confiance

Back to the writing board

maconfiance — Fri, 15 May 2009 05:04:31 +0000

I don’t even know what to write about tonight, but I do know that I shared at my f2f meeting that I need to start using this tool of writing. It’s one of the tools that I work the least. Lately I’ve been feeling A LOT of sadness. My dad just stopped by for a visit here in Seattle after a 10-day meditation retreat (so cool!) but some of the stuff we were talking about just made me really sad. Mostly his relationship with my mom because I want them to be happy but I just feel like they’ve done so much damage to their relationship already that it’s hopeless. I hear some of the ways he treats her with his controling nature and just feel like she should leave him now so that maybe she’ll have the chance to find happiness with another man in her life. But she loves him. And doesn’t have the confidence that she’ll find someone else. I try not to blame him for the state of their relationship because I can always see her auto-reactions to him. She judges him based on “what he’s always done” which of course puts him on the defensive. Anyway, I feel like I’m overanalyzing and trying to reason out their relationship. This brings it back to me. Problem. I feel like if I could just “figure it out” I could help them solve all their problems. One thing that made me really sad was that I told my Dad on Monday night that I didn’t think there was a “chance in hell” that they could make themselves happy and stay together. The two were mutually exclusive in my mind. Then I felt all guilty like now that my Dad knew I didn’t have faith in them, he wasn’t going to try as hard. Which is bullshit. And self-centered. Their relationship is out of my control and not for me to decide what’s right. It is NOT for me to fix.

God, thy will be done for my parents as well as for me.

Please take their relationship, turn it into what you would have it be, and show me the truth.

Thy will, not mine, be done.

Denial

maconfiance — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 05:55:41 +0000

1. There is a slogan “denial is not a river in Egypt.” What is meant by denial? Was I in denial before I joined program? Or even in program?
Denial is not looking at the problems that are in front of us. Sometimes it’s because it’s just too hard, and sometimes it’s because we are so far in denial, we don’t even know there are problems to look at.
Before program, I was very aware that I had eating issues, but I never called it an eating disorder because that felt like it was making it a bigger deal than I thought it was. I never thought of that as denial before, because I thought I wanted to tell people it was a disorder to justify it, so by not saying it was a disorder, I was being good by not getting attention. Looking back, that’s still denial.
I also think I was very much in denial about other areas of my life. I felt so happy after breaking up with Rowdy and moving to Seattle that I just decided my life was good. When I honestly took a deeper look at it, I wasn’t satified. It wasn’t manageable. I was mean to others and mean to myself. I wasn’t leading a full life.

Three Meals Abstinence

maconfiance — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 05:39:05 +0000

Today was my eighth day of my no sugar, no alcohol, three meals and one snack abstinence. I am really enjoying the flexibility that this meal plan allows me, because I don’t have to stress about my plans during the day and how they might be affected by food. Because I don’t have specific foods laid out, I can be confident that at some point, when I’m hungry, I’ll be able to track down lunch. This means that I could easily agree to go to the Olympic Peninsula with my roommates tomorrow without having to worry about bringing all my food or feeling out of place/overwhelmed at a restaurant.

On the other hand, I’m finding that this flexibility is causing my meals to get a little messy. I am eating more than I used to on HOW and am adding back in foods that I hadn’t been eating. To be honest, this mostly worries me because I think I’ll gain weight or at least stop losing any. Also, because of the flexibility, I haven’t been committing my food in the morning and am wondering if it might work to hold myself accountable by reporting my food for the day at night, just to make the choices a little more real and help me to be less ashamed.

One other thing that I’ve been trying to focus on with this abstinence is just the ability to be successful. Even if I’m not losing weight or eating the absolute healthiest choices, I have been able to get 8 abstinent days strung together, the longest time since October. I pray for the willingness to make small steps toward better choices for my meals as I continue to build on my abstinence.

HOW Question #20

maconfiance — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 01:50:58 +0000

20. Re-read Step 3. I am responsible for only one person’s actions…whose? Why?

I am responsible for only my actions. Last night was a good example of this when I was feeling really anxious about my sister’s workshop and my friends who were attending it. I wanted her to do well. I wanted them to enjoy it. I wanted her to feel that they were enjoying it. All of this caused me to not enjoy the class myself. Instead of truly being able to take an introspective look at myself as she was instructing, I was stuck looking at others. Trying to control what was going on around me. Probably the best way I could have positively contributed to the class would be to focus on the assignments she was giving us and learn from the things she was saying.

One thing I found interesting when re-reading step 3 was the discussion of aligning willpower with God’s will. It says “When he acquires willingness, he is the only one who can make the decision to exert himself.” I sometimes feel like I’m making myself helpless when I turn over my will to God. Understanding that it’s not that I have to completely give up, but instead make steps to follow God’s will, makes more sense. Those instincts I get when I know what I shoud do but don’t want to (i.e. making an outreach call before eating) are times when I can use my willpower to follow God’s will.

Powerlessness

maconfiance — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 06:51:49 +0000

Today is day two of my abstinence. It came to me fairly easy, which makes me feel as though I truly am powerless of over this disease. Not much was different today compared to Friday, and yet one day was pretty mellow while the other one was wracked with guilt and compulsion. It doesn’t make sense. But I’m starting to think it doesn’t have to.

I still have trouble comprehending God or a Higher Power, but the thought that it isn’t me making abstinence happen makes sense. I can’t force it to happen. I can’t will it into being. I’m still not sure how to totally let go of control, but the best way I know how is to recognize my progress and listen to others’ stories about how the compulsion has been lifted.

I pray that tomorrow is another easy abstinent day, but if it’s not, I hope that I can use the tools to work for abstinence until I can experience another easy day. Giving up doesn’t work – that’s the one thing I know for sure.

I talked to Keith on the phone tonight and am feeling like I might actually be able to believe that if it’s meant to be, it will happen in it’s own time. If not, I can only believe that my Higher Power has someone or something better in store. I had to bite my tongue several times to keep from making a comment about my feelings for him, but I think that this is a time when saying less is actually doing the right thing. Any conclusions he comes to about us have to be from him, not from me badgering him. In the meantime, I have to keep working on myself so that I can be a better human being for all the people in my life. I don’t want to be the selfish, dishonest person I was (and still partly am) anymore.

Next Steps

maconfiance — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 02:57:15 +0000

I realized that I’m almost out of HOW slip questions tonight. This made me think that it might be a good time to re-evaluate where I should go from here. I am feeling pretty good about where my food plan is right now, and the fact that it’s still morphing into what it should be. Because it’s still changing, it’s hard for me to make my abstinence based on it, but it’s also hard to feel like my abstinence should only be about not binging.

As far as working my program goes, I know we talked about setting up a little bit more of a routine check in for myself on what tools I use each day. I really like having a question to write on every day because several of them push me out of my comfort zone. If I just wrote on what I wanted to, I don’t think I would come up with as much.

I feel like I want to work the steps more, but I’m not quite sure how to do that. That makes me think that maybe getting a big book sponsor would be a good idea, but I still want to talk to you. During last night’s meeting, we read the 8 tools pamphlet, which says you can have multiple sponsors, but I don’t know if it’s working for you to sponsor me as we’ve been doing.

Love

maconfiance — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:52:50 +0000

Discuss and reflect on the meaning of love.

I’m unsure of the meaning of love. I can recognize the love I feel for my family. I have no doubt that I love my mom, dad and sister. But when it comes to others or loving myself, I’m not sure how to love or let myself be loved.

The co-dependent part of me has always confused need for love. When someone needs me, they won’t leave me. When I need some or want someone to be in my life, I love them. I think I assign “love” to relationships too easily. It’s been awhile since I’ve been in a serious romantic relationship so I can’t even imagine how I would know when I make the jump from like to love. I forget how that feels.

This weekend was tough because I spent time with my friend from high school. We’ve always had a weird relationship in the sense that we’ve been “friends” but had a lot of chemistry. We’ve never dated, but when we see each other, there’s always some drama and confused feelings. I feel like I love him, but I’m not sure if that’s because I care about him and want so much to be in a relationship with someone that knows that much about me and still cares for me and has a connection with me.

When we talk about how others in OA love you for who you are, I don’t know what to think. That I can feel love for people I don’t know very well, but who seem to have the understanding of me at a very real level, is amazing.

I’m starting to love myself more. I’ve been building the hatred and self-pity for so long that it will take a long time to reverse, but I think that I can. I think I need to get help from a professional who can reflect reality for me and show me how unrealistic I am when it comes to myself. My negative thinking prevents me from recognizing the positive aspects of my life, which lets me think that I’m not lovable.

Thanksgiving Prayer

maconfiance — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 17:47:26 +0000

God,

I feel lost. I feel like I don’t know where to go from here. I am so frustrated with trying to do the right thing in this program but not knowing what that is and never feeling like it’s working. I don’t know how I can care about something so much and know how much danger my life is in, but still continue to fuck it up. I don’t understand the steps. I don’t know how to know if I’m working them. I want to listen for your guidance but I don’t know how to do that either.

Please help me to give up control and surrender myself to you. Please help me to have faith that I will be caught if I let go. Please show me how to let go. Please provide me with a decision or inspiration about where to go from here. I don’t know if making my abstinence dependent on my food plan is a good thing or a bad thing. I’m afraid that if I try to stick with a strict food plan again and fail, I’ll give up. I’m afraid if I don’t stick to a strict food plan, I’ll continue to slip as I’ve been doing the past few weeks.

God, help me to trust in others and not resent them. Help me to realize that I have to take my own path to recovery but can find value in what others have to say, even if their story is not my story. Help me to find patience with my recovery and stop fighting everything. Help me to have faith in myself and you and take it one day, one meal at a time.

On this day of thanks, help me to be thankful of all the blessings I have in my life and realize that these struggles can pass if I will let them go.

fear

maconfiance — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 04:57:30 +0000

I’ve been feeling really distant and struggling all day today. I had about 20 minutes until I was supposed to call my sponsor, so I decided to go into my room, shut off the light and get down on my knees and pray. Not repeat rehearsed prayers, but just talk to God until I had nothing left to say. I kept asking for help and asking for willingness, and after a few minutes, it felt like new things were been loosened and were free to be said outloud. And then I said, “God, I’m so afraid that even if I do everything I’m told, I’m going to be the one person who isn’t able to find recovery through this program.” I’m now realizing that I think that’s been a fear I’ve really held onto from the start of this program, but this is one of the first times I’ve prayed about it. I’m so terrified of letting go because I don’t believe it’s going to work. How self-centered is that? I actually think I could be the one person out of many this doesn’t work for? And then I say to myself, no, I’ve heard other people share about the terrible things they’ve done…if it works for them, it has to work for me. Yet again, how self-centered. As my sponsor says, “I’m just another bozo on the bus.” I have to learn to love myself and jump down from the ladder on which I’m always trying to work out whether I’m higher or lower than people. I just am. If I work this program, recovery will be shown to me, even if not as fast as I want it to be. I have to believe that.

Slip Question

maconfiance — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 04:38:54 +0000

Discuss and reflect on the importance of growing up.

I don’t remember which book it’s in, but somewhere in the literature it talks about how we have always stuffed down our feelings with food and never really allowed ourselves to grow up. So when we actually start feeling feelings, we have to learn how to deal with them.

I realized today that I don’t always know why I want to eat. I’ve been told a lot lately that compulsive overeating’s not neccessarily about the food, but about the feelings and the reasons why I eat. Today I kept wanting to eat and I would stop and try to identify why, but I always seemed to come up with, “BECAUSE I WANT TO AND IT SOUNDS GOOD!”

When I got off work and I didn’t have anywhere to go or anything to do, it sounded so good to go home, sit in front of the TV and eat. The thought made me happy and excited and comforted. I don’t feel like I was particularly upset about anything, but I know I would have been afterward. Why in the world is eating ingrained in so much of my life? Why can’t I just look forward to coming home and being able to relax in other ways. It feels like I disappoint when I don’t get to eat. And tonight as I was trying to watch TV, all I could think about was what food was in the house. I don’t have anything, so what could I sneak of my roommates?

I’ve gotten off track with this question, but I guess I think part of it comes from growing up. I was uncomfortable when I wasn’t eating. But I can make a choice. I have a choice to eat or not. I can recognize that these feelings will pass whether or not I eat. I think a big area where I can see my lack of growing up is the “I don’t wanna” feeling I get a lot. I should be ironing my clothes tonight or paying my bills, but instead I avoid and watch TV. I don’t feel like I’m answering this, but not sure what else to say…