Snotmanglers? Why not?

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There’s a little secret to writing- it’s spewing crap so the screen isn’t empty. It’s not a secret to writing well, but it gets something on the page, which is often just enough motivation to continue.

And that, my friends, will be what we talk about tonight. Continuing. In spite of boredom, or frustration, or a goddamn broken foot. Continuing, when you’re in the fog and it seems endless.

I had a meeting with my sponsor last night and she expressed some worry. We went through a book she had and determined that I’m showing 6 out of 9 relapse warning signs.

Then I introduced her to Gorski, who she had never heard of, and we found that there’s 7 phases of relapse warning signs before one even starts missing meetings!

Which I guess I was doing. I got a tad complacent after my 90 in 90.

I’ll be honest. I’m getting a bit bored with the program.

My psychiatrist said that being bored was absolutely a good sign, because depressed people don’t get bored. They just lie around being depressed. With a broken foot and being off work, who wouldn’t be a little bit bored? It’s great news!

But that was boredom in GENERAL, not boredom with RECOVERY.

People just say the same thing over and over.
It’s just recitations from the Big Book.
The readings take forever.
Like 30% of everyone’s share is them saying how grateful they are.

God, I’m a whiny little brat.

It never fails that I feel better leaving a meeting than I did walking in. There’s not many things that can make that claim. Not even making art- that sometimes frustrates the living snotmanglers out of me and throws off a whole day.

I hate who I was as an alcoholic. Granted, I hated myself since I was sentient. The key is that that is improving as I get more sober time under my belt, and the quality of person that I am improves directly with the application of the steps. Where do I learn more about applying the steps? Those stinkin’ meetings.

I need to spend time associating with people and hearing their stories. I need to spend time telling mine. Otherwise I get jammed too damn far in my own head and I start forgetting that I’m not alone.

So you know what?

I think I’ll continue coming back.

On the Second Step

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My sponsor asked me to write a paragraph or two about my higher power.

When I close my eyes in the darkness and the silence, nothing comes to me. There is no still small voice. When I meditate, my mind wanders away like a neurotic puppy, and I bring it back, but I find no peace or joy in the activity. When I try to pray, there is no presence. When I grieve, there is no comfort.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.

That’s Isaiah 55:8. It’s the verse that I most relate to.

So much spiritual abuse has been heaped on me. So much pain in the name of God. Manipulating, forcing, cajoling. Writing pages of the bible until my handwriting improved and I developed mild carpal tunnel. Not believing in mental illness, not getting help, watching me retreat further and further into myself until I was a shell and then trying to break me down with an exorcism. I regret not being stronger but more I regret needing to be strong. Needing to be protected from those that were only acting out of love, only doing what they knew and thought was best.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.

No, I don’t find God like that.

But when I am making something, something fanciful takes over me.

I see God in the way an edge gets shaded just right,

or a piece of sheet metal bends precisely how it needed to,

or the twirl of a burr being removed,

or a cut falling away.

My higher power is not passive. I must worship at the alter of calluses and minor burns.

I must seek out the Muse. She is not a god of prayerful prone postures. She delights in mad midnight marches of over-caffeinated whimsy.

And with that, I close my prayer.

Contrary

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I go in to residential treatment tomorrow morning. Simultaneously I’m ready and not ready. I’m scared and excited. I feel very alone and yet surrounded in love. 

I am viewing this as my last hope. If I can’t find that slip of humanity in me here, then it’s lost forever.

 It won’t be worth wasting the time and money of my loved ones and my insurance company to keep putzing along, keeping me alive. 

It will be time to accept that I am beyond hope. 

And I will kill myself then. 

But I’m not there yet. I’m at a tipping point where things could really change. 

And I’m not gonna kill myself today. 

Perceptions about me

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I walked into IOP particularly bedraggled on Wednesday. Intending only to reduce the amount I’d need to pay for residential, I got my sorry ass out of bed and into my normal treatment. I sat, hunched and still pulling the sleep from my eyes, when Karl called on me. He asked what skill I’d use in a particular situation-could I think of anything that’d help the guys. I pulled myself up a little before I suggested “Opposite emotion is what comes to mind.”He asked me to explain it. 
“Opposite emotion is behaving differently than you feel in the hopes that you can influence yourself to feel differently. Like, if you’re angry, intentionally softening your expression, bringing your shoulders down, taking a step back. Or if you’re sad, there’s evidence that doing a little Mona Lisa smile will cheer you up.” The group laughed and I sat up a little straighter. “Or, like me, you’re tired and grumpy and don’t want to be here, sit up and engage with the group more.” Karl smiled. 
Later, when I had to go through my own recovery log, I spoke of how I feel like I can’t win and progress gets robbed from me. Then Karl wanted to do an exercise. 
He asked the group what everyone thought I was doing right in my recovery, and how I benefitted the group. He gave everyone a few minutes and had them write on 3×5 cards. Here’s the contents of my own card-
following the recovery skills/tools worksheet

reading a lot

avoiding cravings by using sweets instead
The time between writing that and waiting for everyone else to finish was glacial. 

Here’s a list of the things everyone else said about me, 
Caring

Wants serenity

Hope

Smart

Helped me when I got emotional

Caring, work conscience, talented

Blog, parental support, horses, researching treatment options, coming to IOP

Bright, educated, informed

Sense of humor, well spoken, good teacher, goal setter

Hope for future, researching options

Still coming to IOP, not giving up

Intelligent, truthful, hopeful

You don’t give up, always looking for something better or different to solve your problems. 

Very intelligent, knowledgable, modest, loves animals, honest, open, talented, diligent, resourceful, resilient, sense of humor, planning, taking it day by day, not giving up, honesty. 

Knowledge

1 Know what you’re talking about

Very able to see up what you’re saying

2 Very caring person

Especially about others

3 Wants to get help and not giving up the search for it

Knowledgable

Skilled

Friendly

Meaningful to this group

Tenacious

I’m really writing this to drive it deeper into my midbrain, not to show off or anything. 
And I’m not gonna kill myself today. 

Accept and Be

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IOP today was filled with great little tidbits. I’ll probably stretch out my notes into several posts. There was a guest who had gone through the program about 2 years ago, and he said something that really hit me.

“Accept the fact that you are what you became.”

He meant this in terms of knowing that he’d never be able to drink again, but I think it’s really applicable in a number of ways.

I became an alcoholic. I became a very hurt individual. I didn’t start out that way but it’s how things ended up. Now I need to do the work of accepting myself and moving forward.

Perusing the room, a magnet on Karl’s desk read “It is never too late to be what you might have been.”

Wow.

Wow.

Maybe it’s not too late for me to heal. Maybe I can still be a functioning member of society. Maybe I can live out my dreams.

Maybe.

Maybe it’s not too late for me.

I’m not gonna kill myself today.

Day 1 Complete. 

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Today was interesting in the hellish sense.
Started with an 8 am appointment with a different therapist than usual, after having maybe four hours of sleep. She was really nice, and greatly supported the idea of the residential treatment. She’s also the woman that my mom was looking into seeing, and I’m so geeked at the idea of my mom finally agreeing to see a therapist that I will do nothing to stand in the way and will gladly drive farther to my old therapist again. 
Then I worked for my dad a little and called the insurance company and a couple providers. Still researching. I’m hoping to be in treatment by the middle of next week, but right now so much depends on other people getting back with me. In the meantime I’ll keep going to Intensive Outpatient, meaning I don’t get to sleep in tomorrow either. 😦
I got through work today with a dramatic use of chunking. I can make it til break. I can make it til lunch. I can make it til break. Then it got really rough towards the end of the day. Some physical ailments, increased anxiety, and fatigue were all adding up to my needing to make it a goal to get through one minute at a time. Then there were the head games. Oh, it’s 9:14. That’s practically 9:15 which is very nearly 9:20 which is almost 9:30 and then there’s only an hour left which you can take fifteen minutes out of for clean up and ten for shutting down the machine so you’re basically done already! 
I’m not promising that these are healthy behaviors. But it got me through the night, and I was fantasizing hard about leaving early, so I’m very proud of myself for working that whole shift. 
Now I’m snuggled up in bed with less than usual to complain about(my body is complaining though, and loudly).
I think I’ll try to sleep now. 
And I’m not gonna kill myself today. 

No promises about any other day.

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The number of times I’ve been through hospitalization is getting ridiculous. And it doesn’t seem to be doing much good, I stay on the same 4-6 month schedule of suicide attempts.

I spent last weekend hallucinating and seizing in my bed. It wasn’t enough for coma or death, just enough to make me miserable for days.

So, I made a decision. I’m seeking out residential treatment, a thirty day program, at least. Those little hospitalizations have kept me alive, hopefully this big one will give me some quality of life.

This is going to be damn expensive. I’m gonna fund raise in any way I can think of. I might be annoying. But at least you aren’t attending a funeral today, right?

Please, if you have any ideas, lob them at me. I appreciate all the help I can get.

And I’m not gonna kill myself today.

No promises about any other day. It’s like AA. Just for today. Chunking.

I can make it through today.

The Pit

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I think one of the scariest things about depression is how alone that you feel. A depressed person is not only lonely, but lost and forsaken, feeling unworthy of love. It isn’t about physical presence, because you can be in a crowd and be the only one there. It’s not about mental presence, because you can be engaged with somebody, wholly involved in an experience, and still be desperately alone. It’s not even about emotional presence, because a depressed person can still be a functioning partner in a relationship.

It’s about the pit.

I imagine an endless gray landscape, dotted with abysmal pits. I imagine a smattering of trees, and a thick fog. This is where people go when they are depressed. All you can see is the inside of the pit, the clammy, rocky walls of the pit. They are rough, jagged, hopeless. Far above, there is a pinprick of light. The opening. There is nothing comfortable about this pit.

It is not impossible to get out of the pit, but it takes help. Help that IS OUT THERE because DEPRESSION LIES and YOU ARE NOT ALONE. There are people that love you milling around outside that pit, wondering the best way to get you out. Waiting to help in any way that they can. You can’t see them, though. Because you’re in the pit. You don’t have the right perspective.

Maybe someday something magical starts to happen. Your medication starts to work. You’ve started ECT. Something clicks in therapy. Suddenly, there’s a rope being lowered into the pit. You don’t know whether to trust it, but you give it a few yanks and it feels solid. So you start to climb.

It’s hard work. Everyone is looking down into the pit and cheering, but their voices bounce off the walls, seemingly turning into mockery. Depression, you see, has a tendency to distort everything. But you climb. And climb. And climb.

Maybe you get out this time. Maybe it takes a few tries, a few rests, some time to strengthen your muscles. But you make it!

And shockingly, there’s all your friends and family. You just couldn’t see them before. I’m looking around right now, on the cusp of genuine okayness if not wellness, and I can see that the droning that was driving me mad while I was in the pit is my support system excavating a staircase down to the side of my pit. These are my skills and coping mechanisms, now out in the light and ready to be practiced daily so that I may learn them truly. So that future visits to the pit can be a lot easier to get myself out of. So that they can come visit me.

There can be something comforting about the pit. If nothing else, it’s yours. It’s a safe place. A place for you to feel miserable, but safely so. It is so devastatingly difficult to leave, but so easy to return to, especially if you are afraid to make a new normal. The kind of bravery it takes to get out of the pit is nothing compared to what it takes for the first few steps to the land of new being. That’s where unhealthy coping mechanisms get analyzed and shed, where toxic relationships pass into memory, where bad habits meet their demise. Replacements for all of them are forged, and you become a stronger, healthier being.

Wherever you stand today, friend, I would like to encourage you. Do not succumb to the lies of the pit, nor those of the gray landscape. Keep stepping forward.

Genetics

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I was talking with my mother today, or, rather, being chastised for not completing a sketch that she wanted me to finish.

“So, is drawing and stuff what you do to keep from drinking?”

“And stuff.”

“What else?”

“You know I’m writing a book, right?”

“No, but you certainly can do it! You’ve got the ability to put words into… words.”

“Clearly it’s not genetic.”

“Clearly,” she smiled.

Restoration

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I’m back in treatment again, and it’s only been a couple months. This time it’s a Partial Hospitalization Program(PHP) so I go to day classes from 8:30 to 4:00 and have the nights off. It’s easy to feel like a failure when the mental hospital has a revolving door for you and the staff all seem to remember you. In fact, there was another man in the program who had felt defeated that it was his eighth or ninth time running through one of these programs.

Then the thought occurred. I’m just going in for an oil change. I laughed to myself and passed the thought off, but later it occurred to me that there were more parallels than just that. My therapist told me that some people have a stronger immune system than others and just never seem to get sick, and some people are like that when it comes to mental health. Others, like myself, aren’t.

Some cars will go 10,000 miles without needed maintenance. Some need to have the hood popped and fluid levels checked every time you get gas. Both cars will take you places, it just might take a little longer, might need a little more care, if you’re in a leaky four-banger that smokes a little when you turn too tight.

Some brains are a little more high strung, they run on premium. Some brains won’t need any repair unless they get into a major crash. For others, you get one thing fixed only to find out it wasn’t really the only problem.

I’d like to think that my brain is a bit like my 1984 Mercedes 190D from a few years back. The upholstery was worn through in a few spots, so the rough plastic bird’s nest of support would poke through and antagonize your side, kinda like a persistent suicidal mantra. She had that diesel smell and rattled like a sonofabitch and could lug up to third gear without ever touching the gas pedal, if you were patient enough and wanted to prove a point. She wasn’t sporty, she went zero to sixty in eight point five months.

But she was forgiving and generous and got great fuel mileage. It’d be nice to aspire to her longevity- I was so excited when she rolled over 300,000 miles. I guess what I’m trying to say is that even though she wasn’t quite perfect for me, she ended up being perfect for me, and maybe that’s how my mind is too.

Another point that is worth making is one about value. A car can come to a restorer as a pile of rusty steel, and leave as a gorgeous hot rod. You always have value. You can always be repaired and restored.

I’ll say it again.

You always have value.

You can always be restored.