Thank you all for your support over the last week or so. I truly appreciate it. The comments from my blog post onto my iPhone and I get them almost immediately - unless I am really busy. They have meant the world to me in the last few days. I feel much better. Maybe I needed the reminder of how beyond aid I am. I got the message loud and clear. I cannot fix me, you cannot fix me, and guess what? AA cannot fix me. God can fix me. AA can show me how to ask God for help, and I am eternally grateful for that.
In the midst of this crisis, I managed to have a semi-normal conversation with my sober daughter. I didn't tell her the extent of my misery, just a fraction of it. She had just gone to a funeral of a old friend who had suicided, she didn't need to hear about me. At the funeral, she ran into many of her "old" friends. She got to make amends to some people she thought she would never see again. She got to talk to other people she thought she would never see again.
And she had a haunting experience I have had many times over the years. These people were remembering events of her life that she had absolutely no memory of. It is a very disconcerting feeling. I have had it many times. I asked her to concentrate on the fact that the people were happy to see her and not cussing her out for unknown reasons. That would be even worse.
I believe this screwed up memory wiring goes far beyond cellular damage due to alcohol (or in her case other chemicals as well), but can be attributed to the damage done by trauma. Trauma messes with a person in ways that creep up on you in the night - and in the day. Just when you think you are over it, there it is - whap! in the face! And the lack of memory of your own life is one feature, a disconcerting one.
That's my contribution to Halloween. Creepy damage done by a living a weird life. Most of the time in my life there is little evidence... but some times it just sneaks right up and smacks me one.
Happy Halloween everyone. And thank you again.
6 comments:
Glad that you talked to your daughter. I think not losing neurons is one of the reasons that I never drank much or drugged. It just wasn't worth the brain damage.
Happy to read this post and know that things are settling down a bit. And how cool that you have a sober daughter to relate to!
I don't wanna know what I don't remember.
I believe it, forgetting things that we perceive as traumatic. Or even things that happened in the vicinity of such occurrences. It has happened to me more times that I know.
Trauma and long-term chronic after-effects of trauma are more common than we realise. Many people self-medicate with alcohol to numb initial trauma and that in turn interferes with remembering and forgetting.
Sending you love and strength Mary Christine.
I really thought about you. Sometimes that is all I can do..is to send healing, positive thoughts and prayers. We are not in this alone...ever. Hugs.
♥namaste♥
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