From: rdh@Veritas.COM (Robert Hartman)
Newsgroups: alt.recovery
Subject: Re: coping with being "just a friend"
Date: 8 Apr 92 16:53:38 GMT
Organization: VERITAS Software

In article <1473.29E13ABE@weyr.fidonet.org> Carl.Rosenberg@p4.f22.n140.z1.fidonet.org (Carl Rosenberg) writes:
>
>This weekend I had "just a friend" visit me for the weekend.  ...
> ...  Now just 4 hours after she has left I'm an emotional 
>basketcase - or so it seems.  It's not that I'm a basketcase it's just that I'm 
>feeling feelings that I'm afraid to acknowledge.  ...
>This weekend was wonderful and awful at the same time. ...  What was not so 
>great was that through our discussions I said more than I should to her.  
>For example, I shared some of my critisisms that I had of other people ...
>
>Now in my opinion there are two reasons why I should have kept my mouth shut:
>
>a) She is a friend, not a real soul-close friend, and we don't know each other 
>enough to be confiding on that level, In other words, she hasn't gained my 
>complete confidence  and 
>b) I'm still messed up by the fact the I have these actually quite negative 
>attitudes and I should be working on myself, not looking for fault in others.
>
>thus, I'm feeling disapointment in myself as well.
>
>The feelings I'm afraid to acknowledge is that of infatuation. I've gone through    
>this before, when I loose sight of the humanity of a woman and idolizer her and 
>all I want to do is marry her.

I've often thought that it isn't wasn't so much the pain that brought me to my
knees, it was the _contrast_ between feeling ashamed of myself while feeling
infatuated with someone else who's "wonderful."

When I'm in my shit and emotionally attached to someone "wonderful," everything
I say or do that isn't up to my most perfectionistic standards triggers my
deepest shame.  I beat myself to death over every little thing.  Half-the-time,
the other person doesn't even notice anything "wrong."  (Or if they notice
anything, it bothers them a whole lot less than it does me.)

What therapy has taught me is that when I'm stuck in my shame it's sometimes
hard for me to accept and own my own wonderful aspects.  All black or all
white, that's me!  But the truth is that I am a human being, with both
divine and sordid aspects.  Compulsively trying to validate my divine
aspects can be as deadly as compulsively acting out my sordid ones.  For
me, the former is codependency in a big way.  The latter is addiction.

When feeling bad about myself, I've tended to identify with the wonderfulness
of someone else, and then to crave contact with that person in order to feel
connected to her (really my own projected onto her) divine aspects.  This has
appeared easier than connecting to those wonderful attributes that I've
projected onto (in my case) her.  This half of my personal inventory has
often been bypassed in my urge to "get better."

Infatuation is a feeling.  There's nothing wrong with it in and of itself,
but like any feeling it can be handled well or handled badly.  It indicates
something about _me,_ not her.  If I can identify with the wonderfulness in
someone else, it must mean that there is some related wonderfulness within me.
I may have buried it because it wasn't safe for me to own it.  By accepting
and then examining my feelings about the other person, I can get some clues
as to what it is in me that I actually feel wonderful about--underneath my
shame and tendency to go into denial about all that's good within me.

> ... Now if I were going to visit someone that was 4 hours away I'd 
>be pretty damn interested in them.

If it were me, I'd suspect that any speculations on her motives would be
feeding my projections and distracting me from the lessons that are there
for me.  To me, it seems less important what her motives are than what my
confused feelings are trying to tell me.  Perhaps she is interested in me,
but if I lose my focus over the mere prospect of a relationship, how can I
hope to hold my own if a relationship _does_ develop?

> ... I'm really glad that my 1 year rule (and she knows about it 
>too - so I can't break the rule) was there to keep me from doing anything too 
>stupid, but I'm already afraid for myself at the end of the month when I'm 
>"free". 
>
>Thanks for listening, please post your experiences or comments but no advice 
>giving please!
>
>C.R.

Amazing how we set up these tests for ourselves!  I know you don't want
advice, but it seems to me that a good solid fourth step around these feelings,
every day for a month, would go a long way toward preparing you for whatever
might develop after your year is up.  So, let me leave you with that as a
suggestion only.

-r
Newsgroups: alt.recovery