ANGRISH 101

Last weekend I was in an emotionally fragile state, when my husband abruptly changed our much-anticipated (at least for me) Saturday plans.  It was five minutes before we were supposed to leave, and he decided to do something that he felt obligated to do, for people that are minimally connected to our lives.  The timing was such that we couldn't do both.

If I were a normal person in a normal marriage, I suppose I could have "rolled with it."  But, I ain't in no normal marriage.  It brought back memories of the flakey and checked-out husband I lived with for years, who did what felt good to him, regardless of how it affected our family.  I cannot live like that now.  I need security and constancy.  This is part of building trust in our marriage.

I was indignant, far beyond what I knew was reasonable for the situation.  Since the major trauma 13 months ago, my brain has a very short fuse.  From what I've read, this is part of the trauma response.  I seem to go from 0 to 300 amu's (anger management units) in a matter of seconds.   My emotions are on a hair trigger.

Not only does my anger flare more quickly now, it also reaches far deeper.  The anger spans out to that deep place where it meets the pain.  It's like the trauma gouged out a canyon of pain inside me, and the anger crashes in like a river to fill it up.

This anger and anguish blend together into one suffering concoction that I call Angrish.   I know  anger is a secondary emotion, and I use it like a salve to medicate my anguish.  I wish it were a more effective medicine.

On Saturday, after I had soaked in my anger for several hours, I surrendered it to God, another person and a sticky note in my surrender bag.  That surrender process is a living, breathing thing, and it works.  With the anger out of the way, I broke down and cried like a baby for hours.  It felt sort of good to let go and be sad.  I know I am still grieving.

I am working my recovery every day, and I am learning to accept my feelings as they come.  My angrish cannot be glossed over or forced away or ignored.  These are my honest feelings, and they need my attention before I can be done with them, and they can ride off into the sunset.







Next post I will share an idea about handling tough emotions from a Vietnamese Buddhist monk.  He treats his anger like a baby, and it's brilliant.  Stay tuned.

I Missed Him More When He Was A Jerk

My husband is out of town for a few days.  It has taken me a while to pinpoint how I feel about that and why.  Here it is:

I don't miss him.

I don't have negative feelings toward him right now, which is huge.  I have mostly indifference, with a slight positive lean.  I feel peace and relief that he is several states away.  And I do not miss him.  I missed him more when he was a jerk active addict.  (I did not know about sex addiction until his disclosure.  He allowed me to blame it all on depression.)

I recognize some buried expectations inside me:  that I should feel warmer and more loving toward him than I do.   Recovery is changing him into a really nice guy, who seems to genuinely appreciate who I am.  I am grateful he is different, and that he has been consistently different for some time now.  (I feel like if I come out and say exactly how long, it will invoke some sort of curse and kill the whole thing.)

I can also hear the voices of invisible people, including my own mom, saying, "Look how well he is doing, Wildflower!  It's been a while, and you need to get over it."  I will point out that my mom has NOT actually said that, but I feel her general opinions embedded in my psyche.  I know it's not fair to script her like that.

So he is doing well, and it has been a while, and I am grateful to God for making it happen.  When I think about it, I really am so grateful.  But, living with a recovering addict is like learning to live in a foreign country.  It takes time and patience and tolerance.  There is still pain, both old and new.

I am taking my own sweet time in recovery.  I have decided not to shame myself for that.  God doesn't  expect me to run faster than I have strength, in this, as well as in other aspects of my life.

My counselor talks about the analogy of the World Trade Center.  It's like I was in the bombing on 9/11.  Now my office is rebuilt, and I am being asked to go back to work.  But, I can't seem to cross the threshold.  I am looking through the window, and the new decor looks like it could be my style.  I like the colors and the plants are thriving, but I turn around decide to work from home a little longer.

It takes as long as it takes.  Did that come from Rhyll's book?  It takes as long as it takes.

In the book, Out of The Ashes - An LDS Guide To Helping A Betrayed Spouse Heal In The Aftermath Of Sexual Sin, Ruth Davidson says this, "The damage done to innocent parties is far-reaching and is often passed down intergenerationally.  It is a sin difficult to overcome, encompassing a life-changing process that takes years.  Mark Butler [a counselor and author] feels that, in his experience, it takes an average of ten years to heal relationships marred by sexual sin."

There is no fast track to healing from this.  There are no shortcuts.  I am where I am.  I is what I is. :)

If I Love Life, Will Life Love Me Back?

The other day I walked into Old Navy and saw a t-shirt that said, "Love Life and Life Will Love You Back."

I did a little laugh-scoff under my breath.  Pffffff.  I squinted my eyes and thought, "So, if I just love life, it will love me back?  So....that's what I need to do?  Thank you, O wise Old Navy."  I considered buying it to wear as a joke.

If only it were that simple.

The truth is: I could love life with all my heart and life may not love me back.  By this I mean that I could embrace life with love and positive energy and hugs, and life may still bring me cancer, addiction, premature death, depression, chronically ill children, sexual abuse, herpes, bankruptcy, malaria, chronic fatigue syndrome, you name it.  


Loving life sounds like a great idea.  I'm on board with that in theory.  What troubles me, however, is loving my own life.

Before I can love my life, I have to accept it.  This includes accepting some radical new ideas.  These are a few examples:

**I do not trust my husband, but I can still live with him if he is working recovery.
**My relatively straight path and my prayerful choices in life's big decisions have not spared me from excruciating heartache.
**Sex addiction, in some form, will be a part of my life forever.
**My job is to be in charge of myself and let others run their own lives.

Last fall I heard a woman, I'll call her Angelica :), a wife of an addict, who had been in recovery for years, share her story.  She said a turning point in her recovery came when she knew that she was exactly where God wanted her to be.  Now that sounds like acceptance.  She accepted that God was in charge, and there was meaning to her suffering.

Months ago, when I heard her say this, I thought to myself, "There is NO way God wants me to be where I am.  I am so miserable.  I don't deserve this.  My husband has screwed up my life."

But as time passes, and my faith grows, I find myself inching closer to that view.  Am I exactly where God wants me to be?  I don't feel that for certain.

I CAN say this though, "What I got is what I got, and I know God knows about it."

I'd like to see Old Navy print that on a t-shirt.

Acceptanceland

When my husband disclosed that he was addicted to porn and masturbation, that he hadn't stopped in 1998 like he had insisted for 14 years; I knew in that moment two things.

1.  That my life would never be the same.

2.  That at some point,  for me to feel consistently peaceful and happy,  I would need to forgive him.

Those two things would stand whether or not I left the marriage.

It would be months before I knew the extent of his betrayal to me.  It was porn and masturbation and beyond.  His addiction had raged for almost 3 decades, and his brain was as sick as a dog.  His behavior had escalated to inappropriate relationships with women, some fantasy and some not.  He had lied his way to some pretty impressive church callings.  He had played dumb when our son's addiction became apparent.  He had manipulated me with lies since I had known him.

Before his disclosure, my old life was no picnic.  But it was my life, and I was used to it.  My husband has had chronic depression since childhood.  After his first disclosure of sex addiction and quick "recovery" in 1998, which I wholeheartedly believed, I chalked up all the addict behaviors to mental illness.  So he was withdrawn, disconnected, resentful and unpredictable, but hey, wasn't everyone like that?  I was no picnic of a wife, either.

Despite all of that, I still carry grief about my life never being the same.  I am working my way to acceptance, but sometimes I show up in a black dress at the grave of my old life.  I mourn my carefreeness and my easy laughter.  I mourn the loss of love and respect for my husband.  I mourn my old brain.  My thoughts were free to wander as they pleased, unsupervised.   Now my whole recovery and life revolve around God and me keeping a clamp on my wild and horrible thoughts.

Every day I teeter between rage, depression and acceptance.  I have been playing the game of Candyland for years with my kids.  I picture that in my recovery, I am playing a similar game called Acceptanceland.  The destination is a peaceful place with fluffy clouds, a green meadow and a few wildflowers :).

I wake up some mornings and I am there.  I think accepting thoughts like, "You are going to be OK.  This is the life you have, and it's OK.  This is not want you wanted, but God has not left you alone in this.  Trust that He will be with you all the way.  You can have a better life than before.  You can be happy again.  You can do this today."

When I am in Acceptanceland I taste peace and I want more.  I feel a new and full love from my husband, regardless of what emotion or affection I choose to share.  There is a calm and spirit in our home that has never been there before.  I feel gratitude for the life I have.

Acceptanceland is my own creation, so I sort through the cards.  I take out the rage and depression cards and put them at the bottom of the stack.