Monday, February 7, 2011

When in doubt, don't ... an AN-ANON share

From The Courage to Change for February 6th
Today's Reminder

"When my thinking becomes distorted by trying to force solutions, I probably won't get the results I seek.  As the saying goes, "When in doubt, don't."
So many examples of distorted thinking.  Okay, this is not about perfection and getting all of it down, it's just for now and what comes from my heart. 

Being affected by alcoholism has left me with second-hand toxic thinking.  I was the older sister and the go-to girl by the time I was able to talk and walk.  I started believing I could fix things because I was good at reading the environment:  What's Daddy like when he opened the car door?  Read his face and listen to his voice?  With the read, we either did the duck and cover or mask up with the listening ears and absorb the sadness/madness.  That was such a long, long time ago and even with the years of re-covery and unlearning, when I am under siege or weak from recovering from toxic drift today old survival skills like distorted thinking leap up.

Waiting Room
It's difficult to sort out the old from the new triggers when my MCS symptoms are in high-level.  I have learned to reach out to my trusted friends, and my sponsor.  Through them I hear the love and reassurance of people who know me, and aren't bent on 'fixing' me.  It helps to call people who live with both diseases, but that's not always my reality.  Few people I know live with Al-Anon and MCS, so I turn to Ke Akua for extra care when I'm in doubt.  I've learned to wait, better.  No, I'm not always a good waiter but I've gotten so much better.

Building the vardo has been Ke Akua's gift of waiting and perseverance wrapped in one small package.  One day at a time we built it from scratch.  Sometimes we had to take two (or three) steps back before we could make forward progress.  Since its a vardo for two, we get to practice waiting for patience to come and it might take twice as long.

Care to share your experience, strength, and hope?

2 comments:

Liberty said...

i can relate so much to your sharing here in this post.
The hypervigilance of MCS, for me, was preceded by a whole life of hypervigilance due to childhood stuff. My personal belief is that PTSD has a huge physical impact that makes us more vulnerable to conditions like MCS, FM, CFS etc. Dr. Martin Pall's research explaining the science of this really helped me to feel less crazy about it all.
I have been trying to retrain my hypervigilance about both chemicals and daily life stuff, trying to get it through my head that I am an adult now, that some of the things I see as threats (eg loud noises, grumpy people) are actually NO threat at all!
It's a long journey but worthwhile.

Mokihana Calizar said...

Thank you Liberty.

In AL-Anon meetings there is usually (though not always) a practice of not cross-talking. Allowing each share to speak for itself. I have learned over time that to have a space where my story is valuable ALL BY ITSELF, has been a powerful re-education process. For now, your story speaks for itself.