Self care continued

Long time no write. Things have been pretty hectic at the feeling front. Thanks to Prim and other bloggers earlier for the warning about anniversary anxiety and stress. Been there…. Not so much on the drinking front, that is (still?) not an issue. Living still is. I’m not doing anything. I should be because money is running tight again. But I don’t know, I can’t. However, things are shifting and that is good, even though they decided to take the dark route. Guess that was necessary.

Anniversary was good. The best thing about it was that I realised that I had been waiting for anniversary to happen. That I somehow felt that if I made it to one year, I had proven something. Which obviously is true – but on the bigger scale of things means nothing. I am starting to realise that addiction is something that is rooted deeply in my system and the living and feeling need the correct attention in order for me to walk the right path. Specifically in this society where I can, between 08:00 in the morning and 04:00 in the night get my hands on alcohol, if I would like. Not that I feel I am a time bomb. I feel more like this society is booby-trapped. So that’s not an ‘I am not ok, you are ok’ but it is an ‘I am ok – you are all not ok’ issue (not personally). There is this book by Anne Wilson Schaef  ´When society becomes an addict´ That is high on my list. Not sure yet if I would like it in order to put blame somewhere else or if I just need to understand how it works.

So, 1 year. I have done a lot in that year. I have quit drinking. That was the easy part. I have continued to not drink – no problem there either. I have learned a lot about me: very good. I have processed quite some anger and disillusion, be it not fully and I possibly have not taken all the learning experiences from it that I could have. I have realised that my -sorry for the word- sensitive structure, combined with the shame culture I grew up in and my I am fearing either karma or predisposition or whatever have you, there was no other way for me to go through life than living out my addictive personality to find rock-bottom and to take it from there. As I said before: I knew with my first beer that I would get addicted to it.
I feel I have not found my rock bottom yet. I have found the alcohol rock bottom. I have not found the addiction rock bottom. I have traded alcohol for sugar, internet and a bookstore man. It is all so very, very clear when the veil lifts, and then it drops again and pffff, there I am, not doing anything with my life. I am intelligent, I have a shitload of skills, I have this natural ‘ability’. People, teachers, bosses, friends, from kindergarten through to any kind of job I had tended to say; I do no think there is anything you can not do. And still, here I am, watching Netflix and not so much pissing the night away as pissing my life away.

Yes I know I am doing that, and before my anniversary it felt like there was no exit out of that. The anniversary changed that and I started feeling like I could do something good. And that’s when life started to confront me again, immediately – which is correct because it is time to wake up. But it is not nice.

I called my therapist (hi), it went something like this: I would like to make an appointment and I am calling also because it is my 1 year anniversary and because I have not told anybody nobody is congratulation me and I feel really lonely right now’

‘Congrats on being one year dry, not sober yet, but dry.’

Shit that hurt. I know that stuff. I was not asking to be lectured, I was asking to be comforted. And no, people don’t need to give me what I want, that is up to them. But if I, for the first time in my life dare to express a need and get a backhanded compliment like that it hurts. Specifically when done so by somebody I trust.

And we continued to speak and I, well, I still don’t feel good about it. I know the difference. I was not calling to be therapeuted and having had my nose being pulled through the dirt. I called because I was lost and lonely and for the first time in my life I felt secure enough to say so and bang! there you have it; backlashing. My stomach is still turning upside down. Fucking smart ass trying out his addict vocab on me. 😦

So, what? We spoke some more and I felt I could not put the phone down without expressing how I felt about it so I told him that it made me feel bad. He said sorry-ish. I did not have the guts to ask for a real sorry. Not sure why, I guess because I am not familiar with that :-(.

I was on my way to the bookstore. At least there was someone who knew and I could count on to be happy for me. He was 🙂 And gave me the opportunity to pick out a book to my liking as a present. 🙂 Sweet. 🙂  I was happy about that. Funny enough I could not choose. I want all the books when I can’t have them, and when I could, I did not know which one. I also thought the pick would need to be specific because for me it would somehow be an intro in the new year and my new process to get back into living again.

Even with this nice gesture it took me 3 days to energetically recover from the anniversary energetic twists.

The nastiness actually started the day before, like I wrote earlier: in a Facebook chat with the 19 bags of empty beer bottles friend. I said ‘Sad here because of my mothers dying day tomorrow.’ He send a :-(. I said: ‘But you can congratulate me on not drinking for a year.’ And he replied ‘I’ll drink to that.’ I am guessing I am to blame for that too, I did not fully explain the trouble I was in, just told him I had to quit drinking. And he’s deflecting with a joke – exactly as I would have done when I was still drinking. God, I was such an ass when drinking. Ieuw. Sorry to the world :-(.

What else did I learn? And my anniversary post, specifically the end, showed me where my shame about drinking really lies: in the tie to my mother. Funny that I can’t call that the bond with my mother. A few days later a friend of mine came over, we go way back and speak personal issues a lot. I did not feel like wanting to hide anymore so I told her about my drinking troubles and of being sober for 1 year. 🙂 Thank God she started with congratulations on the one year. 🙂 And then we spoke about addiction, and how it kept and keeps me down. She was worried that I had not told her earlier. I said it is sort of like having vaginal warts, you don’t go speaking about that to people. Not that I ever had those but, well, you know. I was ashamed, ashamed of well, being an addict, proud of my one year but the shame still resides. I was crying my eyes out and then she reminded me of a mail I had sent her years ago; she had been founder and later co-owner of a high-profile company and she had lost it by choosing a co-owner who from second one destructed her professionally in order to have control over the company. My friend ended up with a tremendous debt and being emotionally and physically broken. I had been doing consultancy work for her but ‘left’ when the co-owner came in: I smelled trouble from the first second I met the co-owner, the hairs on my back literally stood up and I had goose bumps, the bad ones, all over. Hurray for that, but there was nothing I could do to help my friend. She was persistent and I was vague. I would have dealt with it differently now I guess. Me leaving was not all too voluntary, the co-owner knew I saw through her and made sure I was cancelled out as quickly as she could cancel me. I recognised her as a corporate bitch and case builder immediately – and she was. At that point in my life I had no guts or power to confront her with that and I did not, against my better judgement, build my own file. Well, that was long ago.

My friend came out bad and did not heal for a long time. So after she had spoken and cried about it through several of our meetings I finally worked out that she could not forgive herself. So I mailed her in answer to a conversation and asked: Can you forgive yourself?

My friend, who actually blew a same amount of money on her company as I did asked me; ‘Can you forgive yourself?’ I lost it. No. I can not forgive myself. I try, and sometimes there are seconds where I can let go, but then something else pops up and I can’t anymore. And this is true eventhough I know I could not have changed anything because I tried and tried and tried and it did not work – well, you know the process :-(. In my head my mother is still very disappointed with me, over having developed into an alcoholic, over having blown her money, over not doing anything with my life right now. Over hiding in imagined contempt I attribute to her.

We split us, I changed scenery and went to the bookstore. The bookstore man was in a real foul mood and with that I am guessing he attracted some even fouler customers. It is so ‘funny’ how that works. I was there for only 3 minutes and this woman walks in and they flared up within 3 sentences. She left screaming ‘You are crazy!’ He said she was the 4th one that day. I very much felt like leaving but also saw he was losing it so I stayed to be able to take over if needed.

And then….. this girl walked in, stepped behind the counter and started chatting like they knew each other intimately, pleasantly and just normal conversation – nothing deep, nothing difficult. Hmmm….. that was a surprise….. :-S. Not so much the girl, although that hurt, but the pleasantly and the normal conversation. And slowly stuff started to sink in: he does not need or want somebody difficult as I am. Hmmmm. That was clear but painful.

I went home and my heart sank and sank and sank into the deepest pit. I had known this moment had to come even though I obviously did not hope for it. I walked home through town, it was raining so nobody saw my tears, well, nobody would be interested anyway. So very, very clearly realised the use of this transferred addiction and the loneliness; so big. The not knowing what the hell I need or even want to do with my life: so much emptiness. The despair over living in a world were I feel like an alien, again a lonely alien; so overwhelming.

Well, that was the bookstore man. The day after he Facebook contacted me asking me ‘how I was’. That was new…. so I suspected a set-up and it was. Just another way to explain to me that he is not interested in me. Which is ok even though it is painful. And with all his reasoning (Ha! I typed treasoning, ghegheghe…) I felt my need for a substitute addiction fall apart even more and there it was: the rock-bottom I had been looking for and I had been fearing at the same time.

So what did I do? Run to another addiction. I got myself 2 bars of chocolate and a whole series of ‘Lie to me’ at Netflix. This all happened Monday, Tuesday. It is only now that I can write about it. My reflex is still not one of looking for help. Shame is a big part in it. I find it difficult to write this without jumping to things trying to defend me and to demonize him.

I was surprised over one thing: Ego!!! He started of with saying something about ‘coaching’ and I should have let him build his own story but I did not and asked him if that was how he saw me; as a coaching project? He said yes. I was FURIOUS!!!! Why? Because he is the one being coached! Back out of his depression and lack of self care and addiction!

Wow!!!! Now there is a little monkey coming out of the sleeve – which is a Dutch saying, guess it is obvious. :-D. How arrogant we are, thinking we are coaching each other. And…. it has been said to me before: do not castrate a guy if you want to bed him. And I did it, again. Care for, mother, intervene, teach, coach – just different types of meddling, calling somebody incompetent and then saying I can fix it. The other day I was happy for him but also proud of me when he said: I have started to take better care of myself through you, so thank you. I don’t like the pride there, it is vanity. And I should not have done any of that, I should have shoved behind the counter and admire him, like the girl did. That would have been more succesful said the cat. And not carry pride in things like ‘I have never met anybody who thinks like you do.’ Pffff, alien.

So. New, life suddenly feeling very lonely and very sober. I feared this was behind it when I realised that all my ideas of him were projections of me. I did not know it was this bad. And this deep and this lonely in the end.

Shame on loneliness. My mother once told me a story when I went to live abroad on my own(like) at age 15. She said: I remember when I went to live with my uncle at age 18. I was so lonely that I sometimes hid in the rabbit shed. I went abroad and realised that my mother had been lucky for having had rabbits around. I remember my drinking really kicking in overseas on my own. Somehow I am ashamed to say I am lonely. Not sure why. Guess it is for losers. I can’t find a feeling way into the matter. It is closed to me so feelingwise there is only this feeling of loneliness and no air to it and no expansion or room to go somewhere. Guess the shame closes the subject of. I need to remember that.

I try to keep on remembering that loneliness is nothing but yearning for the closure of the gap between people. The hanging over, out of my own center is what creates the pain. I used to be able to understand and feel and correct this. Now I can not anymore. Maybe because I am starting to see the value of people and realise how much I am in need of and actually like contact.

I stumble upon what I call the funny autistic thingy of my character again: the other day I found that I was writing comments to somebodies blog and I rephrased original thinking in order to make sure it would not be misunderstood. In contact with friends I start to think before I speak. NEW!!! My dreams have gone back to the wasteland dreams, dreams where all people cluster together in a sort of anonymous ‘them’ or dreams where everybody blames and shames me for not doing what I should be doing. So yes, I sometimes wish I was not me.

I am happy that I quit. I am happy that the ‘love fantasy bond’ with the bookstore man is severed. I am still hiding but well, going to speak with my therapist this weekend so I guess we can work out how to move from the place where I am at. If that is even a place 😦 Lucky me, I still have a broken toe to remember him by. I have not yet decided if I will ever go there again. It does not feel very good to be called a coaching project when I thought we had a normal friendship going on in which I was, as discussed, working out my transfer issues. I am never in love with him when there, the funny thing is that I don’t even fancy him like physically: he’s not ‘my type’. I am beginning to fear that indeed I go for the boys who go for the big mama experience. 😦 Castrate otherwise I can not deal. 😦 Ooh well, there is always tomorrow to learn to do stuff differently, or another few lives… Sigh….

On discipline: none but need for it arises, in overwhelming waves 😦

3 Things; this post, my cat! My self-made ultra warm on my infected shoulders poncho. A reconnection with a person who is becoming to be a fun friend. He’s very technical so we are going to see if we can do a technical project together.

I take: chocolate and Netflix. I should be doing stuff about my shoulders and the infected tendons, they are so hurtful that I sleep really bad. 😦 I also take the Ayurvedic medicine and I notice that fatty bumps on my skin are lessening and that I want to do more, even though I do not always do more but still, tiny things like cleaning up and walking to places now I don’t have a new bike yet are easier.

I need: well, to get my addiction and its consequences fixed.

I want: this all to be over and life to be easy. But I’m not doing anything for it to make it easier and I don’t believe it ever will be. I still cary this feeling of doom and gloom with me. People I speak with, like in the bookstore, tell me that I carry this immense sadness with me. I guess that is true, overwhelming sadness. I have the idea that I translate any extreme emotions into sadness immediately. Swallow them, digest and show ‘I am not a threat to you’ tears. Sadness, my favorite emotion.

I did realise the other day that I make myself unable to move. Not sure what is the biggest issue though. I’m thinking all of them actually 😦 Maybe less on the ego attachment but wtf would I need cosmic energy for if I can’t guide it down to do something with it? My insight really opened up with getting sober and I stuffed it really quickly with the bookstore man illusion. I think I speak the truth, but I am not willing or able to look at the denial I do when it comes to my financial situation. Grief, yeah, I’m big on grief. Everything gets translated into grieve, anger, jealousy, inability, fear, you name it. Shame. Check! Guilt. Check! Fear. Double check.

The title is called ‘self care continued’ well, this post is not about that. I can’t self care. I need to though. Learning to ask for help is still not easy.

Hope you are having a lighter sober time than I am currently 😀 If not, please do remember that no amount of drinking or using will make you troubles go away, they will only get worse. I can’t afford to not have my wits about me so…. easy peasy (for now, but then again, I don’t have to worry about later because I am not in later)