Grateful for the lesson

My time in AA doing a personal inventory made me always try to examine my motives when things go wrong. This recent conflict really dug up deep emotions, to the other person my reactions obviously appeared extreme if I was then to be labelled ‘sick’. I was reading up today on martyrdom and how sometimes doing something kind may have an investment in it. I have really deeply examined my heart and truly I feel the comment I made was not badly intended or given out of any other motive that to sincerely help, but it was not wanted and triggered pain for the person.

I am sorry that the whole incident went further with me at 3 am posting in order to try and sort it out. I took the post down as soon as I knew it had caused pain but honestly in it I was not malicious in any way, I was only struggling to understand, but I went over boundaries in that too which was wrong. The later fall out just triggered me big time and I kept posting but the more I did the worse things became til now the friendship is not retrievable which is perfectly understandable. but to be labelled as I was really was hurtful and I am glad I had therapy that morning in order to sort things, if not the email I received could have put me back in a suicidal place again.

I have learned an important lesson about the kinds of comments I leave on posts. I try to be supportive but sometimes I must over step the mark, or at least did in this case. And then I didn’t really get it because my head was scrambled due to what Peter Walker calls ‘the abandonment melange’ a profound mixture of sadness and anxiety and fear and feelings of powerlessness over the other’s reactions that led to other actions. I am in a clearer space now and I see the part I played in things. Its not easy with PTSD when we are triggered, I don’t know if others who have not had intense abandonment would really understand how it feels when those feeling are triggered again. My experience is that for years for me they were pretty much uncontainable and its only been the later 5 years of very good therapy which has helped me to sort the wheat from the chaff.

In my last relationship I was accused of all kinds of things, I was messy, screwed up, sucked in to a family vortex (probably true, as I did come from a very enmeshed and then also disengaged family). I was insecure and too ‘needy’ of someone who had better things to do with his time and this is all true, as a result of emotional neglect I was scarred and relationships became mine field for me. I did not know how to express my needs or feelings appropriately because my mother never did either, she would just erupt or make disgusted faces and Dad would walk off just laughing at her.

But I also know that in my recovery I am trying the best that I can to heal pr understand and grieve or mend all of these scars. I may project my need for help at times on others because I am human. I will always be empathic because of what I went through but I may not always know what others are feeling and experiencing if and when I project. That was a mistake that I made which I now need to own. I did the best I could but in the end it was a bit misguided and I have learned from it, so painful as the weekend was for me I am also not lying when I say I am deeply grateful for the lesson.