Oh That's Crap! Unsettling.Revealing.

Well I've learnt even more about my father. From Auntie E and then I picked up the courage to call Auntie V.
Now she seemed to be asking several times what I wanted. I said that I want peace of mind. She said that if that's what I wanted then I need to let go. She suggested going to church. I said that also wanted to know things about my dad. I think she thought I might be phoning to ask for money. He had told her that I'd had 2 lots of £15,000 loans which I'd never paid back. What a liar! That's so infuriating but a relief to know that he told such bloody idiotic lies. He had said that I'd cost him a lot with my first marriage. That's probably true. As much as I hate to admit it. My mum and went for it. I think it could have been more costly. I mean I didn't have or want an evening bash. He knew as well that I didn't really want to get married but didn't have the courage to step away from it. I was too scared. Perhaps he could have helped me there. It was a sham of a wedding and a marriage. And I've done it a couple of time since. I know he had no respect for me in my attitude towards money and spending it. Yes I did have a couple of loans. But I did pay them back and they were no more than a couple of thousand each time. He did act as guarantor but again didn't have to pay anything. He did give me the deposit on the first house £2000 and that was lost when I ran away from the whole relationship, everything. I was foolish to do that. I should have stayed and fought but I didn't and didn't have the courage to ask for help to get what was rightly mine. Lukcy MP, he got the lot. I don't think my mum and dad did naything with regard the place in Guildford with AV.
Anyway Auntie V did confimr the name-swapping business of my fathers father. The family name was Boulger and they came from Southern Ireland. They cam from New Ross apparently. I'd like some time to go there. But with Boulger being such a popular name. .... I wonder if Auntie V would give me some more details when I go and visit her.
She sounded as is she were talking through a psychic voice. She said that T would spend what little money was left very quickly. She said that there would be something for me from the house. Well we'll see.
I'd love it if Auntie V after all these years of knocking her psychic skills was right. I think my mum might have been jealous of Anutnie V and Uncle F. My dad always held them in high esteem but my mum an dI were snobby about them. Look at them now. A very very rich family. But never forgetting where they came from. Unlike my mum. And I.
Good for them. I am very pleased for them. Truly I am. And they look after each other which is also a real beautiful thing. Unlike the snobbishness and distancing and self-gain. I have had that too. I really am very very happy for them making it good but jealous too. I wish I had their get up and go and humility to do what it takes to get there. I was  not interested in grubby looking things. Ha! More fool me. Last laugh and all that!!!
Anyway Auntie E was aware of affairs. She said that Auntie V had always known about affairs. I will ask her directly when I visit. I said I would visit in early May. I want to follow that through. I've arranged a date to get up to the Wirrall to see Auntie E and Uncle M.
They have always been mocked by my father. And I would never say that to them - please God. I was able to say to Auntie V how highly he regarded bith her and Uncle M. She knew that.
She gave me some snippets of information and understandably was cagey to begin with.

I am fucking furious with him for being a liar, a cheat, a cad, a womaniser, a complete fabrication. I am pleased that he found happiness in recent years according to Auntie V. I'm also glad that he wasn't completely happy according to Auntie E and also to N. They all think there was something not right. I wonder why Auntie V then says he loved T and was contented and also she finds T to be a nice lady. When so many others don't think she is. I feel for her with a difficult childhood as described by her cousin. I am pleased that she has no financial worries in her illness. One less thing to stress about. I am jelaous that she had good times with my father especially as I was so excluded. I am jealous that I didn't get any inheritance. I don't like being jealous and would really like this to be removed from me please God and let go. Help me to let go please.
Should I stand up for my rights? I suppose there's no harm in asking another solicitor. But if they also say no then I will let go of pursuing it. I am coming to terms with this being my lot. It is not necessary to have material wealth to be hapy.
It immediately made me more content with G. Before then I was agnonising over the fact that  he has nothing too.
So what. If we can be happy in our strange way together, then that's enough. I can adjust more easily than ever I imagined I would.
I feel a sense of loss of the freedom to travel. I'd truly like to find ways to get to the Far East and to India to meet with Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo. I'd like to see other cultures and worlds. Perhaps I'll just have to be content with the wonders I've been privileged to experience through my work before. I have chosen a different career and it's an amazing honour to work with people and their private lives.

I have a lot to be grateful for. I can learn and move on from this. It's been a lot of turmoil but doesn't have to stay turmoil.
HP help me to be happy for others good fortune and to be grateful for what I have.

In the meantime, my father was not someone I am proud to own the genes of. I am furious with him for being such a fuckwit! I am furious with him for cheating on my mum and for lying so much. There was no bloody need. I think I can see a way of dropping the resentment though. Not by thinking it through. Simply by ust acknowledging the anger and fury and letting go of the desire for it to be different. It is what is it. The past was what it was. I'm angry and that's that. But not longing right at this moment. I annot get reconciliation from anyone. The only person who could have shed light on what the reality actually was is dead, my father. And he was never capable of honesty when he was alive. I just need to accept that.
I amscared that I am a pathological liar too. Please God help me to be honest.
I will tell G, sponsor that G, boyfriend, and I are going to stay in the relationship. Both a little tentatively and accepting that it's quite a lively relationship.

I didn't know any other way. I wasn't given the tools for some reason. Some of it my make-up, some of it the lacking within my relationships and guidance. I became an addict and do not blame him/them for this. I need to take responsibility for my behaviours which I do. I was not pleasant and very irresponsible. I became out of control and was a worry for my parents. I really don't think there was any other way to go though. I didn't have the capability for life yet was thrust into it anyway. I had to get away from home. I was self-willed too. A bit of a handful. Very, very angry, understandably. And then I got into recovery. My father didn;t want to see any changes in me. And I've learnt was lying about me anyway. He had to make it worse that it was probably to ease his conscience in some way. I and my father probably have a lot of similarities. I was tuaght to be a liar. The truth was never ever enough.

So an interesting morning. And a lot of study avoidance. Okay - I have at least half an hour to get some done

Bliss
XX

Drinking and then Not Drinking - notes from Siste Bea

Sister Bea talks about one specific occasion in her chairs to exemplify her powerlessness and unmanageability.
And then she talks about being in the programme but just not drinking.
Someone once said to her that she was always so miserable. She agreed that she fond it all annoying and boring. He suggested that she go home and get on her knees and ask for the willingness to have a change of attitude. Which she did. She laughed saying that she wants to say that God appeared to her suddenly and lit the sky. But he didn't but realised that God appeared to her in different ways. She discovered that praying for the willingness to come unstuck it always happened. The little miracles of God that an easily be overlooked.
Over the years the cravings were lifted and she began to enjoy the wonders of the programme. At times she would be crying with dear or frustration or just not knowing what to do next. She would go to meetings crying. She discovered that the programme is magnificent and magic. The magic comes from us when we discover the big secret. The secret is that we are totally powerless of everything. And we get to latch onto life in a different way, letting go to a Higher Power. Sometimes letting go and taking back and letting go and so on. We talk about selfishness and self-centredness is the problem for us. Wanting to be in charge.
It say to Sister B. this is the how and why of it. You have to quit playing God because it doesn't work. And from hereon God is going to be the master - He is the father you are the child. It may be too complicated for you to get at times in its simplicity.
This is the the key to pass into freedom. Which is all I've ever wanted,
This inner freedom has come to her she says. She has discovered that working the steps there are all these little promises caught up in the steps. Page 63/84 these promises are a in the steps.
In step 3 if we turn our will over to the care of God then all the promises are caught up in this. All sorts of remarkable things will follow if we hand over control to God.
God will provide everything you need so long as you stay close and do the work. You will be come less interested in self and more interested in what you can contribute to life. And as a result you will feel new power enter into your life. You will lose your fear of today and tomorrow. You will be reborn. You will get to start all over again.
This is a fascinating study for her. One of the tings she odes is when she goes through this. She says there are 84 promises all caught up in the steps.
Men - 6 promises for step 4. 2 for acceptance for anger, fear and sex. Means that they keep coming back
10 promises in step 5 -
Promises in steps 8/9
promises from step 10
Stop Fighting. I don;t have to go to war anymore.

Used to think I knew how to teach prayer and meditation. Page 86 and 87 of the Big Book.
I have to ask God to direct my thinking and consider my plans for the day. First think in the morning.

I can wake up filled with resentment. It can say to me please wake up as we have to get someone today.
When agitated and indecisive (easy for me to do). Things in life are agitating.Generally I am irritable. The steps help to even me out. So that I can always be in touch with the ways of my self.
I average 3/4 meetings per week.
I have a sponsor and I sponsor other people.
Working with the spirituality of the programme means I have to work it harder for myself.
The magic is here but I don't know where it comes from.
We never criticise. But I listen to people sometimes in meetings and I do criticise. I wonder which part of never I don;t understand.
This woman wanted to drink and a foolish man in the meeting stood up yet again saying the same old thing. But added that we are not supposed to drink or use drugs. IN the care the woman had heard him above all other people. She said we are not supposed to drink between meetings. I had to realise that God works in mysterious ways and I don't know best.
Oh the putting down of the alcohol can switch into relationships.
People get sober then start shaping up and all is looking good. Then it gets boooring.People get stuck
A lot of unhappy people in recovery too. I don;t want to be unhappy. I was too unhappy before I got here.
G is unhappy.
The joys of the programme come from living and loving the programme.
Shakespeare - King Lear- we should live and pray and take upon us the mystery of things and so we were God's spies.
We get to see how God works in the most extraordinary ways. The miracle world we are living in. It is a wonderful life
We get the chance to break the cycle of negativity. Awakenings are happening all over the world and we are witness to some of them. This is such a privilege
The steps of this programme can and will change us.

 

Heading towards the Etoile

Well yesterday I met with G and his friend N. We went for a walk near Trotton. LouLou is so scared of G's gruff shout at Maggie and Toby. She shakes and hangs behind. I don't think she enjoys the walks at all. I don't know what to do about this. It's better when the other dogs aren't there but she's come to be afraid of G. Is this an indication of the depth of his anger. LouLou is generally very choosy.
So I've noticed how "in love" I feel and with this comes complete forgiveness and acceptance of everything. Is this healthy and wise? At the same time I think I detect a withdrawal from G. There are so many times when I'm going through the motions and actually questioning whether I even like him let alone love him. I love lots of people and I can feel love for him as the person he is but not love that I want to be with him. I start questioning his principles for example wanting to gossip about people and put them down. I don't like that. I used to dislike it about Simon and became quite contemptuous of this about him. I do it myself. I get drawn into it more though. When I want to be onside with G I will do it or if I want him to dislike someone because I'm jealous of them. I will buy into the gossip to add to his lowering opinion for example. It's jealousy. I did it with D, his friend. When he moaned about her I dug it deeper and I don't even know her. That's the motive from me. How ugly. These days I just listen and I do not indulge him further.
I would like to stop gossipping entirely. I am better and being silent. I need practice in changing the subject. I don't need to worry what people think about me changing the subject. I don;t need to make people feel uncomfortable because that would be the next motive. Make them feel bad about themselves for gossipping.
So there is this push and pull between G and I. He doesn't like so much tactility. Sometimes he does and sometimes he doesn't. It's on his terms. Do I accept that? Sometimes I can and sometimes I want it on my terms too. Can I put up with it being on his terms? Could I raise it with him? There will be times when it's possible to speak about these things. Sometimes I feel rejected when he doesn't want to touch.
He doesn't like it when I tell him I find him handsome. He said when he's believed that he's not handsome for his entire 59 plus years, not liking it is bound to be. But I like it when he fins me attractive even though most of the time I don't believe it. I am feeling better about myself some of the time though and so can allow that sort of thing to be said a little more easily. I look in the mirror and no longer think I am so ugly I should be put out of my misery. I no longer and overweight and so actually think I've got a pretty good body now. What a pity I wasn't able to find this food recovery earlier. But this was to be my journey and I'm incredibly grateful to have been directed in this way.

I do wonder though if I'm truly an alcoholic. G will sometimes say about a person he doubts that they are an alcoholic. I wonder what he really means about that. I have thought he means that the drinking has not been so bad after all. But I think he might also mean as says in the Big Book that it's more than the alcohol. There's more than the alcohol, it's a spiritual malady. Ad I read somewhere, I can't recall where now this list that describes the spiritual malady
1. restless, irritable and discontented (BB p.xxvi)
2. Having trouble with personal relationships
3. Not being able to control our emotional natures
4. Being a prey to (or suffering from) misery and depression
5. Not being able to make a living (or a happy and successful life)
6. Having feelings of uselessness
7. Being full of fear
8. Unhappiness
9. Inability to be of real help to other people (BB p.52)
10. Being like the "actor who wants to run the whole show" (BB pp.60-61)
11. Being driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking and self-pity (BB p.62)
12. Self-will run riot (BB p.62)
13. Leading a double life (BB p.62)
14. Living like a tornado running through the lives of others (BB p.82)
15. Exhibiting selfish and inconsiderate habits.

These are the manifestations of SELFISHNESS and SELF-CENTREDNESS.

The point made in number 14, the Big Book says "The alcoholic is like a tornado roaring his way through the lives of others. Hearts are broken. Sweet relationships are dead. Affections have bee uprooted. Selfish and inconsiderate habits have kept the home in turmoil. We feel a man is unthinking when says sobriety is enough.... There is along period of reconstruction ahead. We must take the lead. A remorseful mumbling ... won't fit the bill at all.
...asking  each morning in meditation that our Creator show us the way of patience, tolerance, kindliness and love."
And gosh how I need help with this. My struggle at this moment is taking this on board. For example in my chaos I was hopeless with finances and rested on my laurels that my mum would always bail me out. Even though I would know it would irritate the hell out of my father. My poor mum would have to be the negotiator with him. And I would know that it eroded yet more respect away on his part. So I'm not at all surprised that he didn't want to leave me anything in his Will. However, there is somewhere a balance for standing up for my rights. I don't really believe I have any rights because I was such a fool for so many years. But then again I can see that a lot of my behaviours were driven because I was deeply afraid. I had an arrogance that was steeped in a lack of any self worth. I was totally hedonistic and selfish. I thought only of myself and therefore acted in ways that were thoughtless of others. Sometimes I would consider for example my dads growing revulsion of me only to then become angry and of course I would blame. The same extremes as I'm osciallting between now. Either he's completely right in his negative judgement of me therefore I am totally a bad person. Or I'm right and therfore he is to blame and wrong. I've swung between these extremes for a liftetime.
And so when people are telling me to find ways to stand up for my rights with dignity, I seem to have to be casting aspersions about my father to make it okay for me to do this. But then I think of all the tings I have done and this means that I have no rights at all. I can not seem to find the balance. I am seeing a sort of Arc de Triomphe etoile. There are all of these roads leading into and away from the centre. The centre is balance and calm. The circle around it is where there is the greatest chaos with the roads leading to it jammed with thoughts. The roads leading away appear to be flowing.
So the raods leading into the centre are: my fathers part when I was a child, my behaviour as an adult (even when alcohol and drug free). During the years until maybe even 2011, I have not behaved well. It was improving with help from B and FA. I was beginning to show up but there was no real feeling of reconciliation for me. Even when he was approaching his death he was rude and angry with me.
Reconciliation for me would have been him being nice to me and including me finally. But no. I think reconciliation will finally be realising my father was a very unwell man. Really accepting it. I fight it because I still don't think his treatment of me as a child was real and that I have brought this all upon myself.
It WAS real. How can I actually get that and keep it? So some of it I exaggerated. But what is true was bad enough. I think some of my exaggeration was to keep the reality of my mum leabving me unattended and never stopping the situaitn. Even she thought it was me a lot of the time. It became me in later years but I was just a child.
So it's no wonder I find it difficult to accept him as he was. I always knew he was a liar and flirted with women. It was useful to know that other people know these things too. I always thought I was over stating such matters. I feel certain he was having an affair with Betty. My dad became so damning of Paul her husband. There was a look between them. And I've litle doubt my father had been flirting with T, later his wife, long before my mum was dead.
I am angry about these things. Raging, raoring, hating him. But you see this is one of the roads leading towards the star. There is this roar of rage which can quickly become hatred. There there is the conflict of wanting to love and forgive him. When I do that I have to put aside all that he did that was wrong. And so the turmoil begins again. Whre is the cenre in all of this?
I think it would be helpful to see a SC. But I can't afford it!!!
I need to get to the shops for food. And I need to do studying today. Nothing else. And here I am writing.
I am troubled by all of the roads leading to the centre. I can see the centre though. I think actually I'm in the real chaos now going around the centre. Crowded and all thoughts bumping into each other.
I would like to get to the centre of all of this. This would mean having knowledge tat my childhood was as it was and it wasn't okay. Being able to find love and forgiveness and discover how to stand up for my rights with what isn't okay for me. It was how it was and it wasn't okay. I don't need to blame somehow. I just need to say that I was never ever going to be enough for my fatjer. He didn't want a baby in the first place. Overcoming the fact that my mum was pregnant he was destroyed further when I was a girl. He told me this himself. I don't know why he told me. Perhaps he didn't know how not to. I wonder what hell he created for my mum when she said she was pregnant. I think my mum must have gone through a lot of turmoil. But she stayed and endured it. I remember the fighting just ebcause we were going out. I used to be scared but it was also normal. I didn;t think it was strange for example when Uncle R and Autie E were shouting. It was just the usual. I went along with sitting at the top of the stairs with L but in reality wondered what all the fuss was about. Similarly with the K's when we used to spy on her mum and F. I knew they were having an affair. I thought it was horrid for D but again it was usual for me.
It's bloody horrible and annying that this was the man my father was. It's damned frustrating that he got away with it right to his death. But I was never going to be able to stand up against him all the time he was alive. I am sad to say I was too scared. I want to learn how to stand up for myself and not be afarid anymore. I truly do.
I'm so easily hooked into being the victim and being sick. I want to be suicidal and dark because in that way I don;t have to face up to anything. I get there and don't even know what it is I can't face anymore. It's everything. Mainly I can't face myself and that I have been such a coward for so long.
I had an urge then to share this with G. But the purpose, the motive would have been so that he sees a strong me and not feel so sickened by me. You see how qucikly I am turning his possible off me times into it being about the person I am rather than him. When I'm off him it;s the things that I don;t like about him not him.
I don't want anyone to have any part of me they don't like you see. Because if they do they will decided to leave me and that invalidates anything that's good. I do not ahve the power over people to like all of me. No one can can they? I don't like all of anyone. So why should I expect the same fro others. I don't trust anyonw to be able to work through that though and expect to get abandoned. Therefore the less I see of them or the fruther away I can be the less hance there is of them discovering all me. This is a lack of intimacy.
I often feel that I've allowed myself to get beyond the aloofness and then they will discover me and not like me. It's better when I stay quiet and distant. But it's impossible.
When will I be okay being me and enjoy those people that also are okay with me being me.
I won;t leave people because I don't like all of them. I sometimes need some time away from them or a little space but I like the people I like and I think I always will. It will be them that walk away.
So G may be having a not so liking time of me. I will just let that be and get on with my own things. I've got plenty to do.
I pointed out to him some differences. I like getting up early and seem to need less sleep than him. He likes sleeping in late and going to ebd extraordinarily late. I like people he likes very few people. I like to socialise. I like going to London. He loaths cities and prefers not to socilaise. He is very choosy about people and doesn't like one of my very good friends M.
With him I feel much more courageous to go off and adventure abroad. he is wary of leaving all that is familiar and will not invest the courage in me. He likes to gossip and I don't. I like meetings, he doesn't unless there's a newcomer to help.
He is easily grumpy and it can be very consuming of the very air around him and bleeds over me too.

I felt certain that yesterday he was more withdrawn again. After a day on Saturday with complete lust. I wonder if it really is just about sex for G? And if it is then I don't want just that. He said that he sees us getting together from time to time and enjoying sex. He does want to go away for the weekend as well and did want me to join him and N for a walk yesterday. So I must keep a relaity check on that and stop buying into my distrust of men. Which of course comes from my father. Messages such as men only want one thing. Women always drop their knickers on a whim. Women are only good for one thing.
Watching him get disugusting with mum is imprinted on my mind. He wouls role his tongue backwards, biting down on it. Grimacing of course as a result and then grunting and breathing in and out heavily. He used to do it to me too. It was revolting. Graham Whelan did the same thing. I remember acknowledging that at the time but not making anymore of it until later years putting it into words.
Repulsive!
G is not these men and I do not think he is like that sexually. At least I don't have evidence of that so far. However, he does enjoy sex and so do I with him. So why not? So long as it's not the only thing between us.

Got to go. Got to got to go
Bliss
XX



 

Treasuring

Mohammed said "riches come not from an abundance of worldly goods but from a contented mind."

Shakepeare said "my crown is in my heart, not on my head, not decked with diamonds or Indian stones. Not to be seen my crown is called content. A crown it is that kings seldom enjoy."

Buddha said "contentment is the most excellent wealth"

Nagarjuna (great Indian Master) said "there is no treasure like contentment".... "of all the taps of wealth, it is contentment which beset by the gods of men to be the most supreme. Try for contentment and should you achieve it, even without material wealth, you will truly have found your fortune."

It's how we were, my father and I. But I was a child - he did things to me and treated me in ways that were harsh and inappropriate for a child. I did things in adulthood too. Things I am very sorry about today and work constantly to move away from. I feel as if I'm being punished for that now by my father. But that is the way he worked. I am bound to feel terrible not only as I crossed my own principles but also because my father would never be able to forgive. He did not have the capacity. Also right from the beginning of my time I was being attuned to the idea that I was imperfect and bad.
It's difficult for me to be able to stand up and say this is not okay. Of course it is because that's been set up from the beginning. I had all rights taken from me from the start. I was wrong he was always right. There was no room for me to be me and that would be okay.
I'm just going to see if I have a case. Sticking up for myself is terrifying because I come from an abusive background. I have such little self-worth.
If there is a way to stand up for myself. Am I justified? But at least I ca

Our feelings are our feelings but I can easily get caught up in the rights and wrongs. This in turn can be a way of avoiding the feelings. I start thinking.

The only way is through. The more I tried to go around it all the harder it gets and the more complicated it gets. I can be addicted to thinking as much as anything else.
It gets back to quiet time, meditation. The time when I release emotions is sometimes through others situations, watching TV or when someone is compassionate.
Conclusive episodes is what I want. But that's not going to happen, it's a process. And when I can accept it's all a process there is a relief and freedom. I can be gentle with myself.

Bliss
XX