Wanda's Ramblings

Disappointment

Disappointment

Disappointment is another very complex issue. Disappointment, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. One person can be hugely disappointed by a sequence of events whereas another person will find the same situation acceptable or possibly even pleasing. Disappointment could be avoided altogether if one has enough serenity, acceptance, and maturity in their life. Since I experience my fair share of disappointment then I must be lacking in one or all of those categories.

In the vast majority of cases I could have avoided disappointment or at least lessened it by having different expectations of the situation. Ah, there lies the crux of the issues, expectations. Every one of my numerous 4th step inventories has resulted in my sponsor showing me that I still suffer from the character defect of unrealistic expectations. In reality, I don’t think there is such a thing as a realistic expectation because only in the rarest of cases could someone predict the outcome of a situation.

So, I will take a look at some of my recent disappointments and compare those to my expectations to see where I may improve. As of this writing my car has been in the shop for collision repair for about 2 months. I had not followed through with an earlier claim because car repairs have been taking so long lately. I also know the car was badly damaged. But I convinced myself, with unrealistic expectations, that the car would be done quickly. So here I am nursing a large disappointment and resentment. It was my choice.

Most of the time I can see the problem clearly in hindsight but at the time the same logic and rationality are lost on me. Don’t get me wrong it has gotten much better in the 9 years I have been sober and working a program of recovery, but it still happens. I don’t know if I will ever be rid of this particular character defect but judging by my past and current behavior as well as observations of other alcoholics, I’m not going to hold my breath.

So, what exactly happens during a disappointment? I start by convincing myself something is going to be better than I thought or that the consequences are going to be dramatically less than I thought. In both cases, the mental reward I give myself gives me a dopamine hit or reward signal, and I like it so at that point I have already defeated myself mentally. Then when the larger-than-expected consequences happen or the reward is less than expected the dopamine hit is less than I imagined, and it becomes a negative reward feedback.

Once I get the unfulfilling dopamine reward and other neurochemical and physical effects, I have a depressing and let-down feeling. Most of the time this leads to anger and resentment. In many ways, it is also a grief process so denial, anger, and bargaining are added in as well. If I can simply accept the disappointment and move on life is not so bad but that is not my usual outcome. My most common reaction is bargaining because I think I can still make the event turn out my way, or my expected way.

Since I am quite clever and manipulative, I can very often twist the events around to my liking or to a state I can convince myself I still won. Because of this, I have spent an amazing amount of energy performing this unrealistic expectation, forcing the situation, and occasionally winning scenarios over and over. It wears me out and I still have a negative reward feedback but can convince myself I have won at that point anyway, even if bittersweet.

In the case of my car repairs, I have convinced the collision company to comp me back some of the deductible. In this way, I can use that little dopamine reward to think I offset the whole event. In reality, I have spent much more than that on rental cars and still did not get my vehicle back within the parameters of my expectations. Sometimes this is very dangerous because I can stuff the feelings of disappointment down and they will fester without validation.

So, in the cases that I can sit in my feelings of disappointment and process them, I can keep in the moment and learn from the event better. When I do not allow the feelings to be felt I will be doomed to repeat the behavior because I will still fool myself the next time. On the other hand, when I process the feelings, usually through step work with a sponsor, I can identify the character defects involved and my part in the events.

I am quite sure that there is no way to eliminate self-delusion and disappointment at least not in my life. But if I also believe that disappointment is always brought on by expectations and I, at least in theory, have control over my expectations then, again in theory, have the ability to slowly bring my disappointments to a lower level over time.

There are also times that in hindsight I think that I set myself up for disappointment and enjoyed it. I don’t mean I was like woohoo and enjoyed the negative feelings, but I used the situation for vindication against a rival, obtaining pity, etc. In those cases, there is obviously more going on than disappointment alone, but it is part of a more complex cascade of emotions and rewards.

In writing this I have learned a lot about myself and hopefully given you, the reader, food for thought.