain things were written in stone about my newfound recovery. Boy was I wrong…

You’ll never make a mistake again. When I was first in recovery there was a point that I truly believed I had made every mistake known to man and had learned my lessons from all of them. I swore, I wouldn’t repeat the mistakes of the past. And looking back, I’m pretty pleased that, for the most part, I did avoid making some of the biggies. However, I soon found out that there’s a whole world of new mistakes to make! Oh, the frustration. And yet, what recovery teaches us is to forgive ourselves. That we are human. And that we are bound to make mistakes. There is no such thing as perfection in recovery, and there’s no such thing as perfection in healthy living. Healthy living means knowing everyone makes mistakes, making mistakes, addressing them when they crop up and trying to learn from them. We all do the best we can in this world. And as long as we’re not killing anyone, lying, cheating, being consciously deceptive or hurtful towards others, everything else is insignificant.
You’ll never be in pain again, or suffer. This was another myth I learned soon after being in recovery for awhile. Trouble still comes at you; loved ones still die; people still hurt you; work is still a struggle; pain still exists. WHat recovery teaches you, however, is how to manage the pain and suffering better as opposed to avoiding it like before. Before recovery I hid behind the high a PoA gave me and didn’t face pain. After recovery, I struggle to manage difficulties in my life like an adult and I face the pain that comes. By doing this, I teach my children to be strong, I show others I am capable of taking care of myself, and I feel more confident and in control of my life. It is STILL in my nature to want to run and hide from pain and suffering. But I try to see running away and hiding as no longer an option.
Slips and relapses don’t happen. Slips and relapses do happen. Recovery is progress, not perfection. The difference is, once you no longer have a PoA as your defense mechanism to hide behind, you have other things: wasting time, procrastinating, not addressing pressing issues but letting them fester, slipping into depression, giving up, etc. Recovery is 24/7. It is something you make a lifetime commitment to. And once you’ve given up the PoA and chosen to live your life instead, you still need to be aware of your commitment to yourself. Just because you’ve given up pie while on your diet, doesn’t mean you won’t think you can turn to candy instead! My advice: be aware. When you catch yourself slipping, you already have many of the tools necessary to bring yourself back up to that elevated place. Don’t ever give up on yourself.
Slips and relapses means you’re not in recovery anymore. Like I said above, slips and relapses are part of life. Learn to live with them and learn to address them if and when they crop up. Also, be aware of the type of slips or relapses you’re having. Are you falling back into old, bottom line behaviors? Have you lost your enthusiasm for working your recovery? Do you find yourself day-dreaming incessantly again? Are you stalking an old PoA or entertaining the idea of seeing him or her again? Ask yourself why you think you may be taking this turn back down an old, outmoded road and what you can do to reroute. You (and your children, if you have them) are your highest priority. Don’t give up on your recovery.
You’ll find the partner of your dreams. So many of us recover for the wrong reasons, and finding the guy or girl of your dreams is one of them. We choose recovery because, most likely, we are sick and tired of being sick and tired. Because the pain of love addiction finally outweighs the pain of heading into the unknown world of recovery and letting go. And so in that sense, we choose recovery not because of any other hoped for outcome but one: that we finally learn to love ourselves, forgive ourselves and face life. When that knowledge comes, certain benefits do result. When we become better, healthier individuals, it’s inevitable– healthier individuals are drawn to us. Water seeks its own level. But nothing in life is guaranteed. There is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. And becoming an adult in recovery entails an understanding of that reality. It would be nice to find the perfect man of your dreams, but it’s never guaranteed. And yet, you must learn to love yourself and your life in spite of that.
You’ll fall in love and have a successful relationship. When I finally “got it” and was well into recovery, I dated a guy who I thought was the last, most perfect guy ever. We laughed all the time, never fought, got along great, I loved him, he loved me. WHo could ask for anything more? I had kept my boundaries in place and though he used to smoke pot, he told me he quit and everything was great. And then he dumped me. Huh? What went wrong? I had done everything by the book! I gave him his freedom, never smothered him, was true to myself, had a life of my own, was happy, etc. etc. I was devastated. But I still didn’t foresee that he was not being honest with himself or me. He tried to give up smoking for me, but in the end, he felt it was too much a part of his life to give up. So, despite the illusion of a great relationship, and despite having it all figured out myself, there’s always the other side, and there’s always surprises. The other part to this myth is that once you recover, you may not want to date or marry ever again! And while this may be the road less traveled, you need to recognize that it’s okay! You do not have to live like everyone else. But in order to help you come to that conclusion ask yourself a few profound questions: a.) Do I truly believe I am being true to my nature by choosing to be alone? b.) Am I sure this is not just a case of sexual anorexia or a fear of entering into a new relationship? And c.) Am I willing to change my beliefs or the way I feel if circumstances change or if an opportunity presents itself?
Your marriage must end. I always say that a successful recovery has nothing to do with the PoA, and yet, if you happened to be married to one, or conversely, if you’ve cheated on your spouse with a PoA, the bottom line is that you have work to do on YOU and lots of it. What that usually means is alone time. And yet, in a marriage, alone time is hard to come by. A relationship, good or bad, places demands upon you, and a once loving husband may not be that understanding when things change. And yet, it is up to you to carve out some time alone, within your marriage so as to do some serious recovery work. This does not mean divorce. It means communicating with your spouse that there’s a problem and that you need time to fix it. If he or she is understanding and gives you that freedom to work stuff out, and if at the end of your soul searching you determine your marriage can and should be saved, by all means, save it. Sadly, this is rare.
Your marriage must continue. When we change, recover and stop being the sick, unhealthy person we were, we are shocked to realize we married someone equally unhealthy. Unless the spouse is also willing to change–on his or her own–divorce is a sad, but logical next step. You see, oftentimes we think if we can just get rid of the PoA and the desire for passion that we are lacking in our marriage, our marriage can be saved. But the truth is, this is not about passion or lust or a midlife crisis. If we dig deep, it’s probably about the fact that we have nothing in common with our spouse, don’t really love him, but are deathly afraid to be alone and surviving on our own. So…instead of divorce, so many of us decide to take on an affair instead, jumping from the fire into the frying pan. Recovery, though, does not exactly lead you to the conclusion that saving the marriage is the best thing. Oftentimes in recovery, we find that our dependence on the marriage is part of our love addiction. Even if we are not addicted to the husband or wife, we’re addicted to the relationship.
Your PoA will want you back once you recover. This is one of those things that’s so very difficult to see from your vantage point, mainly because if you are thinking in these terms, you are probably still deep into denial about who you are and who your PoA is. But here’s a formula to live by: if you are sick and unhealthy, chances are your PoA is just as sick and unhealthy (another really difficult thing to see or admit). SO when you recover and get healthy, there’s a 99.9 percent chance you will want NOTHING to do with the PoA. Why? Because with recovery comes clarity. Recovery helps you take the blinders off and see the world more for what it is than what you would like it to be. And that means that the PoAs flaws come to light rather quickly once in recovery. If, on the other hand, you don’t know your PoA very well, or still believe he or she has no red flags or flaws, recovery will still lift the veil of fantasy to the point where you recognize that you have created an attachment to someone you don’t even know. This is why torchbearers are torchbearers. They do not enter into recovery. You cannot be a torchbearer and be in recovery because the very essence of recovery means that you recognize the impossibility of the relationship and are willing to move on. But who am I to say that the PoA will not want you back after you are this stunningly confident, beautiful on the inside, secure human being with loads of self-esteem? Maybe he or she will want you back or conversely, finally take notice! The thing is, recovery will also create in you a desire to date a better class of person, a healthier individual. So, in that sense, even if the PoA wants you back, chances are, you will have outgrown him. And that’s a good thing!
You will still be the same person as always. Possibly the biggest myth of them all is the false belief that you will not or cannot change. But like the caterpillar who morphs into a butterfly, you have no choice once you devote your life to your recovery: you will change. Part of the dis-ease of love addiction is not so much an unwillingness to change as it is a fear of letting go. And part of that fear comes from who you might become or what might become of you once you let go of your current life’s situation. My only advice in the end is, don’t be afraid. Recovery is a rebirth. Have faith in your ability to recover and become something better, even if it means letting go of what you’ve got now. Love addicts are, by nature, survivors. We can handle all sorts of adversity. Heck, we’ve placed ourselves in the path of destruction repeatedly, and for what? To prove our strength? No. Because it’s simply our nature to do so. But remember, that same strength we possess for struggling with a PoA can also be applied to another struggle: that of saving our own lives.
Once you learn a lesson, you’ll never forget it. I’ll just say, hah! to that. I can’t tell you how many wonderful lessons I’ve learned since this journey began, and how many I lost and had to relearn a long the way. Humans forget. You may have to remind yourself again, and again when it comes to certain lessons.

Killing time

Posted on March 21, 2011 by l0velyjune

Image by heyrocc via Flickr

SO much of our suffering is due in great part to simply not having a life, not being busy and occupied, or allowing ourselves to become bored. These are very difficult states to be in when trying to overcome the loss of a PoA. They are also counterproductive to real change. When boredom sets in, things like stalking, chasing, looking at old photos, dwelling on past memories, listening to old music and other similar acts take over and the next thing you know, you’re deep into a mental and emotional vacuum, sucked back into the world of the PoA. Not good. Pointless.

So, this thread (inspired by a member on the forums) is for you to list some of the ways in which you kept busy today and avoided the perils of boredom! Keeping busy, no matter what the focus, helps you HEAL. It replenishes you and stifles the toxicity of boredom. And activities that not only keep you busy, but are also soul strengthening (recovery work, doing art, doing something you love, going to a spa, relaxing) are like water, soil and sunlight to a flower in need of growth.

So…share your list here. And if it’s small, or non-existent, that’s OK. This thread will hopefully help you to become aware of how you spend your time and help you recognize the importance of keeping busy during NC and recovery.

Today I…

taught a basic writing class,
graded papers,
wrote a letter to the editor of my local newspaper on an issue we’re having in town,
talked with my mother about our eternal IBS issues (!),
wrote a food blog,
wrote a 200 word Bio for the new LA documentary website
cooked (chicken cutlets, salad and sweet potato fries),
wasted time on Facebook (need to do this less)
took kids to get haircuts and soft pretzels
wrote this post!

Today it was relatively easy to keep busy. Other days, it’s not so easy!

Your turn!

Love Addict – Stories of dreams, obsession and longing

Posted on March 8, 2011 by l0velyjune

Ooooh…ahh….Pernille’s new trailer has finally been released!

The title is “Love Addict – Stories of dreams, obsession and longing”. It’s debuting in Denmark April 6, 2011

It should be coming out in the USA sometime in late May.

This is not a documentary on recovery. However, they will be be offering a website for recovery options and discussion. My review of the film can be found here.

Hoped for outcomes

Posted on March 3, 2011 by l0velyjune

What I’m about to say always depresses people (it depressed me when I thought of it) but if you can THInK about it and FACE the ugly truth of it, it will change your life.

Here goes…

A friend of mine was an athlete. She ran marathons all the time, won races, cycled, hiked, etc. Beautiful woman. Then one day, she crashed her motorcycle into a concrete block on an off ramp and lost her leg. She is now a paraplegic. She had to recover, go to therapy and RELEARN how to walk, live and function and all that other good stuff. She believed all her dreams were shattered. But alas! They were not. She could not run, jump and walk normally, like a person with two legs. She could no longer wear high heels. She could not have the fairytale life that seemingly every average American has, but she could have other things. She could get a prosthetic leg and she could still run races if she trained. And she could still think she was beautiful. And she could still date and have friends and get a job. That was all in her power and she made it work. But this tragedy forced her to live a little differently and have different expectations of what she was able to achieve. The story is a a rather extreme version of “If life gives you lemons, you make lemonade.”

My point is this: Look around you and look at everything in your life. What you have (a roof over your head, food, friends, etc), what you don’t have (a boyfriend!) and imagine that this is how your life will be always, ten years from now, twenty. That you will never have any more or less than what you have right now. This is it. Now…the hard part…be happy for what you have RIGHT NOW. Make peace with it, no matter what. Take longing out of your life, refuse to think in terms of wanting and needing. And simply be happy with this, whatever THIS is. I am not talking about remaining in an abusive relationship. I am not talking about not setting goals for yourself or not working towards something. What I am saying is that whatever goals you set for yourself, whatever movement you make, know that there is no sure outcome. There is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. You may not win the lottery. You may lose a leg, get sick, get cancer, and so on. Who knows what the future holds. So, it’s crucial to the success of your recovery to not recover for the sake of a hoped for outcome (i.e. winning that great new boyfriend or girlfriend).

No. You may not like nun scenario or hanging out with the girls, drinking tea and sleeping with just your pillows for the rest of your life. But what if that is ALL there is???? If that is all there is, you better make peace with it.

Have I totally depressed you yet???

Well, there’s a paradox to this story. And this is it:

It is at that very moment, when you are happiest with seemingly NOTHING that everything suddenly becomes yours.

This is an extremely difficult lesson. But such a valuable one.

The Lovely Addict's blog on love addiction & recovery

Monthly Archives: March 2011