POA With a Difference.

[primrose]

This is about a Place of Addiction rather than a person. Or maybe me being addicted to many people.

I've been back at my old firm for almost a month now. When I was there 3 years ago I was so unhappy. I had to force myself to go to work every day. I felt utterly miserable. The set up there was that everyone was terrified of the then Manager. He was a rageaholic and all the men were afraid of his mood swings and irrational behaviour. He'd scapegoated me and begun a campaign of abusing me behind my back many months before until finally he began abusing me to my face and I found myself isolated. None of the other men tried to stop him raging at me, they melted away when it began to happen. And I didn't know how to cope. I was so unhappy. It took me time but eventually I found another studio and I left and set up my business again. I left behind our mutual clients and started afresh. It was very painful that experience, and I never did get a real reason why the Manager turned on me. He did it to everyone, he is a very damaged narcissist, so really that's the only answer there is, but I felt deeply wounded to have been turned on so cruelly and I wanted to understand why.

Of course, that need to know is a childhood projection. It's part of my desire to chase my unavailable mother and father. Me trying to work out why my parents couldn't love me and be available to me the way I wanted them to be. When I'm unconsciously playing that out I go down very unhealthy paths.

In 2005 the Manager of my old firm really turned on me, and it took me 2 years to leave. I felt broken by that experience. Really, that experience was my rock bottom around my love addiction. I felt betrayed by everyone I'd worked with for years. To see grown men run out of a room when I was being screamed at by a vicious bully, didn't make me feel any respect for anyone. I felt totally humiliated and furious. I was full of rage about it.

So this last month I have been working with those same men again. The new manager wants me to move back there. The old manager is now just on the bench as he was demoted. And what has changed? Well. Mostly I've seen what I need to change.

I've been trying to resolve things there. And the truth is, I can't. I just can't do it. I can't get anyone else to change. I have tried to have meetings to resolve the bad feeling. It hasn't worked. And I've given up trying now. I realised this weekend that I am trying to get my family to sit down and sort out my childhood. And they won't do it. And why should they really? Why should addicts with no programme be willing to sit down and sort out the mess they made and resolve it? I'm asking people who are terrified of honest communication to do something they are really afraid of. So I've given up trying.

And that feels good. I will never get a straight answer about what happened to me when I worked at that firm. I will never know. Probably the old Manager was, or still is, addicted to me. But I will never know. And really, my child self may never completely come to terms with why her parents couldn't love her, but what I can do is catch myself when I start driving to find out why. That obsessive questing behaviour that I have is my unhappy child determined to work it all out and make it right this time. And I can't let that rule my behaviour in the workplace.

So I've backed off at my old firm. I'm not going to try and fix anything. And it is amazing what a difference that has made. My energy isn't going into resolution now. It's let me look at things more clearly. I guess the child-self just wants to fix the family so badly because that is all she has, but clearly my old firm isn't all I have. I can look at other firms for help with my work and I can change my mind. There is such a rigidity in obsessively trying to make something work. "This is the ONLY man in the world, this is the ONLY studio". Well that isn't true at all. I see that the searching questing behaviour I have, gives me tunnel vision. My focus gets smaller and smaller and I begin to feel that I must rely on this person\place to get answers. That isn't true. The answers can't come from other people. Especially people who are in active addiction.

So I feel quite content today. I don't know what I'll do about my old firm, but I feel more of a shift in myself. And that is all I can have really. And I'm content, for now, with that. I doubt I've put my will to rest, it is very strong and drives me to have control a lot, but at least I'm catching it quite quickly these days. P.

[iwillsurvive]

Awesome realizations prim! Never thought that searching/questing behavior was about the child trying to find out why her parents didn't love her the way she needed to be loved. Since children take things on as if it were about them, I'm guessing the child thought she must have done something or had some defect that brought on her parents' treatment.

From where I sit, I can't say why your old manager scapegoated you but I am confident it was about him and his unresolved issues and not you. Also, that your parents treated you as they did because of their own unresolved issues and it had nothing to do with you.

I had a manager who scapegoated me at the last company I worked for before I was diagnosed with cancer. She despised me and I was miserable but I stayed for two years. I think her attitude toward me was about her, but it triggered my shame and rejection issues and I began to act in defensive and "victimy" ways. Then I became mad at myself for reacting that way and I took on more shame and rejection from myself. I was scapegoated by my dad so I think my old boss triggered that stuff and I got caught up in a reactive and self-defeating cycle. I am working on learning not to take on other people's stuff and to instead recognize it as theirs and not take it personally. Besides, I have my hands full with my own issues.

Thanks for your post on this topic. Very helpful in sorting out my own situation in a work environment. I like your realization that "this is the ONLY man in the world, this is the ONLY studio." Of course, as children we were in the ONLY family we had in the world. For me, I felt trapped. Good to know we're adults now and not stuck in that system. We can find a new man or a new job. Also makes sense why I had a similar dynamic with a couple other bosses.

Glad you're feeling content today prim. Sounds like you deserve that place of peace after wrestling with your childhood issues.

[primrose]

IWS, am so sorry you went through that at work when you were also going through cancer, that must have been awful for you. I can understand you working on self-protection with people. I think that sounds very wise. I felt when I was bullied that any sense of being confident was stripped away from me. I had no idea how totally reliant I was on the good opinion of others. I'm glad I did find all of that out in recovery and lean how to heal it, but it was a very painful lesson!

Interestingly, since I let go of trying to resolve things at my old company lots of other things have happened and I feel lighter in myself. Even though some of the things are very difficult, somehow I feel better in myself. I just can't control much at all. I don't know why I forget that over and over P.

[iwillsurvive]

Thanks prim. I was actually diagnosed with cancer right after I left that job, but the cancer likely began to grow during that stressful period. I doubt it was a coincidence. I overdosed on rejection and abandonment stuff because my mom was dying from lung cancer and my husband had left me. My boss at the time reminded me of my dad in the way she treated me. I was triggered big time. I should have left at the first sign of that kind of treatment, but I stayed and hoped things would get better as she saw my ability to perform. Things did not get better -- only worse -- and she undermined my Web projects at every turn.

[lotus]

Doesn't it feel good to know that you're going to be all right, no matter what? That's what being a person in recovery feels like to me. "Situations" and "problems" have a lot less control over me now. I have so much more awareness now about the things going on around me, and I feel like I know how to deal with things in a healthy way.

[serenity]

Thank you for the reminder to accept our families for who they are Prim. I took away an invaluable piece of advice from my therapist which was to stop expecting them to give me what I know they cannot. She taught me to stop hoping for them to be different. This idea of ‘giving up the hope’ is such a powerful one when you get your head around it and I’m still getting my head around it.

It really helps to hear about your experience with it all and I know other will gain so much from these insights.

Its got me thinking though that I may find a father figure type or mother at my next job and that will be my new challenge!!

[iwillsurvive]

serenity wrote: "Its got me thinking though that I may find a father figure type or mother at my next job and that will be my new challenge!!"

Hi serenity. I'm wondering what you are hoping to achieve by finding a father figure or mother type at your next job. Would that help you to work on your issues with your parents? Just wondering.

[serenity]

I don't want to find one hon but after reading prim's description of her boss and how he is similar to her father or others like her mother i am starting to worry ahead of time- typical of my addict nature i'm afraid.

[primrose]

IWS, I think bullies sometimes move in for the kill when people are vulnerable. That certainly happened with me at work, and also with my POA. I can really understand your cancer growing when you were being bullied. I am quite amazed that didn't happen to me actually, although I guess I got a POA so I ended up destroying myself that way rather than physically.

Vee, I can understand your fear about finding another parent figure at work. I think from my own experience, that I do find that kind of thing until I learn how to do things differently. I'm still attracting that kind of person into my life, but now I'm not getting into a sexual relationship with them and I do have better boundaries. But I still have my patterns and still have a lot to learn. I learn most things in relationships with other people, it's just the way I am, so in a way I don't mind that I still project my parental stuff onto people. That way I can identify it and learn how to pull my projections back. P.

[iwillsurvive]

Prim, good point about bullies moving in when people are vulnerable. It is so instinctual really and gets back to our most primal behaviors. They smell fear the way aggressive dogs do and then they pounce. I like what you wrote to Vee too. It makes sense that we will attract people into our life who represent unfinished business. What I like is your acceptance of that as part of the setting for learning. I'm sure that happens to me and my first instinct is to get away from them (if they remind me of my dad) but in some ways learning not to react but to be proactive with these people is the way to come to acceptance and healing.

[primrose]

IWS, I'm never very sure about whether it's a good idea to walk away from being triggered or to stay and get to the bottom of it! I guess sometimes it's essential to walk away. I had to go NC with my POA, but if I hadn't got involved with him, I wouldn't have realised how horrendous my relationship with my father had been. I'd never have uncovered that deep longing and abandonment. Before I got involved with my POA it was locked up inside me and I couldn't access it. So I'm split on this issue. For sure I was acting out when I got involved with my POA, I was in active addiction, but also even then I think my unconscious was guiding me to healing and understanding. In understanding what it was like to be lied to and to lie, I made sense of the duplicity in my childhood. To be desired by a man who was so like my father, I made sense of the emotional incest I suffered. To see my own insatiable need for attention, I made sense of how my needs as a child weren't met. To be used as a toy and treated like a pretty pet, helped me make sense of how my authentic self was dismissed by my parents. To meet my POAs mistress and experience the toxicity of that triangle, made sense of the horror of being a pawn in my parents' battle for power with each other. I'm not sure I'd have ever understood any of that if I hadn't acted out in sex and love addiction. My sexual anorexia and avoidance kept me necessarily safe from all of those buried feelings for so many years. I think in a way, for my own healing, I had to come out of the nunnery and enter the brothel. I'm talking symbolically obviously I didn't want to live in the brothel, but my very short time there opened up the past and I think I needed that to happen.

So in a way I do accept that I'll be triggered by people and that whatever happens will be okay, because I can watch my triggers and learn from them. But I also realise that I can't be ruled by my desire to re-play the past and make it right this time. If I do that, I don't heal, I just recreate the trauma. How do I know which is which? I really don't know! I think it's to do with when I'm processing feelings I feel that I'm moving forward and I feel clearer because I move through experiences. When I'm stuck in obsessively recreating trauma I find that my life is unmanageable and I feel the stuck feeling and I don't feel good at all. Confusingly, sometimes I think I'm doing a bit of both - recreating trauma and healing it too. Mostly I trust that I really can't know fully what is happening to me, that my unconscious does and that that is what I can trust in as it's a better guide through my history than I am. Most of the time I understand very little P.