Thursday, July 24, 2014

The Daily Struggle



There is progress.

Here is what happens when you force yourself to get up and try not to be heartbroken every day: you heal. You eventually get to not feel heartbroken, or even heart impaired. I sometimes forget how hard I work every day to get to where I automatically feel like my self. Where I don't question it, I know it. That place where I forget where I am for a few minutes because I'm lost in what I'm doing. That place where I am not constantly every second steadily berating myself for the simple crime of being. Oh, the being.

I get an email or two a week (not hundreds like someone suggested which made me feel so good and gave me a good laugh) from people who are just starting out. They reach out and say help me. They say I am like you. I want to be sober.

Sometimes I think we give the surface issue all the attention and forget what we're really running from. I gave myself permission to drink too much, and then blamed the drinking for my sad sack life. And so I drank too much. I feel like if I had said "I hate myself" rather than "I hate my drinking" I would have been being more truthful. Drinking was the symptom of a much bigger problem. It's like having a headache while you bang yourself in the head with a hammer. You have to stop hitting yourself and treat the headache. It doesn't really work unless you do both.

The daily struggle began for me when I was five. I can remember feeling forgotten. I can remember trying to be noticed, trying to feel important. I can never clearly remember feeling like I was the person someone was delighted to see. I was an afterthought. For everyone- my parents, my friends. I was an outline of a girl and I was on the sidelines.This may not have been the intention of anyone, but it is a consistent truth in my life. Because of this I cradle my children close every single day and look them in the eyes so they know that they are the lights of my life. I tell them: you are a joy to me. I tell them: you make me happy. That without them my world would be less than. That they are tall as to space important in this world. I tell myself these things too. There is nothing like the comfort of being loved just because you are just you.

One December day in 2012 I decided I was finished. And it turns out that that day I actually was. Looking back the quitting drinking was the easy part- for me. The hard part has been facing myself, dealing with the years of guilt, shame, anger, and pain. Not wanting to face myself was why I drank in the first place. Do you see what I mean?

I've been trying to think of what the secret is for me. Like, what was the magical thing that changed my mind? What made it NOT ok for me to guzzle another couple bottles of white wine that night? How did I decide that was it? And what made it stick then when I was writing in journals about "I had too much to drink again. I know I need to stop" for all my life? I made morning promises several times a week, and broke them on the same night. It used to only take me a few hours to change my mind about being sober, how did I make it this far?

It was this: I wanted to love myself more than I wanted to kill myself. My heart and soul were tired of the daily struggle to drown myself. It was this: I listened when the me part of me said "I love you. It's going to be OK." It was this: I believed I could do it. And I didn't look for reasons to drink again. I look for every reason to stay sober, and never reasons to drink.

I drank because I thought it made me better. And not better as in better than but better as in healed. It blocked the hurt I could not muster the courage to face because it hurt. And so I would get drunk. And then sometimes black out drunk. At the end it was black outs all around.

But I have been facing things. Facing things that are true. Facing things that aren't. Learning what the truth is (I'm OK) and what the truth isn't (I'm not OK). My daily struggles are ones that see progression. Like learning a language or an instrument I am finding myself more in tune. Instead of the same daily struggle (to drink or not to drink) I am having lessons in life. Which actually sounds sort of lovely but can really suck except for when it is really lovely.

For the first time in as long as I can tell I feel peace of mind. Actual peace. In my mind. I feel like it's because I started stopping all the mind stuff and addressed some physical issues. That I am getting into my body and out of my fucking mind. For me it isn't all about what I'm thinking, but what I'm feeling in my body. You know, paying attention to real feelings rather than ones my mind has manufactured for me. It helps so much to see how I'm physically feeling. It's easier to not dismiss the concrete evidence.

The daily struggle is still here: it will stay forever. It's how I handle it that's different. I can handle my self.

There is progress. I can see it. I can feel it. I can trust it. And I am thankful.



14 comments:

  1. Hi Amy, I'm fairly new to the blogging world, but I wanted to let you know that I love your blog. You are so honest and I find your posts really helpful. I am on day 25 of Dry July but I am hoping to continue beyond that. My real test will come when July over. I would love to find peace of mind. I've only just started my journey, I hope I can get to a place where you are now. Ax

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey Angie! Thank you. Your real test is every day. You just know the answer now so the test is much easier. I know you can do it. Now- you know it, too.

      Amy

      Delete
  2. I am weeping:. "The daily struggle began for me when I was five. I can remember feeling forgotten. I can remember trying to be noticed, trying to feel important. I can clearly never remember feeling like I was the person someone was delighted to see. I was an afterthought. For everyone- my parents, my friends. I was an outline of a girl and I was on the sidelines.This may not have been the intention of anyone, but it is a consistent truth in my life. Because of this I cradle my children close every single day and look them in the eyes so they know that they are the lights of my life. I tell them: you are a joy to me. I tell them: you make me happy. That without them my world would be less than. That they are tall as to space important in this world. I tell myself these things too. There is nothing like the comfort of being loved just because you are just you." You just described me and my childhood and my relationship with my children. I am not alone. My god. I am not alone.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You are not alone. You are not ever alone. It's like I had to forgive my self for being "unlovable" to understand that I was never unlovable. You are not alone because you are there, with you. And then here we are, out here. It's as crowded as you need it to be. :)

      Delete
  3. This an amazing and beautiful post. I've read it two times and have cried each time.
    "It was this: I wanted to love myself more than I wanted to kill myself."
    Wow. Yes. Yes. Yes.
    I too want to love myself more than I want to kill myself. It's so profound a statement, it is something I will remember forever. I also want to love myself and my children like they will never forget. Thank you this beautiful post.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I want to love my children like they will never forget too- so that they will never forget to love themselves. And I did not want to die. Somehow I had enough sense of self preservation to know that. Thank you so much for your kind words.

      Delete
  4. Amy, your post moved me to tears, but it makes me so happy, too, like I might try to spin cartwheels and yell, "Yes! Yes! Yes to everything!" I love what you say about getting out of the tangled thinking and finding how to be in your body. All the talk of motives and reasons and thinking about what and why can be helpful, but I also find it can alienate me from my life. You remind me of a Mary Oliver poem I like a lot, The Plum Trees, in which she says, "joy is a taste" and then this great line, "Listen/ the only way/ to tempt happiness into your mind is by taking it/ into the body first, like small/ wild plums."

    But what you say about being a child and feeling there was never anyone delighted to see you, I know that one, as I had the same thing as a child and young person, and it's still something I default to. And I do often think the drinking was a short-cut to a way to feel something like love that doesn't involve other people. Of course, that's not a love that's going to work, but it is a body-feeling. I think finding other ways to that feeling, which mean accepting yourself, and love, and people, and the whole big messy glorious world, that's what's going to save us. (I just ordered a book called, "Addiction: A kind of loving." If it's good, I'll pass along what the writer has to say.)

    Big love and hugs to you. And I must add, I am always, always delighted to see you! (Poems will be typed and sent soon.) xoxo

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's it! It's because I've been eating luscious ripe plums all summer long! :)

      Seriously, those lines say it perfectly. My heart leaps up when I read that because it was EXACTLY what I've been saying to myself in my head. I've been trying to "tempt happiness" by making back alley deals and using lots of smoke and mirrors when all I needed to do was to get my body feeling loved and cared for. I agree that I feel further from myself the more I try to think and read myself "well".

      I default to it too- and it makes my personal relationships suffer- me being all predict-y about how people feel and arranging in my head the way things will turn out even though they haven't happened yet. Or because I don't love myself enough no one can love me enough and then I get kind of hard hearted and distant. And it's really hard to let someone like my sweet husband care for me. It makes me feel very much like the great human burden. So I'm practicing saying "Help" a lot, and also "thank you, that would be nice of you".

      I am always so thrilled to see a new post pop up from you too! And when I ever see you I will be throw a parade lit up about that too. :)

      Delete
  5. Hi Amy, thanks for this lovely post. I really related to that feeling you describe as having as a child - I felt that, too - on the sidelines, odd one out, awkwardly in the way, in the wrong place at the wrong time. A jigsaw piece from the wrong box. All anyone really wants is to feel loved and wanted, and it sounds as though your children will grow up feeling just that. It is the best gift you can give them. xx

    ReplyDelete
  6. This is a truly beautiful post by a truly beautiful woman who I am honored to call my friend. Moved me so deeply. Thank you thank you thank you.

    Sherry

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thank you for writing this. Ths so resonates with how I see the process of sobriety. Love it.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Wow. This is so profound. I have been feeling this exact way my whole life but could never quite define what it was. I just broke down when I read this.

    ReplyDelete
  9. So amazing....there is hope

    ReplyDelete
  10. Yes. I know what you mean. Thank you for sharing yourself with all of us. I wish I could sit across from you and chat for an afternoon. It's been 8 months and 18 days since that morning I was so hungover and disgusted with myself and happened upon a magazine article about you. Something about you and your words resonated with me. I could see and hear myself... Just like your post today. I am thankful to be sober but understanding that there is a lot more to all this than not drinking. Hugs Denise

    ReplyDelete