Morning
I've been busy but busy really doing other things than computer stuff.
Oh I went to Norway to stay with my Friend T and M came along with me too. It was lovely. Interesting too. There's so much to catch up on I don;t where to begin without taking up the entire morning. I guess this avoidance of starting my accreditation document.
Today I am going for a walk with LouLou and then meeting up with S this afternoon. Let's work backwards then.
Meeting up with S is interesting for me. When in regular contact with S I was finding the interaction increasingly difficult. I found her quite nasty about people actually. I have a personal discomfort though as at times I can be nasty about my friends and need to speak to someone else sometimes to see my part. But actually what I heard often was blame and then retribution, cutting contact often the solution but with a venom. I understand that S is very hurt by her past and is working continuously on that. The difficulty escalated for me when I felt at times at the end of a sharp tongue directed at me all said in jest supposedly but it felt mean. And so gradually I just didn't make contact. Oh and S would only want compliments unless asked for. I understand the prerogative to ask for feedback but the way in which it was said I didn't know how to communicate my feelings about things. I have not "broken" friends simply withdrawn further back. I do not dislike S at all, quite the opposite. It's just that somehow there is something that tells me to be cautious for myself. So I will go along this afternoon with interest. I also am aware that I get concerned that I am being nasty and judgemental as I know for example that M is still in contact. Some of me doesn't want to the thought of as withdrawn and unfriendly. I am therefore not sure my motives for staying in contact are pure. Therefore this afternoon is really an exploration of me with her. I am wary indeed.
Oh yes and my dad has invited me to visit his home for coffee. He actually invited me for Saturday 29th October but I had already arranged to meet Annie for a walk and lunch. She and I had a lovely picnic lunch at Frensham Little Ponds and sat opposite the construction site for the film Snow White and the huntsman. Apparently Ray Liotta is in it and Bob Hoskins. Julia Roberts is the Evil Queen. Reading about it, it sounds loosely based on the concept of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves as I know it but this version involves Russia and war etc. Wow! How creatives extend beyond original ideas. I will go to see it simply because I saw the set being built.
This is way of the subject. I was very pleased with myself for telling my dad that I had arrangements as in the past I would have said yes to him and then have to let down my friends by cancelling and not showing them any commitment or sense of importance. So my dad and I rearranged only to discover that I needed to work this Saturday just gone 5th November. I did enquire if we could move it to the afternoon to which he said no. I felt very angry and jealous about this. I wondered what alternative arrangements he has with Theresa and how much I hate that she is a priority. I was hurting when I heard during a previous phone call how upset he sounded when he thought she had nearly died. I did not see or hear that when my mum was dying. He didn't even turn up when we called to say she was dying. I HATE that he would be able to be there for Theresa but not for my mum. I feel sad for my mum and that reminds me how I always tried to protect her from his nasty words at and around her. She was my lovely mum. I didn't expect to have a real gut wrenching cry as I wrote that. So many little pockets to heal. And they only become apparent as I explore them usually when writing or talking. Phew blimey! What is pleasing about that is that I truly feel that the big knot of pain and rage has been released and there are just these little blobs of emotionally connected memories of incidents and situations. Anyhow I called my dad in good time. Again in the past I would keep leaving it and putting it off in fear thereby making it worse and my dad would of course then be angry. With advance notice and facing my fear it was easier. Maybe my dad is more forgiving and understanding too. Who knows? So we have re booked for Saturday 12th November. A momentous occasion. I have been only once to his house. I went a few times to the first house he and T had but eventually I was completely disliked by T following just the weirdest sequence of events when my dad was preparing for and after having the operation on his heart. She and I were talking each day in the build up and then one day she said to me that my dad did not want me to visit. I said that he was my dad and of course I was going to visit. She then went off at me down the phone accusing me of this and that and me not knowing how much I upset my dad. I said that she had no knowledge of all the things between us. I was so tempted to say something to her. I had a sense anyway that she had issues with me. Perhaps jealousy, something anyway. She seems very insecure and walked out angrily on another occasion when a friend of my mum and dads and I were laughing about my very funny mum. It was clear that I am not allowed to talk about my mum in her presence. This is problematic I suppose in similar situations. I would find it difficult with my own insecurity I know. Yet I am furious with her. I feel like my dad was distant and now he is even more distant because of her. She jumped in might quick after my mums death. That makes me so fucking angry!! And yet I am also glad that they are happy together. It is the grief I am sure around my mum and the years of shit my dad gave my mum! T knows nothing. Sometimes I hope she is miserable because she is finding out what he is like and I so dislike myself for that. It is unfortunate that she is between all the years of anger.
I wonder if she will be there on Saturday. Somehow I doubt it. And my dad is unable to be honest about it.
I anticipate more to be written about this. How strange that I decided to go and see S (therapist) on Monday. I just had a sense I needed a session with him and it is booked for Monday. I didn't know why but I think with my food being clean and also Sex and Love/ Codependency being clean I have feelings, feelings, feelings - very present. I hope to just go without and agenda and talk about things and see what comes up. I would like his help to re-frame things.
So my food. I am back in recovery with my food after many years of trying different things. Off and on these have been OK. But always returning to being out of control from having utter control. The control though was increasingly difficult to get and sustain. Before T left for Norway she told me she had been referred by her therapist to attend FA. She did it for a month and I saw her just before she was completing the final stages of her deaprture for "home". Unfortunately at that time she slipped out of FA but when she arrived back in Norway she was once again back in full swing knowing that it had worked so well for her. I don;t know what happened but during a bout of flu (poop, that was horrible) I got desparate too and asked her to help me. As I was visiting soon she suggested I watch her and how she eats. In the meantime I found the FA website http://www.foodaddicts.org/
Knowing there weren't many UK meetings and also being aware that there was a set up for telephone sponsoring, I got the list of UK sponsors. What did I do with it? I archived the email. But whilst with T, I did eat as she ate and immediately felt that enthusiasm and encouragement from taking action. And so I continued when I returned. As soon as I had the private time I contact B. After several missed calls and not faltering in my determination, we spoke and she agreed to sponsor me. I laughed at myself as she asked me if I was willing to go to any lengths to which I said yes in my desire to get thinner. Ha ha. But when she started telling me the things I would need to do, I was immediately thinking well I won't do that or that and felt quite indignant rather than humble enough to realise that actually I am in early days of recovery. What about my 10 years in recovery!! But although I think CoDA stuff is actually my core which also manifests in sex and love addiction, food is also a primary addiction. So a newcomer I am. The things that I balked at were going to 3 meetings per week - AA. B said that SLA was no longer necessary and this I do disagree with. My sexual acting out and the addiction to love nearly killed me yet again last year. So anyway I continue to attend the meeting but also 2 other AA's and this is not quite as B has suggested so there is a a strong self will in me!!!! I want to be honest with her but think she will be too strict about this. Oh and I laughed as I ate too late one evening told her and she put me back to day 1 of my frist 90 days. During this 90 days I am not to share at any meeting. I am to sit and listen. She said newcomers need to listen and at this stage have little to contribute. I am doing this but I also disagree as I got so so much from the newcomer in the room sharing on Friday. That was so interesting for me though - I sat there everyone else other than myself and the newcomer having shared. I felt a real pressure to share and was debating "I musn't but I feel the silence and must". Then suddenly the newcomer obviously felt the gap enough for her to be able to share. She had so identified with the previous sharer and it had helped her. And last night the same thing. She nearly missed the meeting, not finding the door, but I saw her and went to bring her in. She found the gap to sahre again. I admire her determination and self awareness. Her little daughter had cut up her scrapbook into lots of squares and written on them all please mummy go to AA. She had put them in bundles in cupboards, the fridge and her car. So every time the newcomer opened the door these pieces of paper fell on her. Gosh what a powerful message. She has since found out her two older daughters have been wanting her to do something and even though she hadn't spoken to her mum about issues, her mum has now told her she is so proud of her. This is a wonerful time. I hope she can stick with it. She was amazed at all the telephone numbers she was given and hugs. I hope hope hope for her that she gets this as it is life changing. Good and difficult too at times.
So now I know my sponsors purpose for not sharing I think I need to let some people know.
Norway - well it was lovely spending time with T. She took us to her gallery with the exhibition of Turid Schelver. T explained that her paintings are inspired by the little book that all her friends wrote in when leaving school. I understood that this is a tradition. I loved her paintings I would love to have been able to afford to buy one. I wonder if T could arrange a regular payment scheme? I will ask her.
I would love to be able to collect items of art.
She is doing so well. Selling and promoting. And already she is well known. Afterwards we went to another gallery and another and another. She was greeted and very much in demand actually.
Hanalena Heiska was in a gallery in Porsgrunn. http://www.hannaleenaheiska.com/paintings/2011/
T explained that her town of Skien and Porsgrunn are unusually close for Norway. There is so much space and towns are wide spread normally.
This is a still from a very beautiful film of this horse. Intimate. And I now believe this is her horse and understand why there was such a trust.
Her paintings were large and imposing yet extraordinarily beautiful. Influenced by BDSM, heavy metal, quite sinister and yet exciting and in their darkness, so appealing. I was sucked in.The gallery owner was very very dishy - so thought we all. His kids were gorgeous too. ;)
We went to a bar recommended by some other cooky artist. It's a pity I am not more confident as there was a man sitting at a table writing music. I wanted to take a snap of him over his shoulder but didn't have the courage. It felt like taking away his privacy. T asked him but he didn't want his picture taken. Instead he gave a manuscript of his homage to Grieg (Norweigian composer which I hadn't realised)
Oh and Skien is home to Henrik Insen. M was thrilled as she has been reading some of his works as a part of her degree.
The names of the other places are on hold whilst I wait for T to get back to me with them. IN the meantime here are the pics, a stroll through a fishing town right to the sea then back for a cuppa in a bar, a climb up a mountain and finding a log cabin to sit and take a cuppa oh and Odd joined us, a visit to a military town to meet some other ladies for cake and a cuppa, a walk on the glorious pebble beach deposited there through the glaciers, and T's home plus a stroll around her town and the residential area. It was interesting how everyone huddles in these wonderful wooden buildings in a little estates. It makes sense for the cold is very very cold. T can expect temperatures to drop to -37 degrees centigrade. Brrrrrrrrrrr.
Bliss
xx
