Killing the Zombie

Hey Louis,

Congratulations on the little one and let the fun begin 🙂

Congratulations Louis in sure you will take to fatherhood like a duck to water.

KTF

Congratulations,
As I'm sure many have already said.....enjoy everything step, it passes so quickly 🙂

Hi Louis , I left a msg on my page to you this morning but in case you don't read it I just wanted to send you my congratulations to you and your good lady on the birth of your son , I'm sure you'll enjoy the ups and downs of parenthood and will learn much along the way , take in every minute you can and savour the journey as beleive me it's over in the blink of an eye , best wishes and much love being sent to you both .

Ps please dont call him Dan ? :)) xx

Congratulations Louis on the arrival. Hope your all doing well
All the best

Thanks so much for the well wishes. I'm humbled.

Things settling down a bit now although my poor partner is taking the hit on almost constant night breastfeeding.

Emotions still swing wildly but joyfulness abounds as the freak outs recede.

We're getting a lot of visits from people, lots of family and friends. That's nice and also good for me.

I'm still unravelling years spent hiding away from healthy social contact. I had created a small world in many aspects, particularly socially. My relationships were with an OH, work and close friends, often with a safety net of drinking.

A part of me still resents the present 'intrusions' into our one bed flat. These kind of confined space daylight social visits would serially avoided. But I can catch myself now and take my fears with me.

My heightened sense of judgement and need for acceptance from others is my pain.

I can foresee a situation where i struggle with judgement/approval from others this time in relation to my fatherhood.

my instinct is to try to banish any notion of this ever being so - I will not bring this fear into fatherhood, type thing.

But my pain is telling me something - it's telling me how greatly I care about relationships with others. I can't tell my pain to shut up and go away, it's part of me.

This amazing Ted Talk is by the main guy behind ACT.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=o79_gmO5ppg

Recovering presents a fantastic opportunity which is less readily available to others.

Picking up on a what LB posted elsewhere, we aren't necessarily very different from anyone else in terms of our underlying issues. But we have chosen a particularly destructive form of escapism. We have learned a way of repressing our emotions and thoughts which is more damaging to ourselves and others.

Loads of people repress but do so in less destructive ways.

I have regular therapy style chats with 2 male friends who are very open. They are not addicts but have in their own ways suffered from the repression of their emotions.

fair play to these guys for having the guts to be open about their insecurities. Lots of guys i know when they hit late 30s just start running endlessly - metaphorically and physically.

However, whilst we all talk the talk, out of the three of us I take by far the most committed action.

I get frustrated with them at how little of what is talked about is translated into action. I can see quite clearly what they need to do, they do too, but little happens.

The difference is I've got the spur of my past - my form of repression had no subtlety And by becoming a CG I had crossed all boundaries into the world of farq'd up behaviour.

So when people say - is it only CGs who have to do this soul searching and recovery? I would say yes and no. IMHO CGs do HAVE to. But most people would also benefit from a similar process - some people have sufficient openness and awareness hard wired so they genuinely don't need a more structured recovery. But even these people had to work for these skills at some point. But most probably don't have this and would benefit but lack motivation.

Humans are designed to compare against others in a material sense. If people have a job, a car, a house, a child etc they tend to think they're doing fine - so why change?

Myself, I had been living in fear and repressing my emotions way before the gambling. I'm not sure I would ever have addressed these issues if I had not become a CG. I can only speculate on that point but I do know that recovery does present a fantastic opportunity.

Louis

Really sad article in the guardian today. RIP Ryan. Tragedy that he took his life at such a young age.

Wonder if he ever posted on here.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jul/15/ryan-myers-bereaved-parents-taking-on-the-gambling-industry

What a sad story....so much of it is like me and many others on here. RIP Ryan.

Time for a little update, as I sip sneaky a half pint on route home.

Being a dad is great so far. I'm not taking any of the night time hits so getting enough sleep. I can face most things after if I've had kip.

I have no idea how I could fit gambling into my life. Very glad I sorted this out earlier. I'd like to tell my son about my addiction some time. Think it's good to show weaknesses and difficulties as a parent.

I still want to work on building up my social confidence as I'd made good progress. I was worried that any kind of self - development would go out the window. But it I've got a pretty strong outlook that so many things are possible.

just need to get a name for this son of mine....

Louis

Tears of sadness to tears of joy in 3 posts...We really are the lucky ones!

Baby's name will come to you Louis, you gotta get it right 🙂

Crazy morning. Breakfast, read deanos post. Appreciating the share of vulnerability which opens me up.

I'm overwhelmed with what I have in our pokey London flat. My partner and my baby. My arms are raised in gratitude.

I cycle to work. A core belief crystallises. I feel like a failure and that I haven't lived up to my potential.

I feel this strongly in respect of my father. I don't have any of the family trauma which so many have had. I had a loving and supportive family.

My father broke out from relative poverty, scholarship, academic, gregarious, lived abroad, a life fully lived. Never even placed big demands on me.

So what happened with me?! Aren't we meant to surpass our parents? I've no excuse

This belief- failing to live up to my potential, being a failure in front of my father. I've had this for some time. Its shown itself through desperation of approval, to fit in. But I've not accepted or recognised it in clear terms . Now i have, I feel emotional.

I've stopped my cycle for a cup of tea before work. Still feeling sad but also relieved. I can deal with stuff if I know what it is. If I can't be clear then I've just got loads of negativity seeping round my mind like a bad f**t.

Louis

Who said we had to surpass our parents? Have you ever spoken to your father about how he perceives you? Of course, some parents expect their children to be running MENSA but they're usually the pushy ones & if he's allowed you to tread your own path, isn't it quite likely that it's because he loves & trusts you? Not all children of gregarious people get those genes & you don't have to look far to see children living in the shadow, to some extent, of famous actors & actresses struggling with their own identities! You are so very hard on yourself Louis 🙁

You live in London which is an achievement in itself (I'm not allowed to move anymore according to Nan otherwise "you'll end up in Scotland!") & you work hard everyday @ being the best person you can be, what more can anyone ask?

Sending you some cyber bellows to pump away the negativity & some cyber air freshener to get rid of any lingering parp!

Hi, Louis,

Echo ODAAT that there's no particular need to surpass your parents. In what sense? Material? I have a professional job, my father was a tailor before he became a taxi driver. My mother was partially disabled and prior to that she was a typist. Does any of that make me better than them? Absolutely not. It's character traits that count, my father was a decent man, (decent, not perfect) enough to emulate him as best I can. I'm not in competition with his memory.

re parenting example, maybe we don't make the same mistakes as our parents - we make different ones. Presumably because we're human and not error free.

You're overcoming serious adversity day by day, what else do you want from yourself? It's important to set goals that are realistic and worth achieving.

Maybe I've been watching too much of a certain dog-puppet on CBBC, but does everything have to come down to basic bodily functions?

Look after yourself.

CW

Thanks ODAAT and CW

My last post, the realisation of the 'not good enough, especially in the eyes of my father'- I know it's very silly and I'm certainly not saying its a valid belief.

But I'm happy to have had that realisation, moved it from the depths and autopilate, fear based living - to a place where I can see it for what it is....This was a powerful moment for me.

I now feel in a position to say, that's a load of b0ll0 x. I've done the time, I know I'm a very capable person, a loving father, a hard working person who cares about other people. If I tried to tell myself that before I wouldn't have believed it.

Feel able now to work on stuff that is in a sense 'cosmetic' but in fact runs central to having greater self belief. Body languageand posture - eye contact, good posture, voice tone and speed. Aside from thinking these things were a load of shei'te, I used to think that these things would come about with greater confidence. They would fall into place once the confidence came.

But no, actually it's a two way thing. All of that good body language stuff affects how we feel about ourselves. Good posture increases testosterone and decreases cortisol (the stress hormone). It's not just about being a Silver Back and beating the chest. High testosterone and low cortisol improves our sense of personal power. With personal power comes better concentration, empathy, less judgemental, less anxiety.

Louis