Up and then down

That's the way the mood cycles seem to be going lately. It is hard sometimes not to want that reassurance of worthiness from someone else -- and to want to reach out in the wrong direction. But, I'll post some recovery writing I did this morning, while I was on one of the Ups of the cycle and then go get what I need to get done out in the world.

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Just about a month ago, at almost 40 years old, I met my biological father for the first time. He had left my mother almost 10 years before I was born, came back for a weekend reconciliation and I was conceived, though he never acknowledged the conception. (It took two people to make that mistake, by the way. I now know not to blame it all on him.) I actually was raised by another man, my stepfather, who in addition to molesting me, was extremely emotionally abusive and sometimes mildly physically abusive.

As I look back on my life, I see so many ways I have understandably tried to fill the need and want for a "real" father in my life. Every little girl wants a Daddy to be her hero and protector, right? I see how that child's search has played into my sex and love addiction. I have insisted on acting out with men at least a few years older than me and in some instances, old enough to be my father. I have sought out powerful, protective men (who also usually turned out to be controlling, but that's beside the point). All I ever wanted was a man to say he loved me and truly mean it -- for love not to mean sexual favors or submission to control, but to mean that I was cared for and that I mattered. (I bet you'd never guess that I never found that in any of my acting out partners.) And in all of this I have been scared to death of abandonment -- scared to the point that it has been very easy to push people away.

Looking at this through the eyes of an adult in recovery, not a helpless child, I know that all of the stuff in the first paragraph is on the men who brought me into the world and raised me. Everything in the second paragraph is on me. Although those men were woefully inadequate as parents and even spouses, in my estimation; they never had the benefit of recovery, they didn't have the best of upbringings themselves, and their judgments were impaired with addiction and ignorance. That doesn't excuse them and it doesn't excuse me. I was lead to recovery through my despair in acting out, and have the opportunity to end the cycle of addiction and ignorance in my own life.

For me, the true gift of recovery lies in unveiling the truth. My recovery is about me, no one else. The 4th step has been paramount in helping me unveil the ways I have kept myself tied to the people who hurt me through resentments, and how I have lived my life in fear (fear of failure, abandonment, and inadequacy -- messages I received as a child) and how that all has fed my need to run and hide in sex, love, food, codependence or any other thing I can find. Equipped with the truth, I have a whole lot less to turn over to my HP every day -- I'm turning over what is mine, and leaving what belongs to others to them. With faith in my Higher Power and a willingness to be honest and responsible, I can begin to clean up my side of the fence and healing and positive change continue to come one day at a time. Dishonesty, resentment and fear only stall me, and I'm not delusional enough to think I'll never get stalled. But I'm thankful that recovery is helping me see the
truth, which for me has become a guiding light.

I dreamt of my father

Yesterday morning I woke up dreaming of my biological father. It is the first time I remember dreaming of him in my life.

I don't remember all of the dream but if I'm not mistaken, I was busy doing things with my family, laughing and enjoying myself. I have the idea though that it was older family members, not my siblings, that I was dreaming of, not that it matters. What I do remember is that I was talking to my biological father on the phone, I had apparently sent a message to him -- either directly or maybe through the grapevine that is my family.

In the dream, he called me and said, "I hear that you need some tender, loving care, that you are feeling down." He said he had been out working on the place and just came in to call me, he was a bit short of breath. I remember that I was visualizing him standing in his barn (he has a barn, but I've never seen it), he wasn't wearing a shirt, and he was standing behind some sort of a wooden gate or barrier talking on one of those old black phones.

While I remember that his words were comforting and that I felt close to and touched by him as he spoke, I don't remember anything about what he said. This is ironic considering that this is a person who I've felt so ill at ease about for so long, and uncomfortable even when his name comes up. The only conversation we've ever had, which occurred just two months ago at my brother's funeral was not uncomfortable, but it also didn't make me "yearn" for a relationship with this person whose sperm caused me to come to be.

One sort of "weird" thing that was not an overwhelming part of the dream but that was present was a overhanging sexual feeling. No, no ... not that I felt sexually attracted to him, but maybe that "awareness" I get when I am around men and there is an air of sexuality. It's hard to explain, since I am even confused about what role it had in this dreamt conversation. I know that with most men, all men really, I am always "on guard" for that hint of sexual intrigue or intent. That might have been it.

This leads me to write about a question my husband asked me a couple of days ago, which is Why did I call my stepfather on Thanksgiving?

I called because I felt like it was the right thing to do. My husband said he thought I did it because I'm still trying to please my dad (I call him my dad because he raised me). The truth is I've called him a couple of times over this time since my brother died because I am trying to save myself. I feel like my resentments are keeping me tied to him and I have to "act normal" RED FLAG in order for my overall state of mind not to be so messed up. I get so confused even writing about this.

I think I have to look at what I feel -- not what others think I feel or should feel. The program tells me that I need to rid myself of resentments (and honestly, I do think I have to do that, but I don't do that by "acting normal"). My husband says my need to please him keeps me coming back to hurting myself again.

What I feel is a lifelong need for a father's love, and a longing for the closeness of a family. (As an aside, I think that has been why I have wanted to get a pet so much lately.) I suppose I also believe that if he (my stepfather) is a monster, the one I paint him to be, then I with all my sexual obsessions, am a monster too.

I have never preyed on young people, thank God. That what separates us. Otherwise, he had his parallel lives too. I just happened to be one of the victims of his "dark side" and the result is today I live in misery, depression and an inability to get on with my life."

In a way, I suppose that my call on Thanksgiving was an attempt to get on with my life or at least act normal. Normal people call their parents on Thanksgiving, right? Good girls call their parents on the holidays, right? (Flawed thinking there.)

Maybe both me and my husband are right -- I was trying to feel a sense of normalcy and family and I was trying to make sure my stepfather didn't feel bad on Thanksgiving.

As I've been writing, I was thinking of how I had not told my older sister I was traveling on Thanksgiving because she worries SO much, she would have ruined her own holiday wondering if we reached S.C. safely. I was thinking of how complicated it gets, trying to make everyone happy and OK, trying to keep the lies straight to make sure everyone is at peace. I've been doing it all my life. And the sad thing is ... I am the one who is never at peace. But I was taught by my mother that I was to sacrifice all peace for myself for other people's happiness.