The land of no self-hate – Episode 10

How many years did you count between the first thought: ‘Maybe I should not be drinking so much?’ and actually quitting?

Apart from thinking this on a daily base… it took me more than 20 years for it to sort of get it to the forefront of my brain and another 10 years to actually quit. I literally knew that I would get addicted to alcohol at the first glass I took. I also downplayed it by thinking ‘Ooh, since I know that, I will be able to control it.” Yup. Not.

Weeks ago I looked at negative self talk and self-hate while reading a book called ‘There is nothing wrong with you’ from Cheri Huber. That had quite some impact and caused some mind shifts but the execution of replacing self-hate with self-love is not there yet. Not that I expected that – it is difficult to change behaviour. And this behaviour has been going on longer than my drinking career so I’m guessing it is more difficult to change.

For me, negative thinking has a lot in common with addiction: repetitive destructive behaviour. Also: it keeps me away from what really is. Even though that reality generally is nicer than the negativity. Keeping a watch on negative thinking was really helpful and insightful for a while. Also: I felt really happy and it is A-MA-ZING how much energy I had during the day. I was surprised by my openness, the good intention and love, joy and activity which came floating to the surface. I felt the same energy I felt when I was a child in my safe years. Then something happened, everything backfired and I totally lost myself only to go back to negativity and self-hate with even more energy. Sound familiar?

I had the same with trying to quit drinking. I would play with the thoughts to quit and then try it for a week. Something would happen and I would go back to drinking and most of the time I would catch up with the amount of ‘lost’ glasses during the week.

2 Weeks back the cat got really ill. At some point I was so down that I hoped she would quietly slip away into eternity so I could do the same. Very often it is only the cat which keeps me here. Could be a mind trick. Hope I never have to find out. I do feel that every time I return to these dark thoughts they get edged in me, where they even out the road to destruction. In trying to feel into / look at these thoughts I found I have a difficulty with connecting to people. I can love but I can not be loved. I can not let people in. This becomes more and more apparent now I experience how lonely my existence is in these dark moments. I have friends, very good friends. Friends who carefully listen to all this which you might find difficult to read because dark or because repetitive and boring. But in those dark moment that does not matter because this ‘hole in the soul’ is so much darker and bigger than anybody can fill.

I’m not sure what caused this ‘hole’. Do I miss my vanished twin brother? Yes, very much so. A partner in my life? Not specifically. Do I miss, I don’t know fundamental idea of goodness of the world, faith? Yes. Or maybe I miss myself? Yes, very much. What I do to myself is cruel, soul crushing. If anybody would do that to anybody else I would go berserk. And still, somewhere in my life I started to believe, or maybe I even made it up myself, that hating me is the best thing I can do. And I never changed. It is so engrained that it takes more than 3,5 years of sobriety to even get an inkling of it. And then, when trying to quit I this behaviour it calls me back and punishes me for leaving with even more and more darkness. And even though I guess this is learned behaviour be it picked up by an eager student, I still do it all to myself. Cunning, baffling and powerful.

So… I have tuned down the watch on self-hate to let the dust settle a bit and see how I can work on this from another entrance. I need to get my negativity act and food addiction together because they both keep me from being clear and from being honest to myself and other people. As long as I keep on eating away my own shadow, keep on disliking myself for perceived weaknesses, I will keep on transferring this dislike and anger to others. Not good.

So, looking at shadows is good. Ramadan is past so I am eating chocolate and refined sugar again, within 1 day I was back at my usual intake. I eat it and at the same time really dislike it and feel bad. Sound familiar? 🙂 And every day, even now I think: tomorrow I will do it differently. Cunning, baffling and powerful.

Somehow quitting addictive stuff and behaviour jogs memories of events past. Part of quitting the chocolate and refined sugar were (mini) trauma’s I have encountered while living abroad without my parents at age 15/16. In real life and in the sober blogosphere I have met so many people whose life has been damaged and put to a halt because of severe (sexual) trauma and consequently addiction. My traumas are not so severe in comparison with most but I can not seem to get away from them. Whenever I do get really clear, other events keep on popping up. I watched part of the Trauma and healing online conference but I sank so deep that I could not follow-up.

Abuse trigger warning for the next few Italic paragraphs till the fat print.

No chocolate – no sugar brought back this memory from sitting in a tiny park like spot in the country side, next to an enormous white water river, reading a book, my lower legs dangling down the quay/ledge which had been put in place to keep the river from eating in on the environment. A guy comes up, he must be in his twenties, I was 16 or so. Even though I do not trust him we chat because I can not get away safely. I make sure to steer away from anything which might indicate interest in him or look like advances. I try to bore him with excessively speaking about the book I am reading. (Ha! Nothing changed there :-D) At some point he starts requesting I go with him to his house to have sex. I sort of joke around the issue knowing that downright offending or refusing him makes things worse. He comes back with; “Why would you talk to me if you do not want sex?” Followed up by: “We have sex now otherwise I push you off the ledge.”

I would not be able to stop him from where I sit and falling down would have meant sure death. Even at age 16 I make jokes like: “Is that how you pick up all your girls? Not sure it is such a succesful line….” trying to take the sting out of it while trying not to show how my hands trembled and I am so scared I feel I can not even stand-up. He was serious. Not so much in wanting to kill me but he was very thick headed, possibly officially retarded (sorry, not inclined to look for nicer words here). His intent and anger where very real and also he did not seem to have the faintest idea that falling into a deep white water river with rocks all over can not be easily survived – specifically with the 6 meter waterfall further down and a following 12 meter waterfall within a 100 meter. He just did not care. He wanted what he wanted and I refused that so I had to be hurt.

Also: even though the place was max 10 meters away from the road and bus-stop, at that moment there was nobody around. Passing by cars had made it seem a safe spot but when they do not actually stop there is no safety to be found. And even now I have the idea that I have to explain the surroundings to you to make sure that you do not think me silly. I had to come up with silly jokes and conversation for 5 minutes for some car to pop up at the car park 30 meters further before I had the guts to stand up and go home. My knees buckled and I almost shit my pants. I walked home, checking at every turn in the road to see that he did not follow me.

At that time I had stopped speaking about things like this to people because anybody would start with “What did you wear?” and “Why did you even go there?” and “He would not speak to you if you did not give him the idea that you were available.”

I can see now how every bit of anger I held against guys like this was redirected inwards by being blamed for their behaviour.

This is how the female spirit is killed in this world. This is how our freedom and sovereignty is taken

What would a woman who loves herself do? She would love herself. How will I get there? Not sure. Going to bed would be a good thing. 🙂 It always is. And tomorrow slowly start examining and taking loving actions.

I am happy that I quit be it in a dark way. Even though my days have been rather nasty for a long time, I know it was worst when I drank. The guilt and the shame, my god. Unbearable. I literally could not look people in the eye. And that physical feeling of being bloated and stuffed. The high blood pressure. Ooh! Yeah, no sugar, no chocolate made my blood pressure drop quite some points. Eating it makes it rise; I feel my blood pumping in my ears when I lay down on my pillow. So: not good. I also appreciated getting more veggies in because of having better eating habits. Veggies are good.

Sorry for another way too long post. Hope you are doing well.

Wishing you a nice sober week.

xx, Feeling

 

 

Clinging to the non-clinging (?!)

This morning I wrote the previous post ‘Dying is not the problem – sort-of= ish‘ And when re-reading it I found what I had noticed earlier that I write about ‘upholding the status of not clinging’ which, in grown up terms would probably refer to non attachment but in my specific issue here it was not ‘just’ attachment, it was clinging. So I call it clinging.

“Now the practise for me is to maintain and uphold the status of ‘not clinging’ insight in daily life. Ghegheghe….. guess that will take some practise since we live in a world where clinging, wanting, striving is very much stimulated as a tool to ‘make you happy’. “

Did anyone notice the strangeness of upholding ‘not clinging’. Contradictio in adjecto much? To really arrive back again (?) at the place where I had this beautiful, freeing insight I guess I should exactly NOT be clinging to the non-clinging. 😀 New Task. Can be done I guess, it is like letting the train of an urge to drink pass by without attaching. And then for every train, no matter what is on it. Hihihihihi…. easy peasy ?????!!!

” Then what would I do in Life?? If I do not cling, if I do not have opinions? What is left of me?” Shouted the caddis I am. A caddis is a larvae of some insect, it lives under water and gathers all kinds of pieces of ‘rubbish’ which get built into a armour to protect its delicate skin, its life. I feel I do that with fears, with experiences, with well, whatever; building an outer armours to fend new experiences off. To not be touched, not be hurt again. My system reacts as if touching, in the sense of being touched equals pain for me. Seems to be an addicty trait. But disconnecting and carrying rubbish around also hurts. 🙂

Things are shifting, things have shifted in the last 3,5 years. Very slowly the armour gets lighter. Sometimes it gets heavier but that also means clearer. The systems that uphold the armour and the systems which are uphelt by the armer get clearer and lose their energetic intensity. Or, when getting more intense, they also get clearer.

I am still reading ‘There is nothing wrong with you’ from Cheri Huber but now 2-4 pages a day. I’m at the part where I need to understand (WTF) I need to do with my life if I do not criticise myself and put me down.

Live without attachment to the outcome. Or so they say. Currently not exactly sure that is what Cheri says. I’m not there yet. I need to practise the feel of that more in order to continue reading. Possibly I need to re-read stuff. How do other people do that? I have friends who read several books a month. I can’t. Too intense. My cells don’t shift so quickly.

A lot of books are written on the subject of not attaching. I have read a few. I am guessing this is one of those experiences I need to feel through in combination with some exploration by the mind. I am thinking today I found a good experience to remember and hopefully to re-experience. My heart however is still shifted into a cramp and I keep on burping.

It is time to go to bed. In addition to writing the above I need to add here that since a few weeks I am taking added Iodine and some Schuessler salts. The salts are specifically for letting go. Some of them help me lose water weight too. Which…..  I am not sure (I am VERY SURE) if I am fooling myself because I eat a bag of chips and some very salty cheese in really hot weather without drinking a lot and then go ‘Whoops, I need to shed waterweight because my feet are swelling up’. Abuse, just comes easy to me. It could be a song. But I am learning. Right now my heart (!!!) softly tells me: you do not have to write that. No need, let go.

I feel my heart is coming alive again. Today I walked up 4 long stairs and I was a little out of breath and my heart was pumping. My first reaction was fear but then I remembered the pride I used to feel as a child in the strength of my body and everything changed. The air I was taking in was not a desperate gasp but life bringing oxygen. The pumping of my heart not a desperate attempt to stay alive but the strong beating of a heart which joins with the body to do work.

Did I tell you the hug-buddy missed me and invited himself back over. Hmmm, it is like an addiction; stop for a while without really pulling out the root of the desire…. the attachment deepens when you re-connect again. And yes, I know, when it comes to man-women things that comparison could be perceived a little awkward…. But I guess that is the revengeful bitch in me speaking. Pulling out roots. Ghegheghe… did not do that.  That sounds weird too. Gonna leave it in here thought because I resorted to a little aggressive behaviour and this comparison is part of that. Same shit as talking about pulling out roots. Not good. Ramadan coming up next Tuesday, no hugging with the hug-buddy so he says. That is good -> talk time.

I am grateful I do not drink anymore. A few posts ago I wondered about my sobriety. I have reset my wish for sobriety and clarity, newly expressed it to myself and that feels way better. I guess I was taking it for granted like ‘3,5 years no problem, what’s gonna happen to me now’. But that is not sobriety. I need intent to become clear. Move beyond only the not drinking. Not drinking is only a ‘tool’. Or more like an area of destructive behaviour I should not move into when I want to become clear. I guess today the experience of being able to, for a certain amount of time, be conscious of letting go of attachment to my dying brother has helped me with that. Being clear is good.

Thank you for reading. I wish you a good sober day or evening or weekend! Enjoy!

xx, Feeling

The land of no self-hate – Episode 9

Today I continued reading the book and re-read the part which upset me earlier. I found that I was ‘on track’ with feeling into the matter and ‘becoming one with the message’ when the book said something about ‘I could not make a decision if I wanted A or B.’ and that is where I stepped of the track. Not sure how other people experience book reading but I like to, as I said, become one with the message; breathe in the meaning, the feeling of the text. And then when there is something that blocks inside I can feel it in my body, it is like the cloud of energy which is normally a stream, then suddenly does not want to pass through my stomach, or into my right leg. Or my throat gets all tense. That’s when I know something is up and I have to slow down and pay attention. How DO other people do that?

This one I missed because ‘I was in the right’; not being able to make a decision is stupid. Yup, sorry to the world. It is so again, funny in a not funny way, how we (i) think that having opinions on something is important, of essential to living, while actually it keeps me away from exploring and perceiving what actually is out there.

It is like quitting drinking. I was all anxious about ‘will I miss it?’ and ‘I am going to fail sooooooo badly’ that I could not continue. Then I realised that when I think I will fail, I will automatically diminish all the options in which I do not. I will not believe those. My energy will be focussed on fearing that I will fail so I will be watching out extra for signs that prove I will fail. And while doing so I am already one foot into the trap of alcohol because I am not focussing on being happy that I quit, I am focussing on that failing. And as you know with driving a car through a narrow street: don’t look at the parked cars or you will steer into them, look at the road and the open space. Or:

I am not one of those positivity persons (ooh, gosh, you noticed?!) but yes, it can be wise to pay attention to what you fear, expect and hope. Those 3 are fundamental and sometimes detrimental in how things play out.

Ooh, the hug-buddy has decided he misses me so badly and he physically deteriorates so quickly that he needs to be hugged. By me that is. My inner floozy said yes. To tea. Not sure about the hugging and not at all sure about the sexy hugging. This is new territory for me and I find that I am not dealing well. I feel this is a new addiction. Maybe I should get a book…. 😀

Ooh, on that topic: yesterday I deleted a sentence in my writing which I did not want to have true. Yup. Sorry :-(. I was upset and my reaction was to think that I should read something about a specific topic, something on addiction of the society by A. Schaef. Most interesting. I had a title in mind and went looking for it on Amazon, and then on Dutch shops. But I deleted the literal sentence ‘I need to buy a book’ from my post. Low and behold: here comes Wendy and she comments: “I need to buy a book.”. The truth is out there and it will smack you in the face, shit on your porch or be way nicer and drop by with the Wendy express service. 🙂 <3. I deleted the sentence because lately I literally go buy books when I am upset. Splitting up with the hug-buddy cost me 53 Euro on books. I do have the money but it is not a good idea to spend that kind of money if I do not know where next months’ money will be coming from. I did not want to have that true. I deleted the sentence and told myself that it ‘would confuse you to have so many subjects in one post’. Same shit, different day. THANK GOD it is books and not booze.

Ok, where did I trail off? Aah, yeah, opinions blocking experiences. So I found that I ridiculed the indecisiveness of the woman in the book and that put me on the trail of hate and self-hate. I am not able to be indecisive. In my mind indecisiveness is for sissies who will not survive this life. “Make up your mind! I haven’t got all day! If you don’t make up your mind right now you are not getting anything at all! And no! No whining! Ok! You don’t want anything?! Then we go. Nope, you did not decide from which I conclude that you do not want anything.” WHOAH! And the connection to survival is amazing too ‘they will not survive this life’. Well, we all leave here in a coffin. Guessing this is strongly related to the biblical story of the 6 stupid maiden and the 6 wise maiden. Guess it is called differently, and maybe they were 12 and 12. 🙂 Our noses were rubbed in this story, combined with ‘guilty ignorance’. “There is no such thing as ‘I did not know!’ YOU SHOULD HAVE KNOWN!!” And that people, is how you make kids who struggle with perfection.

All this darkness stored in one body. I don’t want that anymore. Everything I do not uncover, bring into the light, will live in the darkness in me and it will fester and I will spread it unconsciously. That is how projecting, transference works. 😦

I picked up the ‘There is nothing wrong with you.’ book again and got to read another 1,5 page untill I got stuck in me again. Not sure what that was about. I was fed up with getting stuck so I Netflixed it all away.

I am grateful that I have given myself the opportunity to see life from a not drinking standpoint. Lately I am confronted with so much of my addictive behaviour like chocolating, Netflixing and self-hating behaviour that I do not feel ‘sober’. I have a problem with calling myself sober. Feels like I am lying. This one is difficult to bear because the addict within pops up saying: “Well, if you do not call yourself sober, you might as well drink.” I have a persistent, astute, sharp-eyed addict within who is too smart for my own good. But then again, if he were any less cunning and in my face, I would have underestimated him. Hmm… funny, creating my own matching demon and then wrestling it.  Wonder what a psychiatrist would say about that. 😀

I am however grateful that I quit drinking. And also that the Dutch government gives me the possibility on being at home on sick-leave. I have not heard from them. That is ok for me because I am not ready to get out there again. I have the feeling I need to undo myself of some more onionrings or I will walk into the same shit again.

I wish you a nice sober experience of life.

xx, Feeling

The land of no self-hate – episode 8

Self-hate is back in its fullest form and I had a bad, bad day. Thought it should go into the journal of my trip to/through the land of no-self hate. I am starting to realise how self-hate / judgement / continuously commenting and having opinions is another form of addiction. It is funny to change perspectives which are so engrained in my life. It even feels like they are in engrained in my body.

It also wears me out, this shifting from one point and taking an effort without taking an effort to not judge, not self-hate, not comment, getting to this point of tranquility. And then falling deep down into the darkness again over something. The opposites get so big. Which is good. I mean: is this not how anybody comes into sobriety too? Drinking and then trying not to drink, not drinking for one day and feeling good and then drinking again  and thinking ‘should not have done that….’ etc. etc. untill the good side of sobriety outweighs the ‘good’ side of drinking.

Well, today was what formerly would have been a bad drinking day and I had no clue what so ever what would help me get out. So I self-hated some more because “By now you should know how to do this! You have read 80% of the book. When are you going to learn if not now?! You say you want to read the book again if you do not get it?! How many books do you have to read to actually ‘get it?! God knows you have enough unread books laying about….. I trip over them every day…”

And you know what the not so funny funny thing is? I have been doing this ALL MY LIFE! I did not want to notice. Denial? Check! It is amazing how many layers and layers of self-destructive adaptations to Life I have put into place to, to…. to I do not know what.

I stay with the idea that everything we do, we do because we think it is the best option feasible at that moment. My mind is making over-hours do discard that and self-hate me for “the sorry excuse of my life being the best option feasable” 😦 With a me like I have, I don’t need enemies. And I guess that is exactly what this whole process of self-hate is for: to make myself an underdog so I will not be attacked. Best option feasable at that moment. “Well, parents are dead-ish, other options could possibly evolve so get on with it then…”

In the book ‘There is nothing wrong with you.’ (“Then you have not met me yet…” says the internal voice.)  from Cheri Huber, I have come to the page where she asks students of her group how they went home after a day of learning about self-hate. And funny in a not funny way, the left from heaven to walk into hell. Just as I did. And the more I read, the more I got caught up so that was not the answer today. I could not stay with myself.

This then, also reminded me of moments before I quit drinking; it was almost impossible to be me, it hurt so bad, the despair, the self-destruction, the darkness. And alone in that because; “Who would like you if they knew who you really are?” And also: “Those professional addiction people are only nice because it is their job. Behind your back the think you are worthless.”

I finally did find a video of Jeff Foster. It is about aspects of (self)hate and how feeling displaced in this world is actually stirred on by a real intense wish to live (in a good world). To throw away the mask. To undo myself from the fakeness I have layered upon me.

My energy for doing things has returned in the past week. Again with taking Iodine pills. I keep on forgetting how important supplementing these seems to be for me. And magically it looks like I’m losing some weight too. I think to know by now that I am not depressed. I have seen some depressed people on video and that is not me (anymore). But there is also another thing going on and that is me realising that I put on a lot of different masks. The one who does not always want to be the problem is very prevalent now. I find it difficult to differentiate between real happy and made up happy currently Specifically because I switch from not self-hating and being happy to self-hating like crazy and denying myself to feel that and pretending to be happy for the outside world. Which I then find out later.

When I fall back into the darkness on a day like today I am flabbergasted on they why and how and I have no clue. Would not like to find me like this on a working day. That scares me too.

Maybe today’s darkness was me missing the hug-buddy. Maybe it was the portal day on the Mayan calender which makes people feel down. Or maybe… I am in transition. I have not had a period since the Mirena IUD was taken out a few months ago so… maybe that is here, or has been, or….? Who knows? Maybe I can get my hormone levels checked. That would be an idea.

I have been here before I think to remember but what I experience is something like: a personality is made up of bricks of pieces, experiences, feelings, however you want to see that and it has a glue with a certain personality taste so the bricks of the experience are all facing the way that causes me to react a certain way. Like the above drawing: if my personality is set up to always see the squares, the glue which puts all the experiences in place is now falling apart at some moments and then I see the round thingies. Also I see both the thingies and sometimes I see the ‘whole’ picture. But mostly I am rather tired of all the shifting that is going on.

Ok, cat says it is (way past) bed time. Which it is. She comes to get me from behind my desk and then walks to the bedroom. 🙂 Hint hint.

Last night I had a nightmare I got killed by different people I know in 5 different ways and I kept on getting up and saying “No, that does not kill me, you have to do better than that” in a pretty defiant way. I was however crazy scared shitless. But then the cat woke me up, she does that when I’m having a bad dream. ❤ ❤ ❤

Thank you for staying with my musings which, even in my perception, can be very uncomfortable. I have been reading older posts from me a few weeks now and they even make me uncomfortable. Or maybe that is because they stir things in me which other people possibly do not have. Not sure.

I am grateful that I have quit drinking alcohol. Addiction is a destructive way of ‘living’. Summer has come to The Netherlands and the way people treat themselves is not nice.

A friend of mine came to visit last week. She is from a non Western background and her husband has gotten addicted to alcohol over the last 5 years. We spoke, I finally advised her to go to her GP and get into contact with an addiction care-taker. She would not want to do so without informing her husband so this is where we left it. I hope all goes well. At least the wheels are set in motion. I really dislike seeing how he treats her. I really hope they find good help.

Wishing you a nice, sober day/evening,

xx, Feeling

The land of no self-hate – episode 7

Currently not reading in the Cheri Huber book but trying to notice love and hate as they pop up during the day.

Since I have a lot of energy returning to me now I do not constantly dislike myself I feel I can work again. This is not true according to my friends and I still tear up when I think about my former workplace experiences, but I do like to think it is true. So the last days I have tried to force myself to think about work and direction in life. Guess with writing that down I realise that the forcing part is never a good recipe for getting good results… hmmm…. Well, I force myself and the ONLY thing that comes back currently is a whining;  “But I want to be special. I don’t want to do something normal, something average. I want to do something NEW and EXCITING and I want people to be in awe over it.” Yeah, well, not my proudest acknowledgment here.. but it is here and I can not leave from where I am not so I thought I would write about it.

I think to know when exactly I adopted this attitude. It was while admiring a very fashionable, beautiful woman who visited my neighbours and everybody was in awe of her. I thought something along the lines off: “If I become like here they will not touch me anymore, not hurt me.” I am guessing that is where my need for being special started.

It must be about 25 years ago when I spoke with a professional care-giver, he said: “with the right attitude, people do not harass you”. Even after this time I still carry it with me and it was one of the reasons why I hardly ever spoke about sex or abuse in therapy. These tiny sentences with such big consequences.

Being at the receiving  end of that judgement about abuse I wanted to become special even more. Only if I was really, really special, with the right attitude, people would not harass me and not judge me for having been harassed. I would need to rise above humanity to be safe. This escapism, it is so big in me.

Last week a friend treated me on a horoscope explanation. Every word the man said was recognisable in my life. My main issue in life was ‘manifestation’ and my fear of it. And indeed: not being fully incarnated in this world, as I had already assumed. It is time. And I think self-acceptance, self-love is the way. 🙂

While writing I try to go from the sort of neutral state of observing my state to acceptance of the situation and love for me. In every attempt I meet up with another blockage. Maybe I should not grapple with the Truth but wait for it to come by. Same shit, different excercise. 🙂 How many reasons do I need to exactly not like myself?

It must have been about 10 years ago that I realised that from all the people I knew, I could not mention one of whom I felt they loved themselves. How many people do you know who genuinely love themselves?

There is this pretty persistent Dutch mentality in me that says “Doe ff normaal!” it means as much as: Act normal! NOW! It tells me I would be bragging if I said I love myself. That I would be stuck up. Dutch culture does not advise you to hate yourself, but a normal, neutral state is preferred. 🙂 Which, now I come to think about it, is as logical as not loving somebody else ‘because that would give them the idea they were too good for this world.’  🙂

Because of the book by Cheri Huber I am starting to doubt if I can love somebody if I do not love myself. I think I can, but it is not unconditional, it is as conditional as I ‘love’ myself. Not only hate is a projection, a transfer, love can be too. When love is not a state of being of acceptance and realisation within the Life force, it seems to be a projection. Lately it seems to me that all emotions I could have about somebody else are projections. Obviously there are many moments I do not want to accept that because I prefer the guy whom I call an asshole to be an asshole rather than having to look at myself…. OBVIOUSLY!

Love can be emitting from my core and be aligned with Life or ‘put on somebody because of how he/she makes me feel’. Or so I experience it 10th of a seconds ever so now and then. (I would not want to presume I know anything about love because I “Doe normaal!”) Reading ‘There is nothing wrong with you’ at times brings me in this state of tranquility. It is a good antidote to the stress which is locked in my body. Ok. Did I tell you I think it is a good book? 😉

My new course on a specific gardening subject started this week. Wonderful, wonderful , wonderful! I full classroom with mostly people of the same hair colour all excited about the same subjects. 🙂 We are going to do excursions too. Yay! 🙂

I am grateful that I do not drink alcohol anymore. Slowly, slowly this ship is turning away from the collision course it was on.

Wishing you a good sober day/night.

xx, Feeling

The land of no self-hate – episode 6

A friend came over last week. We spoke and she found out I had not been opening my social security mail. I can not lie about those things anymore or change the subject. When I try to change the subject or speak half truth I feel bad; like my internal system just blocks. Things inside get twisted and I feel like I am threading the path to addiction again. It is very informative and also very unhandy and it feels childish but if this is what it takes to get me unaddicted and keep me sober… then it is what it takes.

As she had been working for such an organisations she says: “80 Percent of the people in your situation have a big problem with procrastinating and actually fear doing their administrative work. A lot of people do not open their mail.” And there I am, hating myself for it, thinking I am the only one. Noticing that I still can not do what I think I should. Still can not ask for help. She was nice and just offered; “Let’s do this together.” We opened the mail, did the online thingies and yay – social security money coming my way.

What will I do? I will contact the social security organisation and really start looking for help. Together we set a date to do so within 2 weeks. This has gone too far. I could not see that earlier and I still do not want to see it. I have read this writing 3 times in the last days and still I internally move away from the shame that is related to, to failing I guess. I feel I am failing here big time.

My inability to get my life in order frustrates the hell out of me. I have so many skills, very unusual ones which are extremely well-developed and when it comes to my own life, I collapse. I notice that I go from utter frustration to admiring what I can do. This, I found, is another trait of addictive thinking: cancelling out frustration with admiration, dreams, ideals, anything unreal, always polarised, never neutral, never the middle road.

Well, the Good Thing from reading the book on self-hate and self-love is that I am experiencing more and more and more peace inside. I can breathe easier for instance. I have been practicing this but now I notice much better when I get upset over a (social) media post. I notice how destructive most of the posts are and indeed: Facebook, anything social media is addictive to me because of the arousal of feelings.

For logging purposes: When I opened my online bank account and realised that I misjudged my spendings of the last 5 months with a whooping 2000 euro. That sucks. I tried to reason with that while saying the most ridiculous things to myself at topspeed. My friend asked me if I knew where it went. Since I pay everything by debit card I guess I can work that out. Money and figures are not negotiable and pretty black and white I came nowhere. I realised what I do felt familiar. I did this, I felt like this, when was it? Aaaah! When I was drinking! So, this is denial. Different subject. Same shit.

What surprises me is now I found a little bit of self-love, new levels of self-hate open up.  Yeah, that is what it is. And that is how it works. Denial: the ‘not wanting to look at that’, the darkness, the shadow, the ‘not wanting to feel’, the ‘not wanting to be present’ – it is all the same energetic movement away from my centre, away from what is.

Also: energy flows where attention goes. And I guess this is how I learn; build up the most unbearable amount of stress and then explode or implode and sink to a rock bottom from where I start again. Very much how people with an addictive personality ‘lead’ their life. :-). I wrote this paragraph earlier, now, a few days later I have difficulty with the energetic polarisation which is in it. And if it were somebody elses writing this I would get tired of it and wonder when this person’s personal hell will see some daylight.

So, lots going on. Practicing almost every moment of the day with self-care and finding out that love can be in every detail of my life, not only in how I treat my body with eating or not eating but also in how I sit, in how I breathe, what I watch, what I let my mind think about, what I let my eyes see. I read more. Reading beats Netflix and Facebook by far.

I am grateful that I quit drinking alcohol. I feel internally pressured into writing here that I my life is ‘not working out yet’. I guess I could call that shame, it feels like shame. But I am on the right track. Maybe I did not fail, I just found out a 10.000 things that don’t work. 😉 I am a way nicer person than I was 4 years ago, than I was half a year ago, than I was a 2 months ago.

Based on the idea that money is not all too tight I ordered some new jeans. The old pair had holes in them. I fitted 20 pairs and send back 18. I had an hour of practise on not hating my formidable behind. Repeating: I can not hate myself thin, I can not dislike myself happy. 🙂 It worked somewhat.

Wishing you a nice sober day.

xx, Feeling

The land of no self-hate – episode 5

I woke up this morning and against all odds tried to love myself. Now I think to know this self-hate and destructive behaviour is an addiction as well, things start to fall into place. So now I continue practising liking me, not hating me. Had some lousy tries and some good ones. I also had difficulty concentrating because of the upcoming ‘we need to speak’ talk with the hug-buddy.

I did however have some help in liking myself from the hug-buddy. And I had some insight in the absurd workings of the Universe. AGAIN! It works out the hug-buddy has not only been addicted to alcohol, he also had/has a sex addiction. Hugging does not set his fixation off, it relaxes him. Other things do. He never went into treatment for either of them. He ‘did a geographical’  – moved a few countries away from his abusive wife several years ago and it worked.

To the Universe: how on earth did I, from all the guys in that factory, find the one and only addict? And on my two ‘favorite’ subjects?! And how to continue?

When we are together we hug and touch and relax and do some relatively innocent sexy stuff. I keep my pants on AND my everywhere hair unshaven – unshaven EVERYWHERE. awkward? Yup. Deliberately awkward because I  don’t want to cross borders I do not want to cross yet or at all. I think I need to learn not only to say no, but also to say yes. And do so from the start, not as an afterthought. I am not there yet – dealing with shame, unease and lack of practice.

The hug-buddy is very good at saying what he likes and how he likes it. I want that too. So, that is my practise. I made it his practise that he learns to touch me as I touch him – he likes the way I touch. They all do, I seem to have magic hands – said the boundariless addict I also like the way I touch better than how a lot of other people touch. So he needs to learn to touch and really be present in that touch, at that place, at that moment.  It is so cool to feel him (try to) do that and not have grabby hands which only take and think of satiation.

Lucky him and me…. of all the women he could have chosen I am one who can sense change from non-sex to curious sex, to needy sex, to single-minded taking sex, to disrespectful sex within a second wherever it may happen in the body, mind, feelings or intentions.

He says touching like stroking and massaging of the non sexual areas is ok. So we did that and suddenly, because of the newly found trust in each other it all spun out of control. I do feel alive now. 😀 Yesterday I was looking to feel alive. I do now. However I do not feel proud of having let myself go feeling wise. Nothing happened, but we did put quite some gasoline on the fire so to say.

He says: “If I go into the sex mode I end up drinking and having financial problems in no time.” So what kind of woman am I that…? Well. Ha! Addict trap 2109: “I will help you with this….” And still: my whole body, mind, aura is alive with expectation and desire. Both not good words in the addict world.

If anybody has a title for a book on how to deal with sex-addiction I would be grateful.  I notice that I want to think I have it ‘all worked out’ myself already (not!) but I’m not sure if that is helpful. It actually feels very egocentric of me somehow. Possibly because the addict in me wants to make a pact with his addict ‘because it feels good’. I really, really, really need to get a grip on this because I do not want to take him down because he makes me feel good.

Second thing that happened; he did his ‘we need to talk thing’ and probably a lot of the energy he had put in building up fences fell away. So the next layer came lose: enormous dislike, anger, almost hatred of women of his own age (he is more than a decade younger). I can imagine what he is experiencing; he is tremendously handsome in a ‘Disney prince without a dime, all alone in the world’ kind of way. Girls latch onto that like crazy. But princess attract princesses and those all want something of him; very aggressive, very demanding and very demeaning when he does not give them what they want. Something in that dynamic must have its influence on how he looks upon women.

And now he has given me the feeling of being alive and a basis for loving myself again. And I want that. But at what cost to him? And can self-love filled in by the other? Or is it absurd of me to expect to be able to do everything on my own? Yes Ainsobriety: I am overthinking here. 😀

The addict within me says: “But geeeeez! I just want to be happy!” But I’m guessing there is no ‘just’ anymore when I want to stay sober and I want him to be stable. But am I at this stage using my co-dependency to ‘help him’ and feel better myself? Or should I stop overthinking and go with the flow? Ooooh, no no no no no no nooooooo – hair on, pants on, brain on. Agenda for the next meeting with the hug-buddy: where are the boundaries, what is the safety zone. What happens if these are crossed (playing the tape forward). How to stop us from crossing the safety zone.

Ok, I could have made this a shorter post and some of it is redundant but then I would not have experienced these corners of my feelings/wishes/thoughts. I guess that’s it. By writing stuff down I get to go to the next door behind I find other, new stuff.

So much for today. I am grateful that I do not drink. Today very much so because it made that I have insight in addiction and e.g. did not laugh at the hug-buddy when he came out of his closet about this. Also this gives me a good reason to more structurally work on myself because I do not want to take him down because of my self-hate.

Because of self-hate I need/would like to use others to love me. Sex is an easy way to get my claws into somebody.  And I noticed today that I am familiar with this track and that we can both run down this track very easily. When I do not hate myself I do not want to use people to fulfill my needs for love. I hope. They say that is how it works. 😉

Wishing you a good sober night/day.

xx, Feeling

The land of no self-hate – episode 4

The book ‘There is nothing wrong with you’ by Cheri Huber advises the reader to ‘go one day without self hating’ and  ‘if the results of that day are not satisfying, you can double up on the self-hate the day after’. Well, not exactly her words but something along those lines. I tried. I had a wonderful day. And then life happened and I could not keep up the non-hating and I indeed doubled up on self-hate. But not because I wanted to.

It is funny in a not funny way: self-hating, or no matter what negative behaviour very much feels like and addiction. I wrote about that before and placed this vid of which I  strongly urge you to watch. It is a part of the movie ‘What the bleep do we know’ and it explains how emotions work through (natural) chemicals in the body. The physical part of emotions. And also they speak of addiction to emotions or certain emotions (like self-hating).

 

On top of doubling up on self-hating get signals from the hug-buddy that he wants to make changes to our dalliance. I thought I had protected myself well enough from heart-break but no. 🙂 Obviously I rush to conclusions thinking that ‘change’ means ‘shut down’. So I was all over the place yesterday and last night. Very painful feelings of loss, loneliness, heart-ache and ‘being good for nothing’. He has not even said a word apart from ‘we need to talk’. But then again, I don’t think he’s pregnant or wants to marry me. When a guy says ‘we need to talk’ that is pretty ominous.

I realise that when I want to change this personal hell of pain which I walk in lately, I need to dig some deeper than bringing on a mantra of ‘you are ok’. While in my bed thinking: ‘I might as well face this.’  and I went all in. Again and again, I run into what one could call survivor guilt. I did not come into this world innocent, I came into this world after having killed my twin brother. And even though this memory has not always been active in my life there have always been hints of me knowing, of me feeling guilty. Like the time I explicitly told my mother that I existed and this meant that somebody else did not exist. She reacted as if it was a futile and ludicrous attempt on philosophy by a 4-year-old. It was not. I have really said some bizarre things. Funny how nobody ever picked up on that. I remember being explained what the word ‘murder’ means and all the kids being shocked while I felt guilty and had no idea why. Everybody saying “I could never do that!” while I tried to say those words but I knew I was lying. I knew very well what it is to cause somebody to die. I know it was not ‘my fault’ – but ‘preferring the other to die in stead of me’ makes it feel as if I had a choice. I tried to help him. But I was too late.

This shadow hanging over me, this darkness I take with me all my life. It is fertile soil for  whatever accusation is coming my way.. On good days it is only there as a destructive notion of self-hatred, of self-destructive behaviour, of addiction. On bad days I wake up with hatred so big that I want to jump of the building. My ’emotional body’ feels like I am walking through a world on fire. Flames all around me scourging me.  I can look at this screen and see the screen and the letters forming words. When I turn my eyes inwards I see flames in the darkness and there is nothing else. It is real strange to be speaking with friends on the phone while inside I am burning with flames.

I don’t want this anymore. Last night in bed I realised that a few years ago I got sober and decided that I need to feel my way back into life if I want to un-addict. WELL F#CK! There is so much I do NOT want to feel, do NOT want to be present with, do NOT want to be. I do not understand how other people do this. How do you live? I can really feel into this shit for 5 to 10 minutes. Then it takes me at least 2 hours of zoning out over a computer game or Netflix to be able to, dunno, get up? Do the dishes.

But I have a cat so I have to live and maybe deal with being me. Days have been very dark and destructive. I am guessing when in the process of fo finding self-love the self-hate pops back up too. Both become more alive with a current emphasis on the hate 😦 No surprise there. It feels like ‘drinking extra because next week I will stop anyway’. Gosh… hmm, that still sounds logical. That is not good. Guess it was a myth that Jason Vale or I did not debunk. Hmmm, needs looking into.

If indeed self-hate is addictive behaviour, like I am now/have been convinced off, some part of me will feel threatened by letting it go. Bullocks, not parts. I feel threatened by letting it go. I would not know whom to be if I do not destroy myself. Now that…. hmmm…. straight from the heart. 😦

The social services offered help with my mental state. Then I got in such a bad state that I could not fill in the forms which are mandatory for getting help.

I wrote the above and took a break from writing. With an ef it all attitude I dove into the darkest darkness and ended up in front of my dying twin-brother.

I was addicted from birth onwards. My parents were surprised about how cuddly I was. My mother called me ‘a bottomless pit’ when it came to cuddling. They were also surprised on how demanding when it came to food. Seems like I screamed with rage, high and loud, till I got my food, several times the neighbours came to see if all was ok.

The memory of my brother’s death is a vivid one. It came back to me in half sleep while I myself had no clue of there even being such a thing as vanishing twins. Him being so close, no, that is not the word, we were each other:

You are me,
I am you,
We are you,
We are me.

Then,
you were not.

So who am I?

He died at tiny arms length of me. The disintegration of a soul, the destruction, the immensity of the very intricate, living structure of enormous intelligent power, of consciousness which holds together every atom in a person. All this fell apart in front of me. He fell apart. We fell apart. I fell apart. The insight it gave me in the imensity of the Universe, the quality of the substance of life, of consciousness, of what holds us together. Losing him, losing me, it broke my essence and threw me into the Universe with no protection what so ever. The purpose of the body is to experience separateness, time and death. These three things make up the human experience.

This is what it looked like. Well, not literally, but the energetic explosion had the same quality as this photo. Only this has no center, no axis and no direction.

My brother and I were Mono Zygotic twins. And yes, everybody says that is not possible male – female monozygotic, but it is. First, because that is how I experienced it – which haha, has little scientific meaning but I searched literature till I found that indeed it is possible. Chemical wonders. Secondly, what happens is that hormone wise putting a guy and a girl in one sac is a chemical time bomb so one has to go. Which is the reason there are currently only 5 or so sets of living MZ twins. Google it. The stem of the scientific verb to describe the process of the one twin ‘killing’ the other is the stem of the verb of which my first name is derived. Amongst others it means alienate. I know, sounds all carnavalesque but it is true.

“Let’s have a baby and call it after an alien. Sure she’ll just fit in nicely in this world and feel so very welcome… ” Ok. Childish. I just very much dislike my name since I heard what it means.

I need to own this story. I still have difficulty believing it myself. Which I guess it keeps on coming back here in the blog.

I have been in contact with Vanishing Twin groups on the internet and I can not find what I am looking for which is the understanding from the inside out. Most people come to this conclusion of having had a (vanishing) twin from the outside in; they read something and it fits their profile.

I did it the other way around: I experienced something and went looking for medical and psychological theory to back me up. Well, these groups feel like talking about addiction to somebody who has not experienced it. Or worst: being ‘helped’ or in most of the cases actually being ‘talked down to’ by somebody who has ‘been through this because the book says so’ but really thinks others ‘should not make such a fuss because THEY themselves have done so well’. Haaaahahaha, sort of how I treat addiction: “I advise you to read the book. It will fix you.” OMG. OMG. Uncomfortably close to the truth that is.

Ok. Long story longer. I looked into the abyss. I feel better now. I hope it did not sicken you to have a peek into the abyss too. This is what happened to me. I looked into the Universe. I saw life and death. This changed me. It made it VERY HARD for me to walk in this world and feel normal. I do not feel normal. And any attempt at feeling normal is futile because I’m not made of the same stuff 9 out of 10 others are. When with the bookstore man I felt normal because he was like I. 1 Out of 10 people has a VT. People with VT syndrome have addiction issues. As a statistic 1 out of 10 people has issues with addiction. I think there is a big overlap between the VTS people and the addicted people. Double diagnoses is the favorite VTS thing: addiction and mental health issues, specifically bi-polar. Anything polar, anything extreme is very VTS. As it is addicty.

Even longer: things are unearthing. Self-hate and self-love are fighting. I need to delf into this because I do not want it to fester. It has festered several decades. I should put a stop to it. If it is true that it is an addiction, then I know how to deal. ‘Just’ don’t do it anymore. 😉

However dark my days I am grateful that I do not drink. I experience this as a sick world (for reference: Syria bombing) and if I want to change anything to it I need to not self-destruct by booze. Now looking to un-addict from the other self-destructive behaviours. Maybe, maybe, maybe I can enjoy life again. Maybe I can learn to like living again. Be happy without that crocodile under the bed, that presence of doom and damnation around the corner.

Wish me luck with the hug-buddy.

Wishing you a nice sober night or day now in Australasia! Say hi to the kiwi’s and the platypuses.

xx, Feeling

The land of no self-hate – episode 3

I wrote hist post about 1,5 week ago but could not get myself to post it. Long story short: I was in a good place, called my brother and my whole world came tumbling down again. Family is good when it is good. Very destructive when it is not. I would assume that at some point I will get to the point where I can ‘let things go’ as in, create a sort of energetic Teflon layer which allows me to see destructive comments for what they are; projections of the other. Not there yet. 🙂 Self love first.

From 1,5 week ago:

 

Sobriety to me, currently, is very much about peeling off the layers and layers of unprocessed emotions and memories. Specifically now the subject of self-hate is on the foreground, a lot of old memories shift, are charged differently. During the day I practise not walking down the path of self-hate, perfectionism, self-loathing which is so standard, some might even say ‘typical’ for me. One of the IMMEDIATE effects of it, is that I have way more energy. You can not believe how much energy it takes to not like oneself continuously. Life just wants to live, and putting a stop to that every second of my day really takes huge amounts of energy.

Currently I can not yet apply that energy usefully. It very much seems like the neural network is not set up to do something without the continuous counterforce. As if I can only work, do something when I am on the battlefields in a state of shock. I seem to need this to make a new way of getting me to do stuff. For me this would connect back to my Basic Perinatal Matrice by which constant stress and the fight for survival where ingrained in my cells. I think I can say, I might have found a tiny space in which it might be possible to get some air from this rather destructive make-up.

But haha, healing hardly ever unfolds without a few traps. A few days ago I spoke with my brother on the phone. He asked how I was, I tried to explain about the newly found love and peace and before I was even 3 sentences in he got his say about it, trying to obliterate all what I had said. It reminded me that indeed the culture of the family is not one of self-care, not one of self-love but one of self-hate.

I want to say now ‘Not sure when I will learn he is not good for me.’ but I think I already know. I keep on being surprised on how this undefinable energy for which ‘family ties’ is a container word, make me go back and back again to people who, if we were to meet them in other circumstances would not even become acquaintances.

Back to the self-love; earlier that day I had been writing about apologies (not here) and for a few seconds dreamed that my brother would say this to me; “Sorry that I stood by when my friends molested you. Sorry that I egged them on. I was jealous of you. I was irritated by you, I did not know you anymore you were not my playmate anymore, you were changing into this girl-woman. Your newly developed body confused me, you did not even notice it yourself but I was older. I did not know how to react and somehow I was excited. When my friends reacted to that I stood by because I was excited and wanted to see what happened because I was curious. I did so because I wanted it even though I knew it was wrong. My drive to do so was bigger.” I can’t even finish this now because I spoke with him in real life again. I assume he will never, ever apologise. But.. ok for what it is worth, for a few seconds I imagined he might do so, one day. You can not believe how much stress fell away from me. Which was quite informative.

I was flabbergasted to find out how much resistance, maybe resentment or ‘moderated hate’ or ‘hate molded into semi functional family structures’ was present there. I have no other words for it than call it ‘That which floats between us’. And he is not even aware. Or maybe he is. I doubt it because it took him only a few seconds to realise he had to put me back into my self-hate space. That might not be something one does if one is aware of the dynamics. Unless one is really really evil. This is just non-conscious destructive behaviour. I see it everywhere, a lot of families and people in workspaces specialize in it because they have no way out.

EDIT about 1,5 week later: I can only assume that if I am so pissed off with my brother as I write here. He will notice that there is ‘something which floats between us’. Consciously or subconsciously. No need to diminish my own destructive part in this. 😦

I am thinking these destructive family dynamics in which I obviously had my own role too, were a big reason for me to drink at an early age. Did I ever tell you that for at least a year I bullied my brother for just, well, whatever reason did I need, I hated his guts for not speaking up against what happened in the family. Trying to stop the fighting between my parents. I did and I lost, time and time again while he ‘stood by’ – doing nothing. I hated him for that. He once said he hated me for always making waves. 😦

Again and again I find it amazing how these memories, experiences are so energetically charged and how this charge with changes and lessens with every new skill or insight I learn. Well, following my typical path everything first gets worse and then it gets better.

I keep up a lot of energetic walls within me. I specifically do so against my brother. With these few seconds where they miraculously fell away I noticed how much energy goes into maintaining them. Not good for me. Not seeing him, or not expecting anything from him would be a healthier option. I would never ever appreciate him as a friend or possibly tolerate him near me if he were not family. Or, in an afterthought: I could have not spoken with him about personal stuff, I try and try every time again and more often than not it leaves me feeling ill. I would place that trying under another one of those family dynamics, or?

Oooh, to top it off he ended his ‘you shut up and don’t change my view of the world’ with a rant on how my mother’s only position in life was that of a victim, that she liked that and that it was “just the way the feminist of the second wave looked upon marriage and sex: sex could not be enjoyed because men were bad”. When I reminded him that she spoke with me about rape and my father also told us that is what she told him…. he backfired that she too had “she said that she liked sex”, “once too”.

I was there, that conversation. I thought: mom, you are lying through your teeth. I was too young to really understand what was going on but shit, she was lying, I knew that for sure. She forcefully continued telling us in a very ‘woman of the world way’ that “Obviously there are women who deny their husband sex because they want things their way. But that is just childish behaviour.” Again, lying through her teeth although I had NO clue as to what part she was lying about. Message? The message of this conversations was: Sex is horrible but it is not politically correct to say no and not popular or mature either. Or in other words, what my childhood brain made of this: sex you don’t like is how it should be.

I am guessing some of you, specifically American people who read this might be horrified about this openness. From my mother, from me possibly (likely :-D). There is another point to this. I need to write unedited because a lot of my addiction had/has to do with the pressure of thoughts and feelings like this I can not bear. They are crushing my soul. Often, I do not dare to care. Even now, after drowning in the memories of that darkness I suddenly think that loving myself is useless. Who am I, even. To think I could.

“I don’t want to have to fight anymore.”
“That is exactly it: don’t fight, just be.”
“I CAN NOT!!!”
“Feel how you feed the aggression against you.”
“I am tired. I have to learn sooooo much.”
“Hmmm….”
“This is it, nah? Cutting loose, not hating on me, cutting lose the negativity?”
“Huh huh.”

Practising staying in that non-hating part :-). I am not at the point where I need to take care that the hating does not go underground again, take an extra hidden route as in: “See how glorious I am, I am FINALLY OK now I am not hating on me. Do you see me not hating on me?!!!” This need to hold on to old patterns…. And also: gosh it is hard to let go.

Another thing: I feel, well, before writing this post I felt ready to go do something again. I was in contact with social security on possibly getting my unemployment insurance money etcetera. Then darkness passed and I did not answer any of their correspondence with me. Guess not answering is not going to bring me browny points, money or help. And I am/was too ashamed to speak about it with friends and in other moments I thought I had it all ‘under control’. It is ‘just’ (?) another version of self-hate and self-destruction. It is unimaginable, even for me who, at some point I feel bystander to my own life, which level the darkness takes on when it hits me. I know it is always darkest before the dawn but shit. These attacks. Getting lost in them, then realising it is me. Then letting go. Finding peace. Living in peace. Walk into a full-blown attack out of ‘nowhere’ – it is never nowhere btw and letting go again. Quitting drinking was easier for me. But maybe that is so because it felt more as an external thing I had to avoid.

“Ok, you can write about not hating or let go and not hate.”
“Sigh…. Yes :-)”

When quitting drinking it is at first Very Handy and advisable to externalize the addict within. To give him/her a name, to separate oneself from that danger. To turn it into the enemy.

After a while, when my brain calmed down a bit I realised obviously… that it was me who was addicted. So I started to explore my ties to the addiction and changed the name to ‘the addict within’.

With unlearning self-hate behaviour I am trying to change the soil, the air and the water within so the darkness and light within can balance out and can shape a constructive environment for me.

I find what I need to do is to learn more about self-hate and self-love, and if this gets too cheesy maybe something about self-neutrality too but for me that would border on love already. That is all. I need to read and paint. And go to bed on time. 😀 I love going to bed on time and waking up really early and since a few months I don’t anymore. Maybe this too is punishment of me?

Sorry for the long read, if you even made it this far. Undoing lifelong patterns is difficult.

I am grateful-ish that I quit drinking. And in the back of my mind this voice says; “Really, you would have been dead already if you had not. That would have been much easier. And more appropriate than this scrambling.” And I agree to that. Amongst many other reasonings and attacks, that is what self-hate looks like. Lots to learn if I give myself a chance.

I am not happy that I quit drinking but that is because I stay up too late here. I need to change that to become happy again and I feel it does not interest me. Ok; READ THE BOOK. Just sleep, wake up and try again.

Today is the first day of the rest of my life.

xx, Feeling

Kathy Berman on dissociation

Kathy Berman wrote this post a few days ago and I am still in the process of trying to comprehend it all and see how it fits into my life. I am very excited to read this informative gathering of thoughts on dissociation (Never in my drinking life I would have guessed that at some point I would write a sentence like that. 🙂 )

Have a read by pushing the blue title below the quote. 🙂

 

A lot of the recovery from childhood trauma, abuse, etc. is about learning the ways we avoided feeling the feelings. We don’t heal until we feel. 1.”Individuals use denial and repression to protect the ego from disintegration. Living with both the constant unpredictability of the alcoholic parent and the detachment and/or anxiety of the codependent […]

via Dissociation Helped Us Cope With Childhood But Keeps Us Stuck in the Past — Emotional Sobriety: Mind, Body, & Soul

The other day I broke up with the hugbuddy, which is funny because right now I can not remember why. I worry about my memory. Well, obviously I thought it was leading nowhere and we would end up having sex anyway and, well, married man, 16 years younger (wife in other country out of the picture… but still). So we broke up and then he called and we had tea and some real sexy hugging.

I am currently trying to figure out where and when I dissociate. Well… sex would be one. Everything is nice, nice, nice and one wrong touch and poooff I am gone. And while sexy hugging I practised trying to be aware of when and where I went. It is like setting the internal timer every few minutes and then check where I am. Gosh. And GOSH to how uncomfortably weird sex (y hugging) can be when one falls out of the mood. MG?!!! Ghegheghe…. Luckily the hugbuddy is very sexy so I am never long out of the mood.

All babysteps. Still putting a heavily non-shaven body and my own culturally dislike of that between the hugbuddy and ‘real action’ but believe me, sexy hugging while sitting on a chair is real enough for me. And in between some feedback to the hugbuddy on what to do but more specifically; what not to do. No mindless grabbing. Mindful grabbing/firm holding = good. Mindless grabbing = scary.

The ‘There is nothing wrong with you’ book from Cheri Huber is helping me to get into my body. When reading it I notice how dislike of me keeps me out of my body, sort of separates me from being where I am. I pick up on negative thinking earlier and recognise it for what it is better. Not sure yet what to do with my time now I don’t spend it being negative. That is a real thing. There is so much ‘nothing going on’ if I do not have opinions about everything. Had that with quitting smoking. Had that with quitting drinking; the boredom. Or: rest? I do not have to go to that land of negativity, of self-hate. But what to do?! 🙂  Get a job? 😉

I am grateful that I do not drink. The things I am learning are difficult sometimes but also very rewarding. Ooh, only to find my newly found knowledge on how negativety, perfection and self-hate work in me to be totally disgared and ridiculed by my brother in a phone conversation with him. Made me realise that within the family I grew up in self-hate NEEDS TO BE MAINTAINED AT ALL COSTS. And I need to stay down at the bottom of the pit and am not allowed to rise out of it. God forbid I should find out something about self-hate and comfort that makes me happy. Nope, let us devalue that by snide comments. Family structures are wonderful when they are wonderful. They are also killing when they are not.

Just for logging: I got a fright the other day. Somebody from a detox clinic which I am not linked to checked out my LinkedIn profile. I wonder how that came about. I log this because things like this (used to) send me spinning and I need to keep track of that.

Wishing you a wonderful sober Easter weekend.

xx, Feeling