Co-Dependants Anonymous
Members Login
Username 
 
Password 
    Remember Me  
Post Info TOPIC: Another Piece of The Puzzle


Senior Member

Status: Offline
Posts: 124
Date:
Another Piece of The Puzzle
Permalink  
 


In the Step One Study I talked about my parents seperating, and me going with my father, he was a fisherman at that time and he left me up in Northern California in a house he bought on the banks of The Russian River, I was left alone for a week or two at a time while he was out at Sea, until in the offseason he moved to San Francisco to paint houses in the offseason and hired a live in nanny, who changed the lightbulbs in my room to 150 watt light bulbs in a fixture that called for 25 watt lightbulbs, the house subsequently caught fire and I awoke fully enveloped in flames, only my flame retardent blanket and flame retardent Scooby Doo Pajamas saved my life, I tore them off and rushed out into the night grabbing only a rain coat because that looked like what Fireman wore...I stood and watched as the house burnt to the ground while the fire trucks watched helplessly as their hoses were 15' too short to reach the river

 

I moved to San Francisco onto my fathers fishing boat, we had moved a lot growing up, 17 schools in 10 years, and Father dressed...poorly, he felt clothes were to cover you, and anything else was ostentatious, and he drove trucks from the 40's and 50's, so I felt....different...less then...we'd drive around in his truck with dead fish in the back (bait) that stank to high heaven dressed in cheap clothes, sometimes home made, if I wanted new clothes I had to steal or earn the money, and he sent me to good schools, in rich neighborhoods, where quite often the parents were famous and knew my grandparents, parents, uncles etc...it made me feel..."less then" and 'apart from" to say the least, I was always by FAR the smartest kid not just in class but in school, and by far the best artist, and the teachers who spotted it would move me up, which made me even more strange and different, the ones who didn't classified me as a "discipline problem" and since corporal punishment was still happening the teachers and principals used to beat me a lot, especially in Texas, but then as soon as I would start settling in I would move again, and the teachers wouldn't believe my transcripts and they'd put me back, example I took algebra 1, algebra 2, geometry, geometry 2, and analytical trigonomotry in seventh grade alone. I never reached that high again, I ended up having to take algebra 1 2 more times, spanish 1 2 more times, geometry one two more times etc, even in college

I remember the moment one switch got flipped in my head, we were driving through downtown San Francisco during lunch hour and all the people were scurrying around for lunch...and the women...they looked....untouchable...so...beautiful, wearing business attire and those white tennies....they smelled so good....it was like they were from another planet...and I knew right then, if I could grow up and get one of them I would be all right, that it would "fix" me, it would complete me.

I was ten years old

Anyway years later, the day I turned 21 I cut my hair short, and changed my "look" from Beavis and Butthead to crewcut, oxford shirts and ties, nice pants, nice shoes and lied my way into a few bartending gigs, where I'd get fired, but I'd learn, after 2-3 weeks I landed a bartending gig that "stuck" in a pretty famous party town/spot, where I didn't know it, but the bartenders had great targets on their foreheads as...male....like gigolos, they were male models, actors, NFL players, and there I was clueless and desperate for any sort of female attention, up to that point I had had one girlfriend, and she started cheating on me the first weekend we were officially together, and continued cheating on me the entire time we were together

This had the effect of making me think, alright, this is how this game is played, I can do that. but deep down I was still looking for that woman to "complete" me, I was looking for a so called "normal" girl to make everything alright

I got together with the first one, she was .....more damaged then me, rape, incest survivor, suicide attempts...it didn't go well, the next one, same thing, the one after, same thing, until pretty soon my life was a blur of sex and drinking, I kept looking, and some dynamics developed and I was....never faithful, I explained that in another post, each girl who took me home knew all about me but she was the one I was going to change for...this escalated over the years until it happened...I met "the girl of my dreams"

and I couldn't stop

I always figured I would grow up when I met the right person, and that's just not what happened, she worked graveyards, and every night I'd say to myself I wasn't going to drink, and I wasn't going to cheat on her, and through a series of events that seemed to be completely out of my control I'd be racing home in the morning drunk with lipstick on my collar

I loved this girl with all my heart and soul, this is who I had been waiting for all my life, and I blew it...badly

I finally slept with someone "at her" and told her about it for behavior modification purposes and it backfired, she threw me out, I went on a week long bender, and ended up getting sober, and in working the steps ended up addressing my sexual addiction as well, it was....helpful removing alcohol from the equation, alcohol was my "gateway drug", some people I knew had one drink and started looking around for the bindle, I took one drink and started looking around for cars to crash and women to sleep with, happy to say the number of crashed cars and casual sexual encounters decreased dramamtically when there was no alcohol in my system

but my point in this, it's hard wired into me, somehow, some way, some where, I need that other person to "complete" me, I have done long stretches of celibacy in sobriety, both intentional and unintentional, but I have some deep rooted relationship stuff going on as a result of my childhood...abandonment as well as other issues I hope to look at here, I have done a TON of step work around this as well a LOT of therapy about this, and for the most part the outside manifestations of this addiction haven't had any significant impact in my life for many years (for the most part, I've certainly made my mistakes) but some of other inside stuff still lingers

So once I attained my majority, as it were, I wrecked everything I came into contact with, I drove every meaningful relationship away with a hammer, now this behavior for the most part stopped in my late 20's early thirties, but it caused WAY more abandonment issue stuff

I saw this scene in my life WAY too many times, this was my "normal" for many years, including that....lok....of letting people down who I loved...that....look...haunted me for YEARS.....being taken away by the police, losing my relationships to my stupidity, my alcoholism....my addictions....there was nothing cool and exciting about it but I was caught in a spiral that I couldn't stop, I couldn't change...I always had so much love, and the best intentions...and I was....so F'ing harmful.....and I couldn't stop

sorry to "over share" but I felt any picture that left this out was incomplete.



-- Edited by LinBaba on Thursday 24th of March 2011 02:42:02 PM

__________________

it's not the change that's painful, it's the resistance to change that is painful



Senior Member

Status: Offline
Posts: 108
Date:
Permalink  
 

It's nice when the pieces start to come together and we get a clearer picture of who we are, why we are, and who we want to be.

 

Linistea



__________________
Page 1 of 1  sorted by
 
Quick Reply

Please log in to post quick replies.