Ghosts of Easters Past...and Present

Triggers.

I like to think AWARENESS helps me handle them. But if there is no time to relax after them, or more triggers are spawned before I get perspective... my emotional cup overflows.. in a bad way.

The first present-day trigger was simply my husband being away in New York state during Holy Week. His spring trips are good for his work profile—a specialized presentation to graduate students at an illustrious university. This year, the trip was extended by several days, so that he would have an opportunity to work on a grant proposal with the colleague who invites him for these talks.

It is only now that I can admit, with each of these trips I tend to take my responsibilities too seriously.

If only I could just let myself be a good enough mom and take care of family meals from breakfast to dinner. But no. I turn the experience into a trip to the land of "What If?" I imagine myself during these weeks morphing forever into a single mom, navigating the landmine I am sure will turn me into a BPD without my husband’s balancing presence. In short I become vigilant, making it my permanent job to refrain from becoming my mom! Worse, I tell myself I might fail. Take it to the hilt, imaging what life would life would be like if was unable to bring home the bacon, should my husband lose his job or even die. In short I use the precious time I have to myself to create a horror show, in which I compare myself to my mom, my husband and moms that do have to work to support their families, instead of being grateful that I have time to myself and the chance to see myself as a strong and independent woman.

The week M was away, I stayed focused on enduring his absence. I was proud I asked for help from my sponsor, even though I only know her online. I also I placed some of my emotional burden gently on the whole online group that I’ve been a part of for a number of years.

But because I was still looking for support outside of myself, I’d planted an almost imperceptible seed of doubt in my psyche, that unwittingly set me up for a fall. I was both grateful and ashamed (in the end) that my support team put me first, ahead of a troublesome newcomer to that forum. Guilt would come later, for the feeling of inappropriateness I would have in witnessing the group that I sometimes help oversee, come to my aid in my time of need. My need for the loop to function in my favor while my husband was out of town, ALSO kept me from finding peace in a more traditional spirituality that week , in keeping with the spiritual story of my forbears, whose tipping point is Good Friday. Guilt would come from that lapse in focus.

Early that week my husband was away, I encountered that newcomer to our recovery group online, a man from Australia who at the very least was a case of narcissism. He came in like a blast of brash wind, all ready to be the center of our recovery group’s attention. At first I welcomed him the same way I had learned to welcome any newcomer, and was concerned that HE could be vulnerable. This very newcomer would sabotage ME by week’s end.

He first fell in love with our group, only later to rear up at me when gently challenged to use our 12-step principles. I immediately found myself objecting to his need to take more time than anyone I had ever encountered. My unsaid reaction was, “I don’t have time for this. I need this group for mutual support. I want to interact with newcomers who at least start out being humble. ” He left the recovery forum even as I refrained from feeding his ego. Later, I had a change of heart and sent him a copy of my public share, in an attempt to befriend him and show him I too had vulnerabilities. That is when he blasted me in the most strident way possible.

He went on to over-empathize my situation., pathologizing me as a temporary single mom, trying to win me over in a way that felt phony. I was told by my sponsor NOT to correspond further with this man. I had to choose to literally sit on my hands as he advanced his efforts in befriending several of the people closest to me on loop, including my sponsor. He felt so much like a person with my mom's disorder, that I could no longer afford to share anything personal, for fear it would be used against me, by this virtual stranger.

Sure enough, he did end up misreading something I’d written in a public share. The last straw for me, was his offhanded comment that HE was the “opposite” of a BPD, and could understand our “clash” was due to the fact that I had the diagnosis. At the same time, I could not get the powers that be on loop to make a ruling that the man from Oz not be allowed back on loop. This was a transformative moment in my program, where I had a difficulty with the traditions.

It is my belief that the newcomer is only the most important person, IF they do not jeopardize the unity of the group. Unity is not represented by my opinion, no matter how good my intuition is. Further, and more importantly, I think I found out that an online forum can never function as a face-to-face group.

I kept sight of my strengths, even as I faced my fear that this person might not be in Oz after all, but might stalk me. This took me close to paranoia, but again, I successfully side-stepped that.

Still, I decided mid-week to feel like a part of my family back west and gave my mom a call. Acting as if she were the kind of mom I COULD call while my husband was away? Or thinking I was ready to move ahead in boundary setting with her. Instead I was zapped by her too. As soon as she realized it was me on the phone she said, “Oh have you called to get some gossip?” I was so insulted, allowing her words, to join the Oz's in my head. Perhaps two “BPD-types” were too much for me NOT to take personally. Still, the coincidence of being so deeply affected by cracked pots, has made me wonder just why I give up my power and discernment to folks like this, with their unique and fractured mirrors.

My husband came home the night after I talked to my mom. I can still see myself relaxed at our dining room table, drinking a glass of red wine at dinner. In my usual optimistic way, I was looking ahead to address the next trigger. Trying to minimize it already. Good Friday was the day our television was hit by lightning when I was eight years old. Only this year, putting memories of childhood in final perspective, did I imagine how an eight-year-old would take such a judgment from their mom. I was glad to find laughter, when I saw how absurd it was to blame a young child for not unplugging the television. Especially when lightning was so rare for the Pacific Northwest.

That was the night before the man from OZ was permitted back on our forum. (I’d already told the powers that be that he was a clear threat to our group and the work we do on loop as individuals.)

Sure enough, when he popped back in on Good Friday afternoon, the man from Oz looked just like a predator to me, sharing with us publicly that he had fallen in love with someone online. When he mentioned the name of a "new" friend who lived in my same hometown, I hit my wall of tolerance. I spoke up about my fears to my online friends, inadvertently sending my private comments directly to Oz. He blasted me so hard, I couldn’t read his words. My husband did instead. It was no relief really that my husband corroborated my feelings, that this man, even in an email, felt like a snake in the grass.

Whatever optimism I had coming into Holy Week, was like smoke as we waited for the tornado watch to end that Friday night. I was in my guilt now and fear was in my core.