June 19, 2003

• Resentment

  
  

  Treatment vs Program

  
  

  Aaarrgh!  Boys and girls, SuSu is giving herself fits, driving herself nuts (I know, I know, that’s not a drive; at most it’s just a short putt).  Today, I have hands-on work here at home that needs to be done, a backlog of readings to do for clients, and a few readings already done by Greyfox that need to be posted by me.  Not sleeping well at night, I find myself napping by day but never feeling rested.  Focus?  Uhhh…wazzat?

  
  

  Nothing is clear-cut.  Where’s the clarity?  Program tells me to turn it over to God.  Treatment tells me to own my power, take responsibility for myself, stand on my own two feet.  Not that I’m immersed in either treatment or program.  New to the program and many miles from any regular meetings, I’ve always mistrusted its principles anyway.  Three decades out of treatment, keeping it all alive only in my mind and in my everyday interactions with people and my work for and with clients, it is frankly not a lot of help to me now when I could use some help.

  
  

  So, welcome friends to this informal meeting of Xangroup 12-Step Therapy.  My name is Kathy, and I’m a maverick… uhhh, I mean, addict.  Let’s have a moment of silence to reflect on why we are here, followed by the maverick’s prayer….

  
  

  God, Goddess, All That Is, thank you for cutting me out of the herd.  Keep my eyes open and my soul free.  Let me roam the High Planes and find enough companionship Out There that I can always remember that we are All One.  Show me your Will and strengthen my will to make your Will mine.  And if all else fails, just let me die well and come back to try again.

  
  

  Tonight’s topic is resentment, that “dubious luxury” that normies can afford, but which is for us addicts and mavericks too costly to indulge.  In treatment I worked out my resentment by, whenever possible, confronting those who had wronged me and injured me.  When that was not possible, I worked through resentment by venting in group or facing the feelings through roleplaying games.  In the program I’m told that I should handle my resentment by apologizing and offering to make amends to those I resent.  Forgive me, Great Mystery, if my bullshit meter pegs out and bends the needle in a neat little kink.

  
  

  I know there is not one bit of advantage to anyone in feeling resentment.  What’s done is done and right now is the only time there is, so what point is there to remembering past hurts… unless by so doing we might keep from getting into those hurtful situations again.  When is it foolish to forgive and forget, and when was it ever wise to hold a grudge, goddammit!?

  
  

  The irony here is that it is not even my own resentment that’s hassling my head so much today.  A few days ago my discomfort at trying to achieve and enjoy intimacy with a man I cannot trust brought all of that to a head for me.  I spoke to him from deep within my heart and soul.  I cried out my resentment and spoke of feeling that something was broken inside me, a part of me missing.  I cannot trust anymore.  I realized that I trust no one but God and myself.  Finally, having that realization, I felt okay with it.  It felt true and I knew I could live with it  I still love him and everyone, and I trust me, so that’s okay not to trust anyone else, I think.

  
  

  Then another woman’s resentment, her impotent anger and well-justified recriminations against someone who had gravely wronged someone she loved–her feelings touched me.  She needed to know how to deal with resentment when she must face this other person regularly in a setting where trust and mutual help are the reasons for coming together.  Sharing my experience didn’t help her, couldn’t help her.  No one else’s experience, strength or hope seemed to help her, either, and the crease in her brow stands in my mind’s eye as confirmation of our impotence and as an indictment of our principles.  We all eat away at ourselves with regrets and resentments.  How do we who can barely help ourselves hope to help each other?

  
  

  That’s all I have to share tonight.  Let’s close the meeting in the usual manner.

  
  

  

  
  

   

  
  

   

  • 1:20 am
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