Characteristics of ACOA

[MajestyJo]

10. ACOA’s feel that they are different from other people. I think the favorite last words, "Well you just don't understand." "You haven't been through what I've been through." If you had gone through what I went through, you would...."

Don't know what I wrote before or what other's shared, just looked at it, and it spoke to me.

Such a true statement, certainly it was true for me and kept me sick for a long time. I said those words repeatedly. Again, it was always about the husband(s), parents, son, siblings, co-workers, etc. If you had a boss like mine, if you had a husband like mine who likes to use his fists, if you had my life, you would drink too. I am so stressed, all I want to do is sleep, hide in my bed and make the world go away.

I don't want to think, feel, see, or deal with anything, poor, poor me, POUR me another one or pop a few pills, and if that didn't work I would pop some Gravol, the candy that topped off everything and made it all work faster.

I have pain, we all have pain whether it is physical mental, emotional or spiritual. It is how we handle it that matters. Just complaining and doing nothing about it doesn't get me very far. I try to share how I handle it, what I do with it and my feelings when I get it, with the hope that someone who is hurting will try to do what I did and it may help them too. That is why I opened my groups "The Five As" a support group for people who suffer chronic pain with focus on fibromyalgia. My pain purpose is to let people know that the 12 Steps can help with pain too.

Perhaps my thinking on pain was because of my mother who suffered for years and died at the age of 40, 28 days before her 41st birthday. She didn't know about Al-Anon. I firmly believe she too had fibromyalgia. Everyone thought she had a thinking problem more than a physical one. If you have fibromyalgia, you know that the pain is very real.

When I get on my pity party, I try to get out of self and help others. When I am heading there or in it and go out, inevidably, my God puts someone in my path to show me that I have a lot to be grateful for and many are far worse off than I am. The thing with me is that I don't look sick. Mind you prior to the new medicaiton, people saw the difference in me and saw the pain in my face.

It isn't just about acknowledging it, by mentioning it, it is a way for me to look at my life and look at what I am doing wrong. I always try to remember what goes around comes around and what didn't I do or say, or what did I say and do that was not spiritual and the words by-passed everyone and thing and came back to me.

When I write things out I can see when I am on that pity party or whether I am judgmental or whether I am just full of myself and my own importance. My God has given me a lot of awareness and the reality of a situation pops up and it just looks me in the face until I do something about it.

I will really miss being able to post when I start working. I have a feeling although I will be working in an internet cafe, I won't have the same amount of time on the internet. Not sure of the changes they have made or whether they have more in store for me. That is good, it helps me to get out of my small space and be with others.

Always a good way to get of the band wagon, and play a different tune.

Posted on another site in 2011