Everything I needed to know about Recovery (and Parenting) I learned from my CAT

My cat is a selfish little beasty. He does what he wants, when he wants and he doesn’t take any shit from no one. And I love him. So there goes that basic untruth –that no one will love you if you’re selfish. I heard that all my life. My cat did not. My cat does not give a shit if you like him or not. Just as long as you fill his bowl.

So much has been written about whether cats or dogs are superior to each other and the truth is, and always has been, that dogs are a tad bit co-dependent and cats are not. The biggest thing I hear from cat-haters (and they say this as though it’s a BAD thing) is “cats are too independent.” Really? That’s a bad thing? So someone or something should be needy for you to love them? What kind of message is that? I’ll tell you what kind –the kind I heard every stinkin’ day in my crazy, alcoholic, mentally-ill household. 

In fact, my mother was so scared my sister and I would have no use for her if we didn’t need her, she never taught us how to take care of ourselves.  The sad truth about my Mom, at least in my case, was that she was probably right. But I was trained to be a dog and although my mother beat the crap out of everyone in the house (including my father) and terrorized us with her rage, I was always too scared to break away. What if I needed her?

My mother was the one who bailed us out –financially. Long into my 30’s,  my mother was still paying the bills I couldn’t pay, helping me finance a house, throwing money at my bad marriage. She thought my last alcoholic husband was leaving me while I was pregnant because he was worried about money. So she paid his car payment and the rent and he took the money and ran.

A lot of people will read this and think what a great and loving Mom she was for helping me all this time but it isn’t true. She had her motives and they weren’t very pure. I know this because I’m a mother now and my motives are never less than murky when it comes to helping my son.

I KNOW, I mean I really, intellectually KNOW, that parenting is about making a person a strong, independent human, capable of doing whatever they want with confidence and self-esteem. That is the goal, right? We turn our dogs slowly into cats. This starts to happen around puberty –the “terrible teens”, when your loving child first refuses to take out the trash just because you asked him to. Or to fetch your glasses. We parents begin to hear things like “what’s in it for me?” and “You want me to do what?”. Also, just like a cat, they are the masters of the non-verbal. They shrug, they roll their eyes. We want to slap them. 

So why don’t I feel that way about my cat? In fact, I love his little independent ways. I love that when he’s had enough attention he lets me know with a cute ½ inch scratch across my arm. He is the master of “I want what I want when I want it and not a second after.” And I love the dickens out of his furry little ass.

But that’s what I expect from a cat. Ahhhh, that’s the key –expectations. I expect my child to love me as much as I love him. And he doesn’t. He can’t. He’s not an adult. And because he’s a boy he won’t be an adult until his 40’s at least. (a little feminazi humor for you all.) And since he can’t love me out of pure intent I will make sure he needs me. Then he’ll never leave me. Because in the end, we don’t want to be left. We don’t want to be alone. (A little side story: I once told my son who was around 14 at the time that I would step in front of a moving train to save his life. He answered “I know Mom, but I wouldn’t. You’re old and have had a life, I’m still young.” That is when I knew my Labrador had become a Siamese.)

 A dog will let you beat him and mistreat him and will still be loyal and loving but a cat shrugs and hides under the couch. Cats are out to get their needs met and if you won’t do it, he’ll saunter off and find someone who will.

Recovery helps us to stop being dogs, loyal to people who don’t deserve our loyalty. It teaches us to stop looking to get our kibble from an empty cupboard and to seek a place where the food dish is over-flowing. It teaches us to say “no, I have had enough” and bare our claws if we’re not taken seriously. Recovery teaches us that we are beautiful and desirable just as we are and we never need to please anyone to be loved.

I’ll end with this old chestnut but it is still true:

We feed and walk and love a dog and it says to itself “You must be God”.

We feed and stroke and love a cat and it says “I must be God.”

Can I get a hearty MEOW!

An Asshole by Any other Name ….

I know my way around alcoholics. I grew up with a couple, married a couple, worked with more than a couple and may have spawned one (jury is still out on that one.)

What I know is that they are all the same in their wonderful, individual ways. What I mean is that they don’t come in the same package, with the same backgrounds or the same chips on their shoulders but they act the same. I have learned that if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck …. It’s an addict.

But Nancy, you proclaim, not ALL addicts are the same, how can offer such a blanket opinion? ‘Cause I’ve sat in the rooms of the people who have loved them, been parented by them, or given birth to them and they have all been hurt by the same things; lying, cheating, stealing and rampant narcissism.

For a long time I used lots of different labels to categorize the ones I know and love. My mother has narcissistic personality disorder, my father was a depressive (from the depression, no less), my sister is bi-polar, and my ex has borderline personality disorder. But I finally figured out that an asshole by any other name is …. An ASSHOLE.

 I don’t care what is wrong with you, FIX IT! 

Oh, I know denial is not just a river in Egypt. I’ve cruised that river on both banks. I’ve been in denial about everyone, but mostly about myself. Am I an addict? I don’t drink or do drugs. Am I an addict? If it walks like a duck, and it talks like a duck…. It’s fucking poultry!

When I had finally become sick and tired of being sick and tired and starting working the steps with a sponsor I identified three addictions that were making my life unmanageable; eating, working and screwed-up relationships.  Did those addictions cause me to lie, steal, cheat, etc.? You betcha’. Though I never stole money, I stole a couple of friend’s boyfriends. I lied about what I did, why I did it and to whom I did it to. And I cheated myself out of my own respect. There are still things only my sponsor knows about me. And it’s going to stay that way –I’m not that crazy.

Suffice it to say that I did enough rotten things that I lost people who meant a lot to me. And I lost myself.  That’s the funniest part about being a narcissistic addict –we are the piece of shit around which the world revolves.

I know what you bleeding hearts are saying right now –“But Nancy, addicts can’t help themselves, it’s genetic.” Yes and NO. There is choice. I know it’s not popular to mention it but there is always a choice. With all the information out today, the anti-drug campaigns, the free rehab centers, the AA meetings on every corner –you can’t say we don’t know what’s bad for us. 

And somewhere along the way some of us choose to wake up and smell the giblets (in keeping with my poultry theme.) Why we do is the mystery. But I am damn lucky to be one of them and I look at people on the street every day and say “there but for the grace of God.” 

I’m going to end this little upbeat missive with a story –a personal one –that is why I am sure there is always a choice and that genetics does not damn us to a life of pain and vomit in our beds.

I was once in love with a boy named Jim. He had an identical twin named Joe. Identical. Totally. They were the last of seven brothers. When I met them 2 of the brothers had already died of alcoholism and another had hit AA big time. There was no denial in this family of what was in their genes. Both twins developed drinking and drug problems but at one point one of them decided to stop and the other didn’t. Maybe you’re saying that the one who stopped had life better than the other but you would be wrong. They were both married to people they loved, both had beautiful children, both were bright and engaging.  But one stopped and one died. At the age of 42.

Remember when I said denial was a killer. I wasn’t yanking your chain. We do have a choice and frankly it doesn’t matter what you call the chaotic person in your life, what label you give them, they will die if they don’t choose not to.

Being Authentic is a Bitch

I started writing today about all kinds of things but none of them seemed particularly worth my writing or your reading.  I don’t usually have that problem. I love to write and I am wonderfully self-centered enough to think I have stuff to say but yesterday I was humbled and reminded that my story is not an isolated one. 

Part of my journey –of everyone’s- according to Maslow, is to become self-actualized. To me this has always meant I would become authentically ME –who I was before I began learning how to fit in, compromise and get along. Before I learned that you’re not supposed to fart in public or enjoy the disgusting smells you can make. (Damn me if you will but I still love a disgusting fart!) Before I was told who I was, who I was going to be and what I was capable of by people who didn’t have a clue. By people who were running scared.

Maslow’s theory consists of a pyramid of needs he says must be met before one can actualize. (see chart above). They include food, safety, belonging and love. When I get all these things I am then “free to be me.”

I agree we have to eat to survive but I’m not sure about the rest of it. In fact, I posit that maybe the other stuff is actually getting in the way of becoming authentic. Maybe I can’t “belong” because I am a penguin who dances instead of sings? Maybe no one can love me because I am an ogre who lives in a swamp? You know, maybe Maslow has it upside down.

Most of the stories we love are of heroes who didn’t fit in, who didn’t belong. Heroes who were forced to leave their safety to find themselves. Can you imagine 3 movies about how Luke Skywalker learned to love farming? In fact, Luke was kept from his destiny because he loved his aunt and uncle and was trying to be a “good” person.

I tried being a good person. I was never very good at it. I’m still not. I had to make amends just yesterday for telling a friend his idea sucked. I didn’t apologize for the opinion but I wasn’t very subtle or loving when I expressed it. I am constantly in trouble for saying what I think without thinking. And who wants to be around that?

Well, I kinda do. I hate trying to figure out what people really mean, how they really feel, what they really want. Just tell me. I’ll get over it. What kind of friend lets you work for weeks writing an idea that truly sucks? Then again, who made me the expert on all non-sucky things?  A lot of my ideas suck too. Big donkey balls. Like marrying my first husband –that was a very bad idea and no one warned me. Oh wait, they did. Never mind.

I guess the point I’m badly trying to communicate (or communicating badly) is that we have to be the last, and final, judge of what is right for us. I married my first husband because I did. It was part of my journey towards myself. I hurt a lot of people by doing it but no one worse than me. And it could have been avoided if my ex had been truthful with himself about who he really was. (He was gay, ok? Now, you know.) From what I hear he is still in hiding some 35 years later and I feel so sad for him. What must it be like to never have the joy of loving yourself as you are?

I have always been selfish and terribly willful. I have always demanded to be myself. But it can get very lonely here in “Village Nancy, population of 1”. I have been blessed with a few people who have been able to stand me along the way –but they are few and far between.

 And that’s why being authentic is a bitch. Authentic Nancy does not suffer fools. Or make compromises. Or puts up with shit. Desperate Nancy does. Desperate Nancy just wants to be loved, cared for and talked about in ringing accolades. But she isn’t really me. She is the part of me trying to work my way up Maslow’s pyramid so I can have it all –my self and others. She is a big, fat faker.

I experienced one of the joys of being authentic yesterday. It was a humbling and truly amazing hour in which a woman I barely know shared with me her deep pain over the suicide of her son. She knows me from my meetings and I always let real Nancy out there so she felt she could be real around me. To everyone else she is doing “fine”, “coping”, etc. but she gave me the greatest gift yesterday –she let me be a witness to her grief. We all need witnesses to our grief. To our joy. To our fear. We spend so much time pretending we are “fine” because it makes people uncomfortable to know we are not –as though our unhappiness was contagious.

The gift my new friend gave me was priceless. She reminded me that although I get awfully lonely sometimes, I am not alone. Everyone around me is as terrified as I am. As lonely. As angry. 

Life is loss. Try to deny that one piece of truth and you’ll start worshipping Xenu. Or Allah. Or God. Anything, anything to not really feel. To not feel the real. 

To be authentic is to be singular and that is scary shit.