The Mental Health System – The Land of No Return

Source: The Mental Health System – The Land of No Return

Edit: a beautiful and personal post from Teal Swan on her experiences with the mental health system and a strong voice for allowing feelings. 🙂

How is addiction still active in my life

Blegh, exactly the subject I do not want to think, write or speak about bothering me ‘How is addiction still active in my life?’ Good question for me ever so now and then.

Slowly, slowly ever so now and then I can move out of the panic mode that is my usual state of being and get a little peep of the world. Ever since I chose the word Awareness for me to be the word of 2016 I closed down and nothing, nothing, well hardly anything has been happening in the field of growth or progress. I guess I can say I stabelized at work. There has actually been a day that I did not feel like going for a few seconds (NEW!!!) and yesterday I did not feel like working while being there (NEW!!!). Wow, I felt so NORMAL!!! 😀

Well, I actually feel I should be doing something about not walking in the path of addiction by blogging, Facebooking or Netflixing so I will try to be quick about it.

Addiction, as in ‘ways that I use to not feel what is actually going on with me’ is still active in my:

• eating 100 grams or more chocolate a day
• eating several, up to 20 dates a day
• Blogging, Facebooking and Netflixing for all the hours that I am not working, cooking, biking, walking or social.
• And I guess my current eating pattern with loads of proteine, which is a comfort food group for me is another addiction thing.

A little more than 18 months ago I decided that I want my goal in life to be ‘clear’. To not have all the hurt, the addiction, the lies, the projections, my family history, well, whatever that is not authentically my higher self, to stand between me and the world. I want to try to return to that state of Awareness where the emotional responses, feelings I have are guidelines, not things that overwhelm me and send me places where I have no control over. First I thought I should become clear by feeling my way back into life. I think that has served me well because my intuition is pretty well developed. Intuition combined with good intent is a strong guide in life. Now I think that being aware of what goes on instead of being dictated by my feelings is more important. So I should develop a, dunno what to call it, maybe a spectator view? I heard people use something with the word ‘meta’ in it. I call it Awareness. Well, I’m looking for that state where I am aware that I am aware. That place where I disconnect from the drama in my life and can actually see how the emotional/physical body which houses my spirit walks the earth. It is a comfortable place in so much that the disconnect brings peace in itself because I do not get thrown about by my feelings. I can look at them. I think it is very much like the difference between looking at an aquarium or being the aquarium.

And while I am trying to describe the feeling, and while doing that trying to sort out what it is I am trying to do, I immediately jump to reasons I should not be doing this.

It is uncomfortable to come back into normal mode with all the knowledge I gained in the disconnect because that is where judgement hits me. I am guessing that is what keeps me from going there. Well, while writing this I am trying to find out why oh why, if the Aware state is so comfortable as I say, I do not always hang out there. Would be logical, not?

Things that pop up: emotions overwhelm me so I forget about it. Also, it takes effort and I don’t always want to make the effort. I want to forget that I am alive. It is funny. This actually sounds very much like addiction. Thought/feel addiction. The other day I found out that my first cold turkey quitting was from thumb sucking. At age 10 or 11. Yes, yes, you don’t think I would have quit that earlier than a Very Late age. Guess it comes with being bottle fed ;-). My mother had tried to convince me to stop, also with use of the dentist who said that it might ‘force my teeth forward’. I did give it a thought, well, mostly I felt guilty and secretly sucked my thumb in bed, thinking I could not do without it ‘because it makes me fall asleep’. Then one summer night, it was still light outside, I realised in another one of those deep realisations, that it only kept me awake. I stopped and never thought of it again.

I used to have a friend, the one who had been on drugs and unfortunately walked the path of selling her body to pay for those. She also got into a psychosis if anybody recals anything I wrote about that. She used to wait for ‘insights’ to change her behaviour. I used to think that was utter bullshit and that she just did not want to do the work that belongs to doing something. Yes. Sorry. Sorry to you, old ex-friend, sorry to the world for using my brain to sow bad energy. Now I think she had a point there. And still my second thought is: maybe I have turned as lazy as she did? Third thought: maybe, maybe quitting takes such a lot of internal organisation that there is no other possibility than to wait for insights. Obviously I can not allow myself to wait for insights, I want it all and I want it now so I need to work on getting the insights. NOW!!! 😀

Another random thought: lately there has been very little synchronicity happening in my life. Actually, since I stopped seeing the bookstore man, well, since he vanished 7-8 weeks ago spiritual development and synchronicity have stopped. I guess our talkes kept me open for that specific stream of energy which allowed me to experience them. A few days ago he changed his profile photo on FB. He looks like shit but everybody is commenting like ‘ooh you handsome!’ Not sure if the is meant to lift him up or that people are indeed not seeing. Well, in those weeks he was lost I left him 3 messages and he did not reply so his dramatic, claiming comment of ‘You are the only friend who has not left me.’ might indeed have been nothing more than a dramatic, claiming comment. Who knows? Well, I guess I can add ‘Who cares?’ But I do care. A little. And funny enough, I like my life better with the things I learned from being in contact with him then I like my life now.

So, awareness and addiction. I guess they are direct opposites. Which is cool because that means there is learning to be done there. That ‘cool’ is in theory. Not experiencing any of that. Actually I am very uncomfortable with this post and I, haha, will stop thinking about it now. I think I’ll go clean a little.

I am happy that I quit. I guess there have been days lately that I have not really thought about it. Not sure if that is a dangerous sign or that I it is starting to become normal. Today I picked up a bottle of fizzy water from the ground, it had a wine bottle shape. I walked to the living room with it in my hand and I felt this familiar destructive urge to self destruct with alcohol. Well, I felt the urge that I would used to get when drinking. Today I felt how self destructive that was. Yuk. Nasty. Glad I don’t have to drink anymore. Not sure why I write it in the ‘have to drink’ sentence. Guess that is what it feels like. It is sort of ‘happy that this compulsion does not control me anymore.’ 🙂 Now let’s see how I deal with the other compulsions. Oooh, falling in love randomly is one of those too. I forgot.

Ooh, one thing good: I have started reading again. I had not done that for weeks I think. Just childrens books I re-read but good, very good. It is a sort of reconnection with a non-addictive sort of spending time. And now I am done writing for today, want to clean up the piles of books which are on the floor and try to fit them on the book shelfs. Let’s see.

I take: vitamin D – LOVING IT. Would advise you to do the same. As 75% of the people seems to have a shortage and, blablablahblaaah. Also taking some Schuessler cell salts, not sure what for anymore but feeling better for it I think. Yeah, strange story. Ooh, and I am taking Star of Bethlehem Bach remedy to see if there is an emotional aspect to the sore throat I still have. Hmm, that has been going on since Christmas. 😦 Must be throat cancer then. 😀 . Guessing it has to do with feeling reigned in at my work by my boss, not being able to speak my mind. She is really trying to get me down sometimes. The other day she spent 5 minutes explaining me and all my male co-workers how I lack sex-appeal. She listed all the things (uniform) I was wearing and how they do not make me attractive. Then she continued on me eating funny stuff (oatmeel porridge). “I guess the only thing you can get from that is good shitting. I would have thought that you would have the body of a super model by now but hell no!”

I found that hurtful. What could I have replied? “You might want to look at yourself you fat bitch.” Well, that would have been appropiately disappropriate. :-D. I did diss her by saying that I was by no means interested in looking sexy so I did not see her problem there. She replied with: you should want to look sexy. At which I just raised an eyebrow with the question “Why?!” I spoke about it with one of the guys yesterday. He said she was out of line “Because she is fat as hell and your figure is fine.” The sweet comfort of guys that don’t have a way with words. 😀 I don’t need him to compare. I just want someone to realise too that this was strange behaviour. That I’m not alone in that. Anyway, it still hurts. The guy I spoke with has been said to be in love with me, while he actually told me he thought I was in love with him in the beginning. Not sure what to make of it. Almost all collegues apart from one try to tease me with him being in love with me. Last night I dreamed of us kissing. Well, it was more of trying to kiss and it going nowhere. I forgot about that, that there can be guys with which sex drive does not match. So I guess that door is closed.

There is something I want to, well, do not want to write about. It is confusing too. There are 6 guys at my work. 3 Of them have direcltly or indirectly threatened with sex they ‘jokingly’ want to force upon me. The one guy I wrote about threatened me ‘in general’: “Girls showing their titties and wearing short skirts should be raped, they deserve it!” The other one because I think he is overcome by lust ever so now and then because he seems to have a high drive but his girlfriend just got a baby. He said, just out of the blue: “We can get you pregnant too you know.”At which I replied with a polite “No thank you.” To which he said; “You might not want it but there are a lot of strong guys here and between us we can get you pregnant in no time.” I don’t remember what I replied. I can’t really say anything serious. It’s not like my boss or anybody is going to take this as serious as I think it should be treated. I would wish I can explain them how threathening this feels to me and how much inner strength I need not to break down and have all kinds of memories flood me.

Yesterday this one guy was teasingly pushing me about at the water tab and since he’s huge there is no way to push him about so I sprayed some water on him. At which he replied: “If you were younger I would know EXACTLY what to do to you now….” A collegue behind me saw me drop silent and said: “I don’t think you want to know what he has in mind.” I was amazed at his sudden change in emotions friendly playful to sexual in one tenth of a second. No, I am not naive, or maybe I am. He has been very explicit in not liking me and I have been so too since my boss is after him. 😦 Gosh, what a strange world I live in.

So, it is March and sex drive is taking over. I notice it in myself and in the guys and in my boss. Some days everybody walks around sort of ‘frisky’. Is that the word? I commentend that “FYI, from every 3rd sentence being one about sex you have now gone to every second being one.” Reply? “Yeah! Good eh?!” At which I shake my head in disbelieve.

It is strange to work amongst these guys and to experience sex drive myself and realise that if I take one tiny step outside my normal mode of I-am-not-interested-in-any-of-you-or-any-of-your-talk I get confronted with ‘the consequences’. These being proposals for all kinds of things like “The guys really want to go out with you.” And “I’ll take a photograph when you eat that sausage!” to the worst versions above.

Shit I so don not want to write about this but I feel it is part of my ‘recovery’ (must be the first or second time I use that word here…) because sex, sexual abuse and addiction for me are so linked. I find it ‘normal’ or ‘to be expected’ maybe, that these things pop up when trying to unraffle the process and stage of addiction. But I don’t like it. And I am not at ease with my own responses. Which, now I write that, might be part of the structure. I blame myself. I also want to be free in a situation where I can’t be free. There are guys who don’t take no for an answer. I don’t want to lead them on. Not that I am afraid of any actions going over the top or, well even that sentence says it; in my mind there is a fear / expectation that I could be frisked up but ‘nothing worse’. 😦 And on the other hand there is something in me DEMANDING sexual freedom without being harrassed. Aaah shit, I soooooo do not want to look into the dynamics of this. 😦

Time to go to bed. 🙂

Hope you are having a good Sunday and/or Monday! 🙂

xx, Feeling

 

The truth will come to us at last

Long time – no write. Lots of things not going on here. Lots of working and repairing from that, lots of thoughts not being finished, lots of processes not coming to an end, nothing really finishes or sinks in. I guess I miss my therapist (hi) and the bookstore man. Talks with him draw me inside, make me understand thing. The bsm has ‘missing’ from the net for 1,5 month now. One day he closed the shop and dunno where he went. Yesterday he put up a new profile pic, looks like shit but everybody says things like ‘hi goodlooking’. Strange world.

I have not been writing. Dunno why. Thought I had nothing to say, nothing to sort out, nothing to document. Dunno. I gave the name of my blog to another friend (hi!). It is funny to realise how slowly, slowly I open up about stuff. I see people online telling ‘everybody’ or putting up a photograph of themselves. For me the good thing of the blog is in being anonymous. Otherwise I could not let out the crazy. And I have written about others, real life persons, not always positive so that would sort of ‘expose’ them too when I were to go public. So I don’t even think I could go public without deleting part of my blog. But I have doubts: am I not hiding behind that? It made me wonder what I have not processed yet where others ‘obviously’ (?) have. On the other hand: I can let that go, it is of no importance unless I make it important. Or… well, at that point I ordered ‘Healing the shame that binds us.’ from John Bradshaw. He’s got the whole subject of shame worked out very well (see YouTube – he scares the living daylight out of me, my not humble or educated opinion says that he hasn’t done the last bits of his process yet: believing it is true and internalising it so he too can be at peace.)

Apart from the thousands of things not changing there are 2 things that are changing: I’m getting bored with the 10.001 subscriptions to Facebook groups on diseases (healing), personal shit (spiritual development) and eating disorders (healthy living). The other day I was reading up on urticaria (the rash I have ever so now and then, which, when I scratch it immediately causes my skin to swell up) and realised that whenever I have another one of the 10.002 ‘failings’ in my body I go into this ‘It NEEDS to go AWAY! NOW!!!’ mode. I realised this is no different than the uneasiness I used to have / have with uncomfortable or overwhelming feelings; needs to go, needs to go panick. Actually, when I think of it, it is not so surprising that when my brain goes in to panick mode, my body emits a shitload of histamine which causes the urticaria. When I look around in my house there is not one table top, cabinet, shelf, cupboard that does not have at least one pot of pills or drops for something. Most of them are from the Bach remedies, Schuessler cell salts or other homepathic stuff but it does look…. strange and obsessed. If somebody else would have that I would assume they were ‘ill in the head’. So, finally found a tiny entrance into the subject of hypochondria. 🙂 It is ‘just’ another form of not wanting to be with what is.

The second subject I found an entrance in is my attachment to people who are in a shitty situation. Yesterday I read on our (closed/secret) street Facebook group (good idea, set on up for your street!) that the 12 year old daughter of a neighbour of mine had run away from home. A neighbour who had more info let me know that the girl had left a suicide note aswell. I know the girl. I know the mother. 2 Years ago I decided not to continue your starting friendship because I could not stand the girl. Yes, those are harsh words. That is how I felt. She sucked me dry and I had nothing, nothing to give but my despise and I figured with the way she was bullied at school she did not need more of it. Today my former lack of adulthood left me feeling guilty. The girl was recovered by the police and ‘in good health’ at the end of the day.

This is, well, obviously bad for the girl. I am sorry she is in such a shape. And awful for the mother. This can’t be easy on her. But this is my blog and not about them. Which is a non-funny jokelike remark. 😦 Thing is: news like this still throws me off my feet for long. I was happy it was very busy at work so I could forget about it and work the blockages out of my energy system. Imagining sitting at home with this, I would not have repaired for days. This system of being overwhelmed, not being able to close myself off, it worries me. I mean, it is all partially useful and logical when it comes to close friends and loved ones but, I mean, like carrying the bookstore man’s issues with me for so long, letting it get me down. That is unhealthy. And yet… I still ‘hold on to them’. Yes, that’s it: the holding on to misery what I do. Today I felt how I do that and I realised: it is another escape thingy. My own misery is sort of ‘gone’, but I am so used to darkness that I am open to others. Not good. Glad I’m getting this in perspective. Ghegheghe, first thing that pops to mind: ‘Need to change that, gonna find a Bach remedy against it tomorrow.’ 😀 AAAAHRG!!! Patterns, patterns.

So, tiny entrances in to issues. That is good. I had been missing them in the last weeks. As Dolly sings: “If we listen and hold fast, to every question that we asked, the truth will come to us at last.”

 

What else? I am 18 Months and 20ish days by now. Now I don’t write or read every day anymore it is sort of starting to become logical to be sober, something that I do not really think about anymore. I am still happy that I quit in a sort of ‘I say that because I used to know that I was happy about it, not because I feel it anymore.’ In order to feel it more I imagine how I felt physically and emotionally and WHAAAAA! That’s when I’m happy that I quit again :-). Eventhough I can not imagine that I can still remember it accurately.

The other day somebody spilled beer over me. That was uncomfortable. I was panicky for a few seconds thinking ‘NO!!! NO BEER!!!! DANGEROUS!!!’ Then I realised that it was on my pants, that I did not ingest it, that there was actually not a lot wrong with me apart from being offended by the smell. I was pleased with my ability of calming down so easily. I am currently not pleased with the fact that I can not remember where and when it happened. My memory is still shite. I blame it on not wanting to really be in this life and years long of wanting to phase out one way or the other. I could see if I could find some pills for this ;-).

So, yes, happy that I quit. Returning to what I think/hope is my natural state of being and earning has proven to be more difficult that I thought. I still feel like the doors to another, more complicated world than my current work environment are closed. The other day I found an IT vacancy in my field of expertise and I felt like applying but everything  ‘got in the way’. Anything that disrupts my energy still gets me down and makes me feel like a loser. Good that I write this down because I’m guessing that is the pattern I need to investigate in. A variation on the pattern the Ayahuasca made me aware of years ago: “sadness is your favorite emotion”.

I did spam the movie ‘What the bleep do we know?!’ in here before. I think it is a great movie. Somewhere from 47 minutes or so onwards they explain that nervecells which ‘fire together wire together’. Meaning that emotions we associate with a situation get strengthened in due time because we associate them more and more and more and well, guess everybody here knows how we did that. :-(. They ‘prove’ that in this way we can get addicted to emotions because our cells develop bigger or more docking places for hormones which we use very often. I tend to use the hormones which make me sad. They have a beautiful animation on how it works in the brain. Well, that is the brain side to it, guess there is a spiritual side to it as well. Point is: I need to get rid of making sadness my favorite emotion. 😀 NOW! :-D. Let’s see if there is a pill for that! 😉

It still feels like I need to make the next step in my life and bring more awareness into it. But ever since I chose that word I have been running away from it. I don’t even practise the ‘wwawwlhd’ anymore. I feel I continuously eat so much sugar that I drown my brains. Anne (hi!) made me aware the sugar is not the enemy. I think that is correct, what I need to work on is my want to ‘not be here’. Not that I am suicidel, but I just, just, just don’t want to take that last bit of responsibility for my life. Which is actually the same as saying ‘I don’t wan to take responsibility’ because responsibility does not come in ‘yes to this and no to that’. That would be like looking after children at a swiming pool and paying attention, unless you wanted an icecream. Or so. Well, you get the picture.

On the sugar, it worries me because unlike a lot of you I still feel I have brainfog. That is a point. And I feel I want the brainfog to stay there because I sabotage my sugar free times whenever I become aware. Well, this becoming aware comes with big overwhelming shocks, dreams and experiences, that is true, so I guess I somehow feel I have a reason. Gosh, wish the bookstore man could explain me some of this stuff. 😦

Well, as anything: I’m going to take it slow. That is a thing I learned; respect for the babysteps, respect for the process, respect for not forcing anything but trusiting that the truth will come to us at last.

WWAWWLHD? She would go to bed now.

I take: Vitamin D! Feeling LOTS better. I also take some Schuessler salts on something I sorted ot the other day, I forgot what but it makes me feel better too. I also lose weight again while not working on it. It was mentioned with one of the salts but well, I thought I can’t expect to lose weight when I’m not healthy. They take away the vague muscle pain I had in my back for months too. And I sleep better, only wake up once a night to go to the toilet. That is because I drink 2 liters of tea before going to bed. I try to not do that but somehow I can’t get my liquids in during the day. We are not allowed to take glass into the workspace. And I don’t like tea from plastic. Ooh, maybe I could drink from metal. Yes. Idea. Another reason that I sleep better might be that I turn of my wifi at night. My first night I felt like aaaaaaaaaaw, peace. My whole body relaxed. Guess I’m a little sensitive to it. And my wifi is strong. I live 4 stairs high but when I walk down to the street level I can still use my house phone and internet on the laptop in the garden. Overkill.

A neighbour and I are trying to set up a series of wifi free nights for the whole building. See if more people have sleep improvements. I’ll let you know how we proceed.

On discipline: at work I am getting better and better and better at doing things, doing them smart, organised and quickly. I love my boss for setting these VERY straight and firm boundaries where there is no escape. Ooh, she has been nice to me ever since we had The Talk. Which I really appreciate. The guys are saying that she will eventually ‘get back at me’ but I make an effort to guard my fear and let it go. I do not want to believe that and I tell them that I do not want to live in believing that. I guess what she and I learned is that eventhough we are angry and overwhelmed, we do not want to kill eachother but want to improve the situation by expressing ourselves (however unprofessional and unprepared I did that) Well, that is what I have learned up to now. 🙂

This is it for so far, still no spell check in WP editor and it is way past my bed time so here is another non checked, non edited post. When I started the non-editing I thought I would by now, already have gone into editing mode. I sometimes improve spelling a day or a few days after. I still feel that if I were to re-read the post I would want to change what I write for it to be more suitable, more adjusted, more grown up, less well, shameful sometimes. I know that for me that kills the purpose of the blog: letting it out. Overthinking it without the fear of ‘being found out’. Receiving comments from people who have been / are in the same situation dealing with the samelike stuff on those innermost thoughts. Yeah, thank you for that. Thank you for reading, thank you for commenting.

Hope you have a good day/evening!

xx, Feeling