Hello! Cheesy New Year's joke as title! Maaaah! Lol. Well, remember how I was saying I was going to try drinking again? Right after my 1st year of sobriety completed itself, I went back to the alcohol and the next 2 months were spent pretty much enebriated, almost every single night. So, yeah. Who was I kidding? Mostly myself but at least this time, I have decided to not retreat into the usual shame and simply start over, admit my flawed humanity and begrudgingly admit I can't drink without spiraling down into heavy using, somehow. In retrospect, I was resentful to that whole 12 Step idea of Higher Powers and "red button", white and black thinking, which to me, as not only a trauma survivor, but an ex-Catholic, was very triggering and conflicting to comprehend and install, at all, as a "logical" way of living for me. If it works for you, great. Not my cup of tea. One size definitely does not and never will always fit all.
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That still doesn't mean I don't need some type of support so I did join a wonderful little initiative group, based on Shambhala Buddhism, called The Heart of Recovery. It lacks the shame and stereotyping of addicts, and allows for an approach that is not necessarily institutionalized. I like that. So far, it's been nice and my honesty has been appreciated. At least I'm not judged. There are 2 very vehement 12-steppers there but so far they only speak for themselves, even though part of me feels like that whole mindset of "if it didn't work for you, it's because you truly didn't work the steps" could be hanging in the air but I guess I'll never know if I don't try to just be me and say what I feel when I feel it. I'm glad they survived. Atleast there is compassion.
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So, I forgot to mention that these were the first ever holidays I decided to voluntarily not go to any of my family member's Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Years celebrations, for my own wellbeing. I'm not saying it's an excuse but that explains a bit why it was easier to succumb to drinking. I honestly think I just jumped, without mulling it over too much. I went to a new psychiatrist and told her what was happening and she gave me the meds and info to proceed and detox at home. I was already familiar with the anti-cunvulsants prescribed and although I truly don't recommend detoxing at home, I did it, personally because I no longer have a good insurance like before, after turning 26. My options, unfortunately, are not much and I really did not want to go to a public detox or mental health program, especially after having suffered that last awful place I was trapped in for a whole abusive week. So, all in all, I slept a lot, really made sure to take my meds on time, along with a full supply of recommended vitamins and drank lots of water. I refused to drive my scooter while I was detoxing, informed my roomate and did my best not to freak out. I really wish I had the opportunity to go to the dtox I went to for benzos a few years ago, that place was nice! Off course, we are not seeking to make this a habit here! I'm still wary of wether I'm out of the woods or not. I can only hope I'll be ok and do my best to take care, considering I just finished the last anti-convulsant today.
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After all this, next year I will then have to challenge myself to spend the holidays utterly sober. It's kind of pressure bound to think that far ahead but I think I have to. I used to live in a halfway house last year, in the beginning. One roomate has already died and the other is getting a liver transplant. That hit hard. I need to wake up. Their lessons matter. I chose to make them matter to me. So, yeah. Enough with the boozy loser shit. :P!!! Time to re-group and chose which way I really want to live. I thought about it, really thought about it. Because honestly, I don't even have to stop cutting myself if I dont want to. I had a slip during the holidays too, that way and well… I stopped. I still have reservations because it's been such a "comfort" for so long, but really it just shows I need to make a new way to comfort my Self, since I've decided I cannot rely on parents or family for that, and one of my parts, a teen, did use cutting as the protective blanket. She deserves better. I do. We all… we need to communicate.
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Part of the plan to communicate among my fragments is the idea to make a manga about them. I feel like writing and drawing them out helps me listen to what they have to say. If my trauma has created parts of me that has split off memories, feelings and processes from each other, then the most constructive, albeit hard thing to do, is to get them to know each other and sahre their data, their experiences, and empathize with each other. Only then can we work more, as awhole. I have to do it now too because I think I'm ready and I feel that if I ignore this, my mind will grow too tired from being so separated and start to forget… dissociate more. It feels like that sometimes. Slowly but surely, I think I have come to, more, this year. Really understanding, I could only be this broken and hurt because I did actually, in fact, go through THAT MUCH abuse. That is was absolutely, in fact, THAT SEVERE. I need not downplay it anymore and I need not blame myself. I need to have more compassion and hug those parts of me I always kept dismissing as dramatic or incorrect.
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Then my therapist has also asked me to record myself performing OCD acts. Hehehe. That's why I think my teen, L-L, has been running rampant with the cutting and the veteran doing his drinking. I was scared. Part of me still is, especially when I look at the videos afterwards and recognize how incredibly dysfunctional this all is, and how much damage much have ocurred to my psyche for me to have this all be so strongly pervassive in my life. Can it be "fixed"? I have no clue. Should it? Maybe the parts that hurt me and my ability to thrive. The rest I'll have to find ways to own them and use the abilities I have to hone them into talents. I see no other way.
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On other news, the friend I most spent time with, appart from my current roomate is moving He forgot that he forgot to tell me and just blurted it out, casually, mid coversation. That one was a doozy! Like, ouch. You didn't think that might hurt? I need more friends, physically, here. I have loads of friends on the Internet, that I have known face-to-face and moved somewhere else. I love them but I can't spend my days wishing they were here. I have an awesome friend in Gainsville who has offered me to move with her but I'm not ready for that! I'm not even sure if I can hold down a steady job. I'm seriously one step away from homeless, if it wasn't for the goodness of my roomate.
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I feel like I'm learning again what it's like to live outside, in the world, with "regular folk". Some days it's fascinating, exciting and nice. Others, the world and its atrocities make me mad and people's blindness, even more and then I truly wonder, who is most insane here? But it doesn't matter because at the end of the day, I have to make my life matter, for me, and then, with that, can I then add more, inmuchimpactfulways to whatever the status quo is. I also have a deardful feeling that if I don't pick up my own slack, these last 5 years that are left, of my 20s, I might regret some stuff, later on, when I'm older. Like my heath. I really do need to start eating better, attend to all my medical issues I've been putting on the backburner, do my best to save, create stuff and exercise.
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What awaits me? Heck if I know! I have always had dreams and so many they sometimes seem impossible to complete for one lifetime. Even more after I've been involuntarily derailed from where I thought I was going, after mental illness took such presedence in my life. But who says I've been de-railed? Maybe, or at least, I hope, this has all been for something. I still have trouble believing in a Higher Power but I do believe in an individual'ssoulpower to make something beautiful happen out of the dark they have lived. So let's see. Here's to the journey! I hope this year is much lighter and succesful for me, in terms of economics, health and self-reliance. Cheers!
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