Self-Knowledge Avails Nothing

Well, hello there!

Let's just catch up, shall we? 

I'm not sure what I’m doing with this blog now. I know I’ve gotten way off track. I mean...I was completely insane, really, from the beginning. I was so obsessed with meeting "him," and I thought writing about it would help, would stop me, from acting out on my sex and love addiction. 

It never did. As recovered alcoholics and addicts know, self-knowledge, and half-measures, avail us nothing. "[...T]he actual or potential alcoholic, with hardly an exception, will be absolutely unable to stop drinking on the basis of self-knowledge," (Alcoholics Anonymous, 39). Unable to stop drinking, stop pursuing men, stop smoking weed, stop mismanaging money, stop being resentful at him for drinking - I have as many addictions as there are weekdays (and actually more, as it turns out).

Despite not having drank since my first AA meeting on January 19, 2012 - that's my one win - I definitely kept acting out those other addictions. Do I have to go to a different 12-step program for every single one to achieve complete sobriety / sanity? I wonder.

Well, on April 6, 2019, I decided that I was tired of being powerless over weed, and I was able to finally quit with the help of a sponsor in Narcotics Anonymous. I'm now over 9 months clean - it was impossible to do on my own.

And on December 23, 2019, I finally called the cops on "Bernard," and the relationship ended for real. Lots to catch up on - I took him hostage and he moved in with me in August 2015, we visited my sister in Northern CA over Christmas Break and he suggested we just stay, my son Lucas' dad died January 22, 2016, we were homeless for a long time in motel-to-motel until we found a crappy place to rent, we bought a house with my late husband's life insurance, his son came to live with us, we had another kid, I got fired, I started a photography business (and a new addiction), and his drinking got worse (than it all ready was when I was chasing him down at bars trying to make him mine).

That night, on December 23, I had finally decided it was insane to let him keep getting away with taking my car without asking, with no driver's license (multiple DUI's), with no cell phone (would never pay his bill), with our almost 3 year-old daughter in the car (I was working the steps again, and I really wanted to become sane this time). We had all ready been fighting every day and breaking up like every week. That night, he was gone for two hours before I knew he had left (I was downstairs working - my new escape from reality). I thought about calling the police before he got home, but then he showed up, and he started screaming when I set the boundary. Olivia started crying; he was screaming and throwing things. rampaging, yelling that he was done with me, and I needed to leave "his" house right now (the house I bought with Lucas' dad's life insurance - at least, the $20,000 down - but put in Bernard's name, since his credit was better than mine after I got us both out of debt with said life insurance money). I took her downstairs, locked the bedroom door, and went into the walk-in closet in the bathroom, and locked the bathroom door, too.

Olivia told me she was scared, so that was it. I decided to just do it. I was terrified of doing it, but I did it - I dialed 9-1-1. When the police arrived, Bernard was actually screaming outside by the street, so they were able to arrest him for "public" intoxication. They told me he would only be in the drunk tank for 6-12 hours, so since the house was in his name, despite us living there for over three years, I should get what I needed, and get out before he gets out.

It has not been an easy 26 days since then, of course. After staying with my sister (who was drinking all day around the holidays, and I had to get out), a friend, a stranger, and a friend of a friend, I'm now finally in a studio apartment with my two kids (Lucas is now 10; Olivia turns 3 in a little over a week).

There's more I'd like to write, but I'm going to head out and go to an AA meeting that starts in 15 minutes after microwaving Lucas a quesadilla. The Cup O' Noodles didn't quite fill him up. Olivia is with dad for the night. We're meeting with CPS next week to come up with a safety plan, but she'll be okay for tonight, any way.

To be continued...

A Letter from My Higher Power

After Margaret killed herself and I endured the most excruciating pain in my life, I thought that, suddenly, I had become empathic. Suddenly I cared about people. It only lasted a week.

A week after she died, a guy asked me for my number, we went on a date, had sex, and all of a sudden I forgot what pain felt like.

I'm in a strange limbo, now. Do I want the pain back, or not? I've noticed that I've lost all empathy for my fellows. I sent an ex-boyfriend a link to my blog in response to his entreating, because, for some reason, I thought he should "know the truth." I thought that would be easier than just turning him down again. Well, easier for me, sure...but not for him.

He sent me a suicide email. I responded to that email with angry, high-and-mighty how-dare-you-after-what-I've-just-been-through tirades, and he sent me a new suicide email with a 5-year expiration date this time. I sent him more how-dare-yous. He responded with his own how-dare-you, and I responded with, "Eh, I stopped at 'how dare you.' It's just not even worth it. Lates, homes."

Where did my caring go? Am I just that numb that my ex could kill himself, and I'd just be all, "Been there, done that...whatevs."?

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do from here. I just told one of my best friends that I'd gotten a suicide email from my ex after I sent him a link to my blog, expecting her to be on my side. Big surprise. She had to hang up, she was so disgusted with me. I upset her, big time.

I thought, "Whoa, is that what I'm supposed to be like? Like...care?" (Somehow I saw myself as the victim in this suicide email scenario.)

I know that if I stop dating this guy (who is now willing to not have sex until marriage, so it's so hard to say "no" to him now...he wants to take me to a play in Coronado tomorrow night)...I'll be a better person. But right now...I'm in "relapse mode".

[Time lapse]

Okay, I just got off the phone with my sponsor. I did cry, real tears, so that's good. And I feel pain again. She recognized that I'm creating wreckage, so she gave me this assignment: "Adora, I want you to write, right now, a letter to you from your higher power. What would God say to you about Margo, about this guy you're dating, about your ex? Then I want you to call me back and read it to me." I love my sponsor. She always reminds me about the ol' HP.

So, here goes:

Dear Adora (that's not your real name, but I'll humor you here),

Stop. Look up. Listen.

I gave you Margo so you could heal. I placed her right in front of you when you needed someone most. When you started recovering, though, you left her behind. You stopped spending time with her. You stopped helping her. You weren't doing My Will. So I took her away so you could feel, so you could learn to be there for others. I wanted you to experience real pain and sadness, and come through the other side of it with the true capacity to love. I had other reasons for Margo and for others, but those ones are for you. But you took that growth and learning opportunity away from yourself by dating this new guy. It's like Margo died for nothing. You aren't getting what you were supposed to out of it. In one week you were over her death, thanks to this...distraction...of yours. One week. You are back to being comfortably numb and blithely unaware of the messages I am trying to send to you, and you are no longer on the path I set you on. You've blocked yourself from the Sunlight of the Spirit once again.

You are really good at convincing yourself that everything on Earth is from Me. You say that "everything that happens" is My Will. Well, Adora, I've got news for you. Sometimes, it's your will. Sometimes, it's a man's will. It's not always Mine.

I'll make situations work for Me, sure. If you insist on going a certain direction, away from Me, I'll find a way to turn you back around. But it's a lot harder down those roads than if you would just walk with Me from the beginning. Usually, the lesson I give you then is much more painful. Wouldn't you rather get the blessings that come from staying by My Side?

Don't you trust Me?

I don't want you to hurt any one. And I don't want any one to hurt you, but I can't stop them. I can only work through you, if you let Me. But you have to let Me in, and keep Me there. I know it hurts sometimes. Life is painful when you don't use people or other things to make yourself feel better. But I'll make you feel better, if you trust Me and stay with Me. You don't need to lash out in anger at your fellows. They don't have Me with them when they are hurting you. But if you keep Me with you, they can't hurt you at all. Be My Love, even in the face of wrath, and you'll feel My Love.

You don't know what I have in store for you. That's okay. You don't have to know. Do you know how crazy you'd be if you knew the future? And what then would be the point of living? There'd be no surprises.

It's time for you to be honest. You haven't been completely honest with "James" because you are trying to get things from him. You are being selfish, self-seeking, dishonest, and afraid. You haven't told him how terrible it makes you feel to date him, when you had given yourself the boundaries of no dating until you've completed your relationship inventory and no sex until marriage (and you broke both with him). You're just so focused on the end result that you envision for yourself. You want to be married to a successful, spiritual man who will treat you with respect...and save you. More news: "James" may not be as spiritual as you project. Does he pray morning and night, asking for knowledge of My Will and the power to carry it out? Does he carry the vision of My Will into all of his activities? Does he take his own moral inventory, and serve others, or does he do what he wants, when he wants, how he wants, for himself? You don't even know the answers to these questions. Worst of all, you are giving up going to meetings to date him. Please stop.

I know fantasy is more appealing than reality. But you got off the merry-go-round before, and you can do it again. I won't push you off -- but you're welcome to get off yourself, any time you'd like, when you're ready to come back to Me. Take the leap of faith. I'll hold your hand, and I won't let go -- if you won't.

Love,

GOD

My Mom, Her Boyfriend Harry, and My Son

The "what-I-don't-know-can't-hurt-me" approach to life is designed to help one "not feel pain" when reality - current or past - is (or seems) too painful to face. But whatever the ostrich is hiding from is sure to eat the ostrich nonetheless. It's time to take my head out of my - sand - and shine a light into that dark and scary cave of childhood.

Synopsis: A dragon keeps a damsel in distress hidden away where he tortures her nearly to death. Her children respond to her screams of terror with curdling screams of their own. The dragon stomps out of its cloister, heaves over to the eldest (the boy), grabs him by the neck, and violently flings him across the cave against the wall where he slides down into a motionless lump on the floor. The monstrous fire-breather then leaps upon the older girl, its weight atop her, stopping her gasps with its tight grasp around her neck, too, until her body ceases to quiver. The dragon doesn't see the youngest girl hiding in a dark corner, peeing her pants. It snorts and retreats to continue its torture of the damsel. The children awake dizzily and retreat into their fantasy worlds - the boy, Stephen King; the girls, Walt Disney.

The long-awaited knight in shining armor never arrived, but that didn't stop me from continuing to fantasize about being rescued by an older man into adulthood. At age ten, I started dreaming about strange grown men climbing through the window at night to whisk me away and take care of me forever. There were a few unsavory characters who entered the scene here and there, but none of them saved me: I was molested eight times from age four to age twelve, mostly by drug addicts and alcoholics (and once by my brother, when I was four, but he was seven, and I just don't think he knew any better).

I haven't written about the year my mom left our dad when I was eight, and we spent three months homeless and living on hot dogs with the aforementioned alcoholic-abusive Fiery Dragon (who was really, well, "The Carpenter on Peppermint Schnapps"...I'll call him Harry). My mother did leave him when I was fourteen and took our younger sister with her; my brother went to live with his heroin-addict best friend and I went to live with our dad and his abusive, meth-addicted girlfriend. So my reality, as a child, just wasn't all that great. But, unfortunately, it didn't stop there. After high school, I fell in love with a heroin-addict-alcoholic who wasn't really abusive until about two years into the relationship. Then, before I knew it, I was drinking and using heroin, too -- and now I was my mother. Once I saw that, I left him, after being with him for ten years. Then, I was back on my knight-in-shining-armor quest. The fairy tale really just turned out to be one long fucking nightmare.

There is of course a problem with accepting a myth-story (fake = "having a false or misleading appearance; fraudulent") solution to my problem. But it wasn't until I tried to apply that "solution", repeatedly experiencing disillusioned failure, did the reality fairy pull me from my blindness and blind me with its light (you'll get that if you read Plato's Cave Allegory from his Republic; there are no fairies in it, but it's quite apropos).

And further still, there's a problem with the problem to which I'm accepting a problematic solution. The problem itself is fake, atleast now. As an adult, I don't need to be rescued. And if I really feel like I do, well, I've got the roles all mixed up. I'm the knight in shining armor, not the abused princess or damsel in distress (unless I make myself those by continuing to chase these nasty Princess Charmers). And while I thought I'd be slaying dragons when I shone the light into the cave of my life, what I'm actually finding is a trove of treasure.

Many who come from dark childhoods are afraid to look (that is what fantasy is for). But one of my best friends just killed herself because of the torment she was feeling, not wanting to look at the upbringing that shaped her into the love addict she became (so she could change herself), and not able to cope with her Prince Charming leaving her for another woman.

I decided to brave it. I'm here to save myself, after all. So I started with my brother, because with him lies my first dark memory that tormented me long into adulthood. Surprisingly, writing about it gave me an immediate precious gift that I didn't expect.

I had my son with me a couple weeks ago, a day after writing that post (I share custody of him with his dad). I had written about my brother's dinosaur and space books, and then I realized that I had gotten my son a couple of dinosaur and space books for his fourth birthday in August! But -- having been so involved in my pursuits of Prince Charming the past few months (besides, um, the past 21 years) -- not once had I read them to him. I remembered how the things my brother used to do with me constituted my entire world, and the question, I am my son's world - what world am I giving him? came up and gently tapped me on the shoulder and begged for my attention.

So I read to him, intently. Later in the day, I was proud of myself. Because I have started writing about my childhood, I also thought: If my son grows up and writes about his past, what will he write about? It was a way for me to change myself here and now and be the kind of mother I need to be for him.

With resolve, I began to invoke in myself again The Knight in Shining Armor, for him. I do know this: he won't write about men beating his mother until she chokes on her own blood, or men choking him until he passes out. He won't write about his mother always being behind a closed door, or about her being asleep for most of the day, or drinking 100-proof Southern Comfort for breakfast. He won't write about jumping into dumpsters for cans, crushing them, and taking them with his mom's boyfriend to recycle for hot dogs, beans, cigarettes and Peppermint Schnapps. He won't write about his mom telling him that they were "going on vacation" and then leaving his dad and not seeing his dad for a whole year, or ending up in a shelter for battered and homeless women and children for a few months until his mom got back together with her abuser. He won't write about fending for himself and microwaving a couple tortillas with cheese or putting chili powder on a head of lettuce and calling it dinner. He won't write about having to wear dirty second-hand clothing and being teased every day at school for it. He won't write about only getting to see his dad every other weekend and his dad's meth addict girlfriend throwing kittens against the bedroom door and killing them. He won't write about how he got an F in Art in 5th grade for attention and asked his mom to spank him so he could see if she cared, but then have her say, "That's fine, honey, I'm sure you did your best." He won't write about having a 16 year-old girlfriend when he's 12, or a 21 year-old girlfriend when he's 16 -  at least, not if I can help it.

I let my son see his dad more than every other weekend. I have conversations with him, teach him things, and let him know how much he means to me. I have a job, a car, and I take him places. When he grows older, I'll be there when he gets awards in school. I'll be there to pick him up from soccer practice (or whatever sport he chooses, if he wants to play a sport). If he joins a choir, I'll go to his performances. I'll make sure he gets put in honors classes. If he gets an "F" in Art in fifth grade just to try and get my attention, I'll give it to him, and ground him for a week. If he gets placed in the 4th-6th grade county spelling bee as a 3rd grader, I'll take him myself instead of making him ride the bus with all the older kids and no lunch. I won't let us be homeless for a half a year and call it a camping trip. I won't move 600 miles away when he's 14 and only see him once every three years. I'll be there when he gets married, and when his wife has their first child. I won't be drunk every time he calls me on the phone, sometimes driving, and talk to him about my new alcoholic boyfriend punching me in the nose.

I was pushing my son on a swing at the park the day after. And I realized something else - I don't have even one memory of my mom ever taking me to a park. I have hardly any memories of being with my mom at all. It's no wonder that I've been so desperate to find some kind of love wherever I can. I thought of this just when, after pushing my son on the swing for 30 minutes and wanting to stop and sit down at the table and let him find a playmate to run around with, he asked me to do another "underdog" (my dad did take us to parks and used to do "underdogs" with us on the swings).

So I made myself keep pushing. Besides, I was really enjoying the conversation. My son was giving me a full synopsis of the movie The Goonies that he had just watched for the first time at his dad's house, and it absolutely tickled me (it was one of my very favorite movies growing up). But, finally, he did get tired of swinging, and he did find a playmate with whom to play with his three Godzillas and two dinosaur figures, and I could finally do what I'd been dreaming of - sit down. So I sat down and began to write about my mother never being there for me, but that prompted me to do something else - I called her. 

I know it sounds counterintuitive, but it's actually part of a weekly ritual. I call my mom once a week, at a minimum, to let her know I love her and am thinking of her. I got the idea from a woman who was speaking at a convention on spirituality. She said, "Now here's a prayer for you all; I dare you to try this: before you go to bed every night, say, 'God, please have people treat me tomorrow just the way I treated people today.' Do that for 30 days and I guarantee it'll change your life." I haven't done it for 30 days - and that was 34 days ago. But, it did change the way I treat my mom. All I want is for her to call me, to think of me, to ask me how I'm doing -- to love me. So that's what I do, every week, for her. Maybe I oughta do it every day.

Forgiveness is an exact science, really. You swallow pain and resentment and churn it into compassion and understanding before regurgitating it as patience, tolerance and love. It takes a lot of energy and practice, and can be pretty damn exhausting. But one thing she did teach me: "Two wrongs don't make a right." So no matter how difficult it is to swallow when she says has no regrets for the way she "raised" us, and forgives herself, I just let it come back up calmly as, "I forgive you, too, Mom."

And I could tell she was drunk and on pills and probably won't even remember the conversation. But if she's still alive next week, I'll just do that same thing. It's the death of the defaultus modus operandi -- instead of trying so desperately to be loved, now I love. I love my mom, I love my son, and I love myself.