Step Four

Step Four:  Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

Journaling prompts taken from Gentle Path Through the Twelve Steps.

Avoiding Personal Responsibility

Wow, is this one a doozy.  Give specific examples of when I have avoided taking personal responsibility for my behavior.  Well, the big one is coming up with excuses (any excuses) not to do my Fourth Step!  But here are some others:

When I'm running late for anything, I run down a list of possible (untrue) excuses, anything from, "I hit every red light" to "We had to stop for an emergency bathroom break for the kids" to "I got a phone call I had to take and I don't like driving while on the phone" to "The line at the check out was ridiculous!"  Honestly, I use my kids as a scapegoat a lot, and I feel ashamed about it.

When we're having people over and I haven't cleaned up the house to my satisfaction, I make up excuses, like "I was up all night with my little one, and just couldn't get as much done as I wanted," or "We were out really late last night, so I only had a few minutes to pick up this morning," etc, etc.

If I bump into a financial issue that I don't want to solve or don't want to admit I screwed up, I always look for a way to blame my husband.  I can't tell you how many times I've told creditors on the phone, "I'm not sure about that, my husband does the finances, but I'll talk to him about it and have him call you back."

Speaking of finances, my main way of avoiding responsibility is just denial, with a heavy dose of procrastination. "Oh, I'll do it later" or "Oh, it'll work out somehow."

Weight-wise, I place a lot of blame on my family of origin for the predicament I'm in now.  "They're all food addicts, too, I didn't have a chance."  "If only my mother raised me better," "If only she wasn't a narcissist,"  "If only my father protected me from her," and so on, and so on.  "I'm in this mess because my mother didn't know how to parent."  Which in a lot of ways, is true, but that doesn't excuse me from not taking personal responsibility now, as an adult.

I come up with many, many excuses for not doing the work I need to do now.  "I'm tired."  "There are too many stressful things going on right now, I need to 'take care of myself'" - which should not mean eating junk food, but it does.  "I meant to exercise today, but I was just too busy" - when I wasn't.  And on and on and on.

Sometimes I even try to find a way to blame my husband for my lack of success in losing weight.  "He's not being supportive enough."  "Maybe he really wants me to be fat, so he feels more secure."

How about, "Oh, you want to cuddle?  Absolutely, I don't need to be working on my Fourth Step!"  (true story)

I am the queen of rationalizations, excuses, blaming, denial, and procrastination.

Taking Personal Responsibility

Despite just beginning Step Four, I have tried to do Step Ten as much as possible.  While I haven't wanted to look too much into my past or into my character defects in general, I have tried to own up to things that I've done that were wrong.

With my husband, when I get crazy/mean/bitchy about certain things, I apologize and, if applicable, explain what I was really upset about.  I try to make amends.

I have spent lots of time in therapy, learning new ways of dealing with people.  I have broken out of a lot of old, maladaptive patterns, especially when it comes to interacting with my mother.

Having spent a few years in Twelve Step groups, I have come to realize the unmanageability I experienced in regards to a different addiction, and apologized for several of those behaviors.  The specifics range from admitting that I was trying to manage my husband's recovery (and then stopping doing it) to apologizing for dumping my problems onto other people (oversharing).

I have also come to recognize some less than ideal parenting behaviors and learned how to respond differently.  I've accepted that how I handled certain situations in the past wasn't ideal and do pretty well at not behaving that way anymore, though I still slip up from time to time - thankfully, I'm much quicker to apologize now.

I've been dreading making some doctor appointments, both for me and for the children.  I finally admitted to myself that I was just procrastinating for no good reason, and made the appointments.

Misuse of Anger

I realized the biggest misuse of anger I experience thanks to a wonderful therapist.  I realized that a lot of time, by overeating, I'm saying a big, "Fuck You" to my mother - who tried very hard to control my eating and my weight, while overindulging and being overweight herself.  It's not always the top reason why I overeat, but even at low stress times, there's usually an element of "I'm going to do what I want, and to hell with [my mother, society's expectations, etc]."  There's a huge rebellious aspect to my eating.

I've also held on to anger, and purposely stoked it, as a way of protecting myself against my husband - protecting myself from the pain in case he relapses, and as an excuse not to build intimacy (out of fear of being hurt again).

I've used anger to distract me from my personal responsibility.  When we moved, our landlord was a jerk about returning our security deposit, and I think he grossly overcharged us for repairs he needed to make.  I let that anger consume me, so I didn't have to think about the ways I did contribute to our security deposit getting eaten into.

I've also used anger as a reason to eat (in a non-rebellious way) - "I'm so angry at my husband, I need to eat to soothe myself" or "I'm so angry about [some minor thing], but I don't want to be a grump to the kids; I better eat to cheer myself up so I can be happy for them."

Positive Expression of Anger

My anger about my mother's inappropriate behavior led me to set firm boundaries to protect me and my family.

My anger at my husband/his addiction helped me find my own self-worth and self-respect.

I got angry with my husband over some financial secret keeping and expressed myself appropriately, which helped me let go of the anger instead of letting it fester.

Ditto to some inappropriate behavior of my husband's relating to a car.

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I'm going to have to come back to some of these, because I'm sure there are more aspects to these questions that I'm not seeing right now.  Hopefully letting things percolate will bring more issues to the surface.

Serenity Prayer:

Grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change,
Courage to change the things we can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.