In Al Anon, they use basically the same 12 Steps as Alcoholics Anonymous. You begin with step 1 and you go in order, only moving on when you have completely finished up the previous step.
I'm still struggling with step 1, ""We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable." My life is in total chaos, but I think I am managing just fine, thank-you very much.
In my quest to find my "home" meeting (the meeting that I attend most regularly and associate myself with), I went to a meeting the other night that focuses on the 12 Steps. (Many of the meetings have themes. For example, it may be a book study or the intended target group is adult children of alcoholics.) They were on step 9 that night, "Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others." While most members who shared spoke about making amends to people in their lives, one woman talked about making amends to herself; she began taking better care of herself.
I thought, Now that my daughter is in a safe place, I can make amends to myself as well. I took two days off work and am busy trying to make up for a month of neglect.
The first thing I did was clean my daughter's things out MY room and put them back into her room. When I caught her on the computer late at night, I took her doors off her bedroom and her closet. When I found out about the Eating Disorders, I took the door off her bathroom and hung up a curtain instead. When I found out she was coming home from the hospital, I packed up almost everything in her room (into those office, file folder boxes, 20 in all). All these things needed to be put somewhere and since my garage is already full and overflowing, I ended up moving them into my bedroom.
I work from home and my desk is in my bedroom, however, it isolates me from the rest of the house. When my daughter came home, I decided to move my desk out into the loft so that I could be more aware of what was going on with her and my son. While I accomplished exactly that, I also could hear every noise, every conversation that was going on everywhere because the loft is centrally located in the house. It DROVE ME CRAZY.
I tried noise cancelling headphones but they gave me a headache. When I had a teleconference, I had to ask everyone ahead of time to not watch TV and to keep the noise down. I record videos for work but there was no way I could do that in the loft. Occasionally I would take my laptop into my bedroom and try to work using a wireless connection, but I need a large screen due to the nature of the work I do. Yesterday I spent three hours moving my desk and computers back into my bedroom. I am especially ecstatic to have doors and to be able to shut out the rest of the house.
And finally I have started exercising everyday and eating in a way that works for my body.
At first we were told my daughter could not exercise at all due to the ED but then they said she could exercise half an hour a day. So we would take walks and occasionally go to the gym. But now I have begun swimming and am enjoying the silence and rhythmic deep breathing that go with being under water.
When your child has ED, you avoid all mention of dieting and not wanting to eat this or that. When I planned meals, I tried to make things my daughter liked and I knew she couldn't resist. The problem is, I can't resist them either! When my daughter cooked, I always ate what she made, which frequently included homemade pasta and desserts. Now that neither kid is home, I am back to eating very few refined carbs, enjoying mostly proteins, whole grains, salads and fruit.
Tomorrow I go back to work and I'm kind of glad. Two days off was just what I needed to recharge my battery.
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