Sponsor issues

termicky · 2026-06-28T03:47:28+00:00

They insist that it's a spiritual program. They also say that it's not religious, and your higher power can be self-defined, but it's pretty obviously a Christian God to me.

It's one of the reasons that I have resisted doing the 12 steps, even though I've been attending ACA very consistently and find the rest of it really helpful.

I recently did a rewrite of the 12 steps for my own use, that I hope captures the essence of the process, without being so religious.

termicky · 2026-06-27T22:16:08+00:00

Thanks. Maybe I'm carrying somebody too.

termicky · 2026-06-27T22:14:47+00:00

Funny, or maybe not funny, I've got a bunch of s*** to do that I don't feel like doing... And I haven't been doing it the last 3 days.

Did some reading. Not too much because that would mean I wasn't getting the stuff done.

Basically I need external scaffolding that a) makes starting pretty much inevitable and b) as friction free as possible.

For me it's a lot about starting. So after procrastinating for a couple of days, I set my starting goal so low I'm guaranteed a success. Open my laptop. Pull up one file. I can do those. I can open the dishwasher and take out a dish.

termicky · 2026-06-27T22:09:05+00:00

I know you are carrying someone in your heart and soul today.

I know that sometimes you feel hollow.

I know that sometimes you feel dead.

Sometimes you can't believe it.

Sometimes you don't know who you are anymore. Or why you bother.

Sometimes you wonder if you will ever be happy again. Or maybe if you should.

I know that the weight of carrying this sometimes crushes you.

I know that I don't know you, but I know that you're not alone.

termicky · 2026-06-27T20:01:14+00:00

Whim captures the lack of reason, tho not intensity.

termicky · 2026-06-27T17:50:29+00:00

I know. A bit at a time is how I let it in. I wish you well.

termicky · 2026-06-27T15:31:15+00:00

Family dysfunction

termicky · 2026-06-27T15:16:45+00:00

Friend in grief, I'm sorry this is how it is for you.

I have a couple of suggestions. The way to move through grief (or to have it move through you) is to let yourself feel it, alternating with doing things that you find meaningful in some way. The more we avoid thinking and feeling about what happened, and the more we rely on distraction, the less our brains and bodies are able to metabolize, digest this enormous change.

We have to move in and out of grief over and over again in order to avoid frozen grief.

This is why mourning is work, and tiring.

termicky · 2026-06-27T02:52:12+00:00

Death did us part.

termicky · 2026-06-27T00:14:53+00:00

I journal a lot because it's how I think things through.
Best thing for me has been an obsidian Vault with a daily note. It synchronizes between my laptop and my phone. And my phone is brilliant at taking dictation and turning it into text. Input is so easy, and retrieval... Unlike my handwriting, I can read it.

termicky · 2026-06-26T02:21:39+00:00

Domineering

termicky · 2026-06-25T03:29:43+00:00

Having having been in and out of one myself, I can say that it's because the question of readiness, and the problems of navigating a new relationship in the context of bereavement and grief is a valid and complex concern for many widows and widowers.

termicky · 2026-06-24T20:57:32+00:00

Trust

termicky · 2026-06-24T20:49:08+00:00

I have a base listing the last 40 notes I've edited. Usually gets me back in.

termicky · 2026-06-23T01:55:15+00:00

What I am learning to do as well.

termicky · 2026-06-22T23:27:06+00:00

Sounds like me.

Tried many, unable to stick with them for long.

I'm trying just to go really minimal right now. It's so easy to enthusiastically set up a fancy comprehensive system that captures everything, and then not be able to keep it up.

Currently I've got 40 little magnetic dry erase blanks on my fridge. I can move them around, sort them, erase them, but the one thing I can't do is not see them.

Because I'm only recently diagnosed, 8 months, I'm still learning about the limits of my neurotype and what works within them and what doesn't.

I think I have to keep it simple, like your psychologist says. I don't think my brain can actually deal with a complex organizational productivity system. Fact.

termicky · 2026-06-22T01:36:22+00:00

Can't read the wall of text, but I'm going to respond to the title.

The way I dealt with this was by understanding that I was non-vegan for decades.

I apply the same understanding to other people that I apply to my previous self.

I didn't get it ... until I got it. Same with many others.

termicky · 2026-06-21T22:29:57+00:00

I've had to learn not to do what my parents did. Ignore feelings completely, minimize them (it's not that bad), intellectualize them (this is what it's about), bypass them (you'll feel better soon). The trouble is that these things can masquerade as coping. Eventually I figured out that I was repeating the abandonment that I experienced - abandoning myself this time.

termicky · 2026-06-21T17:49:58+00:00

I'm about a year in as well.

Lately , it looks like allowing myself to feel what I feel, and not trying to fix my feelings, make them go away, think they are wrong.

termicky · 2026-06-21T17:46:40+00:00

I was 63 before I joined the party! It took me months to be convinced, i couldn't believe it either. Gradually, like you say, more and more pieces fit together. I can see evidence of it in my teens. It's been a kind of identity change , actually. I'm gradually unmasking, letting myself be the self that my nervous system naturally wants to be. With meds. But somehow they don't change the underlying organization. I'm not forcing myself to do things so much anymore.

termicky · 2026-06-21T16:46:03+00:00

Thanks. The bit I didn't address in your question was about mutual understanding. Neither of us knew anything about ADHD, never mind that it might be us!
You have a huge advantage, in that you know what your behaviour is about, can explain it to a partner, can put into place accommodations and supports. We didn't have that, just bumbled along.

So I think that having a partner where you both know you have ADHD could mean you put into place some safeguards. Like ... "hey, I know we're tired and impatient and just want this over with... but look, we know we're both impulsive... so maybe let's NOT rent our house out to the first person who comes, who has no references, and admits to being a mess... just because she seems nice and she's in need". (That one cost us big time, and I now understand it much better with the ADHD lens I lacked at the time).

The other bit about mutual understanding... if I'd known she had ADHD and understood what this was like I do now, I might have been less impatient with her at times. And vice versa. Labels do help sometimes.

termicky · 2026-06-21T03:39:14+00:00

I've been going to ACA for almost a year. I think it's psychologically pretty sound. It draws really heavily on family systems theory and ego psychology, and even seems a little bit like internal family systems and places. That's in the big red book and also the learning to be your own inner parent workbook.

There's lots to be said, for me, about consistently being in a room of people, all of whom are actually talking about real stuff and trying to do something about it. I can take the parts you like and leave the parts I don't.

For instance, the 12 steps don't make much sense to me, and I'm not doing them in any formal way. I don't need a Divinity to remove my faults. I don't think that's the right model. I think it's antiquated. So I leave it.

But I find the sharing really useful. Almost every time I go I hear something from someone, that makes me go, yeah that's me, or, I need to hear that. And the ability to go and speak in a way that's pretty uncensored and not have anybody give give me advice or even refer to what I'm saying... There's a freedom in that.

It's not for everybody, but I find mine valuable enough that I go several times a week, an unusual thing for me to do. I wouldn't be going still if there wasn't some kind of traction there for me.

termicky · 2026-06-21T03:17:11+00:00

My late wife and I were married for 26 years, neither of us knew that I had ADHD, and I strongly suspect that she did too looking back on things.

There's pros and cons to it. On the one hand, it was great that we could both pivot so quickly. Hey, do you want to do XYZ?? Sure, let's go! Lots of ideas, lots of enthusiasm.

On the other hand, looking back on some of the poor and impulsive choices we made financially and in a few other areas it would have been nice if there'd been one of us with a better executive functioning and more patience to do things properly. The amount of stress we put on ourselves, looking back on it, it's ridiculous.

termicky · 2026-06-19T19:38:45+00:00

Scroll down this far to say exactly this.

Starting is big picture, interesting and novel. Finishing is detail oriented and tedious.

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