Broken Eyes

Going to bed now. But as the jealousy subsides the anger is rising. Want him to prioritise me. Hope he doesn't call coz I don't feel civil right now. Bloody hell relationships. And this is yet another one I didn't even want. I just get too flipping excited that anyone has paid me attention. It's been like that for a long time. I would like me to be different.
The story? Well in a voice message and a text one too G announced that E had called hi "on the sauce" again wanting to be taken to Petworthless meeting as G put it. I do like his creativity. I was instantly jealous as he has an interest in her. I assume an interest means he fancies her and given the chance would have a relationship with her. She's married but after all G has no respect for that having had affairs with married women in the past including D and spends time with her husband too. He says they are mates now and he's very very fond of her. But it is is peculiar. Still let's not buy into all that querying and questing for knowledge and certainty.
So off he goes to the meeting and sends me a text gratefully received saying that he will make some nourishing beans on toast and then call. He did exactly that bu didn't talk about E. I enquired and he unravelled the story. There was the conversation that she prefers male company in AA and of course he prefers female company. Do I feel okay with him developing another friendship with another woman. I don't think it's okay and whether he's chaste or not the women will get the wrong message especially if they are drinking and for years can be needy for male attention. Look at me with G. But he will say how can I think that he would make any approaches when I know his issues with sex. However, he was forward with me and direct about his issues and that hasn't stopped him at all. Plus I think he'd like a multitude of women's places to be able to be so that when kicked out of each place he has another, anywhere but his pit. I'm now going into the realms of paranoia and fantasy. But the truth will be revealed and there is something instinctual about this. I see his insecurity and also his selfish drive. And when he doesn't get what he wants he is either moody and withdrawn or punishing by getting his needs met in other ways. Not always healthy. I am taking his inventory yes! All I can do though is take care of my jealousy and insecurity and know that whatever happens I will be okay. This is the situation and it actually cannot do anything more than stir up these unpleasant feelings. I need some time to discover if my intuitions are founded in any way.
My eyes are broken in that I see myself as fat or a distorted body image because when overweight I've been feeling okay about myself until seeing a photo. When I saw myself underweight in a photo I was quite surprised. I have broken eyes.
But I have broken eyes about that so they are possibly broken about other things. I see one thing and read a million assumptions into it. So we will see. If he now starts having a lot of text contact with E, what will I do? If she's drinking she's going to be reaching out in the needy way. If her husband is kicking her out then she is going to want people to pick up the pieces and she prefers me. Is G suddenly going to spend time being that piece picker upper. He doesn't involve me. He might be trying to involve Long S but it's half-hearted really if E turns that down. Then what? He is surrounded by drunk needy women. Interesting description and picture. Do I want a man who wants to be surrounded by drunk needy women?
He will I think have thought that is the position I am in at work. Surrounded by drunk needy men. That's how he was and will undoubtedly be basing his experience of therapists on the ones he ended up having relationships with. I despise them their dangerous unprofessionalism. I think they are unaware of the damage they cause. Please God I never ever enter into that destructive journey. There but for the grace of God go I.
Am I seeing this through broken eyes? I don't know. At least if I keep talking and writing it will become clear. I do not need to act out the inquisitiveness and anger and quest for certainty. I know it will be revealed. I went digging with JH and found what I wanted to see. I do not need to go digging in the certainty that the Universal energy will reveal what I am supposed to see. In the meantime I can enjoy what I is enjoyable and leave the unknown to be where it is.
I can carry on doing what I want and like doing. I work regardless of what G thinks. I have arrangements with my friends regardless of what G may think or do. I suspect he will take his revenge somehow because although aware of his feeling she does utilise his emotions to repay me. Or am I being paranoid about that. Is this something that I know from my dad who wasn't quite as wily or from my mum who just stopped trying to change things. I don't know. It is ingrained into a deep groove in my psyche though.
So I need to get ashed and dressed and set off to pick up GB from hospital. I'm glad to be able to be of service to her. But it is an interruption from a non starter of my studies. All this week I have not been able to read in the mornings because of work!! I let it happen?

Bliss
XX

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



 

Smelly armpits and four slashed tyres

A man is in my life!
G. I've mentioned him of course. We started talking some months ago at AA meetings. And rapidly but not so too it has developed into spending more and more time and reaching sexual intimacy.
In my mind I know that it's risky. I know that I am full fo self-will, insecurity and not so loving of myself enough to really be entering into a relationship.
Already I am aware of things I am tolerating without respecting my real thoughts and feeloings. One is his friendship with Mrs Elstead. I do respect anyone's choice of friends. However, this is more than friendship. She is a woman he has deep fondness for, in his own words. She is a woman he has had an affair with. To him it's necessary to come to acceptance of being the other person in a relationship. For me that's not okay. So I am sucking that to see. I know if was a friend I would be saying that it's not self respecting. I only actually want to be in a relationship with someone who is unatteched elsewhere. In some ways it's convenient though as there then is less of an attachment. I'm not really see this is in a fully conceived concept. I know it's there. His relationship with her means I do not have to be so fully committed. Interesting but not healthy in the greater scheme of things. Intimacy and commitment seem interlinked to work healthily. By commitment I do not mean to a lifetime. I mean on a daily basis working towards the same direction. Lovingly and respectfully and with no outside distractions as temptation to avoid intimacy and commitment.
There is also the fact that G does not want to work to earn money. I do not judge him for that. I am perfectly at ease with it. However, there is a degree of knowledge from my own experience that whilst it's nice in the semse of not having to be responsible to routine, it's also not good for self-esteem and self care. I was able to alter my lifestyle to suit the circumstances but being able to work to afford the things I enjoy despite having to be cautious, well it's satisfying. It goes overboard for some people. It goes to the point of imbalance, earning, earning, earning. It can seem justified too. Needing to work ferociously to be able to afford lovely things. True! But what about a balanced work or activity life so that other things like relaxation, friends, interests, etc have room for breathing too. This all evasive thing called balance. Anyway there is the other extreme of simply investing in relaxation. Avoiding turning up for one's potential in a way. Limiting the horizons but acoiding all stressors too. The stressors will find a way of manifesting regardless because if anyone is remotely like me I will create the stress. It's almost a default position. As I have faced the world more and more my strength to stressors has increased. I used to think I couldn't be out there because I was so anxious and stressed. Wrong. I can be out there and with support find ways through the stress. The stressors exist everywhere.
And as a result I have some things in my life that I work hard to be able to enjoy. The stressor is not having enough money to be able to do more.
So last week, I was visiting G at his second home, Mrs Elsteads home. He said one evening that he wanted to sleep with me. We had talked at length about issues with sex itself. We talked about skin on skin, which G now calls his skin on skin therapy.
We then were talking very openly about our lives as children at the hands of neglect and abuse. Afterwards G was very angry with me. He became angry it seems when I was asking him to stop being furious with my dad. He was cursing and saying what he wanted to do or me to do. How many times have I been in that situation and these feel I create it. I also realise that I was tapping into a lot of his own anger. I think and it's only a theory because I think G would accuse me of being a therapist, that having made himself so vulnerable to me he need to lash out at me and push me away. Apparently when I said that I felt hurt and sad, it was like a wake up call for him. I said that I knew he did not want to hurt me but at times just people interacting can be hurtful without there being any intention of it. It seemed to bring him back though and that was the night we ended up sleeping together, no sex. I had already felt incredibly sneaky by the cat I was meeting him in Mrs Elsteads house when she and her husband were away. Her being married did not make it better but worse, My principles these days do not involve cheating on people.
However, I am being dishonest with B, my sponsor, too. I still have not told her about having had contact, let alone the fact that we are now sleeping with each other and having sexual intimacy on a regular, evening by evening ad day by day basis. I am on leave and he is a free agent. So he is staying here, every day and ever night. I like it. But it is disrupting my studying and contact with friends and fellows from FA.
It is what I would call those early days of total plunge. Indulgence in a way. Which if it was being supported by friends then it would be less of a total absorption into each other. But I have not told anyone. It's shame. Not at all of him. I like G enormously and what we've been doing. He is a handsome, intelligent, humorous man. He is gentle and conscious, as much as is possible in stages. But importantly he is working at consciousness and mindfulness. He is considerate and generous with time and money, despite his financial status. How anyone can afford to shop at Waitrose is beyond me. I feel a cheapskate and plebby really only affording Lidl's. However, Lidl's is okay. And whilst they are less concerned with packaging and perfectly shaped, coloured fruit and veg, their produce is probably no better grown. It's just more polished to convince people they are buying healthier. A lot of people buy healthier in this image but don't actually eat healthily or look after their bodies other than what they purchase. That's ironic.
Anyway, there is a lot of talk between us. I love that G introduces me to new topics and interests. Anyone that knows me well will know that that is the most intoxicating aphrodisiac for me. Alongside humour. He is charming is many ways. I like that. But boy he's angry too. He talks of meditation nd becoming conscious. But also in opposition to my desire to head towards forgiveness and love for example with my dad, I think I understood that he wants to hold onto the anger towards his neglectors and abusers. What a bloody world this is. When I listen to his story I am so sad and angry for him.

This was unfinished writings but complete in the sense things have moved on since then (added 21 Oct)
Bliss
XX 

Extraordinary, sublime and divine me

Does that sound extravagant and arrogant?
I think not. And by being so it does not mean that every other person isn't. Each of us are. We just need to take a peek to see that part of us without forgetting that others are too. This is surely the path that joins worthlessness with arrogance?
The Universe offered to remove the veil briefly for me to see this part of me. If I can see it in me then I can see it in others. And that's the marvel. Thank you Universe, thank you God.

And thank you God for getting my accreditation to a nearly completed first draft. From here it should be much easier to get it completed. I might have to apply a day to it. And then 2 whole days to catching up with my studies.
I feel a light at the end of the tunnel that has been distant and even around a corner so as to be unseen.
I attended my driver awareness training an wish to be more present when driving and careful. I have booked my car service and organised the borrowing of JB's car. He's so generous and helpful.
I have let PD know about the conversation at work regarding referrals. I was uncomfortable with my fear-filled response to L. And handed it back to her to speak with PD but I wanted him to know the situation beforehand.
I have started clearing away a few things in the lounge. I have booked a haircut at last.
I will call my dad later this evening between the end of groups and Aftercare.

Yes things are getting there..... and I can claim my life as B said this morning.
I know that I can be worthy of choosing the right people in my life. I am not sure yet how this bodes with friends I have. There is no reason for my friendship to lessen but I don't need to pander to the friendships in the areas that they don't meet. I like the people nonetheless. I don't feel quite so needy that's all.

There is of course more to write about all of this but for today I am feeling at ease with myself and all the issues that I am faced with.
They have not gone away - concern for my dad, sadness about our relationship, concern about finances and how to afford everything I want to do yet knowing I can adjust things to afford what I need. I have concerns for AB, she is more paranoid and less active. She is drinking heavily. I find it so sad to see it all going to pot. Oddly enough with RB gathering weight so is AB. She lost masses when RB was losing. It's such a dysfunctional dynamic.
I have pain in my side. Apparently it could be sciatica. no doctor has considered that or mentioned it before. Interesting. I think it has to be something much more deadly to be worthwhile.

So I shall continue doing some preparation study - already some way behind the schedule

Bliss
XX