Don’t Take My Kodachrome Away
Jun 20, 09- (by Mama MPJ)
- 7 responses
- Sober Salon
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When I found out about my husband’s sexual addiction, it felt like my emotional landscape faded from bright vivid color to monochrome shades of black and grey. I had three primary emotional settings: fear, anger (shading into full on rage) and heartbreaking sadness. And I’d display these by alternating between screaming, crying and sitting mute and paralyzed. My early experiences with 12 Step meetings were with partners of sex addicts who were in much the same state I was. There was a lot of anger and hurt in that musty little church room, and it was hard, as I slowly shed my own anger and hurt to see other people still hurting.
Of course, it would be nice to say that I felt for them and my sympathy for their pain tore at me. But that’s not true at all. Everyone seemed to piss me off, and I was just oozing resentments. I went from being angry and frustrated at my husband to wanting to fix everyone else in the room. Why couldn’t they just get over it already? It was so infuriating to listen to them go on about their awful partners without ever seeing how awful they were being. Clearly, they were doing recovery wrong.
So I stopped going. For about four years.
In the six months since I’ve returned to meetings, I’ve noticed that there’s been a change: that triggered feeling I used to have has slipped away. Now, maybe these new meetings are healthier than my old ones — the format and philosophy of this group are certainly a much better fit for me — but I know that’s not the whole story. After all, the newcomers who walk in almost always present that same bleak emotional landscape that I did: fear, anger, crushing sadness — they cry, they rage at the addict in their lives, they live in terror of the next blow the future may bring — but instead of feeling frustrated, I feel present, able to sympathize and empathize without getting swept away by my emotions. I’m able to remember those bleak days, without fearing that rich colors of my own world will fade away again.
I’m recognizing that the break I took, while I did it for a lot of negative reasons, did turn out to be a healthy one. When my own raw places were just starting to heal, going to meetings full of so much hurt and rage felt like ripping the scab off my wounds. I was too close to those hurts myself to be able to look back on them with anything approaching serenity. Now that those wounds have had time to heal, I find I’m much better able to accept others where they are rather than needing everyone else to feel better so that I can escape my own pain.
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So funny you should write about this! This concern recently came up in our group conscience meeting last week. Though I’m fairly new to group myself, I am pretty comfortable with the current balance in our room - a mix of the newcomers with the same pain and angst and some “sober” old-timers with inspiring recovery wisdom. When the topic came up that our room was getting negative, I had a real issue with that and took the criticism personally as a semi-newcomer. How could anyone (especially a fellow S-Anoner) judge my place in recovery - that I wasn’t recovering fast enough? If I couldn’t share my feelings (including the negative ones), then what was the point of coming to a support group in the first place? I’m glad to see that this member’s comment was not a reflection of the newcomers’ places in recovery, but more an indication of her place in recovery, I can see how this might be an unhealthy environment for a recovering member who is a bit further along than the rest.
Recovery is about learning how to respect yourself, not how to be a slave to a different set of “shoulds.”
I think this is why I quit the online codie group. I couldn’t focus on my noise and everyone else’s at the same time.
I’ve experienced this, too. When I’m in a good place, it’s much easier for me to hear others’ pain without it chafing against my own. But when my pain is close to the surface, other people’s pain is triggering. I spent a lot of time cringing inwardly whenever someone else was going through a hard time, but then I realized that cringing was telling me something about myself and I started using it as a way to acknowledge my own pain and grow.
Enigma, this same topic has come up in my current meeting, which is actually what got me thinking about it. There were a few folks that were advocating for only positive shares and that the negative stuff be kept for program calls. I didn’t realize this was a common 12 Step idea, but apparently (since it came up for both your group and mine, it is). Anyway, I hadn’t really noticed that the negative stuff wasn’t bothering me until then, and I had to think, “Huh, why am I mostly ok now with this thing that was so bad before that it made me leave my last meeting?” Thus the post.
I find that when I am feeling resentful and angry I don’t want to go to meetings. It triggers my pain more and I leave the meeting feeling more sad and I usually end up crying the entire way home. When I am in a good place though I feel like I am on a natural high when I leave my meetings. Funny how that works, huh?
Good to know this is so common, from both your post and the comments. I have been triggered by the newcomers with similar hurts, but also by those with healing, because I feel I’ll never get there. When I’m in a more teachable, open place, neither bothers me as much - I hear the stories of newcomers as reminders of where I could be without recovery, and the positive stuff gives me hope. Thought provoking post.