So you shared your face with us, but what makes you YOU?

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Originally Posted by hilabeans

Well that just sucks. Sadly, not everyone is made for motherhood and you do yourself a favor by cutting her out of your life if she causes you pain. I have an incredible mom and I know I'm lucky. My kiddo will be just fine, she's learning the skills now to deal with her brain chemistry. We don't ignore anything and she gets tons of support. She has art, animals, friends, family, and my full support.

And you take care of yourself!!! Hopefully that boyfriend of yours is your own version of dakski's Katie. We all need a Katie in our lives.

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My mother had a very rough childhood herself from what little I know of it, but her mothering contained such features as hours of screaming about how worthless I was after I confessed suicidal ideation with a specific plan and access to relevant materials followed by loss of my "privilege" to close the bathroom door, calling me fat until I cried at the height of my anorexia when I was clinically underweight and other mothers were starting to comment (unfortunately I've currently swung too far in the other direction weight-wise and it's a long process working my way back down without relapsing into unhealthy behaviors), and yelling at me about how I should just give up and work at Mcdonald's while making me re-write my ivy league application essays (I'm inclined to think this sabotaged me on those ones). I would have stopped speaking to her long ago if the cost of it hadn't been being unable to speak to my father as well. That's only changed in the last few weeks, so I unfortunately had to stop speaking to him for the better part of a year. The right support really makes all the difference and it's great you're able to provide that for your kid!

I don't know if my boyfriend is a Katie or not, but he certainly has his shining moments. He's having a rough time right now because he's less than a month away from finishing his Ph.d., is from a country that isn't doing too well politically, and his father has age-related health issues. But he came and stood with me for hours waiting for the tow truck when my car broke down recently, shows me puppy videos like husky puppies hanging out in a fridge when I'm having a bad day, and will come along and tell my therapist for me if I'm becoming unhealthily obsessed with weight loss, or re-organizing everything, or whatever if I won't tell her myself.

Wow, Tttaylorrr,

You are a fighter as well. It is amazing how many parallels there are with people in this hobby and on those forums. You persevered through the hard times, never giving up.
You also seem to be a very honest person. That is so important to me. If there is something I do not like, it is fake people. Life is to short for those games.
I can also curse with the best of them, LOL. In my case it is easy to do, because its not in my birth language. If I would curse really bad words in MY language, I would almost expect my mothers hand connecting with the back of my head, haha.
But cursing in English? Well, that is easy! And sometimes, when something goes wrong, it helps ;)
What kind of beer do you like ? I love dark brews, or at least not light beer. Can't stand it..

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Originally Posted by tttaylorrr

i curse. kinda a lot. i got it from my momma. ;) a few years ago i read an article that found those who openly curse tend to be more honest people, so i like to consider this a positive trait. it turns a lot of people off (like my family), but i always hang on to that study. i think the reason i curse is because i'm emotionally honest; i wear my heart openly on my sleeve. growing up, people took advantage of this. in middle school i had a whole group of girl friends who basically kept me around as a joke, but i could get them things they couldn't. it took me entirely too long to figure this out. i think that was the start of my anxieties.

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It's so funny...human nature, how we express ourselves and how others perceive us. Hearing you explain why you curse gives me a totally different take on it. I've never thought about it that way before. Brutal honesty!

I rarely curse. I have to be out of my mind angry to let the expletives fly. To me, the English language is full of so many wonderful words! The more I'm familiar with, the more accurately I can express exactly how I'm feeling at any given moment. I've always found a person who punctuates every sentence with a curse word to be grammatically lazy. When I listen to the guys I work with, I'm so distracted by the shear amount of f-bombs they can squeeze into a very normal conversation, that I have a difficult time even understanding what they're getting at. And then the curse word loses it's power somehow, and doesn't even mean anything anymore.

It's not that I'm a prude, when I'm red-hot angry I think it's very acceptable to illustrate this with well-timed cursing meant to deliver a message.

However, it's interesting what you said about the correlation between cursing and honesty. Not sure why they go together, but interesting nonetheless.

Learn something new every #$%&ing day!

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Originally Posted by Kcl

My mother had a very rough childhood herself from what little I know of it, but her mothering contained such features as hours of screaming about how worthless I was after I confessed suicidal ideation with a specific plan and access to relevant materials followed by loss of my "privilege" to close the bathroom door, calling me fat until I cried at the height of my anorexia when I was clinically underweight and other mothers were starting to comment (unfortunately I've currently swung too far in the other direction weight-wise and it's a long process working my way back down without relapsing into unhealthy behaviors), and yelling at me about how I should just give up and work at Mcdonald's while making me re-write my ivy league application essays (I'm inclined to think this sabotaged me on those ones). I would have stopped speaking to her long ago if the cost of it hadn't been being unable to speak to my father as well. That's only changed in the last few weeks, so I unfortunately had to stop speaking to him for the better part of a year. The right support really makes all the difference and it's great you're able to provide that for your kid!

I don't know if my boyfriend is a Katie or not, but he certainly has his shining moments. He's having a rough time right now because he's less than a month away from finishing his Ph.d., is from a country that isn't doing too well politically, and his father has age-related health issues. But he came and stood with me for hours waiting for the tow truck when my car broke down recently, shows me puppy videos like husky puppies hanging out in a fridge when I'm having a bad day, and will come along and tell my therapist for me if I'm becoming unhealthily obsessed with weight loss, or re-organizing everything, or whatever if I won't tell her myself.

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Wow, Kcl, {{{{{{BIG HUG}}}}}}

Families can be so complicated. And like you said, sometimes the issues run through the generations. Its sad, really, but what can you do ?

Sometimes all you can do is break the cycle, break of contact, like you have. You have to think of yourself for now. You need to make it.
What the future will bring, time will tell, but for now, take care of yourself and make yourself a priority.

Your boyfriend sounds like a gem :)

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Originally Posted by hilabeans

Learn something new every #$%&ing day!

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:rofl:

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Originally Posted by zina10

Wow, Tttaylorrr,

You are a fighter as well. It is amazing how many parallels there are with people in this hobby and on those forums. You persevered through the hard times, never giving up.
You also seem to be a very honest person. That is so important to me. If there is something I do not like, it is fake people. Life is to short for those games.
I can also curse with the best of them, LOL. In my case it is easy to do, because its not in my birth language. If I would curse really bad words in MY language, I would almost expect my mothers hand connecting with the back of my head, haha.
But cursing in English? Well, that is easy! And sometimes, when something goes wrong, it helps ;)
What kind of beer do you like ? I love dark brews, or at least not light beer. Can't stand it..

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thank you zina. :) i had to fight hard, but thankfully i was born with a fighting spirit.

i really like hoppy beers! like a nice IPA. i don't like heavy beers like stouts; ew! i enjoy a light beer on a summer day, and once the sun sets it's on to the hops! hahaha.

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Originally Posted by hilabeans

It's so funny...human nature, how we express ourselves and how others perceive us. Hearing you explain why you curse gives me a totally different take on it. I've never thought about it that way before. Brutal honesty!

I rarely curse. I have to be out of my mind angry to let the expletives fly. To me, the English language is full of so many wonderful words! The more I'm familiar with, the more accurately I can express exactly how I'm feeling at any given moment. I've always found a person who punctuates every sentence with a curse word to be grammatically lazy. When I listen to the guys I work with, I'm so distracted by the shear amount of f-bombs they can squeeze into a very normal conversation, that I have a difficult time even understanding what they're getting at. And then the curse word loses it's power somehow, and doesn't even mean anything anymore.

It's not that I'm a prude, when I'm red-hot angry I think it's very acceptable to illustrate this with well-timed cursing meant to deliver a message.

However, it's interesting what you said about the correlation between cursing and honesty. Not sure why they go together, but interesting nonetheless.

Learn something new every #$%&ing day!

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in high school i was friends with people who flatly refused to curse (church types). they accepted me as i was because they knew me and it was a big part of me: emotional honesty. the thing with me is: i never swear at people. i swear when my emotions are raised, or i'm talking about something with passion. this was how my household communicated emotion growing up: yelling and cursing. i consider my swearing a sign of vulnerability tbh; because it's all i have left to prove how i feel. i know it comes off negatively, but i literally can't help it. and i'll never use a curse derogatorily unless you're like that guy at the bar a few weeks ago who was screaming and spitting in a woman's face; where it's more nouns than adjectives.

Ok, I'll play along...

I grew up in Leominster, MA and have lived there or in a neighboring town my whole life. I grew up with a great family including my mother, father and brother. I seriously could not have asked for a better family. My parents were phenomenal parents and my little brother looked up to me and supported me like no other. We lived comfortably, but by no means well off. My father worked hard and often worked a second job to ensure I could play hockey and we could have an annual family vacation.
I was always a good student, a good athlete and popular in school.

I ended up being looked at by Div 1 schools for hockey, but was ultimately told I was too small at 5'8" 160 lbs. So I played juniors for a while hoping to catch on somewhere, but it never panned out. In the meantime, I went to college for accounting. I was the first in my family to go to college and had a lot of expectations on my shoulders. However, being away from home and having discovered booze and marijuana it was too easy to skip class. I struggled to pass my classes and halfway through 2nd semester was well on my way to failing all my classes. I was even failing an ICE SKATING class!!!!

Well, I ended up taking a leave of absence to avoid a 0.0 on my transcript. I moved home and got a full time job. I had a paper route as a kid and worked part time through high school, but that barely paid for my hockey sticks and gas in the car. Now I was working full time and making "good money", hahaha.

By this time I was partying nightly and having fun. I decided not to go back to school and got an apartment with some friends. By this point, even in my home town, I was no longer Craiga the hockey player, but Craiga the Kegger, I was known as a party animal. Once I realized I wasn't going anywhere with hockey I needed a new identity, something else I was good at. And I could party with the best of them. I was always surrounded by booze, drugs and girls and loved every minute of it. I had a new identity...

Well, it gets blurry from there. I can honestly say, I remember very very little of the next 14 years or so. I moved a lot, partied a lot and had a lot of fun...for a while. By the time I was 21 I was drinking and using drugs daily, and I mean real drugs, not just pot. I honestly don't consider pot to be a drug. I was tending bar and making good money, but had nothing to show for it. I lived paycheck to paycheck. I had bar tabs and dealers to pay each Friday, my bills were always late, I was constantly having phone, electricity, etc... shut off. But never went without booze or drugs. I partied daily and partied with the goal of partying til I forgot my name.

I knew a had a problem in my early 20s, but accepted that that is who I was. I knew I would die young and I knew it would be booze or drugs that killed me. I became very depressed, suicidal and unlikable. If you weren't partying with me or could help fuel my need I had no use for you. I avoided family and alienated all my friends. I was alone except for my party "friends", none of which I've heard from since getting sober over 5 years ago. Safe to say they weren't real friends.

Anyway, after 15 years of daily annihilation and burning every bridge I had, I finally hit my rock bottom. I was living in a very dark, lonely place for far too long. On the surface, I seemed like a fun-loving, crazy man. But on the inside, I had been broken far too long. In Jan of 2012 my brother proposed to his now wife. He asked me to be his best man, but told me he was afraid I would ruin the wedding and begged me to stay sober til after I gave the toast, at least and to not bring any grubs to his wedding. I promised him I would stay sober til the toast, and I did, kinda....
The wedding was in October and was a blast, I didn't ruin the wedding.
Fast forward to December...things were BAD. I knew I'd be dead or in jail within months and I didn't care. I had accepted who I was. I was an alcoholic and a drug addict and I would die that way. I had broken my leg 2 weeks before my brother's wedding (yup, was in a walking boot on crutches for his wedding) so I wasn't working. I had nothing better to do than start drinking as soon as I woke up. Well, one day I was at the hockey think watching some friends play a tournament. I got a mid-afternoon phone call from my mother. I answered, but could hardly speak I was slurring so badly, speaking Craiganese as I liked to call it. She told me I would be receiving a letter in the mail within a few days and explained that she had no choice but to cut me out of her life completely until I got help. I told her to "have a nice life" and hung up the phone. I ripped it up for another few hours until i just couldn't do it anymore. I broke down completely. I was a blubbering, broken mess. I cried and cried and cried for hours. Sometime around 7pm I called my mother, and to my surprise, she answered. I told her I was going to an AA meeting at 8am the following morning. She asked why I wasn't going that night, hahaha. I told her I was too messed up and wanted to show up at my first meeting on the right foot. I kept my word and went tothat meeting...and another one at noon...and another that night....
Well, just over 5 years later I can proudly say I am still clean and sober!!!!

I am alive again, I look forward to every day again, I want to grow old and live a full life. I no longer wake up and curse god for not letting me die and making me live another day hating myself. I went YEARS not being able to look in the mirror and look into my own eyes. I now look myself in the eye and am proud of myself. I have my family back in my life and I have an amazing girlfriend. I even managed to re-establish a relationship with my father, who I went YEARS barely speaking to.

I live a very simple, but wonderful life. I live with my girlfriend and I work as a kitchen manager/chef right down the street from our house. We have a cat, 4 ferrets, a 55 and a 75 gallon fish tank and 4 snakes.

I LOVE my life today and I am happy with myself for the first time since I was in my early 20s (I'm 39 now). I enjoy quiet nights in with the girl, and since I work mostly days now we actually get to spend most nights together.

I also see my family regularly and am in my neice and nephew's lives, which my brother has made very clear wouldn't be an option if I was still the "old me". I babysit them and even take them for weekends here and there. It means the world to me to watch them grow up and that my brother trusts me with his children....geez, tearing up typing this... I look forward to family events and my family looks forward to seeing me.

Aside from my animals, I am a music junkie. I love my tunes and often say it's my music therapy. I like to read books aboit WWII, memoirs and biographies and I am a big Boston sports fan.

Well, I feel like I just typed forever, so I'll wrap up.

@Zina10, thanks for starting this thread.

To all the rest of my friends here at BP.net, it's been great getting to know you all. I look forward to checking this forum out at least once a day and it's great to share my passion with you all and learn from one another.

Wow Craig. Just wow. :tears:

I want to hug you and your mom.

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Originally Posted by craigafrechette

Ok, I'll play along...

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as long as i've "known" you, you've always touched on this part of yourself, and have been very open about it, but this was the first time you really shared what happened. craig, i can honestly say, knowing addicts myself, that your mother saved your life. i'm sure you know this, but you gave her back the life she gave you. you're incredibly strong. i have to admit, as a person with a mental illness, for me it's too easy to abuse something for that one night of forgotten peace. yet it never helps. i always have to remind myself that it never actually helps.

keep telling your story, craig. don't ever be ashamed. if my father didn't get sober, i wouldn't existed. i've lost so many friends to heroin ODs in high school; it's huge in chicago right now. addiction in this country is a mental health crisis, and needs to be treated as such. the stigma needs to end.

you're one strong dude, craigafrechette. :gj: