I have made some seriously poor decisions in my life believing that because I am strong-willed and a very capable and self-reliant person, I can master or conquer anything―even my relationships and myself. I should know better.  As I go through this process of recovery, however, I have begun to recognize just how broken I am and how unmanageable my life had become.  I need to simply accept that I have no control. No control over people, no control over outcomes, no control over life circumstances. Why is this concept and reality so blasted hard for me to grasp?

Truly, I am a cracked pot.

One minute I feel like I’m making progress and the next minute I feel like I’m getting no where. I know I am supposed to be gentle with myself and accepting of my digressions. I do see evidence of improvement. I am not as bad as I have been in the past. But some of my obsessiveness is still there. I do worry an awful lot about things I cannot control.  Last night for example I fretted about what could happen to my 13 year old son if I put him on a school bus to attend summer camp. My thoughts were a random mess of unnecessary worry:

What if something happens on the ride there? What if he’s scared to be by himself without other kids he knows? What if someone tried to convince him to go off with him/her in a car? How would I know? Should I get him a cell phone?

Then I started obsessing about my youngest son and the pool.

Yesterday, we went to the pool to swim and my neighbor, who is also my babysitter went with us. She’s soon to be 15. She took my 4 year-old over to an area of the pool that was slightly over his head. She put him down and the water went over his head. He was under for all of a few seconds. He was upset, but not overcome and not gasping for air. I was fine when she first told me about it. But as I was lying in bad last night, I started to chastise myself for not being more watchful.

I should not have been reading a magazine. I should be right there beside my kids at all times. How could you live with yourself if something happened to him? That’s all it takes. A few seconds of looking away and something dreadful happens. You don’t take enough time to enjoy your kids. There is time enough to read magazines, but not while your kids are swimming!

Then I moved on to my daughter and how beautiful she is and how someone might try to abduct her or assault her. Then the thoughts changed to how alike we are and how her independent spirit and self-reliance pushes my buttons and results in our butting heads. Which in turn, led me to remebering how misunderstood and alone I felt as a child and how I don’t want that for her. The conclusion was:

I need to be tolerant and more loving toward her and remind her more frequently how special she is and what her gifts are so she will grow up feeling less lost than I did.

On and on it went. I laid there for over an hour and berated myself. Had sleep not overcome me, I would still be there needling myself. How sadistic is that? I need to be less critical and more loving toward myself but I don’t know how. Let me rephrase that. I know how, I just don’t do it.

I have read you learn self-love through positive affirmation. You tell yourself what you need to hear. In essence, you become your own cheerleader and life coach.  That is so hard to do though when I feel like I should have already mastered my faults. How do you coach yourself when the norm for you is to be a perfectionist?  I feel like I shouldn’t have to tell myself how great and wonderful I am because I should already believe it by now.

Do you know what I mean? 

Recovery sucks! It sucks and it’s hard!