TOLERATING PAIN
August 5, from “Strengthening My Recovery” daily reader
“The level of pain that adult children can tolerate without admitting they have hit a bottom is astonishing.’” BRB p. 68
“We learned to live with pain as children and continued to do so as adults. When faced with the pain of toxic relationships. We slip into survival mode to avoid the uncertainty of change.
We know that our lives are in chaos, that we accept the unacceptable from the people around us, and that we have no reason to expect tomorrow to be better. Yet we trudge through each day, often with a pain so deep it feels out of reach.
Everyone who as walked into ACA has felt the apprehension that comes with change. Often, fear of change is so strong that we can still convince ourselves that things aren’t that bad.
We are all creatures of habit, even when those habits are harmful to us. ACA is the first step in saying our lives are out of control and we need help. The question is, do we want to live a life that “isn’t that bad,” or do we have the faith in our Higher Power, in our program, and in ourselves to overcome the fear of change?
We do not have to do this alone. Our fellow travelers are more than willing to take the journey with us.
On this day I will reach out my hand to end the cycle of pain and know there will be someone there to hold onto.”
My Experience:
Missed events, alone, figuring out things that other children have their parents to figure out, bullied, lied to, physically hurt, emotionally battered, the list goes on. Since this was my normal, until I walked into the rooms of recovery, I continued to take this and more. I didn’t know that it was not normal. I had worn the suit of armor for so long, I was numb to those attacks. I realize now that those attacks continued to hurt me. I no longer tolerate those types of attacks. If I feel attacked in any way, I walk away, I let the person know that I will not take it and literally walk away. Once I process what my feelings are surrounding the event, I sometimes choose to come back and let them know what I was feeling about the event, I will not tolerate it, and sometimes I apologize because I took something wrong. What I don’t do is display the anger I did over the course of my lifetime. That, I have found, only destroys the relationship, creates animosity, etc. I can choose to walk away from the person, but if my behavior did not destroy it, through growth on both of our parts, we may be able to mend the relationship down the road. I thank my Higher Power every day for allowing me to realize that I have options.
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