Just to say I'm here just now and so grateful for all the messages of kindness and support since my Mum's 'stroke' three weeks ago (it was a total heart block) and subsequent death from pneumonia last week. (Peacefully, quietly and calmly for which she was lucky and I am grateful beyind words...)
The ten days with my Dad while she was ill were hard for all the obvious plus so many not so obvious reasons - and not least because I couldn't get on here! But each time I could read your posts I was so uplifted and remembered them as I went around my 'daily round'.... I just can't tell you how much they helped!
Then when I came back here for the supposed couple of days but got the 'sad call' only ten minutes after walking in the door (so often the way!)... it was so good to catch up with MWO and get a tiny 'top-up' of the best spirit in the world - the stuff in the bottle kills you, the spirit here enlivens, builds, heals and supports. So thank you so, so much for being there.
The next 5 days were awful - because I was back in the 1970's with my Dad and his anger and vitriole.... Grief does 'funny' things of course but I expected anything but that; thought it was long buried. But his sword ripped me from top to bottom - fancy words but that's what it felt like and I walked around with my hands and arms covering my front from top to bottom as far as was possible....it was a real physical pain.
And yet I 'should' have been grieving for my Mum...but at the moment wonder if I didn't do that last year, here, with all your wonderful support - grieve for the relationship I never had with her.... so that now I am in a kind of limbo watching others grieve 'properly' and just being there for them. My heart so goes out to my Dad but I am feeling sad that I feel I daren't give it to him openly but sort of just send care in his general direction with a safe distance....and for that I don't like myself much. It has been a time of recognising so much more clearly where the self-loathing feeelings that led to the bottle came from. (Yet now, reading that back, I guess it's ok; I can only do what I can do...he is how he is - and even though he is my Dad, not necessarily perfect - and feeling I must look after myself - even if just now - is closer to caring for my self and if that keeps any thoughts of the bottle away, well, can't be a bad thing surely...)
I say this guardedly but.....even though I moderate a bit, have my one glass of wine/seltzer-soda, there are two distinct feelings around booze for me. One is a gentle, chosen social enjoyment of the above and the other - pretty well gone since MWO but there it was last week in small moments of despair - a panicky, doing-it-without-even-realising-I-was-doing-it feeling of blot it out NOW - of wouldn't be surprised to find myself half way down a bottle before I even came to....anything to remove myself from myself who I, just then, loathed with a passion for being so useless, so totally unloveable even by my own father (and mother) and knowing he had told everyone else that....so an intense loneliness - that old thing 'abandonment' - and futile sense of forbidden existence.
But thoughts of here, and that 'abandonment' is not now the only way, thought or belief - of knowing that that was nothing but a small thought in the grand scheme of things (thanks Satori!) had me 'hanging in there' with something far more constructive (care and acknowledgement) than the destructiveness of the bottle....
I hope I have put that ok; it feels selfish to write all that but as all that I have learned here from other's experiences got me to this point (and I hope, with grace, will get me to further and further points), I write this in simple sharing terms only....meant with gratitude and (I so hope) an open heart and with so many thanks to all of you who helped so much by being there. :l
So, the funeral next week - a 'busy time of year' and the time it takes to have a funeral in a big, busy church (where my P's went/go) meant over a two week wait....I am trying to get some sort of internet access for then!
Each day - each moment - as it comes I guess but thank you again.....to know so many hearts were caring all over this world was just amazing. :h
Love
Finding My Self (still!) XX
The ten days with my Dad while she was ill were hard for all the obvious plus so many not so obvious reasons - and not least because I couldn't get on here! But each time I could read your posts I was so uplifted and remembered them as I went around my 'daily round'.... I just can't tell you how much they helped!
Then when I came back here for the supposed couple of days but got the 'sad call' only ten minutes after walking in the door (so often the way!)... it was so good to catch up with MWO and get a tiny 'top-up' of the best spirit in the world - the stuff in the bottle kills you, the spirit here enlivens, builds, heals and supports. So thank you so, so much for being there.
The next 5 days were awful - because I was back in the 1970's with my Dad and his anger and vitriole.... Grief does 'funny' things of course but I expected anything but that; thought it was long buried. But his sword ripped me from top to bottom - fancy words but that's what it felt like and I walked around with my hands and arms covering my front from top to bottom as far as was possible....it was a real physical pain.
And yet I 'should' have been grieving for my Mum...but at the moment wonder if I didn't do that last year, here, with all your wonderful support - grieve for the relationship I never had with her.... so that now I am in a kind of limbo watching others grieve 'properly' and just being there for them. My heart so goes out to my Dad but I am feeling sad that I feel I daren't give it to him openly but sort of just send care in his general direction with a safe distance....and for that I don't like myself much. It has been a time of recognising so much more clearly where the self-loathing feeelings that led to the bottle came from. (Yet now, reading that back, I guess it's ok; I can only do what I can do...he is how he is - and even though he is my Dad, not necessarily perfect - and feeling I must look after myself - even if just now - is closer to caring for my self and if that keeps any thoughts of the bottle away, well, can't be a bad thing surely...)
I say this guardedly but.....even though I moderate a bit, have my one glass of wine/seltzer-soda, there are two distinct feelings around booze for me. One is a gentle, chosen social enjoyment of the above and the other - pretty well gone since MWO but there it was last week in small moments of despair - a panicky, doing-it-without-even-realising-I-was-doing-it feeling of blot it out NOW - of wouldn't be surprised to find myself half way down a bottle before I even came to....anything to remove myself from myself who I, just then, loathed with a passion for being so useless, so totally unloveable even by my own father (and mother) and knowing he had told everyone else that....so an intense loneliness - that old thing 'abandonment' - and futile sense of forbidden existence.
But thoughts of here, and that 'abandonment' is not now the only way, thought or belief - of knowing that that was nothing but a small thought in the grand scheme of things (thanks Satori!) had me 'hanging in there' with something far more constructive (care and acknowledgement) than the destructiveness of the bottle....
I hope I have put that ok; it feels selfish to write all that but as all that I have learned here from other's experiences got me to this point (and I hope, with grace, will get me to further and further points), I write this in simple sharing terms only....meant with gratitude and (I so hope) an open heart and with so many thanks to all of you who helped so much by being there. :l
So, the funeral next week - a 'busy time of year' and the time it takes to have a funeral in a big, busy church (where my P's went/go) meant over a two week wait....I am trying to get some sort of internet access for then!
Each day - each moment - as it comes I guess but thank you again.....to know so many hearts were caring all over this world was just amazing. :h
Love
Finding My Self (still!) XX
c: :heart:
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