Heartbroken and needing help!

[cat04]

So Who Is Irish?

This is what I see.

Oldest child of raging, finally recovered alcoholic (and gambler, etc.) AND an agoraphobic, narcissistic, probably border-line personality mother.
Little to no memories of childhood - really just a watcher. Had AMAZING grandparents, aunts, and uncles who often rescued and cared for me, my brother, and my sister. I became the UBER-responsible one.

Totally normal considering the type of family you grew up in and your birth position. So, you have been a caretaker since childhood.

Not necessarily your calling, but your prescribed role that began to feel like the only thing you you were good at.

Guidance counselor told me not to waste time going to college because I was better suited to be a wife and mother. But all of my friends were going to college and my dad stepped in and wanted someone in the family to go to college.

So, did you buy into what the guidance counselor said?

Based on the time frame, this was still something that many females were hearing about their futures.

And you did believe it because you were already doing it.

Since I liked to read - it was me.

Do you really think this is the only reason you got to go to college? Somehow I bet it has something to do with the fact that you are intelligent.

I got to see how "normal families" operated. I wasn't a zealot Catholic (Mass every Sunday and Holy Days) but I had wonderful priests who taught consistently and kindly about tolerance and forgiveness –

Irish, I must say, this was not what I was taught by the nuns and the priests. Ok yes, they did teach tolerance and forgivness, but they also taught shame, guilt, repentance, and about a punishing God. I was taught about respect, obedience, and duty. Are you sure about the message you received or are you simply overlooking the negative stuff?

Because I know very few people raised in the Catholic faith who don’t talk about guilt, and you didn’t mention it at all.

I still have great faith, faith that I never question, but I did have to go through a period of questioning the Church because I did find them to not be what I wanted to remember. In fact, going back now, I see the “normal families” that really aren’t so normal because the Church teaches them to put on a front, and I see the nuns and priests, and they are still untouchable and still teaching the same messages.

I was overwhelmed. I meet H - star college athlete - I didn't even know who he was. He was socially unprepared for college - he came from large socially detached family. We soon cling to each other - and were each other's best friend. With him I felt safe and secure.

You rescued each other.

Good for us as a couple because we cling to each other not knowing anyone else. Those were good years –

Were they really the good years?

Having someone to lean on, be supported by and supporting, is a wonderful thing, but clinging for safety, security, and comfort is very codependent. And really bad in the long run.

I was obsessively afraid of losing him / jealous / scared. I tried to be perfect and guess at things that would make him happy by watching what everyone else did and try to replicate

Sort of like watching the “normal families” you got to see growing up?

Are you still afraid of that? I think so. So maybe it is time to examine the reason for this.

I am determined to present a perfect family unit.

I've got the kids involved in anything and everything trying to be super mom/wife.

This is more of the same sort of behavior.

Irish, you have spent your life, trying to create what you think a family SHOULD look like, instead of realizing that a family, actually, usually, operates a little chaotically, and that we have to deal with the real stuff in order to have a happy life.

Our oldest daughter, super artsy and talented experienced the downside of teen life socially - and her junior year she took an overdose of tylenol. Hospitalized for days, frail, - joy would never be the same for me again. H blames me, I blame me - being too over scheduled, losing it if something goes wrong.

I have a feeling that this resulted in SOME changes in your house, in you, but probably not enough.

His parents (and to an extent H) blamed any female that their sons married for their sons failure to make professional status. We always called ourselves "outlaws" instead of "inlaws" - we had to sit at separate tables from the family at holidays and stuff.

I never felt welcomed by anyone - in fact the first person I met said "he married you?"

These things bother you WHY?

Who cares what other people think of you and your H’s choice?

Irish, there is ALWAYS going to be SOMEONE out there who will criticize, be insensitive, be negative. It is just the way the world works.

How we allow that to effect us is what is important.

Personally, I just don’t care what anyone else thinks. I used to. I spent way to much time and energy, trying to figure out how I could have the life that you tried to create.

Now, I just live. People see me, my S, they see us happy and healthy. Really happy. Instead of seeing some front while underneath we are frustrated and worried that the mask is going to crack and people are going to know what a mess we are.

I am comfortable behind the scenes

This is true. Why?

Because you don’t have to actually put yourself out there. You just encourage and support others in their risks and steps forward, while they put themselves on the line, and you can either revel in their success and feel bad for their failure (which then gives you the opportunity to try to fix) instead of actually having successes and failures and risks of YOUR OWN.

(I am a procrastinator - why? - in many ways I am afraid I won't do it right or perfect:( )

You will never know unless you try. Did you teach your children to put things off until they could do them perfectly, or did you tell them that it was important to take the chance, and give it your best and see what happens? I know what I tell my S.

I am very low maintenance because I always felt I should be doing for others. My mother once accused me of having an "exaggerated sense of self importance"

You are actually very high maintance. Your mother is right.

It may not be in a material way, but in an emotional way, in what you expect of yourself and others, in what you don’t SAY but is there, under the surface UNSPOKEN…

Cat - today I am an empty shell of a person who tries to put on a show everyday to keep everyone else in my life thriving.

Why is it your responsibility to keep everyone else in your life thriving?

Isn’t that their responsibilities? To take care of their own lives.

Yes you feel like a shell. Because that is what you have been for a very long time.

There is an Irish in there. I am not sure who she is, because you have buried her, but she seems to enjoy laughing, sewing, reading, simple things. There may be more. I don’t know yet, but I am not opposed to digging it out a bit.

but I don't want them to feel that I am a burden to them.

Are you convalescent?

How can you possibly be a burden to your children when you can still take care of yourself?

If you allow this to beat you down, squash you, destroy you, then you will be a burden to them. But not yet.

Take a step everyday Irish. I know you can.