Therapy Day 1.6.09

I went to therapy last Tuesday (as every Tuesday)... 9:30 sharp.

I have so many thoughts and things crashing around in my head, I'll probably have to write about them in chunks as I am able.

But the thing that drove me to post right now... at this very moment... that was pressing against me was "leaning into care"

Dr. talks about care being offered and my reluctance to "lean into it",

I like the visual that provides. It's like that exercise where you close your eyes and fall back and trust the other person to catch you. Without reservation or self-protection, you just TRUST and fall into the care. Only his version is safer. I don't have to "fall"... I can just "lean".

Only I don't do it.

I have to always make sure that I have my own back. I don't trust that anyone will TRULY be there every time I fall and care enough and catch me completely.

Using Mr. M as an example: I believe he will be there 75% of the time.

He wants credit and strokes for this (which I try to give him), and that's fine, but that means that 25% of the time when I lean in, I will get dropped. So when I go to lean (it doesn't feel like "lean", feels like "fall") how do I know if THIS is the 75% time or the 25%... and so because of that I put my arm out to catch myself, or I don't really FALL, I kind of fake fall with no intention of truly relying on some one else to catch me. At least if I land on my butt, I will have cushioned my own fall..

This is no way to live; afraid, self-protected, closed up.

I want to live brave and open and available (as commenter Mandie encouraged on my "Guilt" post a few days ago).

Oh, but that's easier said than done.

And I find my own brain and programmed behaviors thwart my without me even being consciously aware.

It is so bizarre to see all the defense mechanisms I have put in place, like layer and layer of walls and moats and barbed wire and draw bridges and archer protecting my castle.

What am I so afraid of?

What am I protecting?

I have anxiety right now and I reach for the gabapentin.

I can't bear to feel my anxiety.

I worry about my kids and yet I don't bring that to Dr.

I tell myself it is because I need to focus on ME and not my kids right now... but deep down I think I am VERY vulnerable about my kids and so i don't want to bring that stuff to Dr. and address it.

Long story short though, I was crying in therapy and feeling and telling Dr. I was so afraid my alcoholic husband was going to relapse that I lived in fear and couldn't lean into his care. Dr. suggested, however, that I WAS leaning into it and perhaps that is why my anxiety was heightening. Mr. M is stepping up and being present and I am trying to be softer and more open and more vulnerable which makes me more dependent and more afraid of losing him. I had to ponder this.

I wanted to share this with Mr M but he sometimes doesn't want to talk about feelings and therapy... so he used a little subtle shame to shut me down and I had a shame attack and DID shut down. He woke up in the morning and asked me to tell him about therapy but I was still to hurt and ashamed to tell him so I told him I would tell him later when I was feeling a little more warm and fluffy toward him.

We went out to dinner a night or two later and I told him that Dr. thought I was leaning into Mr. M more and trusting him more. Mr. M instantly realized this was what I had been wanting to tell him earlier and he chuckled and enfolded me in his arms "Is that what you wanted to tell me but you had to be feeling more love toward me?" I was embarrassed, but nodded. He kept hugging me and was happy and proud.

This morning, I was sharing how anxious I have been and how I have been reaching for the meds (gabapentin). He said "I can IMAGINE how anxious you must be" and went on to empathize with how scary it must be to face the possibility of single parenting and the money and all the bills and chores and everything all by myself and that he could put me back there by simply taking one drink and how hard that must be to have all that fear and no control over it and no ability to protect myself or be able to stop it.

He didn't try to fix it or make excuses or change the subject or make it go away.

He just HEARD me and didn't freak out because he was so ashamed.

We are making progress... slowly, but surely.

I pray I can lean into it.

Guilty

I have not been posting for a long time.

I have just started to realize how much this is SOOOOO part of MY sickness as the wife of an alcoholic.

When he is doing bad, I am doing bad.

I start a secret, anonymous blog to pour out my heart and my angst and my fears and my devastation.  It is my journal that my kids can't stumble upon hidden in a drawer or under the bed.  My friends can't find it and gasp at my fantasies or unbalanced thoughts.  My qualifier (Mr. M) can't find it and know how I fantasize about my life without him.  It feels real and true.  I don't have to censor myself because I don't have to have a facade because no one knows who I am.  No persona.  No mask.  Just me.  Feels good.  Feels true.  Feels maybe even a little bit healthy.

Then Mr. M gets sober.

I let him start coming around.  

I hug him.  I let him start hugging me.

I let him have sleepovers.

We go to amusement parks and the beach and even *gasp* vacation.

I start a new family blog with pictures of all the new happiness and beauty we are creating.

I am living in a fantasy land, sucking all this up... lapping it up... rolling around and wrapping myself in it.

I SO want it to be real.

I SO want it to last.

I am SO afraid because I KNOW how temporary it can always be.

I am blessed to be able to give my kids a few more months or years with their Dad and not give up.  They are all blossoming.

But if I let myself THINK about it, I am afraid it is nothing but a house of cards.

My desire to be in denial and just enfold myself in this 10 month period of sobriety - where Mr. M is not perfect, but he is present and available and loving and strong - is all-encompassing.  I think that's why this journal is lying dormant. 

 If I come to it and log in with my secret email address and my secret name & password, then I am remembering and looking at the reality of what my life was (is) just 10 short months ago and I am forced to see how - with the sip of a drink - it would be right back there.

Would I regret this delicious period of denial?  

I can't answer that yet.

And I don't want to go back and read any old posts to see.

I DO know that I am still in therapy and progressing slowly (snail's pace, in my mind), but I DO see and feel changes... but I am not very brave... I am slow and hesitant and scared.  I want to be braver.  I want to trust more and love fully and not live to protect myself from real or imagined pain.

If temporary, my time of bliss is still real.  My kids' happiness is real.  But this... this alcoholic marriage is still real too and I need to not forget it.