We are talking about me. A girl who grew up to be a woman who never learned how to deal with her feelings and my solution to this problem was to use drugs and alcohol excessively until these buffers stopped working for me.
My life has been unmanageable for as long as I can remember and it is my feelings that have always run the show. As far as I can tell, most normal people work out their feelings in safe and healthy ways. Not me. If I feel depressed or disappointed, I need to obliterate.
If I feel scared, I run away. Over the years, I have developed a dangerous habit of isolating myself from the world to avoid the pain I bring on myself by my inability to communicate and to express my feeling appropriately.
For me, anger is the worst. I have no idea how to deal with this big monster of an emotion at all. When I feel angry it festers inside me like a cesspool that burns deep within my soul and I lash out either on myself, or another person, and I am tired of living my life this way.
Like most addicts, my M.O. is to stuff my feelings as deep inside me as I can manage. Yuck. I don't like feelings because I don't know how to deal with them at all. All I want is for them to go, go, go away! Time and time again, I've tried everything to just get away from my feelings because all I can muster is that I don't want this glob of confusion anywhere near me. I want it gone as fast as I can get rid of it.
So, here I find myself, stone cold sober and I have to learn how to deal with my feelings, or I am never going to get well and I hate this so much. Unpacking and facing my feelings has been harder than anything I've ever had to do, and I really suck at this.
Thank God I have my sponsor who has no problem telling me the truth because she truly loves me, and I have finally found the one person I feel safe enough to get through this with.
My attack on my father was completely based on my reaction to having a feeling. I found a letter he wrote to my mother when I was a child that confirmed everything I've been afraid of about him all of my life. It's true, I had a FEELING. Hurt turns to anger, anger turns to rage, then finally rage becomes wrath.
When I read "Dear Daddy" to my sponsor, she reminded me, yet again, that my lashing out and being angry hurts me more than anyone else, which is for sure the truth. She wanted to know if I would still use the same language and platform in reaction to my feelings about my father knowing what I know now. To her surprise, I said "absolutely." When she asked me if I was sure, I said "without a doubt" because I need to write how I feel. I don't know how to do it any other way.
Obviously, we have some work to do here, as there are hundreds of ways that I could have dealt with my feelings about my father, and I chose to write about them out with every ugly detail in a public forum. I pulled each word from deep within my heart and lashed out on my father with every fiber of my being. "Dear Daddy" poured out of me with a vengeance, and it felt so good to finally get it all out, but my public rage attack confirms that I have a long way to go. Ugh.
Waaah. I grew up without a dad. I'm pissed and sad and pissed and sad and even more pissed and sad. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. I am such a victim! Poor me, poor me! Pour me a drink, or a line. Let's smoke a joint! Got any crack? For fuck's sake, I am sick to death of feeling like a victim. Fine, I don't have a dad and I never will. Now what?
As a recovering addict, I now get to examine my feelings about this prime example of my twisted sense of self and my inability to work out my feelings in a way that is not hurtful to myself or other people. I want to stop doing that because it is getting old and now that my crutch is gone, I cannot live with the loneliness my totally inappropriate coping mechanisms delivers to me every time I try to retreat into my old ways..
Together, my sponsor and I have realized that writing is good for me; albeit a public forum. For the first time in my life, I am really getting in touch with myself in a way that I've never had the courage or ability to do before and it is hard and painful and frankly, about time.
What I am finding out through this process is that even in sobriety, I am sick. I am an arrogant, ego maniac with an intense inferiority complex. I am selfish, self-seeking, angry and afraid all at the same time when it comes to all of my relationships and I take everything personally.
I've always just passed myself off as a crazy girl who doesn't give a shit, but this is a lie that I have told myself for way too long and I've got to find a way to separate myself from my feelings so I can function in this world.
Am I sorry for what I wrote? Not at all because I needed to say it. I needed to know the truth about myself and the man who's sperm created me and I don't think any of this would have come out any other way. I can finally put the idea of my father on the shelf with my my drug and alcohol habit, and get on to living my life.
