I always had an idea that faith meant knowing that what I wanted to happen would happen. If I just tried hard enough, manipulated and controlled enough, if I asked God to “see it my way,” then I would have what I wanted. I could make anything happen if I just had faith.
I confused having faith with “running the show.”
I create stories in my mind where I am the main character, and others are mine to control. I write their lines out and dictate their emotions, thoughts, feelings, and actions. I decide who and what they are. I do this before I even know who the players will be. I create situations, imagine how they feel about me, and what will happen before the end of the story. There is always an ending. It doesn’t matter whether these people know that they are playing a part in the story because it’s never about them; not who they REALLY are.
It’s always about who I believe they are, and when they don’t play their role, when they don’t say their lines, when they don’t follow the script I have written, I get to play my role…victim.
It occurs to me, as I agonize for the bazillionth time, over some guy that isn’t playing his part, that I’m sick of this story. You know the one. Girl meets boy. He is obviously “the one,” and she has NEVER had a connection like this with any other boy. It is definitely, “meant to be,” blah – blah – blah. But really, it’s just same shit, different guy. I seek men that are as emotionally bankrupt and unavailable as I am…and lonely. I convince myself that he is going to meet my unrealistic expectations, because he’s different.
Maybe he plays along for a while because I am a FANTASTIC actress and manipulator, but inevitably at some point, he doesn’t want to play anymore. Here’s where I get to really practice my manipulation skills, and perfect the victim role. Even though the story ALWAYS ends the same, I convince myself that this guy is different. Without fail, I have “faith” that I can make him want me. He WILL stay with me, he WILL love me desperately. The problem is, the main character is always the same. The story never changes because I haven’t.
Today I am reminded that I don’t even need a drink to act like the alcoholic I am.
People think that this disease is just about fighting a drink, but that’s just not true. We fight ourselves.
We fight our habits, our thoughts, our feelings, our selfish self-centeredness, our obsessive thoughts, our ego, our need to control, and our stories we write about how things “should” be.
We fight against faith.
Faith means to let go, and live life without a plan. I have to face the fact that I don’t know who I am without my stories. If I’m not planning my life and yours around what I want and need, what the fuck else am I going to do? It doesn’t even matter that NO ONE ever follows my script, and these stories NEVER end up the way I hope they will. I write them anyway because I don’t know what else to do. But then that’s just bullshit because I do know what to do.
Real faith means freeing ourselves from concern, right? Believing that no matter what, things will work out. So what if I decide, right now, to free myself from concern? What if, instead of creating stories, I create a real life worth living for myself and my daughter?
What if I just have faith?
original photo credit: ValetheKid via photopin cc
4 Comments
I absolutely love this post! I’ve been sober for 2 1/2 years and I still do this. I lie awake at night trying to plan out what the next page of the story is going to be even though I know I have no control over it. When things don’t go the way I think they should then I question if faith really exists or not or if this life is just one fuck up after another. Do we ever truly move past our mistakes and what is HOPE really! Thanks Shanna for sharing this as I’m sure many other women will be able to say you hit the nail on the head with this. Love you to the moon and back<3
You are learning girl and so am at 3 1/4 years of sobriety. I played that game since I was a teenager, actually since I was a little girl because I had abusive (to each other) alcoholic parents. I still now sit and stew because someone isn’t playing their part right in whatever I’ve set up whether it is real or just in my head. I think everyone does this, it’s just that it doesn’t bother some people in the same intensity. I always envy the people that just let shit roll off their backs cause I can’t. I’ve always had faith in my God or HP. After all they are the teacher and I am the student. Have to accept that some can get “it” better than I do. I WANT all the time. Want things like the ‘
Sorry, something kicked my post in before I was finished. I was saying that I want things to be like the “fairy tale” world we are promised in ads and movies. I hate “radical acceptance”. I want things “my” way and I’m not happy when I have to settle. I must keep learning that acceptance doesn’t mean settling. it just means that we finally realize that we are not a “one”. Everyone basically wants the same thing. But everyone’s thing can be different. This is where acceptance is actually freedom from a one sided way of thinking and imagining how our lives should play out. Yes we have to work on ourselves first in order to be happy. And when we are satisfied and happy with ourselves we can accept alternate ways of need and thinking. That you are so acutely aware of this means you are on the way to where you are meant to be.
I have never thought about it this way – thank you. I particularly connect with the thought that you behave like an alcoholic without the alcohol. I am new to this, day 25, and this adds to my store of sober thinking, thank you