Has anyone ever sorted out a completely, utterly, fucked up life?

[WindfallenArch]

I've no job, no friends, a disastrous marriage, no money, family all dead. I have two tween kids who used to make it all worthwhile, but now look at me with contempt and have no interest in being in the same room as me let alone doing something together. I'm a 42 year old fat alcoholic and I'm utterly pointless. I drag myself sadly through each day and I see no joy in anything at all. It hurts in my heart all the time I'm awake.
Has anyone ever sorted themselves out after fucking up everything they touched?

Sorry for the self pity. Today is particularly excruciating.

I was self pitying for months on the way down - I am just another alcoholic Wind honestly. And my adjustment, if you like, is due to a mixture of time, therapy, and mostly God-given because I could never have got here by myself. I don't want to 'go on' about God but if you can find some kind of spiritual openness to getting well, I have seen it is really helpful.

We don't learn not to wail and self-pity overnight either so be kind towards yourself, and with baby steps you'll pull out of this.

Have you heard of mindfulness? I have found it to be quite helpful.

alcoholrehab.com/addiction-recovery/mindfulness-meditation-in-recovery/

room I have every bloomin' book in the shop on mindfulness - literally every Jon Kabat Zinn book and x amount more. Can I get my arse on the cushion? Can I hell. I'm convinced it would be useful if I could make myself do it but I find it so excruciating I fail to do it. Same with running. I know it would help but I can't motivate myself. I suspect if I can kick the booze I'll be so crushingly bored I'll have to try it, so thank you. Actually I should probably do it this afternoon. Drat. I'm going to have to stop procrastinating.

I know a girl who owed thousands had lost her job and had a serious drug habit. She is now back on her feet wit an awesome life, lovely home, married to her soulmate; doing a job she loves, kicked drugs and has managed to heal her life and friendships.

Hi helena oh I hope I can do that. I really do. I'm glad she's happy.

She threw herself into everything good, walking, mindfulness, working, reading, cleaning, cooking, self forgiveness and hanging out with friends and family. I was with her when she met her man. They are so good for each other.

@windfallenarch I would have thought all your comments were written by my mum - if she hadn't passed away in January. I promise you irrespective of how your children look at you, they love you dearly. I know it doesn't feel that way, but I can say whilst I didn't have much respect for my mum, the way she treated us etc I loved her and miss her every day. If you turn it around, those looks of contempt will be pride, I am sure of it.

hello carnation - it is your sort of post that I dreaded most when I came here looking for stories, but also what I need to hear most. Can you talk about it more? what do you remember? how did you see her? Did she stop? Did she do nice things? I love my kids with all my heart, but I'm letting them down all the same.

I do so very much want to do better than my mum did - she was by turns brutally violent or neglectful, but she wasn't an alcoholic. I promised myself I would do better but I might even have done worse. So I can't chime with your experience - I was terrified of my mother and she still hurts me now. She is my only living relative and aged 42 she still has the capacity to reduce me to rubble.

For what it's worth, and if anyone cares, it was this that sent me crashing over the edge from reasonable person that's should probably drink less to sniveling drunk.

I was Wealden on this thread

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/2099680-Please-help-me-difficult-childhood-mother-and-my-brothers-death?pg=1

Windfallen, my mum was abusive when drunk but an amazing woman when sober and it saddened me to the core to watch her not fulfil her potential. I apparently am the spitting image of her. In regards to what I remember, my dad was physically, emotionally and financially abusive to her and I had to watch that eat away at her self esteem and further to drink, and wonder all the time why I wasn't good enough for mummy to stop drinking for me. You seem quite similar in your intelligence, my mum had a lot of potential but didn't see herself worthy. Unfortunately my mum wasn't strong enough to get help but I hope with support you can. I really hope you can turn this around. For your children, there is a charity called NACOA (National Association for Children of Alcoholics) which might help them to work through issues which stems from having a parent with an alcohol addiction. Even though they might not explicitly realise you were drunk when they were younger, they will one day and may blame themselves for not seeing sooner and doing something. My mum would regularly embarrass myself and my sister, urinating and being naked in front of friends when we had them over, urinating in pans, being verbally and physically abusive. I have faith in you that you can turn it around. You can always PM me if need be xxx

Sorry I didn't answer your two questions - unfortunately after trying to attack my sister with a knife, she ended up in a women's refuge and ultimately in her own flat where she drank herself to death. I am 21 and watching my mum die in ICU was the hardest thing I've ever had to do, and hope will ever have to do. I love her still. Despite everything and would do anything in my power to get her to stop if I had my time again - but unfortunately nothing in my power would do - the power is only in the hands of the addict. I wish someone would have said this to my mum before she died.

Dear God carnation - that's definitely not where I am going. Poor you. How on earth can you find the love in your heart to be so forgiving of that I cannot imagine. You are clearly a deeply kind spirit.

"wonder all the time why I wasn't good enough for mummy to stop drinking for me" is going to haunt me. This is, at this stage. a good thing. Thank you.

Wow carnation. Just wow. Your maturity shines through in every word.

What is your own attitude to alcohol? I have no idea how to broach the subject, not that I have the right to at the moment. But this thread might well prevent my beautiful girls posting as you did in 10 years time. If you are correct and I am very like your mother, then I can confidently say it had absolutely nothing to do with you, more sometimes, in a twisted way, she will have convinced herself that she is so unhappy and uptight, that she was doing it to parent you better. If she was anything like me she loved her children with all her heart and hated herself enough to damage her most precious gifts. she loved you, I am sure.

Me. Therapy was the only thing that helps. You have to go back to why you need to numb yourself or mood alter with drink. Why you can't sit with yourself sober. You have to access group therpay for the alcoholism and 1 to 1 therapy for your depression and low self esteem. It's not doable without it and you deserve a life. Think of your child self - would you deny her the chance to feel better about herself? Because she is within you and needs you to get the help you need.

Did you get legal advice from a solicitor on your unmarried brother's intestacy? I think if someone dies without a will in England but has a parent alive or parents then the parents inherit equally. if there are no parents then it would go to a sister but some people put pension fund or life insurance monies in trust for a sibling so for those assets they might well go to a sibling.

Me2017 - I really didn't need it - I didn't want any money. What sent me into a tail spin is that my brother was in hospital, dying and my mother didn't call to tell me so I could say goodbye. Fast forward a year, despite the fact that I had tried to forgive that, she had been trying to deliberately hide the fact that he had left me money so that I couldn't receive it. The pensions company had to track me down as she wouldn't tell them my address. I was floored by his death, I didn't give two hoots about the money and still don't. The reason it is relevant is that, to my mother at least, the money represented approval.

She is my only living relative and I still long for her to not hate me enough to do the things she does. There are many more. I was very very restrained on that thread - I didn't want to derail the actual matter in hand, namely I wanted to do the wholly morally correct thing with the money and for my dead brother. I felt I could be letting him down either by taking it, or also by rejecting it, and it was the last thing I could do to say sorry to him to be sure of the right thing to do. I loved my brother.

He was in hospital with liver disease from his own severe alcoholism when he died. He contracted MRSA that did him in, but it was the alcohol that took him there.

Both our childhoods were significantly worse than that thread could handle so I left it out. He got less of the flack, and was better at rolling with the punches. and stayed at home longer too so found a way to relate as an adult. He had his fair share. I miss him

Oh, Windfallen

"She is my only living relative and I still long for her to not hate me enough to do the things she does."

Whether or not she hates you or simply does the things she does for her own twisted reasons not related to her feeling to you, who knows?!
Please consider accessing therapy to get to the root of why you are sabotaging yourself with alcohol, over and over again. Finding a way to untease you and your feelings from your childhood experiences, your mother's behaviour, your brother's death etc etc might just give you the tools to make different choices for yourself.

If nothing changes, nothing changes.
So true - I love that and will steal it for future use.

Of you miss your brother - you always will
Could you see turning your life around as a way of honouring his memory and his struggles?

Oh, and wrt self-pity: IMO it has it's place.

Do feel sorry for the child who had a rubbish upbringing.
Feel sorry for the adult that you have been who maybe could have had a better life.
Feel sorry for how hard it is to make changes.

I think that is kind of a bit of empathy with yourself IYSWIM.

But then stop wallowing in self-pity - you've acknowledged that lots of things are crap and unfair and were hoisted upon you.
But then let all that go and take control, become the Master of your Own Destiny : move forward, make a little positive change. And then another one. It can be a tiny thing, like picking up the clothes on the floor or is that just me? or tidy the dishes away. Get your hair cut. Throw out all the pants with a dodgy elastic. Water your houseplants. Something. Anything. And tomorrow you'll do it again.

I am feeling sorry for the girl in you, and I am proud of the adult trying to make it all better

Wind, I've just read your old thread about your brother's death. I'm so sorry, it all sounds hideously awful.

What stood out to me though is that your mum sounds like she has a really cruel streak which you have you not carried on and inflicted on your own DC. You sound kind and caring and loving when you talk about your children. The fact that it tortures you worrying about the effect that your drinking may have on them is actually testimony to that.

Yes, there will things for them to work through after growing up with an alcoholic parent. But that's not the same as growing up with a cruel and vindictive parent - and you've broken that mean cycle. Not repeating your parent's mistakes is a huge accomplishment.

Given your past it's no wonder that you have a different crutch (alcohol), but don't beat yourself up about the past or try and predict how it will negatively effect your girls in the future. Watching you fight through this will be an amazing example to them at challenging your demons and coming through to the other side.

pacific thank you SO much for replying. My sorry little sob story must be like wading through treacle, but you have no bloody idea how much you and people like you are helping one little sad sack of wine and misery in the bottom right hand corner of the country.

As I said upthread, my silly existence reads like a bad soap opera - honestly if I hadn't lived through it all I'd think I was making it up. I sometimes imagine how the East Enders team decide if someone's life has just got too unfeasably unlucky and over dramatic and decide to kill them off. I'm due a black taxi out of the square. Short of alien abduction I've done it or had it done to me, while simultaneously having an incredibly small and pointless existence.

My gratitude journal is quite a slim volume.

Despite all that, the kids start to pull away is the most painful thing of all. To them I was special and it was ok. Now I've got to figure it all out or my life really was a very very very bad script.

Oh - and on the self pity thing, yeah lots of bad stuff happened, but dear me - I've done awful things. Found out I was 5 weeks pregnant at 40 years old and I'd been on 200 units a week. I'd have loved that baby with all my heart, but no baby should have to be born disabled to an arsehole, so I drove myself to a clinic after work and killed my children's brother or sister and never told that poor wee baby ever existed.

Windfallen, I'm a similar age to you and was recently made redundant after years in a well paid job but one where I felt it wouldn't really matter if no one was there to do it. I'm sure someone else in that same job may well have thought that they were changing the world but the difference is I'd kind of drifted into it too and it wasn't really right for me. I didn't leave for a variety of reasons but I spent a long time not feeling very satisfied.

I did come away from the job with an understanding of what I'm actually good at and the okay pay from before means I have a bit of wriggle room to retrain in something that suits me better. I've never really known what that is though (another reason for staying in old job) so am looking at voluntary work, courses and went to a free conference the other day on something I might take further. I feel a lot better as not having something on the horizon makes me feel panicky, down and listless.

I've also given up drinking while on a course of antibiotics. I didn't drink excessive amounts and only on Friday and Saturday night but it was usually for the sake of something to do, not a great motive. I've been really surprised at how much better I feel. For the past year or so I've had frequent periods of abject bleakness but now, while I'm not exactly the life and soul, I just don't have the waves of desolation I had before.

Good luck.

That's really encouraging eddie. I wish you all the luck. It's strange - when I had a well paid job I genuinely didn't think about what I was doing next at all. I hope you find something that takes you to wonderful places.

How is your evening going so far Wind?

I'm having a thoroughly dreadful time tapering, drinking something that makes me retch while getting no kick back .... So really well considering :-) thanks for asking :-)