My guest poster, Gavin, the author of A Discovering Alcoholic, wrote about the psycho sign. He calls it the "type of behavior that is essentially a form of harm reduction and fatalistic enablement." When every day you wait for a bad thing to happen, a call from jail, a broken door, a barrage of nasty words, or a black eye, you learn to protect yourself by anticipating the bad in advance. By expecting it, you insulate yourself from the shock and emotional heartache that will come.
I’ve been thinking about his post for a couple of days now and realize that even though it has been two years since my alcoholic husband left, I am still suffering the side effects of living with his addiction. I am in a wonderful relationship with a man right now. We are open and honest with each other, have lots of fun, talk every day, support each other, and it is a very healthy relationship. Yet every day, I keep watching and waiting for it to go bad. I look for signs that he is not who he says he is, or that he will change and start saying hateful things to me. This watching and waiting makes no logical sense, yet I still do it.
I try to keep those irrational "this is going to go bad" thoughts away by squashing them into a dark cave inside my mind, but they keep popping up. I know they will cause the very thing I fear if I try to hold on too tight or try to keep the bad thing I am waiting from happening.
I am really trying to live each day as it comes and to enjoy what I have right now, today. But I know I am just trying, not succeeding. I spent so many years trying to keep the bad stuff from hurting me by anticipating it in advance, that now I can’t seem to accept the fact that life is good and could possibly be good for a long time.
How do I stop these thoughts, even though I know they are going to cause damage? How do I let the past go before it is too late?
