Life slowly returns to, well, what?

Life slowly returns to pre-ultra-active addiction phase. I am working at the level I did before I got into active addiction. And something is bugging me so I ask myself:

What would a woman who loves herself do? She would clean the room. 13:57 – 14:30 hours

I thought I could continue to write but ask myself: What would a woman who loves herself do and she would call a friend and ask for advice. Did so. Now I am back to the computer. And the sun is coming out. I need to change the mode I am in, not hang around here. Work is overwhelming. The external consultants think the deadline for the audit I am preparing for is not feasible but my boss is not happy to change it. I feel like I am being set up for failure. But pushing the audit out a few months, 3 would be reasonable, makes it so that it is after the end of my contract. So I feel I can not bring that up. Also, I feel that I am not making enough money for the responsibilities I have been given. Making double the amount would not at all be strange, I did not pay enough attention when applying, thought is would all be less difficult. I specifically do not make enough for the way I fill in the requirements for the function. But I feel I am in this tight spot where I say: “I am very good, do not earn enough, but I am not meeting the requirements and need more money and more time.” I have difficulty doing so. Don’t know how to deal.

Next thing: I think and fear the external consultant is gas lighting me to sabotage the project. The project is very extensive, includes a manual requirements for procedures to be set in place which is 200 page long. Those are only the descriptions. Each sentence can mean a day of work to get the procedure in place. They say it takes about 3 years to know the whole process. The consultant is helping but he does not give boundaries and priorities. He also contradicted himself the other day on a point where 2 weeks earlier he had said was ‘on of the most important procedures’ to show ‘we’ve got this system up and running for at least a few months’ while now he said ‘no need to do so’ and ‘go make those drawings’ (which in my eyes are of little importance) of which he says ‘well, everything needs to be done, this too’.

It brings me trouble because I do not want to work like I am checking a person and keeping a record. But he probably is. And the details are so many that I can not see through them anyhow so… Nasty.

And I need to keep sober. Not that I think drinking will solve anything but that is the person now who can, but only just, take care of me. If this continues there comes a time that I do not want to take care of me and that I want to forget and not feel.

I rewrote my ‘About‘ page today. Should have kept a copy of the old. Did not. The new page says that:

I compare being sober with a pressure cooker: I would build up pressure because of not/underdeveloped life skills, experienced pain and stress followed by ineffective coping techniques, then I would drink to let the steam off. Obviously the way to let steam off only got me into more trouble but it took me to age 44 while to find that out. In sobriety I think I need to:

1 learn to not build up steam and
2 let go of it differently.

I need to learn to not build up steam too much. I thought I did so by leaving my former job and looking for a new one. I guess I underestimated the level of overwhelm that this project brings. If I would still be a consultant myself I would be working around the clock to set things straight. But then I would be making 6-8 times my current salary AND I would be drinking to deal with the stress. I find it difficult to come to a

So yeah, I have, unknowingly been set up for failure. My boss admits that he has underestimated things. He has another project which is going haywire because the people he put on it are not doing their job. At some point last year he made 3 decisions which do not at all support the structure of the company and now it needs all his time to set these straight. I see that. Me being self-supporting makes it very easy to forget about my project. However… is it possible that he was as enthusiastic about them as he was about me in the first place? And now I am looking for a way to quench the fires  and the overwhelming powers of shame about my assumed incompetence, of shame because I am being lied to by the consultant, of shame and pain about the memories of the culture of deceit I grew up in, of pain about not being in contact with my brother and SIL because of what happened due to that, of anger about my salary, of shame about my incompetence of dealing with salary, shame about me having been addicted and being in such a state at age 47, all of these fires are burning inside. First drink thought since ages came up last Friday. I was very happy that the friend I went out for dinner with drank tea instead of alcohol. I guess if she would not have done so I would have asked her to change to soft-drinks.

I now understand how I got myself into drinking in my early working time by being overtaxed and needing to rewind quickly. It is Sunday afternoon now. I have been thinking of work 24/7 for a few weeks now with breaks only when I sleep and even then I can dream about this.

I need an arm around me. The realisation that having a partner can make a change in this is big. A friend of mine is moving out-of-town, she and her boyfriend are buying a house of 500.000 Euro’s, it needs rework. I feel ‘left behind’. I suddenly feel all the work I put into getting sober and being sober has been stupid because I was stupid to become addicted in the first place.

You know, dealing with addiction is not a big thing when all goes well, it is difficult when I come to the point where I do not want to care anymore because I feel stupid. Where I think I have no value anyhow. Where I am convinced I have less right to be here because of who I am. A woman who loves herself would: love herself. But I can’t currently.

In my head I hear Anne (Ainsobriety) (hi!) saying ‘compassion, show yourself some compassion’ and I realise I do not do that. Now I step outside me experiencing this attack on me and try to be the observer. The observer sees a very frightened girl who is afraid to fail bully another with shame, denial and all types of emotional abuse. The observer thinks I identify with the one being bullied. I wonder who the fuck the bullied person is. I do not recognise me from the outside. Strange this is. Don’t worry if you can’t follow, I don’t understand it either. I’m thinking I am dissociating in 2 steps here.

The frightened girl is very effing frightened. Need to go talk with her. She is very afraid to fail. Feels like she will die if she fails. Wonder where this comes from. I only remember my father once saying “If I would have built this faulty bridge I would have committed suicide.” He meant it. I was going to write I can not understand where the fear of failure would come from but my mother was a perfectionist. My whole photo album reads like a manual to the defected daughter. A lot of criticism hidden in wittyness. I can’t even read it anymore. My brother and SIL laughed at me when I mentioned that I found this painful. Adding insult to injury. And I do the same to me: not taking me seriously, not valuing myself, killing/selfdestructing when confronted with possible failure. Patterns are difficult.

Meditation helps. Plan to wake up half an hour early to meditate again during working days too. Meditation makes that everything I attach to; thoughts, opinions, fears, feelings of all kinds sort of seem unimportant, become unimportant and it helps me to energetically set to zero. I used to not know ‘how’ to meditate but the navel staring of the last years has helped me greatly to find what I was looking for; it helped me see how I attach to things, to feelings, where they, well ‘enter’ my ‘aura’ for lack of another word.

Hmm, don’t feel like writing anymore. Suddenly all of this seems superfluous. It is not. I know that. It is a log and it is a set time for me to force myself to check upon my sobriety. To see what drives me, what puts me in (e)motion. People say ’emotions are not facts’ – which is often true. But emotions will fuck up sobriety – which is why I think it is a good idea to keep a good watch on them. 🙂

A woman who loves herself would now read the book which she has wanted to read for the whole week. Turn off the computer and wifi to ensure better quality of sleep later. And make the bed now, not at the moment she goes to bed so she then dislikes herself for putting it off. So, that is what I will do. 🙂

I am happy that I quit. I find going through this time very informative. I need to take care that it does not take me over and I need to delegate and take care of the girl who is so afraid of failure. She is afraid she will lose me because I have left her. This is such strange territory. With these descriptions I am ‘just’ phrasing how it feels/what it looks like, in order to give voice to what is happening, putting words to what I feel, how I experience things helps me to see and experience things. Or maybe it helps me to take seriously what I experience. Not sure. Guessing this is a phase I need to go through. Because it is here. Let’s see what it brings. What is in the way, is The Way. I can only get out by going in. 🙂

Sorry for an unfulfilling post with no ‘solutions’ to yet another drama. :-D. I’m off to read, make beds and meditate. Better than staring at a screen. Wishing you a good night/week.

xx, Feeling

 

 

 

 

 

and I can see now what difficulty got me into drinking more and more.

First day new job

Gheghe, I have 4 draft posts on ‘first day new job’ since it was last week. Never finished them because too exited. I am process coördinator now in the same branch with the same product as I was in. Actually I have moved to the chique big brother of the former company. Last week was my first day and today my second. It is all pretty overwhelming because I came in at the beginning of the introduction of a new process and I am the one who needs to roll it out in the company supported by two external consultants.

Last Thursday was my first day, Friday was tax check day where the tax office was doing a semi standard check on my admin over 2014. Not sure what the outcome is yet. If it is bad I might have to pay back a money. We will see. I was so stressed out I could not move for several days. This total freeze is my go to mode. However I did manage to do some meditating as well and that helped a little. I could now see it happening in stead of being caught up in it 100%, so I guess there is some ‘space’ developing.

I think I should check out how I spent the first days of my former job because I have been freaking out ever so now and then. Yesterday night I was convinced that I would be fired today. I was totally out of control panicky. However again there was a little space for ‘reality’ (?) because I assumed that I was in panick mode and could take a tiny, tiny little distance. It took me 2 hours to fall asleep and I woke up several times. I remembered from when I worked as an employee, before I started my own business that in a lot of nights, specifically Sunday nights I would not sleep well, freak out of things I was sure  I could not do. I assign a lot of my serious drinking to that feeling, I would on weekdays, drink an average amount, not to get drunk but to be able to sleep.

Again, I guess what is in the way is The Way; so now it is time to learn about this insecurity and related panick. I am not joking when I say: that at those moments I would rather not be alive. Would be a bad joke anyway, but it is not a joke. No idea where it comes from apart from not being able to deal with insecurity, failure and ‘not being good enough’.

I remember I always had this reaction to having to do something I thought I could not. This immensely overwhelming fear of failure. It is a very unpleasant even to think of it. And in these modes it is very difficult to do what a woman who loves herself would do because the first thought is to assume that I do not have rights to loving myself. 😦

I am happy that I quit because yesterday I could realise that I was in a freeze instead of only being frozen and I have taken deliberate action to get me out of that freeze. Only worked for seconds but hey, Rome was not built in one day and learning to bike also took me several days, so continue. What is in the way is The Way.

Today I will take better care though and go to bed in time. 🙂

I wish you all a very nice sober day / evening.

xx, Feeling

Job contract on the way – psychological changes.

Well, 2 days ago I heard that I could expect a job contract for a year for a part-time function of 20 hours. It is so strange that I could not even write about it. It needed to settle first :-). It’s not all done yet, still need to receive, sign and return the contract but still… I’ve got THE mail on the ok.

There are a few things about the job that could prove to be difficult but I don’t feel like going into that now. It’s useless to spend energy on worrying unless I can actually do something about the situation and then I should. NEW!

The ‘ok’ brings some immediate changes with it. So funny how the weight of things suddenly changes with this. Blogworld: not important (sorry!), recovery – huh?  Nothing wrong with me. NEW! I need to keep an eye on that one because I don’t want to run into a situation where I forget how important it actually is but I like the ‘nothing wrong with me’, that is comfortable.

About 12 years back I quit drinking when I was unemployed because I felt uncomfortable with drinking suddenly. I was not that heavily into drinking then but did feel I was overdoing it and actually started seeing that I could be addicted. Looking back I was in denial. I was sober for about 3 months or so, I did not make it a big issue and did not pay attention to anything apart from noticing that my yoga suddenly went WAY better. I got a job and started drinking again. I could never land in the job which had to do with my state of mind at the time but looking back it had to do with drinking too. Later I heard that they had 6 people on that position in 2 years and that I had been there 6 months so I was actually one of the longer lasting but still… Shit I hated that place for its bad atmosphere and the effect that had on me. I felt like a total failure and I drank to forget it. Walking into some darkness of denial here. I got fired after I had been on a very boozy Sunday evening which I thought, with my drunken brain, would work out all right but it all fell wrong (MAJOR DENIAL) and well, I don’t know. Jeeez this is uncomfortable. I am actually leaving stuff out here because I feel too ashamed to write about it.

I drank a bottle of wine and about a six-pack. I had never in my life done that before. SPECIFICALLY not on an evening before a workday. That monday I had to take some decisions that I could not focus on and did not understand because I could not get the group of people who would supply me with the info to focus – obviously because I was off. At the end of the day I had a talk with my boss on the results of the meeting and I explained that I had not worked it out yet. Feeling like an absolute loser. She came down on me hard and I teared up saying that I had difficulty with the job, that I should be able to do it blindfolded, standing on one leg but that I somehow could not get into the matter. Which was the case.

I did not tell her that I drank my brains away every weekend and would normally have redesigned the whole process in my spare time to get to know it intimately but I well, ‘preferred’ to drink it all away. Not sure if she guessed or smelled an issue, it was end of the day but it’s the stuff that got me fired. Officially because they replanned the whole department. I felt it a little different. Did I quit? No, I started drinking more and deciding, again, that I would never drink before a working day. Then I became a freelance consultant and worked out my own working days. See the trap?

Why is this coming up now? I guess that’s how it works. Memories get processed when something similar happens.

I’m going to need all my wits upon me for this new job. Not sure how and when to celebrate. I have this absolute belief that things should not be celebrated upfront.

Another change: for 2 nights now I have almost slept through the entire night. NEW! The cat is going crazy, trying to demolish the furniture and running around my head but I don’t wake up easily anymore so I’m half asleep, turn over and just can’t be bothered. NEW!! I find these little changes so amazing. She has been with me for 4 or 5 years now. I have NEVER slept through the night, specifically not if she was throwing a tantrum. Now I am finally doing what I think I should be and that obviously gives me the right to sleep and let the cat have her tantrum without me being bothered. When I was not doing what I should be doing I felt bad about myself and would feel I needed to answer her and be nice – because I was stupid. It is funny how all of these funny connections are now showing up. If you would have asked me upfront I would never have thought that lack of self-esteem was urging me to listen to my cat at night.

Other change: a while back I bought a Tarot cards deck to help develop my intuition. It is my believe that oracles like I-Tjing and Tarot connect with me easily and often gives results that help me out. I ‘use’ these as tools to get insight in a situation where I have difficulty dealing and where I feel I have a blind spot that I don’t want to see and is hindering me. My set has 78 cards, I have pulled about 30 cards up to now. I have gotten 1 card 7 TIMES in a row. Do I shuffle my deck? Yes, of course I do :-/. The card is called ‘Fear’ and it is the seven of cups. Funny that I now read online that the 7 of cups means something totally different in other decks. There it refers to ‘overindulgence’ and temptation – I have that too momentarily where I do 10 things at the same time never finish one. Need to look into that. Also this would be THE card for addicts to learn that they are addicted. Hmmm. Not sure how to interpreted it now. I’ll go with the fear explanation for now.

When I freed myself from the prison of alcohol I had a goal and the goal is becoming clear. That includes not drinking, rigorous honesty, cleaning up my house, sorting out feelings, being clear to other people, not hiding myself in too many words (hmmm, that is not working yet). I thought that would be a good goal. Ooh, it includes not being addicted to alcohol or other stuff, still doing some other stuff like procrastinating though.

Well…. I thought, since I guessed my intuition and awareness of my feelings or what have you, is pretty strong, I thought I could feel myself back into a healthy, clear life. I thought my feelings for what is good and what is not should be my guide. I have this build in sense of justice and righteousness and the arrogance to believe what I say is right. 😀

In the beginning I followed everything that felt good; cold feet? Put socks on. Uncomfortable? Take a bath. Tired: sleep. I did everything to the detail. And I guess that was good. About 2 months ago I started to notice that I had other feelings too that kept on screaming at me. Not sure now at this moment if my awareness of my feelings is really strong because my denial is pretty strong too. Possibly I need the denial not to be overwhelmed by the feelings. Or possibly the feelings would not have to scream if I would not deny them. Obviously there is something going on in that department. If somebody else would write this I would say: she’s scared shitless. Which is what I am I guess. It’s in all my cells.

Well, I noticed the ‘bad’ feelings, the disliking me because I had not cleaned or paid bills. I started to realise that these feelings too were ‘information’ just as the ‘good’ feelings. Today… after pulling out the Fear card for the 7th time I realised that I accept that all my feelings are information – apart from fear. Fear needs to go. The book said that fear shows where the obstacles are that need looking into = information. So….. that’s what I’m going to plan, look at my fear. NEW!!!! And I’ll be procrastinating from there onwards I guess. 😀

I am happy that I quit. None of this would be happening if I had not. I am sort of proud about the job and part of me wonders if I should not have put up a harder fight on some stuff in the contract. Pfffff, don’t want to go there. NEW! I want this job for the content, because it part-time and because I magically got it and it feels funny to ask for something from the universe, actually get it and then turn around and spit the universe in the face by denying the opportunity. And also, I need the money and I just don’t want to look for another job because it makes me feel bad and I don’t want to deal with it. Feeling wise that sounds like bad motivation to me, it feels like denial too, but I’ll go with it. Also, I mean, in this time in my line of work, having not worked for a boss being accepted for the first letter I send out – that is strange to say the least. My intuition says: Big growth developments when you manage to keep afloat. We shall see. 🙂 I’ll do my utmost best to make it a meaningful experience and deliver excellent work. And if I can not do the job or can not deal with the tough cooky boss to the point where it is dangerous for me – I will leave.

I need: to get a little more organised and clean the house and buy some clothes. I have somehow lost one of the 2 t-shirts that still fit me How? Don’t know! I think I left it at a friends. Things like that happening put me back in the guilt – shame feelings I had when drinking and losing stuff.  But I can’t wear the same dress to work every day now can I? So new clothes it is. Not liking it because I had planned in my head that I would have lost weight before I started buying new clothes. I have, but not enough in my opinion.

I want: somebody to give me their wardrobe because they have outgrown it. That would be cool. I dislike shopping for clothes because I am very precise in fit and colour and model and material and….. dislike that I do not look good anymore. It is difficult but I still have not found my path to the skinny land. I’m going with making sure I get as much healthy stuff in me that actually feed my body so I don’t get cravings.

I take: chocolate. Which, when I put it out here…. does not really align with eating healthy. It is eco though, and 72%…. (chocolate denial, chocolate denial…)

I wish you a nice weekend. Thank you for reading through another way too long post.

xx, Feeling

Insights brought on by ‘eating clean’.

Since last Friday I changed my food intake to no wheat, no dairy, no meat, no sugar, no additives. Vegetables, brown rice, little fruits, nuts, few eggs, some white fish only. The first three days I was ecstatic. But by now I guess my feelings are limited to ecstatic and depression – very addicty. Up to yesterday I was very pleased with the way it worked out. Less impulses from exciting flavours really brought my spirits down to earth and made me able to focus on a task longer than 2 minutes. I actually shutdown Facebook and mail when blogging and well, all those consequently. It was a big relieve. Also the fog out of my head cleared up. The Fog is still bothering me even though I am 5,5 months out of that prison called drinking.

The clean eating experience has the same tremendous effect on my body as quitting drinking did. I am glad I did not do them together, I would have been wiped off the planet with all the emotions and feelings and experiences coming through while the Fog lifts.

Yes I know I have been a [INSERT WORD] about sugar because I know it is bad, and for me more so than for most (non addicted) people because I have this physical condition that makes my body react to sugar like crazy. So taking care what I take in is important. And yet I did not anymore. A week ago I was up to half a bar of chocolate again (that is 50 grams of 85% chocolate now) a day. Even reading back in this blog gives me chocolate and sugar urges. I have that less with alcohol. Then again, I call it alcohol because if I would call it beer it would set off more triggers.

Yesterday, that would be day 6 of clean eating I guess, I suddenly had a sugar craving that was immense. Bigger than any alcohol craving I have experienced in my life – which might not be saying anything because I always gave into them until I decided to stop and then I killed the cravings when they even thought of popping up. So, well, not withstanding the comparison that is biased, I did have sugar cravings and the result was: GUILT! BLAME! SHAME! Wow….. overwhelming. Very informative, even though I had not worked out where it came from suddenly because I had not changed my food.

And it made me realise that I have been a pompous ass with people having difficulty with quitting alcohol – because for me, even though I was deep in, I think I had an easy time coming out. If it is even half as bad as what I had yesterday than… ok…. hmmm…. I think I start to understand why it is difficult. And I think I understand why Jason Vale has had such a success with his ‘don’t drink but juice’ approach because these juices contain all the minerals, vitamins and sugar to feed any cravings.

What did I do with my cravings? I ate a teaspoon of mulberries, and then another and then another and then I quit counting (sounds familiar?) Mulberries are very nice and ecological and whatever superfood they are but also at least 50% (natural, but still) sugar or so. I just wanted it to go away. I could not focus, did 10 things at the time again. Amazing. And no, I have not worked it out yet. Don’t know where it came from.

Another thing on food. I have a cold belly since yesterday when I ate rice with vegetables and fish in coconut broth. And the wise women said; don’t eat coconut products because they cool down your intestines. Coconut oil and products are meant for the tropics. I figured out that this is exactly why they grow in the tropics and not in Western Europe: we don’t need them. 🙂 I believe very much that the natural order is the natural order because a higher power I will call God here, saw that it was GOOD. If God had thought that eating coconuts in The Netherlands was a good idea, he would have planted them there. So…. pffff, another restriction to get me back onto the good path.

Guess I have to dive into the Ayurvedic teachings. For those who don’t know: Ayurveda is / are (?) ancient concept / teachings from India about healthy living. Amongst others it includes eating to the physical type that you are and where you live. To put it simple you can say that the fat lazy people who are sick need food to excite them and put some fire in them. And excited people who are so spirited that their candle burns out even before they are half-finished need foods to slow them down. (Don’t tell them that I simplified it like this… 😀 ) But ayurveda is very complicated to learn. Pfffff….. Maybe I should just visit an Ayurvedic doctor, make it easy on me instead of wanting to do everything myself.

So now again I have 10 things on my plate that I think I need to learn and somehow I think I need to do that BEFORE I get myself a job – which is ridiculous because by now I sleep bad at night over how to make ends meet in 3 months to come. My procrastinating has lessened, I can think of things and do them now, when they are small. My spark plug is restoring but the next thing to deal with is shame, fear and guilt. And the realisation that my internal guide might say: it is not time yet (even though the Time will be there within a few days), but an internal guide might not know about finances – or?

Also I am taking the time, when I can handle it, to look into feelings of discomfort. Because they are a guide too. The things I SHOULD be doing. :-D. It works, doing those things relaxes me. There is nothing wrong with 80% of the should’s I experience. I was looking for the pressure of the shoulds to go away but they are actually very good indications of things that need to be done. It is my idea that after I actually do those 80% I might want to look at the 20% of unreal expectations. Which is probably impossible because most likely I will not be able to differentiate between the 80 and the 20 otherwise they would not be in the same basket anyhow. As long as the 80% has a function to fire me on, which I realise by now that they don’t because the BLAME me and make me feel inadequate continuously.

Pffff, running in circles. I am loosing faith in my approach of feeling my way back into life. Maybe running in circles is nothing else but energy having build up because it can not go out another way. Maybe I should do some cleaning. 🙂

Running in circles because I don’t want to make a choice. As long as I don’t choose I am free. I spoke with a friend of mine yesterday, on romance. She said: I would love to be asked to marry by [insert description of prince]. But it never happened. I said: I have been asked 5 times (well, ringlessly probed) but I never said yes. The conclusion was: no matter with what idea you approach something, the results seem to be the same.

And I don’t want to say it because I get the feeling that I go off the planet here but: in the end it is all the same. Take away judgement, opinions, shame, guilt and then somebodies road is somebodies road. There are quicker roads, guided by that which is inherently good but even then, we will meet obstacles because nobody knows all about what is inherently good. What is bad has a function too. The circle of life does not stop after birth.

And just in case this vague insights are not true I think I might as well do my stuff on the earthly plane too :-D. I mean, I wasn’t put on this earth for nothing, I guess it should be an earthly experience. 🙂

I am happy that I quit and that I got out of that dark prison.

I want: things to be simple

I need: to organise and make choices.

I take: nothing, don’t know what, see I need. 🙂 I have started the alcohol desensitization again though. That is part of the deal: first you do 3 months of the test phase and answer questions and then you get access to the actual training that they think has most effect. It worked out I had been in the group of people doing the training that had most effect in the first place already. I like it. It gives me peace. And also, works as an indulgence in the religious version of that word: if I have not been thinking about being sober or filling in my life, I do a training session and I feel that I actually did do something. 🙂 Good for the low days.

I hope I have not bored you out of your chair by now. It may sound silly but I feel there is a still hidden purpose behind this blog that I am not aware off yet and that at some moment looking back to a complete development of me is going to be important and that it is part of my path. I don’t know. I’m going to put it down now, but I feel I am an object of study for someone, maybe a student. Paranoia mixed with megalomania is my favorite state of being. 😀 Have I left the planet? Pffff, not sure. If I have it is important to note this down because there comes a time when looking back is going to be important. If it were a friend of mine saying this I would think she had lost contact with earth by now. Psychosis, that is what I would think and my state of being sort of feels like that. So if you are a student and following my blog as a study project, please leave a note :-). And then again…. it doesn’t matter what superstition things I have because it is not going to feed me when the money runs out so I might as well get my ass moving!

Does any of you have that feeling, maybe it is vanity even, to think that your blog, apart from it being important to me, and possibly, hopefully here and there to other sober or addicted people, that there is something else, another purpose? Or maybe it is easier to get an answer to that without first telling that I think that is paranoia, megalomanic or psychotic :-D.  We shall see. 🙂

Have a nice day!

xx, Feeling

Reading, reading, reading

Yeah, not doing anything but reading, reading, reading. Recovery 2.0 by Tommy Rosen, yeah! Revelation! Happy to have found a book that speaks things that I align with easily and can understand like the importance of being honest to myself and others, about going on a road to meet myself and processing, letting go of, or chucking out all that is not necessary. It is about intuition and ‘feeling my way back into life’ so maybe I should not be surprised that I am so excited. 🙂

I have this idea about my life that unprocessed events, errors in thinking, false hope, dreams, lies, hateful thoughts and all kinds of concepts that I have, have caused me to move away from my true self and from my path. Reading this book overwhelms me with truth. Only reading and understanding the truth and value of this is a spiritual experience.

Not all of it is easy, here I was, thinking things would get easier after 3 months. Well, I guess starting to live the Truth is, well, was going to say; easier but hahaa, NOOOO today it is rather uncomfortable :-D. Overwhelming now these layers, these walls of fear that protected me from me, from the Truth are starting to shake and tumble. Wow. The power that is locked in keeping up these walls is amazing. I guess I want it back to put to good use.

And I now know why there is the word(s): the naked truth. That’s how it feels, holy fuck what a high level of internal discomfort. Brrrrr, no wonder I drank.  I wish I had learned earlier in my life to deal with this. I am happy (in a very terrified way) that I have the ability to learn these things now.

Coming to a painful realisation that I could have prevented a lot of shit in my life if I had only listened to my intuition. That is painful because up to now I have lived on blaming the other while I should have taken care of myself. And smashed their heads in… well, sort of… You get the picture.

Did I tell you that Tommy Rosen makes the 12 steps understandable to me (yeah, me). That is NEW in itself. ;-). It works out that feeling your way back into life is EXACTLY what the 12 steps are about. How cool is that? That is like way cool!

I am happy that I quit. I’m running from ‘happy in a normal way because it has been 3 months now’ to ‘happy in a frightened way because of what I am reading, are facing and have to face’ to ‘happy that I finally get to sort stuf out’ to ‘happy that somebody went before me and can tell me’ and finally; happy that I quit and am doing this. The internal possibility of repair of a person is AMAZING. It is all inside, we have to uncover it. And that is without the word ‘just’ because that does not fit there today.

Well, going to read a little more. Have a nice weekend. 🙂

To be heard

Today was the ‘free your voice’ class. I ended up crying during one of the exercises. No, not sobbing and loosing it, just eyes leaking. I am fine with that, guessing the group was as well. It is very intense after all. It is a very safe group too anyhow.

The group teams up in teams of 2 and 1 sings to the other while the teacher plays the piano as background music. This is not a singing lesson so there is no song to sing, there are no lines, no melodies, nothing, the singer just sings, chants, whatever comes. The idea is to stay with the note(s) that is/are there and let come what wants to come out. Yes, vague, vague, give it a try if you have objections about the actual use of it – you will see. :-D.

The excercise starts while the singer has the eyes closed. After a while, when the singer has found her (yes, all hers) singing legs she opens her eyes. I tried to open my eyes. I could not. And I cried. About being heard. The excercise was that the other person would listen and she listened so beautifully and vulnerably that I just sang and cried. I could feel her be with me and listening without expecting support me in my singing. So I sang.

And… I realised that I don’t trust people to listen. From there on I speak out loudly, a lot of times just put my opinion out there, not taking others into consideration since ‘they don’t listen anyhow and if they could they don’t hear, if they hear they don’t comprehend.’ Sorry, 10.000 times sorry. This is how it is. I wish it was not. I am guessing growing up with a father who has Aspergers and a mother who is always tired because she is ill results in the feeling of not being heard and understood. Add to that a lack of social skills and there you are. 😦

In real life I think I tend to hide in plain sight. So many people think I am very strong and self-confident because to them I seem to act like that. By now I think it is because I sort of block them out because I imagine that they do not hear me and do not care.

I feel that the openness of my blog has to do with this too. Even the likes and the beautiful comments and the 200 hits per day of the last weeks, even with I still don’t believe people actually hear me. I feel unheard. With that I do not mean that I want to have the intention not to speak with you or hear you either, it is ‘just’ that being heard is not a concept to me. Being heard is something that happens at the therapist and even then: from where it is, most of the time things need changing and it cannot be or stay.

I realise now that I did not listen to me either. Drinking had a lot to do with covering up my internal voice and on top of that stilling the pain that I got from that. This blog is an exercise in learning to listen. I see that now. Feeling my way back into life in a different way every day but it is happening. Again and again. 🙂

During the evening I became more comfortable less uncomfortable with my new found notion and let myself go with the flow, be carried by the others more than to dissociate myself within my own thoughts and fears. Trust. NEW. Like. 🙂

We finished with singing a simple line together and I suddenly had it in me to make up second voices. I remembered that’s how my dad and I used to sing together during doing the dishes or evening walks. He would sing or whistle a song and I would make up second voices and then we’ld trail off and make our own song. Times were good then.

So I’m getting there, even if it is not singing normally with the crowd but with making up second voices. Well, it is where I was today and I learned a lot.

Happy that I quite because I would not have had this experience and insight. 🙂

Dream of drinking

Last nights dark shadows do disappear in the light and I am happy for that because even though I know living with them, facing my fears is the only way to leave them behind me, sometimes it can feel like too much. And there is a concept that needs looking into: me thinking that ‘it should all be over’ and not accepting things as they are. I call that my ‘I want it all and I want it now’ streak. Very addicty. Needs looking into.

But not now because I want to blog this dream I had last night. I dreamed I was at school happily studying and my father popped up. He and I have not been in contact for 7 years now. Funny thing is that in my dream he looked exactly as he look(ed) when we were in contact. And I felt exactly how I have always felt and never was aware off: the pull of family and the guarding myself against the next attack on whatever I hold precious in me.

I managed to turn around in time before he saw me and disappear and be safe in the crowds. NEW, normally crowds would pull away and deliver me to him. That kept on going for a while and I was not worried when he finally saw in a corridor of the school. I ran away, knowing he could not follow very quickly because of his recent seizures. There were two buildings in the school, one was old and one was new. I liked the new building better and almost everybody was there. But in running I got lost in a maze of unfamiliar corridors of the old building. OLD: a lot of my dreams have a maze in a building or city and I always lose the way . I thought ‘I need to get out, get to the new building’ and I continued to run and feeling my way out, making decisions on the turns by instinct while in the meantime building up strength in case I would meet my dad. It worked.  And that is NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW.

I lost my dad in the maze up in the attic and when I finally came down to the cantina I bought (or stole, not sure) a can of beer because I had deserved it. There was this big internal battle going on that I easily lost, because I had been through so much and succeeded that I was allowed to forget about it. So I took a sip and another one and I thought: ‘You have one chance left: DISLIKE IT NOW!!!!´ and I disliked it and I put it away. NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW. 🙂 And the city changed into Dubai where you are not allowed to drink and all the people on the streets have this ´no drink´ aura and that made it easier.

I´m easy with my dreams: I take them face value and sometimes extend just a little when it fits the feeling. So I am scared of my dad but have learned to value myself enough to save me and feel my way out of the misery. Also the dream tells me that I am not ready to face him. And last but not least: I still think / again think that drinking is a good idea but I still had a last trick up my sleeve I had no actual knowledge of – so that comes from deep within and that is good. Very good. And NEW! 🙂

The ‘only’ thing I don’t understand about the dream is the next part where I wanted to get a bus away from the school to make sure my dad would not catch me and demand me to be his daughter, his property. But there were only taxi’s that I found too expensive. Of course those Dubai people had shitloads of money so they did not care. And btw, they were all disapproving man, that irritated me. Both thoughts are OLD as well. Ha, can’t imagine that ever changing. But that is a different subject, or maybe it is the same.

Well, step by step, one day at the time.

Happy that I quit, even though it is difficult to be sober and face what’s flooding back. Today I am not happy because quitting is rewarding, or maybe I should make it rewarding by practising to be happy…. 😉 Today I am happy in a not-unhappy way that I am getting to points where things ‘need changing’ and that when I stay sober I don’t have to do these last 2,5 months again. That is a sorry sort of happy but that is ok for now.

Scared shitless

Ha, having 2 meetings today with, ok, semi professionals who I intend to tell my story. I was utterly stoked untill a few moments where I realised that my secrecy also feels like a tool in the toolbox of ‘how I hold myself together’. I am guessing that is a big function of secrecy.

I have 8 minutes and a half an hour bike ride to come up with a another system that keeps me whole.

Naah, stuff it. The keeping whole is not the thing, it might even be dangerous because it causes a thinking that status quo is good. I’ll go with repairing back to secure.

Or haha, maybe, maybe I should not worry about the future because I am not in the future. Let things be. Like… why can it not be so that this is going to be a wonderful meeting? I had not thought of that. And I keep on writing meating instead of meeting so I am guessing I really am scared.

No need. I trust her for who she is, and she’s a vicars wife. Shouldn’t that say something? Or? No matter, I trust her.

Practise: what do I fear? what do I hope? What do I expect?

Fear: total emotional collapse and relapse. I also fear that she will from now on ‘worry’ about me and treat me different and overwhelm me with care.

Hope: Hope? What is that? NO! Not going there! I hope it is a good conversation where I will be able to learn to speak about sobriety and drinking with the first non, ok, semi-professional in my life who knows and deal with what comes with that.

Expect: chaos that I am trying to manage and is uncomfortable.

Now how’s that for doomsday thinking? 🙂 I’ll go with the I trust her and I trust me. And I have not finished my homework so I should be off right now.

I am happy that I quit, ready to make a next step. Wish me luck! Have a nice day!

xx Feeling

Scared

Last week people whose blog I read, suddenly fell of the sobriety path and it has left me scared. Warning up front: this is another one of those post that is not pretty. And not edited. I have 3 edited versions in my concepts. Back to not editing. 🙂 Please note: this is not about persons falling of the wagon, it is about me. But again, it is not pretty and again is a mix of 3 subjects that are strangely connected or connected strangely. Not offended if you skip. 🙂

One good thing up front: people do get up again – and that is really nice. 🙂 It is also a new concept in my life. 🙂

But I was not there, in the mode to have hope again yet. Being confronted with the trouble that alcohol can cause scared me. Again, this is not a blog about pointing fingers, it is about my reaction to the idea that it is in fact possible to fall of the wagon.

I got scared, scared of alcohol, scared on how hard I had to work for this and how easy it is to lose what I’ve got. I am trying to fit into my head that it is actually possible to get alcohol at almost any time of the day that I am awake. Only not between 2 and 8 at night, and even then. This feels real strange because I build this big wall around me to keep me safe and I suddenly realised it is not safe.

My mother got breast cancer when I was 11 or 12. She did do the surgery but not any of the treatments and started a diet. This was about 35 years ago. Nobody thought she would make it. I felt the same fear as I do now; the doom of something very important that might be taken away. I felt responsible for keeping her on her diet, making a scene if she had a coffee or aah, sugar…. Well, that is how old that fixation is. I feel I am doing that again; making a scene, ranting in other people’s blog lines. Sorry people, if you feel I am ranting in your blog line. 😦

This ‘I need to be sober’ has settled in the part of my brain that thinks that I will die if I am not sober. That is true, in the long run I guess, but it is also dangerous for now. When I breathe, relax and feel what is going on, before I get to a happy place, I go through a pull towards destruction. ‘Just get it all over with, who cares, certainly you don’t, now do you? Just jump, or you could just fall over, nobody would know.’

Things have changed because this is my answer now: ‘Well, I do care. That is why it all hurts. Because it hurts I know that I care and I don’t see why you would speak to me like that.’ (New 🙂 )

I am wondering what the system is behind that voice in my head, telling me not to care, telling me to drink, telling me to end my life. Why? What is that? The continuous berating myself, telling me I am worthless. And why again and again am I carrying pain of loss that is not my loss? I did not fall of the wagon. I do not need to be scared to the extend that I am. I should be warned. Being warned makes sense. Being scared shitless does not make sense. It is another one of those wires in my head going wrong: a blogger falls of the wagon and I am scared because I think I lose people. The feeling of loss directly connects to my mother. And the feeling of mother ‘not there’ makes me feel useless and worthless, immediately.

My mother was so ill, tired and depressed at the time she got cancer, and after, that I felt I was ‘too much’ and that she could not deal with us and rather not had me around. Parents don’t need to say anything like that, kids just feel it because they are wired to sense care. But it was in all here actions. Not answering when we asked things, sighing before she finally did. Snapping at me. Not wanting to talk, not wanting to do fun stuff with us.

There were so many things I could not comprehend; like she was too tired to walk up the stairs and give us a good night kiss. I kept on asking and asking and asking and in the end she would get irritated and snap and I would feel stupid and useless and worthless. And angry. Angry because she is a mother and a mother SHOULD care! Looking back I was like that cat that keeps harassing you for being fed or patted. And that is the only analogy I can give you because I do not have children.

Sorry mom, I did not know, everything was so unsafe, I was so scared.

I was scared for myself and scared for her too. Well, at that age that is still one big scare. Inside I knew that she had given up. I asked her, years later. She said had; she only lived because she did not die.

I remember the days she came from hospital as the moment where I really got fixated on the lying that people do. She kept on saying that she was not going to die but she did not believe it herself. Nobody did. She had a very advanced stage of cancer of a very aggressive type. My brother and I worked out that if she was lying, she must be going to die, one of these days. Did we speak about this? Of course not; it was already a big taboo to let my mother know that we knew we were being lied to.

We were 11 and 13 and knew shit about cancer so every day I came home from school at lunchtime I thought I could find her death on the floor. And even when they told us that was not the case I still did not believe them because the tension in the house was so big that it MUST BE TRUE!

My parents had marital problems and my father was so nice to express these directly (!) after my mother got out of her anesthesia from removing a breast. Telling her that if she wanted to divorce she could have it. Here I did do some editing. My mother did not kill him. She only hated him for most of the 25 years they still had together.

My father has Aspergers. Nobody knew that then.

So worth, self-worth. If my mother does not get of the couch to kiss me goodnight she does not love me and that is life threatening and I can only conclude that I am worthless. If a person whose blog I read and find solace in falls of the wagon or has problems that is (life)  threatening to me. My brains go: ‘Bad!! Danger!! Save!! Now!! Don’t let go.’  I’m sorry if I monopolised your bloglines. I feel so clumsy. Sorry.

Not happy. But happy that I quit otherwise I would have never written this down and not have been aware of how much my mothers disease is connected to my self-worth. And how illness of anybody is DIRECTLY life threatening to me. And how I incorrectly wire things in my head. It was an awful time. I am big in interfering with other people’s lives, always have been. Never knew why the urge was so big, now I get an inkling… 😦

This blog post took me about 10 hours to write. I started yesterday and have a few drafts of it. Those were edited too much. If I edit the not nice parts away I can not get to the truth. Drinking to me is like editing the not nice parts away.

This is the first post I am afraid of putting out here. Here it goes.

Aaahrg!!! Admin!!!

So much for the Facebooklike post. And you want to know why I don’t evolve, well because it is fucking difficult!

‘No you think it is difficult, you have done this before. You can do it.’

‘NOOO, this time it is much more.’

‘Then think how much better you will feel afterwards.’

‘NOOOO!!!!!’

‘Grow up!!!’

‘NOOOOOOOO!!!’

‘All the problems that you have exist simply because you don’t want to grow up. At some level we don’t want to take responsibility.’

‘NOOOOOOO, well, YESSSSSSSSS! I don’t want to grow up!!

Sigh, what about asking for help? The only one that I know is smart in what I am doing is a person that berates me for everything I do so that is very uncomfortable. Or I only choose her so I can exactly not help me. I never know that with me. I don’t like admin because it confronts me with where I am failing. I don’t want to fail, if I fail I don’t have the right to live so I can’t really fail.

‘Is this how you feel about others too?’

‘No!’

‘Why not?’

‘Because failing is human.’

‘So why can others fail and you not?’

‘Because I am a super human.’

‘You are the superhuman and your superpower is not doing admin?’

‘YES!! When I stall and stall and stall (and drink enough) it will go away. I will not feel it.’

My rational brain does know that my reactions are ‘nonsense’ and that I panick into sovereignty or arrogance but also I do not know how to approach this intense fear of failure. My ‘thinking’ goes into panick mode immediately.

Maybe it is like going to the dentist; don’t worry, just do it, it will be over in half an hour. I learned to go to the dentist. It took me about 3 years and a good dentist. I actually am ‘thinking’ of making dentist appointments to get my old metal fillings out right now just to outweigh the fear of admin that I have. If it were somebody elses admin I would just do it, no problem. I can not ‘carry it’, it is too heavy. But it is not! I have done this before. I can do it. There is a part of my brain that does not believe that, it goes into panick mode immediately.

Wondering how I did that with drinking. With drinking I had a rock bottom and that propelled me towards finding solutions. Part of that rock bottom is my meagre financial situation. I need to fix this admin issue if I want to stay sober. Hmmm, that makes a difference. Now there is a big picture and admin is a part of it. People that are afraid of spiders do not realise the size of the animal. I might not realise the size of the admin. Maybe it is smaller?

Did I tell you I may have an outlook on very nice work? I was on a fair yesterday and I got into a really nice conversation with people who were active in my former business. I will follow-up on it on Wednesday. There is a good thing about being sober: I connect better with people. Maybe I should try to maintain that same centering that I do with new people on admin, not jump out into fear. Ha! Ghegheghe… there at least is a way of telling myself how and when I ‘take off’ into panick.

Try 783 on the admin coming up. 🙂