All That I'm Feeling & The One Thing I'm NOT!

It's been a hard day. Hell, it's been a hard week. This week I've found myself annoyed/angry/irritated on more than one occasion. I've shed tears more days than not and almost all of today. I've had trouble finding my center. I've been judgy when it was least appropriate (although I know it's never appropriate). And today I was overcome with grief.
I've been grieving all week really. Things are starting to happen and change and while I've been waiting for this moment and I'm excited for what is next, I'm still sad to put what I have behind me so to speak. But today's grief came at the loss of an old good friend. One of my old cohorts. While I haven't seen her in a couple of years it still hit me hard. She was a single mom and she left behind a little boy. And I know the pain that little boy will feel because my daddy died on Friday before Mother's Day also. And I know the sadness her sister will feel because I too have lost my only sister. In fact these 2 sisters were there for me when my sister died. And so today I grieved for Missy. And I grieved for her son, and her sister. I grieved for my sister and my father and my mother. I'm grieving for my life as I know it so that I can make room for what my life will become.  But while I was praying today I realized there was something I wasn't 'feeling' and that was the desire to drink or use. See in the past that would have been my first response. I probably would have popped another pill to calm my nerves (check out of my feelings) as soon as I heard. But not now. Now I get to feel it all. And I CAN feel it all and while I don't like it, it's not scary anymore. I know my feelings won't crush me. This to shall pass and I am the miracle happening at this very moment.

Hoarders

So tonight I watched Hoarders on A&E for the first time. I'd caught glimpses of the show before but never watched a whole episode. I thought I would find it difficult to watch and I did. My mom was a hoarder. I grew up in a house like some of those. Not near as bad as many but without my sister and I it could have been. The second episode was a woman named Augustine. I can say without doubt that if my mother hadn't died she would have eventually became Augustine. I guess it's difficult to watch because of the shame I felt. The shame when my friends came over and our house was a wreck. Obviously it wasn't as bad as some of the episodes that air because I wouldn't have let friends over at all. There were times though. And there was a room you could never get into. And then we got roaches. And my mom's sickness got worse after my sister died. I turned farther into drugs and alcohol and my mom turned farther into shopping. And if I'm honest I have some of the shopping problem myself. I recently started keeping a check register even for my debit cards because I'm tired of being financially irresponsible. I have a seriously long way to go & it's the one thing that still holds lots of shame for me. I've come a long way already because I have to make sure that Nana is taken care of and I don't like telling her we don't have something. But sometimes I have to and that's ok when I've been doing the right thing. It's hard when I haven't. And I know to be a better, happier me then I have to get rid of the shame. I felt so sorry for those kids tonight, grown or otherwise, because even if you are grown that person is still your family. I wish the show focused a bit on the recovery. At least let us know if 6 months to a year later they were better. I know that there are a lot of layers that trash is covering up.
Intervention was just to much. When that girl was sticking a needle in her neck I just about threw up. I never shot drugs. I knew a few that did but I never liked to even be in the same room. I guess it upsets me because I know what my 'yets' are and I know that is one of them. I know drugs started out as a fun social thing and it wasn't that way down the road. So that's my emotional evening. I made myself keep watching Hoarders because I think there is probably some emotions there that I need to face. Some shame I need to let go of.

A LONG time...

I haven't blogged here for a year! WOW! I've wanted to, but there always seems there is something else to do or I really have something to say when I'm already in bed. But I decided I need to start this up again, this blogging about my recovery, because I forget. I forget where I was or what I've already come thru sometimes. Occasionally I find myself acting in ways that I thought I had left behind or in new ways that still aren't healthy. And then I find I've moved so far beyond something and I didn't have a clue that I had. So I'm back. This is totally for me and if anyone happens to stumble across this blog here and it helps them in any way then that will be a bonus. I have things to say. Maybe not profound things, but my story is my story. So we'll see where this year takes us. I just turned 4 years sober. WOW! WOW! WOW! Who woulda thunk? Certainly not me. And while the desire to drink rarely crosses my mind, my thinking still interrupts my progress. Well, not if you go by the mantra that "you're right where you're suppose to be". Gosh I hated hearing that my first year or so. But now I know it's true. I also know these behaviors come up again because some of them I will ALWAYS have to work on. I usually get a little freaky right before my sobriety birthday, but with my recent trip to California the freakiness started after the day. I've been in a rut. In a mood. In pain. Tonight I couldn't take it anymore. I broke down and told the one person that could help me work thru this crap, my sponsor. I started my 2nd full 4th step. I've done some spot ones on people as they came up but not a really thorough one. I did the first 2 columns and after the combination of that and talking to my sponsor and admitting that I wasn't fixing myself with my own head, well the weight began to lift. Why do I not ask for help when I so desperately need it? I honestly wasn't willing to admit that I needed it so badly because I just didn't know. So the ball is rolling. Let the healing begin.

A Woman Without A Country

I'm emotional.
I FEEL things.
I feel things DEEPLY
I know people come in and out of your life for a reason, season or a lifetime.
I doesn't make it any easier when they change or leave.
Knowledge doesn't stop feelings.
At least not for this girl.
Not always anyway.

I get attached to people.
As many people who have come in and out of my life you would think I would build a wall and NOT get attached. But I like people. I like sharing my life with them and learning about them. And learning from them. Absorbing their knowledge.
Their wisdom, strength, and hope.

They tell you when you get into AA to get a sponsor. So far I've had 5 and will be on the hunt for my sixth as of this evening. I'll have 3 years on November 1st. Not a very good track record, but, God has always given me exactly who I needed at the time I needed them.

Sponsor #1 wasn't really ever my sponsor. I asked her but we could never hook up to do any work. She only went to one of the meetings I went to a week and she sponsored a ton of girls while also working in a rehab center for women and one or two other jobs. It just didn't work out and that was fine.

Sponsor #2 attended tons of meetings and her and her husband were fantastic at giving me rides to wherever they were going. I worked my first and second step with this woman and still see her when I make it to her fair city. She is a hairstylist so there was another level of bonding there as well.

But then my mom died and I moved and shortly after I got sponsor #3. I was having trouble finding time to work with sponsor #2 when I made it to town and I usually stayed with another girl and so sponsor #3 came about. I was really lonely living here in small town Kansas at the time and bored and spent a lot of time on the phone with her and luckily, at the time, she had time to give me. But we were a little to close maybe. When they say that your sponsors are human too and they WILL let you down, well, remember it. It's true. Keep them off the pedestal for they will fall. And don't put undue expectations on them. Hell, don't put any expectations on them. I STILL have trouble with this one!

So sponsor #4 came about. I did steps 4-12 with this sponsor. She lived in my old town also but at the time it was easy to go see her once a month. Both of our lives took some changes and after a little over a year I decided that I needed someone I could actually have some face time with. I wasn't able to to see her for months at a time and when I was there it was for maybe 24 hours which wasn't always convenient to her busy schedule.

I knew it was time for a change when I meet sponsor #5. I'd actually met her a few months before but slowly I heard her in some meetings and then her story and knew it was the right thing to do. That was last December. This woman has helped me tremendously, as they all have. But God must have something else planned for me now. Another change. Can't say that I am happy. I certainly wasn't expecting it to happen. But sitting here, writing this, it's a little less painful and I feel like I will just wait to see what's next. When I started this post I was hurt for being dumped. I felt discarded. Again. And no matter how many times or who is doing the breaking up or leaving or dying or whatever, my first reaction is pain. So that is probably my problem, huh? Reacting. But the feelings just come and I can't always stop them, no matter what my knowledge tells me. The pain comes. It comes with all the feelings of every person place or thing that has left me in the past.

Sponsor #5 had me working on my emotions. I only got thru step 3. Doing a 4th step on my emotions just seemed so intangible to me. Not sure where that will go now. And while I know I need to control my emotions somewhat, I don't want them to go away. They are part of who I am. The things I feel. The way I feel about things, people or places. But there has to be a balance right? You can't feel joy if you don't know pain, or so they say. I already know both so I guess I'll never be able to prove that one wrong or right. I might not always like the WAY I feel. But I can feel whatever it is and not have to drink or use. I'd like to spend more time in the valley, rather than the mountain peaks or base, but I know I can handle whatever comes. And obviously, something new is coming.

Tweakers Unite

So I haven't blogged about my recovery in a while now. I guess because things have been going pretty good. I've been making some discoveries about myself, becoming more comfortable with who I am, learning to trust God and listen to my instincts. Well, I don't know about you but I never seem to learn much until it is slammed in my face. I guess maybe I was getting complacent about my recovery. I didn't think so but maybe I just don't know.
A couple of weeks ago Nana got really sick and I had to take her to the ER. She ended up being in the hospital in Bartlesville and currently she is in a nursing home there. I really wondered if this was the 'big one' so to speak. She had multiple things wrong with her but it all stemmed from her not having enough blood in her body. Only about 1/3 of normal. But she made it in the ambulance ride from here to there and thru the night and I felt like she was going to be good because the doctors said she was stable. They did a few test and she was moved from CCU to a normal room on the cardiac unit and none of the test really showed anything.
So my uncle tells me she should go to a skilled facility for 7-10 days to get her strength back up and to give me a little more of a break. I was all for it. That was until I walked into my first nursing home yesterday.
Sure I had been in them as a kid but your own mortality isn't really on your mind then, besides that I don't really remember. This place isn't dirty but sorta dingy if you know what I mean. The hospital was all shiny and new and didn't smell weird. This place smells weird. You always hear about that. They didn't tell me anything about how I needed to bring her clothes or what not either and I just happened to have her wheel chair in the car with me. I didn't have any problem with her being there but it just gave me a creepy feeling. It just seemed like a bunch of old forgotten people, and unfortunately, the reality of that made me sick to my stomach. It made me think of all the times when people discovered that I didn't want children and would ask me who was going to take care of me when I was old.
So we have that creepy feeling swimming in our head right. The night before I started reading a book about this guys road to recovery from meth and heroine. It's called Tweak by Nic Sheff. It's pretty harrowing and accurate and I was so right there with him. And this book is anything but glamourous and yet, I found myself jonesing. I mean, how the hell does that happen? I'm reading about some guy who is 32 days has managed to blow thru 3K and been high every day shooting meth and herione. I've never even shot up and I've never touched heroin. YET. But I realized that I could relapse in my head without doing any drugs and I was pretty much there yesterday. My head was swimming with old shit I had done and the pitiful loser feelings of my past and the negatives of my life and then the creepiness of that nursing home.
So to top all that off, I spend part of the evening IM'ing with someone that was in the program that I 13th stepped almost a year ago and then got blown off by. Yes, I made amends but it was always weird after that, of course. I had liked him for months and had just kept my distance and then one night I just offered myself up on a silver platter and then was tormented when my affections weren't returned. It wasn't his fault. I take full responsibility for that one. But that set me off for a couple of weeks on a BUNCH of unresolved feelings from other events in my life which needed a catalyst to show themselves. It was only a matter of time.
So back to last night. I hadn't seen this guy in a few months and I know he had relapsed a few times and it was truly God speaking when he told me he was sober because I have to honestly say that with where my head was at yesterday I'm not sure I would have been able to say no. You'd think coming up on 3 years here soon would put me a bit farther away from that. It just reminded me that I have a disease that is NEVER going to completely go away and WILL strike at the least expected time. Luckily I do what I need to do like go to meetings and pray and have conscious contact with God. But I also have to confess that I hadn't been to many meetings in the past week because I was driving back and forth to see Nana. I should have been going to more I see now.
So today was a new day. I knew it would be. That was progress there knowing that if I just went to bed tomorrow would be better. Luckily I also hit a point in the book where he gets sober. That helped. Today wasn't perfect, but it WAS considerably better.
I'm still crazy. I realize I was long before I started drinking and using. It's ok to have those days. It's ok to be reminded of where I came from and how far I have come. It's ok to be reminded that I still have a long way to go and lots of work to do. It's also nice to know that God has my back.
You can check out Nic's blog here.