Coping well with a crate of empty beer bottles, some shame, some darkness and some understanding of the internal Universe.

Yesterday a friend and I returned a crate of empty beer bottles which had been on my balcony for over 4 years. As I live on the 4th floor without an elevator I used to drink from cans but… at some point, 4 years ago I was trying to quit and then favo beer came on sale in the bottles. I promised myself that it would not be so bad if I just moderated. Well, I guess you know how that works out…  Some 4 years and 2 days later….  I FINALLY got to bringing it back. 🙂 It has 4 euro deposit money so obviously I wanted to cash that.

All this time of not drinking I had been hesitant to bring the bottles back. At first the rattling of bottles in a crate ignited thoughts of drinking. Later it brought back specific memories of what I call our ‘drunken nest’  at home. My dad, brother, friends and I would drink bottled beer on a summer evening at a campfire. I won’t go romanticising this because the truth was that I was already addicted then and the family dysfunctional partially because of the use of alcohol. Looking back now I realise that both my parents had ‘the gene’ even though they never got into it to the max. My father did for a few years when he studied but that finished off his study and he had to move back to his teetotaler parents so that sorted that.

That is the thing with drinking while having a family: it is not only the person who drinks who is affected, it is everybody. When drinking my mother was not available, not for normal conversation, not for connecting, everything was ‘dealt’ with quickly and in an irritated manner. She made clear that we came between her and her drink, or as she would phrase it: “the only moment of the day I have to myself”.  A lot of the issues I could have used help with as a teenager, like sexual assault where not spoken off because she was already irritated when I mentioned something simple as school stuff. That is what she taught us; alcohol is more important than you are. And in my twisted and already addicted mind that read: drinking = solving problems.

When my dad drank he would become even more convinced of himself and start orating for 3 hours on end on dark subjects nobody was interested in like doomsday and the end of times. Hmm, orating for 3 hours… how does that sound familiar? If anybody protested, specifically when my mother protested, he would lash out like trying to win the first price for bullying.  After that we would all smooth it over with more booze. Flush the tension away.

Mike from the blog ‘dharmaholic‘ spoke about having a family and drinking a few days ago in an interesting post and the shame based family:

For your information, here are some of the things Bradshaw (edit: writer of the book ‘Healing The Shame That Binds You’ about shame, shame based families and addiction) speaks about parent modeling and why shame-based parents have little ability in these matters.

‘Modeling includes how to be a man or a woman; how to relate intimately to another person; how to acknowledge and express emotions; how to fight fairly; how to have physical, emotional, and intellectual boundaries; how to communicate;how to cope and survive life’s unending problems; how to be self-disciplined; and how to love oneself and another. Shame-based parents cannot do any of these”.

That was how my parents failed to be present to my brother and I, to themselves, to eachother and to family and the few friends they had; because of their drinking and their fights with themselves and the fights between them. 😦

The tv-series Patrick Melrose (addicty trying to get clean and trying to deal with his past of abuse) is on in The Netherlands. Obviously my parents were not quite as far away from me as his and the abuse did not come from within the family – but what is very familiar is that undertone of dread. continuous insecurity, fearing I, my integrity, would be attacked, abused. In early childhood I could ‘get over things’ and ‘forget about them’ but the older I grew and the more incidents added on the more I would freeze. And from early puberty onwards I was continuously in a fight/flight/freeze….. and drink mode.

Ok, well, back to the crate on the balcony. I had cleaned the balcony but the crate was staring at me. Earlier I thought keeping it was a good idea to remind me of my stupidity and all the wrongs I had done. I mentioned this to  friend who came by and she said: if you do not dare to do it alone, let’s go take it to the store together. We did. 🙂 While walking I spoke about the sound being a trigger. She mentioned that it triggered her to drink cola because it reminded her of bottles of cola. 🙂 That is about focusing on not continuously fighting the old, but replacing our behaviour with new behaviour. In this case that would be drinking cola which I will not – but the sound could be from apple juice or water bottles too. Good changes. 🙂

Also: now I am able to detect what was going on and how this crate calls up memories, guilt and self-hate. In the last 4 years I have also developed some form of self-worth to realise that the hurt coming with the memories and my own judgement is not so much ‘what I deserve’ but more ‘what I learned to do to myself’. I realise guilt is a suitable emotion when applied in moderation in the correct situation. However feeling guilty, always, about everything, about being alive is not a sustainable way of living – so to say. 😉

For me shame is a big issue and finding back my voice, my right to live and right to protect myself, my right to be safe is difficult. So many damaged my physical and emotional  integrity to rid themselves of their own feelings of shame through aggressive sexual acts against me. Sexual abuse was the key ingredient of my parents marriage with daily doses of forced sex. That layer of vile acts seeped through the family and poisoned everbodies’ mind, heart, soul and energy system.

So yeah, shame is something to work on for me. And I am guessing at some point in my life it would be nice to be free of reproaching my parents for letting me down. Hell, not reproaching parents for having kids and thinking they can keep them safe while my mother actually knew their marriage would be a destructive one, would be nice. And yes, I know this is twisted thinking but that is a part within which is fucked up badly. I decided that I would never have kids because I would not want to do to anybody what my parents did to me / did not do for me. Everybody kept on and keeps on saying ‘but they were trying their best’. But if unleashing ones own shame on kids is the best… I don’t want to walk down that road. And knowing I was addicted to alcohol: what did I have to offer? Continuation of damaged genes and sick coping mechanisms?

Back to the crate: 3 Years and 10 months sober I do not have to ‘keep up appearances’ and then buckle under the weight of shame and self-hate only to drink again. I am now able to voice my worries to a friend who comforts me and helps me out in a practical way: walk with me to the store, be present to my discomfort. And I am able to accept that just as it is without feeling inferior. I can thank her for that without feeling stupid and not suitable to live.

Those are a lot of changes. 🙂 I am not in AA but seeing how my developments go I can see how they touch upon the 12 steps. 🙂 And indeed, how resentment is an important part of me and it hinders me. But I can not step past the deliberate hurt they caused me, for putting me in harm’s way on purpose, for not listening when I expressed abuse. For sending me back into social situations in which I had been abused. For not believing me when telling them my brother was egging the abusers on. For not believing me my brother pulled a knife at me. For disbelieving everything I said from that point onwards because ‘he would not do such stuff’. Well. He did. And they did. And while I was losing myself and almost soiled myself my mother was looking sincere but not fully. I never understood until I learned about micro-expressions; that explained the glimpses of joy combined with power and sex. Vile. She was smiling at me and experiencing lust when sending me back into the crowd with luring, lusting and grabbing guys willing to go to any length to get some action – there was no protecting me. Because drinking. Because my misery made her feel less alone? I do not know. She had been perverted and now it was my turn. That is what families are about: handing down experiences. Unfortunately that counts for the darker ones too. 😦 Patrick Melrose is very explicit about not wanting to live in this system himself and at the same time behaves exactly the same way his father did. 😦

That’s the thing isn’t it: we all think we will be there for kids, friends, nephews, nieces, family,  colleagues, neighbours when they want to express something awful and need help. But the reality is: as long as we do not look at our own pain and darkness, kids, friends, nephews, nieces, family, collegues, neighbours turn into people who are uncomfortable to be around with after they have been hurt. Typically kids who have been abused or bullied will not ‘just cry’ so others can feel sorry for them and comfort them. They have been touched by the shame of the abuser and therefore do not feel the right to cry anymore. They whine, become silent, they can become aggressive or withdraw and stumble over their own feet exactly when others ‘need’ them to be inspirational and show off. And if they can not perform beautifully on Sundays at grandma’s, at school or at football, at least don’t be a whining embarrassment. I cried, I begged, I moaned, I sabotaged and I got dismissed by my parents for whining so they send me back into the lion’s pit. I learned I had no value.

“You are an embarrassment, I am ashamed of you.” actually means: “Your behaviour touches something in me I can not carry, and I dislike you for reminding me of the shame, guilt, self-loathing I have inside.” That is how transfer works. I have shame, you remind me of it, I need to lash out so I can feel better, you feel worse and now you carry my shame.

The other way around: I am thinking, when experiencing discomfort like shame and unworthiness in dealing with somebody, especially kids, it is extremely important to be aware of what is going on and what is carried over, what does not want to be seen, what has no right to exist. Alcohol and other drugs prevents parents, teachers, therapists from doing that because addiction is a shame fueled misunderstanding of life.

In the last months I ended up in a dark depression and allowed myself to go into my underdog mode. Rock bottom will be the solid bottom on which I rebuild my life – I hope ;-). I will sink and sink till I let go of the attachment to destructive patterns. Knowing that I let go. I cut out everybody who did not exactly believe me as I experienced my life and speak about it. No matter how much I moan I expect people to listen and if they don’t they can get out of my life. I had to do that to make space for me to believe me, to take myself seriously, to take back room in myself to experience. Moaning only happens when people do not take their own pain seriously. Moaning is a structure of squeezing a non-existent pimple right next to a giant white head. I was going to not dismiss myself too, upfront. Not going to set boundaries to experiencing the damage which has been done. Not going to slightly change my story or leave stuff out to make people accept it.

My dreams looked and felt like this vid, that person. “The monsters are running wild inside of me. I am faded. So lost. I am faded.”

 

It was informative. The utter darkness of not wanting to live, not being able to be social, not taking care of me; it was dark. Days filled with planning on how to take my life. How will I make sure the right people take care of the cat and will keep her. How will I make sure they do not suspect that I’m not going on a holiday. Dark. Some days in I realised I was wanting myself out of my body constantly. Do you recognise that?

Also, I had changed the security settings to my blog and I had to type in the name to this blog every time I wanted to read something. I realised that I was not feeling my way back into life. I was pushing myself away from experiencing what was going on but making a ‘kill the ego’ solution to it by wanting to die. As I was laying in my bed anyway I dove into what was.

I can tell you, the running for the darkness and going into suicide thinking is dark. What is behind that within me is dark too but there is a difference. Behind it is destruction. It is natural. It is Thanatos. The Universe has 2 main powers: one is life and the other is death. You can call it light and darkness, yin and yang, whatever. One is expanding, the other is subtracting. The one can not live without the other. The substracting balances the growth. It is that which brings order to the chaos so the growth can follow a sustainable path, not grow wild, not overgrow itself. It sets boundaries to that without boundaries, which is infinite, which is unlimited. I dread endings. Every ending has an atmosphere of my brother dying. I dread boundaries and limits. I ‘chose’ an addiction which I thought helped me to avoid all of that – only to find that the alcohol in the end limited me. Which is correct. That is how Life is.

The darkness  is where I do not want to be, I relate this back to the suffering in the womb when my brother died. And funny; I realised that me backing away from this energy to quit building, to make sensible choices instead of wanting it all, makes it impossible for me to fulfill any project or actually achieve something in life because I dread the ending of it. The energy connected to ‘being done’ is for me connected with terror and death. So I back away.

And obviously, in backing away I do not accept life on life’s terms and get unbalanced. 😦 Just Universal laws. The darkness, it is real. It is part of Life. It is natural. I feel I have gotten an extra leg to walk on, like parts in my body have re-integrated with experiencing this darkness within. The suicidal thinking is another darkness, one with ‘opinions’ and ‘wants and needs’, an ego created darkness. The darkness of Life, as I experienced it then is just what it is: destruction. Not personal. Not focussed on the ego. Overwhelming and powerful but true and clear. Quite a relieve actually.

The last month has been about falling apart, looking at all the pieces and the glue which kept them together. Most of the glue is/was not so much a life force but it consists of freeze. Frozen emotions, frozen processes, blocked paths through life. Funny how that what I fear ‘the darkness’ actually ends up building my system itself and preventing the opposite ‘Life’ to happen. Which is… exactly how I think it works. I wanted to find freedom in alcohol while I found enslavement. I wanted financial freedom while I found that depletes my funds :-). I wanted to live without boundaries while I found that means that indeed I reach nothing. I want to explain stuff and bury people in words.

Living Life on life’s terms. 🙂 I have made a big step and while I thought I stepped into the darkness I stepped into freedom. Not kaboom Light, but well, relieve, understanding of the workings of me. Experiencing internal freedom, you know; when you understand stuff and feel your DNA change. 🙂

One of the characteristics of people with a vanishing twin is that they can not finish stuff. Their energy is in the start of a project and then…. pfffff…. they seem to lose interest, fall into pits nobody else would fall in, digress (like now ;-)) find another subject which is way more interesting. I have that. It looks like something which could be just ‘solved’ with improving my moral. But that is not how it works. Like addiction is not a moral disease, my running for the darkness which I connect to endings is not a moral failing either – it is a structural design mistake of my energetic system, or a solution my system made up to deal with the trauma. It would however be very nice to sort of get a grip on my life. 😉 Fix it. Quick! 😀 Getting there.

Some days I can eat well which means 2 home-made meals a day. Sleep well, which by now means going to bed before 02:00 (waaaaay to late for me). Read some, currently the Artemis Fowl series again. I clean the house before visits from friends and the hug-budy which means at least weekly cleaning. He is a cosy, sexy comfort but even after 7 months I do not want to engage into a full sex act. It is actually quite interesting to do all the other things which normally fade out of a relation. When was the last time you spend 4 hours hugging, talking, tickling, massaging and well, some more sexually oriented frolicking?

I am starting to notice differences between us which I am not sure we can or I want to bridge. Also I am not sure if being friends with benefits is a good thing for my dysfunctional heart. Sometimes it only teaches my heart to be more dysfunctional; loving is ok, receiving is impossible. Addict trait; don’t touch me. My heart is shut.

Workwise I am still lost on what and where. The social security people have put me at the bottom of the pile. I guess this is because I start crying every time they ask a question…. sigh, how will I ever be ‘normal’ again? I just don’t know what I want. I want a simple job in a safe environment. But the simple jobs don’t seem to come with safe environments until I find some stability within myself. Having stepped in the darkness behind my own ‘made-up’ darkness is a good thing. However, I do not know how many layers this onion has. And if I need to peel them all to be able to function again at my level of education. Or maybe, maybe, the level at which I am supposed to function is not equal to my emotional intelligence or stress control and maybe I never will. I am going to ask the social security if they can help find out what I want and can do, where my strengths and weaknesses are. Writing short posts is not one of them ;-).

Post 526 in this blog. 🙂 I am happy that I quit. I realise that my happiness is something of an ‘obligatory’ thing. I do not experience a lot of happiness lately, more ‘relieve’ from the darkness. That does not count in my daily practise for ‘being happy that I quit’ but there is no other experience currently. I do resent drinking. My SIL was eating an oven dish with mushrooms in a wine-cheese sauce. I had forgotten about the wine and took a small bite. MG. Tastes like cheese vomit. Brrrr…. People with alcohol breath smell like they swallowed cleaning agent. So no, not in the danger zone but it worries me that I do not ‘repair’ more quickly. And then again: I have gotten a big dose of the darkness and this comes back layer after layer. These last weeks have changed a lot. I hope when the next bout of depression comes a long I am brave enough to really feel into it again. 🙂

Wishing you a good sober night/day.

xx, Feeling

Healing the shame that binds you

“Healing the shame that binds” you is the title of a book by John Bradshaw it is about shame and I am currently reading it. Or reading and sobbing or being all over the place is a more accurate description of my current state. Can I call that a state? Hmm, changing the subject again. Ok. Shame. It says shame, like all emotions has its function to keep us from going outside boundaries which are healthy. Shame in people with an addictive personality is the core position from where ‘they’ (i!) view the world. I guess this is true for me. How many times in this blog have I written something like ‘If I despise myself, at least I do something good.’ That would be living from shame. It sucks. But I need to because I can’t let go. If I let go terrible things happen. My corrupted instinct says I will be killed if I let go of shame. (And here I deleted a paragraph on the subject of sex and shame and being killed because I feel ashamed about the subject and the relation and because it might actually contradict something I wrote earlier and I do not feel like I can currently handle any more progressive insights.)

I got this book second-hand and left it outside for 2 weeks because it was formerly owned by somebody smoking the heaviest type of tobacco. Awful stench! Hello ex-book reader, fellow addict, hope the book helped you. 🙂

Earlier in the last 1,5 year I did a post on John Bradshaw and shame and guilt and gosh I disliked him. In his vids he preaches and I feel little acceptance and a lot of shaming going on. Still, what he says and writes is very interesting. Still, my not so humble opinion is that he has not done the last bit of the processing or healing of the issues because in the vids he still meets me as shaming.

Well, the above was written a week ago. Since then I have been paying attention to the shaming that goes on at my work. It is funny in a very sad way to notice that every ‘instruction’ we receive from our boss includes shaming. 😦 Not sure what to do with it. Some days I feel like I need to log it and think about it, other days I fear that logging would make me hang on to the issue. On the other hand: I would like to speak with her about this, some day and she will make minced meat of me (that would be a Dutch saying translated to English) if I do not show examples.

The other day, in a meeting, she told me that the colleagues who were not present dislike the fact that I speak with them. It felt weird, it felt like being lied to. I told her I would take it up with them. She looked a bit weird then, I could not place it. I was a little surprised because the girls and I have a lot of fun and this feels genuine. The next day my boss told the collegues what she had said to me. The collegues immediately came running to me to inform me that the have NEVER told her that or did anything to give her such an impression and that they appreciate the liveliness I bring. I believe them. It feels true, what else can I go by? So next when my boss, again, tells me to shut up because I ‘irritate the girls’ I informed her that ‘the girls’ had told me that they appreciate me and my ‘chatter’ and that they assured me that they never said anything to her about this. Boss was FURIOUS and said she would take it up with them because she did not like to be called a liar by them. I was a little detached, I was detached big time so the only thing I thought was ‘Well, maybe you should not say these things then.’ And continued working, did not give it another thought untill my male colleague cracked up after the boss left and said: “My god, DO YOU EVER LEARN?!!! You just called her a liar in her face with all of us here?!! No matter how right you are, she will get back at you.”

“Ooh yeah, ooh shit. Fuck! Hmmm, I just thought I would inform her of what I heard. Ooh shit, here I go again, this Don Quixote tendencies :-(.”

Yeah, in fact I did call her a liar in her face with others present :-(. Which is indeed, technically what I did. I guess what got to her is that I did not even show anger or irritation, I showed absolute surety might have upset her more. I don’t know, doesn’t matter. She did not get back at me. 2 Days later I got a new contract with the words “I can’t give you more hours yet but I can give you a raise.” Good enough for me. I’m not ready to go yet. I feel like I have not learned what I should learn. I need more organisation in my mind and it is time to do more complex stuff than I do. More time management of my/our production, more awareness. I find the fact that I only have to follow orders VERY luxurious. After having been the prime source of initiative in any job and in my own company for years, only following orders is so, so, so very, very comforting. Also: initiative is dead, or possibly resting. I think it is hibernating somewhere in the ground somewhere. It will come back to me, it needs rest. 🙂

Another wisdom on the work floor: One of my colleagues said the other day ‘I spent the whole Sunday afternoon crying because here I am, 44 and still at a lousy salary working for a boss I dislike.’ And I replied: “Yeah, sometimes life is like that. 😦 That is what it is. :-(” Which are actually his own exact words to me when I said something like that a few months ago. He nodded and I continued “I spend the whole weekend trying to figure out what I want from life. NOTHING!! Came up.” (Well, yes the chips and sex but I wasn’t going to say that, and that was the weekend before the other so technically I did not lie.) And he replied: “Well, maybe that is it then?” Which, true or not true, was a tremendous eye-opener.

Sometimes, when words are spoken my energy moves with them and him saying this made me internally topple over into nothingness because suddenly I realised there was indeed NOTHING out there. Because of the toppling over I had to refind my balance in the center again. So this tremendous emptiness I experienced threw me back into myself. I’m guessing, thinking now of what my therapist ones said, hope I do him justice in translating it: “Life in itself has no purpose, we have to make our own purpose.” Which I still hope is not exactly true but the effect is that it made me look inside instead of outside. 🙂 Haven’t found shit but that is ok/ok-ish/very frustrating.

Not sure where this needs to head or should or whatever, but realising that maybe, maybe, maybe I am not a person with a tremendously interesting life and future is something that I need to accept. This ‘tomorrow I will be fantastic’ mode has kept me looking into the future, floating on a false hope and irreality, feeling all succesful when no reason can be found connected to the real me in the real life. It is an addict trait connected to the wanting to feel normal and being special. Not sure how it works today. It would be where I write this very mediocre blog and still, somehow, hope that someone, somewhere may see that it is actually grandiose. 😀 Yeah.

So, future? No idea. I’m thinking I stay with this job at least till (A. if you read this, hold on to yourself now) the husband of one of my best friends has died and she is at least sort of settled back into ‘normal’ life again. He has cancer in a very advanced state, very little body weight and life force left. It is difficult to see how his, I don’t know, life force? personality? consciousness? is disintegrating. Like his aura is getting vague like a badly taken photo and it, well, flickers (is that a word?) on and off like bad reception on TV when we still had an antenna. I have seen this before with the eight other people in my life who have had a long death-bed but I drank it away. Seeing it now for real is confronting. Brings back memories of my mother, and the others, but mostly of my mother’s death. Adults of average length weighing 40-50 kilo and the presence of death and decay. 😦 It is tough. With drinking this is one of my biggest regrets: that I drank during the years that my mother was ill and leading up to her death and after. Not that I was drunk when visiting her. Well, I was once. But I drank the reality and discomfort away, and with that I flushed away my senses and the awareness of what was going on. I am sorry mom. I am so sorry. I wish I could have done it differently.

I am happy that I quit. Every morning I make my bed and I set my mind for the day by realising that I am happy that I quit. No matter what, everything would be worse if I had not. Well, I am pretty sure I would not have been alive today if I had not quit. Sometimes that is not good for a few seconds, but most of the time it is. I have realised that ‘wanting to quit it all’ has, over the years, become a standard reply to adversary. Which, I guess, in itself is something I would now call ‘a misunderstanding of Life’. 🙂 Like so many of my standard reactions and well, addiction in itself.

I need: whaa, don’t want to realise it but I need to do my finances. Check up on what has come in over the last few months. Don’t want to.

I want: some more money to have some freedom in ‘small’ things like going to the sauna. But I also realise that I think… that my relation with money should improve and that I will have money issues until I start to take it seriously and not be in denial about it. This is a thing where addiction is still active in my life.

WWAWWLHD: she would ask help with this. If she dared. Brrr, can’t. I did put up signs with ‘WWAWWLHD’ all through the house to again and again make me realise that I can make good choices instead of ‘just’ go along with my (destructive) tendencies. It worked very well for a few days. Now I don’t see the signs anymore, the belong to the furniture (another Dutch saying). So I guess I need to set the egg-timer to remind me. What I think is really funny about the ‘What would a woman who loves herself do’ question, is that at first I thought it would make me eat more chocolate, watch more Netflix and go to bed deep in the night. While actually it makes me do the opposite AND enjoy that. 🙂

I take: some Schuessler salts to lift my breasts. Ghegheghe, it looks like it is working. Don’t want to take them too often because I think I’m starting to find out that the workings of the salts are actually pretty strong in me and I lose balance easily.

On sugar: still eating chocolate and dates. I try to quit over and over again and it does not work so I let it be. Let’s see how this develops. There is one thing which has changed while sobering up: I can not force anything anymore. It is like all my decision power is stuck in ‘not drinking’ while actually…. I don’t really think I need that because not drinking has been, no guarantees, but it has been easy for me. Or maybe I can imagine I do not need it because I did pour everything I had in that decision. 🙂 Dunno. Is there anybody who recognises this or has something similar?

Ooh, thought on my life and future I want to note down. I think my inner most problems are actually my many abilities and my one ability to streamline them. My life force is shattered and not focussed. Working helps but I guess that at this moment I am ready for something more. More challenge. I do have doubts because I do not feel safe with my boss. I feel she likes to set me up for failure. Hmmm, we’re going to do a review any of these days so I’ll bring that up. I have no intention of hiding. But haha, this time I should take time to verb my thoughts better than the last time.

Aaah! The other day, my boss and I were speaking about my plans for Kings day (BIG, very festive national holiday): I told here I wanted to set up a stall and sell ‘niets is het nieuwe iets’ which translates into: ‘nothing is the new something’ and sell literally nothing. Small nothing for 1 Euro, medium nothing for 2,50, large nothing for 5 Euro’s and a sample nothing for 50 cents. I have a whole philosophy behind that which include terms like decluttering, tax- and worry free and a whole lot more. I love sales talks and I am actually very good at making up entertaining nonsense on the spot. Which is part of the flea market sales of Kings day. My boss looked at my like ‘You are every bit as crazy as I thought you were.’ and said: “If you make more than 10 Euro’s with that….” And I added: “You will double it?!” She grinned and said: “How do I know you speak the truth?”
“Well, you know me by now. I can not lie.”
“I’m thinking you are starting to learn that when it comes to speaking with me.” (which is actually an attempt I made some day to protect a colleague so yes, well, she knew I knew she knew I was lying so it was not actually lying…. :-D)
And I, in all my enthusiasm replied: “Ooh! Yeah! That is true! :-)” In a ‘glad you noticed my efforts way and continued: “I was thinking that would be good for me. Life skills, you know.”

Gheghegheghe…. She rolled her eyes. 🙂 Yeah, what can you say? I can’t lie, I can try, but give myself away when one asks if it is true. Ghegheghe, aaahrg… Life skills. I’m guessing she herself is so totally skilled in manipulating people who this guileless approach confuses her sometimes. I guess in that I do not take my job seriously. I do not want to have to plan, and set up a scheme and ‘when she says this I will say that’. I want to believe that this is a good thing but I am starting to doubt if it is not laziness or lack of focus disguised as guilelessness. Dunno, we will see.

‘Love’, sex, intimacy and loneliness are still big topics on my daily thoughts but nothing substantial is happening apart from that I sometimes, when I can, if I can, try to observe my presence in this and how I approach the subject. With vigour. 😀 Sigh.

Ok, wishing you a nice sober day/evening. Hope you are happy that you quit and if you are not: I found it very informative to check out what misconception of booze I have/had that is/was standing between me and sobriety/living clear/living. The misconception will show up when you can not be happy about it. It is possible that you think it is a real reason. That exactly is the trap. Alcohol is poison. Right at this moment I think: “I wish I was not so susceptible to is so I could phase out with a beer.” Which tells me that I am suddenly not happy that I quit and that my need to phase out is big. Alcohol was the tool by which I did so. So that what I think is my initial source of addiction ‘not really wanting to be here on this earth’ is showing up again. It normally does that when I feel pressure from the outside to do something I am scared of. Finances mostly. Finances to me are the absolute proof I am a failure. Maybe my fear of finances is not because of the finances but because of the failure feeling I associate with it. Ghegheghe, I check these kind of thoughts by tricking my mind into thinking that I rock! finances and yes, there it is: it are not the finances. If I would think I rock them there is no problem in picking up anything. So, it is the connection with failure. Hmmm… Don’t want to think more about this. End of the paragraph.

Again; nice day! 🙂

xx, Feeling

On shame and the difference between longing and belonging

Currently reading Brené Brown her book ‘The gifts of imperfection’ – liking it, the Feeling way. I’m thinking it is a good book, and… finding too that she does not totally own what she’s writing. But, ghegheghe…. I am learning to deal with that. 😀 Starting to realise here that my perfectionism is nothing but a transfer of my own unsolved issues with shame, with not being good enough. And because I do not feel comfortable with (this aspect in) myself I feel that I need to point out other people’s inability to meet The Standard. ‘You are not good enough too! How dare you take your place in this world!’ What to say? Glad I now start to see how the dynamics work. Not happy about it yet, still in the learning phase, a little healing is happening here and there, it is a lot to process.

Opening my eyes to the shame I carry also opens up my eyes to how it got there and how this carry over system of parent to child works. Biologically very logic that we as a species carry over what we have learned of life to children. But not pretty when it comes to shame. I also remember fights with my mother where I refused to accept the shame she wanted to give to me.

Which brings me to this energetic / emotional system inside me I have been wondering about for a long time. People tend to say I am very open and therefore easy to speak with People tend to tell me very private things easily. But I sometimes think that my openness is a sham. I did not know how it worked but now I do. Part of it is a defence meganism: by opening up showing that I am no threat. Part of it is what I call ‘creating a mist’: by speaking about intimate things which are almost close to my heart I keep people focussed on that. But I never show what is behind that; the shame, the feeling of unworthiness, the feeling that I do not belong. Nowhere. I even cultivate the not belonging in my life, even here in my sober blog. I have this believe I have the weirdest sobriety blog around. Which in itself is not a problem, but the way, the intentions with which I set it up and use it as a shield is. I do that with everything. To cover up the not belonging inside. I feel like I turn myself inside out in order to hide the nothingness inside of that.

Belonging :-). I don’t know, it is not within. Never has been. Well yes, it has been in my ayahuasca experiences – but that is eh, real but not daily. My mother favored my older brother till the age of 30 or so. It was common knowledge, my brother even apologized to me about it :-(. He also told me to make less of a fuss too, so she would like me better. I guess I have been fighting for the right to be liked while making a fuss all my life. Children, well, even my cat, can have this ‘how much do you love me?’ behaviour where they test boundaries to see if the love is true. I don’t know if any of that was visible then. There was a lot of aggression in me too because I felt my needs were not met.

I feel my parents have been comparing me to my brother since the first second I was born. I was born as I do everything: stuck at first, wanting to coming out with my head the wrong way up as my brother had done. Then I drew back (is that even possible?), turned and was born in 3 contractions. Screaming so angrily like my mother had never, in all her years of childcare in hospitals, ever seen or heard a baby screaming. I guess that set the tone. My father said ‘Wooow, this one is very different’ and fainted.

That story has been repeated to me from a very young age. I never felt comfortable with it. I even made up that it was not true and that I was adopted. My brother and I spoke about that. We were sure he was real and I was adopted. We decided that based on how my mother related to me even though my brother could most likely remember that I was born and my mother had had a big belly. Kids and their thinking.

Around my 30ish birthday she suddenly came up to me saying something that bugged me for a long time: ‘I was reading a book and the mother had to choose what baby she would keep and what baby she would give away. I have always thought that if I had to choose I would choose your brother but now I think I would choose you. Not that I think I ever have to, but just so you know.’ How is that for an awkward ‘apology’?

Did it make me feel good? No, it freaked me out. First because in my ideal world parents don’t even THINK about having to choose between children – it sounded more like secret wishful thinking than anything else. And secondly because it proved that my mother had been favouring one of us and that was another reason for my ideal world to fall apart: mothers are not supposed to favour children. Life is not safe if mothers start favoring children. And thirdly because it proved that the person she favored was not me and I did not want that to be true but she made it true. I did say ‘thank you’.

Funny how one can be adult but when it comes to mother-child stuff I assume the child roll immediately. No questions asked.

Belonging. I started to mix it up with longing by the time I turned 14, 15. I’m guessing now I was quick to fall in love because I did not find I belonged in my family and wanted personal and physical connection to reassure me. Two days ago I dreamed of waking up in a farmhouse in the night, I was alone in the house. It was cold and pouring rain outside but I walked out to the barn where there was a campfire with family and friends who I knew were having (too much) drinks. While in the rain I noticed I carried a large empty wineglass and a teddy bear. The wineglass was to get drunk so I would not feel the difference between me and the others anymore. I guess in there is, for me, a very important piece of information on the energetic systems  behind my drinking behaviour. I also carried a teddy bear, that was because I was so very lonely. I was ashamed of the teddy bear, ashamed of feeling lonely because it told me (tells me) that I was (am) not good enough to be connected, to belong.

I also noticed this effect of ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’ in the drinking when it came to my father. My father has Aspergers syndrome which is one of the different autistic constitutions where the person is very brainy, mainly very technical with an immense control of language but has no social skills nor awareness of emotions in themselves nor others. He was pretty powerful in his presence and denying anything human that got in his way. In order for me to exist I had to not be there emotionally. We used to drink to excess together. My mother would hate that and we would laugh. Nauseating.

The night I had the dream my father had been checking my Linkedin profile. That feels uncomfortable. Does mean that he probably is up and about after the cerebral hemorrhage he had last year. We have not been in contact for 7 years now. It still scares me that he is sort of out there and interested. I feel I have no skills to deal with him. I feel sucked into his power immediately, even over a distance, even now he is most possibly a doddering old man. There is a reason I do not see him; I can not deal with it.

On mixing up longing and belonging: I am starting to see now how, and with what intention and intensity I throw this net of projections and hopes over the book store man and claim that it is love. I feel I’m almost there in letting go. 🙂 Good. I would like to be free but I can’t do that on willpower. As with alcohol, I need to do it on knowledge, insight in how and where and when it connects to me. I am happy that I have the time to work out these carry over feelings. Did I tell you he and I sort of ‘agreed’ on doing that as long as I kept ‘the biology’ out of the conversation? Which I understood as: ‘No sending of sexual messages, verbally or non-verbally, energetically.’ (What is the last conversation you had with your book store man?)

Ooh, I am very happy for this blog where I can just pfffffllllll spill all of that out….. Ghegheghe… on book store man, I have been cleaning my book shelfs and brought some 2nd hand books to the young book store man and also to the old. Traded for a beautiful book of Pema Chödrön a.o. He had a friend of 76 and they are both very much into health food, like: no wheat, eco only, nuts and avocado’s and vegetables, no sugar, no meat, no dairy. We went shopping for food and I laughed my head off. Two grandpa’s, both with more stamina and more speed in their walks than I, discussing what to eat and what not and what for. Part of which had to do with weight control!!! Gheghegheghe… I did not dare to put anything in my basket. The book store man saw than and started giggling. Ghegheghe, a tiny, 50 kilo 72-year-old with long grey hair and a long grey beard and bright blue eyes giggling.

Ooh, by the way, they are both old hippie addicts, heroine and alcohol. We spoke on recovery quite a lot. Very interesting. The friend of 76 ended up asking me if I were too critical to actually look at the possibility of taking him on as an intimate friend. I guess that was exactly how he phrased it. Both men are very sexual, must have to do with their diet, or because there is nothing left for them to do? Well, it makes him number 4 in a row of old guys ‘falling’ for me. There was a day, quite some months ago where I wished the Universe would help me find a wise man. Let this be a warning to you and I: BE SPECIFIC when you ask the universe for something. 😀

Is it a coincidence that this shows up in my life now? No, I think I still carry this concept of mixing up belonging and longing on the outside. My body of course is an abundance of Dutch glory, as the old book store man called it. Men tend to take that personally. Alexander Lowen says something like ‘the body is a manifestation of what happens inside’. My body type would belong to women who separate sex from love. That seems to create wide hips, heavy chest and a (well, relatively) small waist. I think it is (also) true. I feel like I use my sexuality as a shield. Daring people. Well, I guess that can be the next subject of study after shame.

There is something funny going on and I am going to put it out here because it puzzles me. Not seriously but still. When I got sober I realised that somewhere down the line, if I ever wanted to have sex again, I would need to start really slowly in order to not fall into old patterns/habits again. I was thinking: I might want to do a Tantra course like my friend did with her husband. A few weeks later I walked into the young book store man’s shop and after a customer had left with a tantra book he commented; ‘God, all these people getting stuck in tantra sex, trying to find liberation…. I will never ever do a tantra course.’

And the old book store man commented this week: I have not done tantra with my ex (he just broke up with her but they are still getting together – similarities all around) but I would really like to do that. How strange is that? I mean, these are people just saying things out of nowhere. It is not that I walk around with this big sign on my forehead saying ‘Tantra course!’

Ok, so I’m trying to deal with shame and kendeng! sex comes up and I am fending with it. Not elegant but I’m not going back to edit it because I think it is relevant. I do not know how yet and I sort of feel that I do not want to know either. :-D. Which, I have learned by now, means I had better sort it out.

I am happy-ish that I quit. I find things a little difficult these days. Specifically with my father and being thrown back in these ancient, almost tribal memories of the campfires we used to have, (be)longing and drinking. And I am sad about these memories, sad about the shame, the energy which is locked inside that and specifically sad about not belonging and feeling like the only options I have is to sort of hook up with an old geezer. Next, that tells me I am way too fucking fat and blaaah blaaah blaaaah, here I go again. Shame needs to be looked at. There is this repetitive pattern in my head telling me that the young guy does not want me because I am too fat and the old guys do want me because I am fat. I guess there is some work to be done. The thought of seriously paying attention to my weight has crossed my mind but I must make sure that this does not happen for the wrong reason. Rejection leads to shame in me, and to the feeling not to belong here. Losing weight does not solve that.

I need: to continue to look at and work out shame issues and possibly with somebody who can bear to listen to it too. Therapy time. And no, I will not risk my shame issues on those who can not bear it. I tried my SIL this week, that worked out to be an ‘adding insult to injury’ situation. 😦 Sigh.

I want: the whole world to be different so I don’t have to change. (Guessing that is not very likely to happen…)

I take: Ayurvedic pills and Mebendazol against parasites in my intestines. It makes me feel very lousy; I had the start of all the side-effects which are listed. That’s when I went to sleep to put my brain to rest so it could not come up with even stronger side-effects. I guess that is something I have learned in sobriety. 🙂 The hypochondria is still there but the dealing is getting a little better. 🙂

3 Things: picked up another beautiful book at a so manniest 2nd hand bookstore; Your child’s body language from Susan Quilliam. It is a photo book explaining what it is you see on the photo’s. They are real photo’s of real situations. The book tells me that there are other people in this world who also see what I see. I always thought I was strange about this. Maybe she is strange too. That is also possible. All that knowledge for Euro 1,50. Secondly I am happy for the nice bike tour with lunch and a book in the park I had today. And for writing this blog or maybe more for the discoveries I made.

On discipline: getting more insight on how I try to shame myself into good behaviour. Which I guess is why it is not working. There is one good thing about my procrastinating: it has brought me to go look for what is behind it, to learn to listen to shame. I’m just in the phase of cleaning up / gathering info so there is no real healing yet so I am not really happy about it yet but I guess that will come. 🙂

Guess that’s all for now. It is late night now. Thank you for reading this. Thank you for sticking with me when I try to sort out these things amongst which the book store man things which must bore you to death by now. Well, rephrase: must have bored you to death months ago. I think I’m getting where I want to go: get insight on my way, the systems of attachment.

Hope you have a nice evening / day.

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

I did not fail. I discovered a 1000 ways that did not work.

Ha, I’m doing this writing standing again, moved my computer to the living room on a high table and remove the chair in order to (semi) naturally cut down my online time.

I’ve been eating rice, beans, vegetables, eggs and nuts for 2 days now. Diarrhea is back big time. Just going to let it be, see where it goes and how I feel in 2 weeks. I do feel loads better though, the difference is almost as big as quitting alcohol. Not sure if that is down to not eating sugar, wheat or dairy products. Don’t care yet. Feeling better. I cut out the wheat too because Doctor Mathews Larson (writer of the book ‘Seven weeks to sobriety’, she from the nutrients approach to addiction) says that a lot of people with an alcohol addiction have an (unknown) allergy to the product that their favorite booze was made off. That would be beer so there goes the wheat. Just see what happens, if I’m going to go strict I might as well exclude this category too. I’m having an interesting time looking at my cravings, but they are do-able. I make much more interesting meals now. Eating on the table away from distraction. Gooooood. 🙂 Ooh, it is not a loose weight diet, it is a ‘let’s get clean and see what happens diet’.

It helps me very much in leaving things out of my life and focus on my new project – not gonna tell more about that untill it lands and grows somewhere. Well, that’s it. The wanting to do the diet comes from wanting to exclude stimuli, wanting quiet in my body. Not being dragged from one strong cup of this and that perfect Yoga tea to the other eco raw chocolate bar to the next lovely breakfast with superfoods and various Schuessler salts in between. Pfffff. Away! Away! Too many impulses. Cutting down on watching whatever Netflix and Facebook because I don’t want to be able to handle that anymore.

Nothing of these decisions are mind made, all of the are impulse made. It has something to do with listening to the ‘bad’ feelings too. I got to this point by listening to the good feelings, urges that were ‘telling me’ to take good care of me. Now I have come to a point where I can listen to the parts that say ‘stop’ too. Funny thing is that my hippo works very well with that. She is on a prominent place in my rooms and whenever I look at her I somehow project what I am feeling on her. So now she is saying: weren’t you cutting down on online activities? The sun is shining a little, it is time to go out. 🙂

I will. There is SO much freedom in doing what is right. Damn! I never knew that. My favorite slogan has always been ‘Only dead fish go with the flow.’ Now I am perfectly happy not spending time kicking all the stop signs along the road. 🙂 Ghegheghe….

I am happy that I quit. Happy that I get the ability to finally live.

I want: to go out and move.

I need: to breathe more and keep on going on finding my path. It has sort of become a daily thing. And this  with ‘every day is a new chance’ which is an awful cliché – it is sort of becoming a truth. It includes that not everything goes right immediately. Which is also a very big truth. 🙂 Now it is becoming a part of living instead of something that tells me that I should be ashamed. Many thanks to the Mr Kurtz video of a few posts ago. 🙂

I did not fail. I discovered a 1000 ways that did not work.

I take: some Schuessler salts, not by reading text but by feeling them. There are those that confuse me and those that make me feel better. I choose the last.

Hope you have a nice day too! 🙂

Shoving it out there

Time. Time. Time. Time is a good concept and I screwed it up within me.

Twerski says people with addictive thinking mess with time (in their heads). I feel it has to do with shoving stuff out of the way. I did the lying, the denial and dodging consequences by changing plans. Plan and results / consequences are measurements of time, they give meaning to time, or? And I did the drinking more to not feel the feeling of doing things wrong. I am still doing it. I don’t want to be crisp and precise, it hurts, it shows me how I am lacking. I don’t like people that are crisp and precise, I feel stupid and guilty around them. I used to be crisp and precise. That was long time ago. Need to get back to that.

I thought I had let go of friends that would support drinking when I would finally quit. But I notice now that I hung on to people that are not precise. And I have let go of people that plan well and really make something of their life. I feel they don’t like me anymore because there is always something wrong with me and there is always a reason why I am not succesful with my own enterprise. I say ‘tired of doing it all by myself’ and ‘depressed’ and those are true, but in fact it was drinking and drinking. Now it is repair and repair.

So, in order to get back on the horse I need to be aware of the shoving and ditch it. (nice… ditching the shoving…) Face what is really happening with me. I am afraid. I can’t. Tried a little yesterday. It was horrible. The guilt is unbearable, don’t even dare to go there. GP1 said: ‘So the shame about your addiction prevents you from doing something about it. That is not very logical….’ So I quit, it took a while from there on but I kept that thought with me along the way. I feel what I do now is the same stuff but I can’t work it out. Can’t get my brain around it while it feels like it is right in front of me. Aah, I need to repair and get a healthy concept of time again but the guilt I feel over messing this up keeps me from getting healthy. There you are. 🙂

I think by now. well, by yesterday, I was hoping I had build me a bypass by happiness. I just quit and left the guilt and the feeling bad about the shoving for what it is. Guilt is not usefull, but it is there, and it needs to go, or be transformed, or what do you do with guilt? Because it shapes my actions and thoughts in a bad way.

Time to let go of the free floating structure of The Plan and make it precise. See what happens and what comes on the road. Am I ready to do that? I would be delighted to be able to do it. But I am not looking forward to the work that goes into being precise and not doing the shoving. Feel I need to read the Tibetan book of living and dying again. To me that is about feeling my way through choices. No. Trap 1: No other subject. Trap 2: No reading. Doing.

Do I have the right not to feel guilty?

One of the blogs I follow touched on the subject of feeling guilty about drinking. Not sure if anybody noticed but I haven’t touched that subject knowingly yet. Funny that I do think that I should feel guilty and pour my heart out before I can be healed. That is a very Catholic concept. Or is it a human concept as well. It is true if relations get hurt, then you need to get things clear before continuing.

Not sure if I am avoiding it. BS. No, I don’t want to go there. Yes, I am sure that I am avoiding guilt. I am avoiding guilt and saying that there is no use in feeling guilty AND that it is destabilising, which is very true AND saying that it is too early to make amends; I do not have the emotional stability and the mindset yet to do so.

And…. I knew up front that making amends would be a big thing if I would continue drinking and say, start looking for fight or whatever if I was pissed. So I hid my drinking and did not contact others while drinking or drunk. Nor drive cars. I would not drink or halve or quarter my intake if I had to drive in the early morning or would be seeing people.

I look back and I feel sadness, I felt and therefore was powerless when it came to alcohol, did not have the tools, the information, the maturity or the rock bottom yet, not sure what. It IS an addiction. That is what addictions do. When looking back and stumbling on hurtful situations of 20 years ago I, I don’t know, it just hurts. It makes me sad, it shows me how strong alcohol is.

I keep on thinking: I would not have done any of these things if I had not been addicted. Is that an excuse? It is a reason. If we take the statement that alcohol addiction is an illness it is an excuse. Or? Or should I say: If I had not let myself become addicted I would not have done any of these things. If we truly believe alcohol addiction is an illness, how come I and I assume a lot of all the people that I know think that alcohol addiction is a choice, or, at best, lacking to choose not to be addicted.

But I can not change what happened. In that I am powerless too. It is not good to put energy in wanting to change the past. It screws me up, can’t be done. I can look back. It hurts.

Non of this is the point. The point is that I think that I should feel guilty. And, push the ranting button: I don’t want to go there because this Idea of Guilt has been put there by people who are big on guilt and I defy them! He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone (at her)!!!

Sooooo, nicely caught up in my guilt trip. 🙂 🙂 This is therapist stuff, not gonna do this by myself. All in all it feels like a shitload of addict speak. Looking forward to the book on Addictive Thinking. See what that’s gonna bring.

Cliché time: If you want to change the past, change today.

Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habit. Watch your habits; they become character; watch your character: it becomes your destiny.

Happy that I quit. Happy that I am free of the alcohol. There’s stuff to do for sure but happy that I am free. Proud of the stuff that I did today. Loads of deep cleaning, should have done more. Will continue. And the cat is getting grumpy with the egg timer going off every 15 minutes so I can check on my emotions, practise in relaxing and check if I am actually following the plan. It is working. More often now I notice that my thoughts run of to a dark non relaxed place and I call them back.