My children are so amazingly sweet and precious... when they are asleep! It seems that most of the other hours in the day leave me wondering how I can dislike these little people I love so much! LOL
Recovering with young children doesn't make me special or unique. It doesn't mean I have it worse, or harder or different. I try and remember that every day, because I want to throw my hands up and justify my negative behaviors... and the big book explains that I can't. I can't harbor ANY resentments. None.
Imagine how I felt listing my 3 yr old and 5 yr old on my resentment list while working through my 4th step! Here I was so awful to these children. A ghost of a Mother... yet... I was resentful at them?
Yes! I was! They cried all the time. They needed my constant attention. They made my back pain worse and debilitating because they wanted to be carried ALL the time! They demanded something every couple of hours in the night for years. They stole my flat belly, my beautiful curls, my me time, my perky boobs, my showers, my sleep, my sanity while awake. They wrenched on every last nerve and caused every gray hair. They kept my husband and I on a no sex regimen, and to top it off, I was thrust into a deep angry postpartum depression. I was suppose to love being a Mother. Society told me so. Society told me I could never speak of these resentments. Other mothers didn't seem to have the troubles I did. So what does an alcoholic do in this sort of predicament? Well... never once did I look within. Never once did it occur to me to ask for help! Never once did it seem feasible to reach out and talk to someone... or even take a break for myself... Oh no!
Instead, all I could come up with were liquid solutions. Imagine that.
What made it worse for me was that it seemed I loved one child, and resented the other. After my son was born, he was laid on my chest - we made eye contact, and I bonded with him immediately. I loved him more than myself and was prepared to die for him that moment if I had to. He nursed while they cleaned him off, and I was euphoric for 14 months. Then I got pregnant again. I didn't feel ready. It seemed to happen so fast. I didn't think I wanted another child - I had the love of my life already. I was a wonderful (sober) Mother to my son, and thought the drink problem I once had was surely just part of being young. I never felt quite ready for my daughter to come, and when she did, she was separated from me at birth due to complications. I never bonded with her or made eye contact with her. We didn't see each other for about an hour. When they handed her to me, I thought she must belong to someone else.
I faked happiness and smiles for the pictures. I nursed her through the pain of post surgery, and resented her already. I missed my son. I wanted to see him. This little person was keeping me from him... I didn't know her. She was different than my son.
I thought it would pass. I read books on bonding with your baby. I wondered how could such a great mother like me be having this problem! But I didn't ask or tell anyone.
I read books on postpartum depression. I did the skin to skin contact and followed every suggestion in the books. Nothing was working.
6 weeks later I took my first drink.
It started slow and built over 2 yrs to round the clock drinking.
It wasn't until I did the steps, and had a spiritual awakening that the God of my understanding finally let me see this in a new crystal clear way. My alcoholism was still progressing... even though I wasn't drinking. My spiritual condition was so wounded and sick, that there wasn't even anything left to give to another human being. Not even my own daughter. The love for my husband, my son, people I adored... was all being taken away by my disease. It was eating me alive.
I was lost within my own mind and until actions led me through the 12 steps and into a new spiritual world... I could not refill my heart with the love it needed for fuel. I believe, before I can love, I must know how to be loved. I can only truly restore my love tank to full, by conscious contact with my God. When I know I am truly loved by Him, can accept that and be replenished... then, I can go on to give an amazingly powerful deep love to my family, my friends, my brothers and sisters... and especially other Mom's.
Do I still pull my hair out daily over my children's this or that? Oh yes. That's life with kids. But I tell them it's okay to do/feel/act like what they are now... and sometimes even believe it ; ) I tell them I love them anyway... because really... I do. That's the difference between then and now. With a loving HP, I can love. It's not all about what they're taking from me... that stuff doesn't matter. What's in my heart is. I see things through eyes that know how to find the things I am grateful for now.
Open your heart to the steps and see what happens for you : )
__________________
Thanks for everything. Peace and Love on your journey.
Great post Just! I had to start treating my children like newcomers...and everyone else for that matter...giggle! It gets easier as time goes by when we remember our code is tolerance and love and following the process. I also had to start sharing ESH with them instead of getting frustrated. Practice, Practice, Practice! It's all just good practice.
Great posts Tasha and Robin ... very deep subject ... It helps me understand some of the core differences between a man and a woman, dad and mom ...
King Alcohol took from me, the ability to love ... so much so I think I lost any concept of the word ... love had no meaning for me in any way, shape, or form ... the AA program and principles restored the meaning of love for me, if I ever knew the meaning to start with ...
Our 1st child Scott was born with 'Prader Willy Syndrome' ... he was the opposite of my expectations ... a dad dreams of teaching baseball and fishing and mechanics with his son, but none of that was possible with Scott(who now is 38 and living in a 'full care' facility ... as he has most all his life) ... At the time I blamed God and turned away from religious involvement totally ... I turned to my friend King Alcohol and he made everything okay, I thought ... but the situation remained the same when I woke up years later ... it's a very long story for another time ...
But I used Scott to justify my need for alcohol ... that excuse was always handy and no one would blame me for drinking over it ... but in the process, I began to hate Scott for ever being born ... and I just got sicker and sicker ...
Kc was different ... all boy ... I taught him baseball, took him fishing, got him a mini-bike at 5, then a go-cart, then trail bike, and on and on and on ... He and I worked on cars together at 6 and 7 years old and he became an expert mechanic years later ... I loved this kid ... but I got deeper into my alcoholism and we grew far apart, that is until I found AA and finally stuck with it ... we have grown back to being close to each other like the early days, only now, with his accident, he's a quadriplegic and confined to a wheelchair for life ... (he had been drinking and driving ...)
So Tasha, alcoholism and kids ? ... always a lethal combination whether physically or spiritually ... and I pray for those kids trapped in alcoholic families that have no choice in the matter ... and I am grateful for God's grace to those like me and you that have come to see a new way of life, a life where the word 'love' means something ... and what a wonderful life it is ...
God Bless You and your family, Pappy
__________________
'Those who leave everything in God's hand will eventually see God's hand in everything.'
I am the adult child of an alcoholic mother who has seemed to resent me at various times in my life. She's unpredictable and I never know when it's going to come. I get so mad at myself and feel guilty when I hear her voice coming out of my mouth when I'm parenting (well, not parenting but being irritable and resentful towards my child). I get angry when she interferes with my sleep, my self-pity, my fantasizing. She brings me into reality, a reality of which I don't always want part. I certainly resent my niece. It's terrible. She pushes my buttons like nobody else. Bleh. I feel like a really terrible mom/aunt to think such things. On the outside I look like a good mom. I suppose I am for the most part. There's just that part in me that seems so dark. Like my mom.
So I'm reading Tasha's post & Robin's reply thinking yep, I know those feelings well. I've. come to the same realizations about resentments I didn't want to admit to. Then I read Pappy's post and I'm thinking... How is it that he knows my story? How can he tell it almost exactly as I lived it? For so many years I used my son's autism and the severity of his disability as a reason to drink and get intoxicated as I did. And no one questioned it for a long time. Through this program and the steps I've been able to see things as they really were. And wonder of all wonders I no longer harbor the resentments against my son nor do I try to drink his autism away. Great topic. ((((Hugs)))) & Peace
__________________
I asked God for all things that I may enjoy life. He gave me life so that I may enjoy all things.
Wow! It's almost exactly how I use to feel! The details are so so similar! I think it is Awesome that you used such honesty!! Society seems to cringe at the thought of not liking your children (from time to time) and/or not having an immediate bond. Thank you for this post!
