Fantasy Busting

[primrose]

Today I broke apart some fantasy and am happy about it. Fantasy is a huge part of my LA, and it is so bad for me. The more honest I am about it, the better. It is hard to reveal it to myself though.

What I wanted in my addiction was to be the mistress. The special one. The adored one. The one who is pampered and treated like a mistress-daughter. And I wanted that because I had that with my father when I was an adolescent. I ignored all the pain I was in with my father emotionally incesting me and concentrated on the attention and the gifts and the nice places we went to.

When I had an EMA I found a man who was older and could provide all of that should he want to. And I became completely addicted to his status and power. Things being delivered to me from half way round the world, calls from all sorts of different time zones, it all made me as high as a kite.

My POAs place in my city is in the very wealthiest area. And when I went to see him I took the little underground train. He and I could not have been from more different worlds. It was ridiculous. It was just fantasy of course. A very powerful one for me.

So much of my fantasy is about being "the special one" and also about my POA being special too. Someone unique. The richest man I ever met. The most intelligent man. The most powerful man etc etc. I am a co-power addict. I wanted to appropriate my POAs power. My therapist said to me I was both glamourised and degraded by my POA, and I think that's true. I wanted to absorb his essence and what he represented. Strangely, he seemed to want to do the same thing with me as he adopted some of my mannerisms and things I say.

Being special is such a draw for me. I crave it in my addiction so much, my narcissism is very intense around this issue. Being ordinary and accepting that I am simply a human being living a simple life is so hard for my ego. It's also wonderful for my recovery, so I embrace being ordinary, but my ego HATES it.

Today I made a part of the story with my POA ordinary. I had to make the journey that the last time I made, I made to see my POA. I was working right next to his place. Where he lived had such intensity for me. The name of the street, everything about it. Walking past there today I really didn't feel much at all. And having coffee somewhere he goes for breakfast meant very little too. And looking around that cafe, I saw lots of men like my POA. Because of my issues with my father I've always been a bit of a magnet for older men. I never acted out on it before my POA, but it was always there. Perhaps it still is, but it isn't a hook for me as much I think. I think energetically I'm less vulnerable to that fantasy of the daddy-god. I'm not giving of a mistress-daughter energy any more. Or if I am, it's greately reduced. I had a nice coffee, called my client to let him know the job was done, and got back on the underground. Reality. It's a bit ordinary, but it's good enough for me. P.

[serenity]

Thank you for sharing that honest window into your mind Prim. For me my grandiose thinking is heightened beyong belief when i have been ill with hypomania. I can be grandiose enough normally but in the times when i've been ill i felt like i was famous.

I would go to the well known high society places in london too and feel like i was a princess waiting to be adored by my rescuer. It didn't help that i had a best friend at the time who literally wanted to be famous and encouraged me to think this way.

In a later phase of hypomania i remember telling a priest i had gone to for help that my family are from the high end of society and all went to private schools apart from me as i refused to go. This is all true (my grandparents were from the higher end of society but my immediate family are like any other middle class people) but my need to be seen as special took me into some very ugly places with men because i wanted to prove i was somebody.

I behaved like a spoilt daddies girl thinking men would find this attractive, goodness knows why. The fantasy of being a daddies girl was the biggest factor here for me, i desperately wanted to be seen as this type of girl. I think i wanted to be protected by the idea that daddy will always take care of me no matter what and i needed to believe he was able to take care of me financially as that was the ultimate status to have a rich father for me.

My father isn't rich, his father was and my dad would like to be but he will never be, he's had a very comfortable life with some of the finer things and i think he lives in longing for more. Sadly he doesn't have any love for himself and is a very sad man at heart, i think he has a constant depressive mood as at home he is never ever happy and work is his life.

My therapy this week was all about accepting my father for who he is but I have to be willing to go there. I have been thinking about the men in my family and both my grandfathers apparently had affairs, so did my dads brother and it makes me wonder if my father has too.

The thing is even if he has thats his life and it is not a reflection of me and once i can truly feel this i can learn to accept him for who he is, stop living in a fantasy about him and re-learn what qualities i want in a man.

[admin]

Thanks for sharing that story Phoenix. Wonderful post!

[admin]

This was posted by Greta:


Yours too Vee! I hadn't realised what a fab writer you were. Wow girls, what a thread!!!

[recovery1st]

Great Posts.

For me the He/We was what I chased & held on to. It was beautiful in my head. If I thought it out long enough it eased my fears & pain of the day. In fact, it was so beautiful that it out weighed reality...if I faced reality, I'd have to let go & that could not be tolerated...by my fear of being alone.

I'm learning that the only relationship I should have with another person should be based on what happens in real life. What's in front of me, acceptance of what is. Because of that things can only be better...or at least that can be real.

I'm thankful.

[primrose]

Wow, what incredible posts. Thank you so much for writing about your experiences. It helps me so much to read how similar this addiction can be. I So relate to wanting to be a daddy's girl Vee, and not looking at a father realistically. My mother told me I cherry picked my father's personality when I was a child and she was so right.

And Pheonix, I relate so much too to the dull grey world your mother lived in. I hated my mother's world, my father's world was dangerous, but I felt alive there. And I looked at my mother as a child and though "I will never ever be you". Then years later when I met my POAs mistress I said to him "I will never ever be her". And of course I AM my mother, I WAS the mistress. I never ever wanted to be the kind of women who waited for a call that never came on Christmas Day either. I was her too. I also thought as a child "I will never ever be with a man like you" about my father. And of course my POA was exactly like my father.

I was very fond of "The Never Ever" now I use it sparingly

I'm due to start my step 4 in a work and money fellowship soon, where I'll be exploring working with my father as a child. It is the root of so much that early work relationship I had with him. It created so much of my sexual and emotional identity. I can't wait to unravel more of it. P.

[iwillsurvive]

OK, so what do you think it means when an earthquake hits while I'm writing a long reply to fantasy busting? Perhaps my HP thought it was better not to post? Anyway, the post disappeared as the room shook and the windows rattled -- along with my nerves. My dog even barked and he doesn't do that unless a deer or other critter shows up in the backyard. We're fine, of course. It's So Cal. We have earthquakes. This one was 5.7 but we were totally rocking and rolling. Maybe I'll post on this later or maybe not.

[primrose]

Don't know what it means, but phew! Very dramatic! P.

[Bluejay]

Primrose, Serenity, Phoenix, thanks ladies for the very interesting and honest postings. It was good to hear your stories and see what you are facing. What progress you all have made. That came thru a lot of hard work and time, but it very encouraging to read about.

Fantasy busting is so important. I had to destroy mine on two levels. First was to stop seeing my POA as a perfect person and someone I wanted to be like... someone so confident, strong, unemotional, fun, balanced, sexy, attractive, the center of things. Second was to stop seeing her as my soul-mate best friend who would love me and accept me... someone who could also take away all the pain of past personal rejection... someone who could complete me in every way.

It took a long time to stop worshiping her and treating her like my higher power. Now I do see her as a mere mortal. She is actually someone who is in a very difficult marriage to an alcoholic man, so she's got some huge struggles in her life. He doesn't treat her well and there are big money problems too. She isn't really the center of things either, like I thought (my inner child longed to be liked by "popular girl") but she does have a very close best friend. I used to be envious of their tight bond, but now I see that she and her best friend shut everyone else out. They come and go together, unable to function well apart, and are always in each others shadows. I used to want that too, but now I see that it is holding them back from connecting with others and having a healthy life. The confident and strength she had was a facade. She wanted to appear perfect and normal and healthy, but it was a mask to cover up for her challenging life on the home front. It was just in my mind that she was "perfect". Now that the fantasy is gone, I can see she is just a person, flaws and all that.

I, in turn, have also learned that one person doesn't have the power to complete me. One person can't take away the pain from the past and make the future all rosy. That falls mainly on my shoulders. I now want the people in my life to complement or enhance me, but not someone who completes me! Fantasies are busting all around, but there is still more work to be done.

[Bluejay]

Thanks Phoenix for the kind words! Keep up your own great works. I enjoy learning for you and the other members of the board too!

Yes, my POA and her best friend have something weird between them. When I was close to my POA, I called their friendship an unhealthy mutual co-dependency and my POA agreed but said that she didn't want to change it (she told me her best friend was "the ghost that is always beside me even when she isn't there"). They have their own issues, similar but different, from my own issues with them!

[sexlessw]

This is a really interesting post - I'm getting to "know" you all better. Heck, wish I had Phoenix where I live to help me with my house (de)construction. Less said about that the better.

I wish I could add to this topic, but I cannot. It is outside of my "past" life experiences - oddly enough.