The Beginning: Looking for Labels
I started this conversation wondering if I was an “empath” and if my mom was a “narcissist.” I was looking for a framework, something to help me understand and maybe control what I was feeling. What I discovered was that I didn’t need labels—I needed to face some hard truths about myself and my relationships.
I’m 56 years old. I’ve been sober since July 14, 1995—30 years. And this past year, for the first time in my life, I’ve been learning how to actually feel my feelings instead of just surviving them.
The Backstory: A Lifetime of Suppression
A counselor told me six months ago that I’m an empath—someone who feels deeply but has learned to suppress and protect. That revelation blew my mind. At 56, I realized I’ve been having emotions my whole life but never really knowing them. They just ball up into this horrible dread where I think I did something wrong… that I am wrong.
Here’s the thing: I got sober at 25, but I first went to AA at 16. I used substances to manage feelings I didn’t understand, got sober young, and then just… kept surviving. For 30 years, I white-knuckled sobriety without the underlying emotional tools. Five years ago I sought professional help and was put on anti-depressants.
This last year has been about self-awareness, growing up, self-parenting, identifying feelings, getting out of survival mode. I call it saving my marriage. My wife couldn’t carry me anymore—the kids grew up, a few moved out, and she finally said she couldn’t do it. Instead of ending us, that became the catalyst for me to finally build my own emotional foundation.
The Cascade: When Everything Fell Apart
Then came last Sunday. A series of triggers that in the past would have completely wiped me out:
Sunday-Monday: A guy I sponsor who’s 23 and less than a month sober, agreed to meet me at church but came 30 minutes late. Then agreed to meet me at a Monday noon meeting and didn’t show at all—made other plans and forgot to text me.
Monday evening: When I tried to share my hurt with my wife, she responded with irritation: “You’re making it all about you.” So I shut down. When the next thing happened, I couldn’t go to her because I’d already been dismissed once.
Tuesday: My sponsor and I had agreed to meet at 5:30 at a restaurant before a meeting. I organized my whole evening around it—told my wife and employee, left work early, went home and changed, got there at 5:27 and sat waiting. At 5:43 I texted him. He called and told me it was “not confirmed.” He said “don’t put this on me” and that from now on “we need to confirm.”
Consumed with feelings of betrayal, I had intrusive thoughts about hurting him. The old war machine fired up—the familiar “fuck its” I hadn’t tasted in a long time. I drove recklessly. I isolated. The survival instinct was fully triggered.
The Prayer: Finding the Way Through
But I’ve learned something in 30 years: not to trust that old machine. To be patient. To sit in the ditch, be calm, wait expectantly. So I prayed:
God, please direct my thinking, especially that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest, and self-seeking motives. Show me throughout the day what my next step will be. Give me whatever I need to take care of whatever problems I may face. Help me especially, Lord, to be free from self-will. Show me the way of patience, tolerance, kindness, and love. Save me from being angry. Remove fear from me and direct me to what you would have me be. How can I be helpful to others? I offer myself to you—to build with me and to do with me as you will. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do your will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Your Power, Your Love, and Your Way of life.
And things turned around.
The Breakthrough: What Was Revealed
Eventually my wife asked me questions and I told her what happened with my sponsor. She responded with great understanding and empathy. My sponsee reached out and I forgave him and encouraged him. A customer issue resolved itself. My friend reached out, listened, and told me about an AI tool where I could process everything I was feeling.
Through talking it out, I realized something profound: I was stuck between two impossible realities.
- My sponsor genuinely forgot/misunderstood and I’m overreacting (which means I’m wrong, making it about me, being too sensitive—my lifelong default)
- My sponsor flaked, knew it, and deflected blame onto me (which means someone I trusted for 4 years just gaslighted me)
Both felt unbearable. The first one means I’m broken. The second means I was betrayed.
But here’s what I know for sure: my sponsor and I agreed on Tuesday, 5:30, at a specific restaurant. I didn’t imagine that. I organized my whole evening around it. I told multiple people. I left work early. I changed clothes. I showed up at 5:27.
That’s not ambiguous. That’s not “we need to confirm better.” That WAS confirmed.
The Core Wound: “I’m the Problem”
What I discovered is that I have a mechanism inside me that automatically takes responsibility for everything. When something bad happens, I immediately make it my fault, absorb all the blame, go silent, protect everyone else from my feelings, shut down, and handle it alone.
This is what I learned as a kid. It’s survival. Because if it’s my fault, then:
- I don’t have to confront anyone
- I don’t risk more abandonment
- I don’t have to feel the unbearable reality that someone hurt me
- I stay “safe” (frozen, but safe)
My entire survival system was built on “I’m the problem.” When I was a kid, the only way to make sense of a chaotic, painful world was to believe I caused it. Because if I caused it, maybe I could fix it. “I’m the problem” gave me control in a situation where I had none.
For 56 years, every time something went wrong, that mechanism kicked in: “What did I do? How is this my fault? What’s wrong with me?”
The Shift: Learning to Trust Myself
The work I’m doing now, with therapy, with identifying emotions for the first time—is stripping away my ability to NOT feel. I can’t dissociate as easily anymore. I can’t suppress as automatically. The feelings are breaking through.
When something is laid out clearly—when I can see that Kevin actually did wrong me, that it wasn’t my fault—it makes me cry. I get frozen. Because when it’s clear, I can’t hide from it anymore. I can’t make excuses. I can’t make it my fault. I can’t minimize it.
I have to feel the betrayal. And that’s what makes me freeze.
But I’m learning: My perception of reality is valid—even when someone else contradicts it.
The Rebuilding: Fellow Travelers
I’ve known one particular fellow for 30 years. When I was 25-27, early in sobriety, I was the disrespectful kid in the back row at meetings—on my phone, cross-talking, laughing with buddies. He was the mature guy with time giving trustworthy shares, probably annoyed as hell at us.
Several months ago, I walked into a Saturday morning meeting looking to spill my shame. At the end of the meeting this fellow approached me, asked for my number. When he entered it into his phone, my name appeared—he’d had it for years but didn’t recognize me. He later called to confess this, and I joked, “I’m honored to be getting attention from the guy I pissed off so many years ago!”
This friend has 40 years sober. He invited me to an ACA (Adult Children of Alcoholics) meeting he started. He referred me to a great therapist. He’s been walking with me through this whole transformation.
Yesterday morning, I called this friend. I filled him in on everything—the cascade, the sponsor, the betrayal, the shutdown. I didn’t want to, but I asked him to be my sponsor.
He didn’t say no, but he asks everyone he works with to not call him “sponsor.” He prefers “fellow travelers.” He rejects the hierarchy. But in essence, he accepted me.
What I Know Now
The sponsor was the catalyst, but he’s not the point. The earthquake cracked everything open and revealed:
- How deep the “I’m the problem” mechanism goes
- How badly I needed a different kind of sponsorship
- How ready I was to ask for what I need
- How much capacity I have to show up for others even while hurting
- That a fellow has been there all along, waiting for me to be ready
What happened with the sponsor isn’t relevant to how I can love a sponsee and walk with other fellows. I’m not minimizing what my sponsor did. I’m not making it my fault anymore. I’m just not letting it have power over what comes next.
That’s healing. Real healing.
Not “I’m over it” (I’m not, it still hurts). But “this doesn’t get to stop me.”
The Requirements Going Forward
I know now what I need in someone I walk with:
- Someone who can hold space for my emotions without getting defensive
- Someone who models accountability
- Someone who’s doing their own deep work
- Someone who can handle me being angry without making it about them
That’s not asking too much. That’s asking for what I need to keep growing.
Where I Am Now
I’m 56 years old. Thirty years sober. Four kids who are young adults. A wife who finally feels safe with me. A new fellow traveler who sees me. A young man I’m sponsoring who needs me to show up. A therapist who’s helping me understand myself. A prepaid hypnosis session waiting for when I’m ready to go after the deep childhood wound.
And the holidays are coming. January 2-5, all four of my kids will be home. Six of us under one roof. The thing I actually wanted.
I came into this conversation wondering if I was an empath and if my mom was a narcissist. What I learned is that I needed to face whether I can trust my own perception of reality. Whether I can handle what’s coming. Whether I’m capable of real intimacy after a lifetime of protecting myself from it.
This week showed me: Yes, I can.
Not perfectly. Not without pain. But I can stand tall in spite of the offense. I can keep showing up. I can choose intimacy over protection. I can ask for what I need even when it scares me.
God is good. And I’m going to be okay.
This conversation happened over several days in late February 2025 with Claude, an AI assistant. My friend told me about it as a tool for processing when I can’t talk. Writing is hard for me—I only do it when I’m in a lot of pain. But this week, it helped me find my way through.