Posted by partlycloudy on May 24, 2004, at 8:19:16
In reply to Re: Caper, how are you? » Impermanence, posted by Caper on May 22, 2004, at 2:02:42
I saw that you're interested in how our addictions started. My experience was that my dad was an alcoholic. My parents divorced when I was 16 and I was left to live with my dad (my mom couldn't handle being a parent anymore and wouldn't let me visit for long, much less live with her).
I very promptly started drinking and smoking to escape the living h*ll I found myself in. I started a pattern of waiting for pop to pass out, then I'd drink his booze, and he would have no idea whether he had done it or not.
My 18-year first marriage was based entirely on alcohol. Every single event - good or bad - was marked by beer, wine, martini's, margueritas, it really didn't matter what. I drank daily for the entire marriage.
When I remarried, my husband remarked how much my personality changed when I drank. I would become sarcastic and angry (though not violent), and usually cry. After trying AA for over a year, I decided I was being brainwashed and left.
Eventually I got a dx of bipolar2, GAD and panic attacks. I have continued my pattern of drinking in secret. As far as anyone I work or socialize (now that's a laugh) with, I don't drink. The second I'm alone for an evening with just myself rattling around in my head, I drink. I smoke. I black out, I wake up the next day feeling like dying would be a welcome thing. It is so much worse now that I am on medication, but it still has not deterred me.
At my very core, I don't believe in myself. I am not worthy of my loving husband, my nice comfortable house. Every success at work has been a scam I have pulled on the world - fooled them again! - and when I get fired, say to myself that they caught on.
When you have had a childhood and introduction into adulthood based on being ignored or spurned as I have, it's incredible hard to change that perception into what the world (apprently) really sees.
I've been told that I'm intelligent, well read, pretty, sexy, classy, funny, friendly, supportive... and I wonder - where is she?
I can't see her.
poster:partlycloudy
thread:348539
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/subs/20040409/msgs/350076.html